EASTERTIDE LORE

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 84, 8 April 1936, Page 16

EASTERTIDE LORE

SOME QUAINT OLD CUSTOMS

The silver or gold wrapped chocolate egg is a familiar'sight at Easter time, but not so familiar are some of the quaint old customs that in the course of many years have become associated with it. It was not only customary to eat as many eggs as possible on Easter Day for luck, as is still done by the Irish peasantry—l have known a youth boast of having disposed of a dozen for his breakfast—but great baskets or dishes of eggs were taken to the churches to be blessed, according to a particular formula, and these eggs were thought to be very wholesome and beneficial to the eaters, states an overseas writer.

These "Holy. Pace Eggs" were consequently much esteemed. They were often dyed, coloured, gilt, or painted, and were usually piled up in the form of a pyramid in the dish. Sometimes when they were brought back from church they were placed on a table in the best room in the house, with flowers spread round them on the finest cloth the owner' of the dwelling possessed, while the other Easter dishes were grouped round them, and the eggs were left on the : table all through Easter Week, all visitors being asked to "eat: an Eastern Egg" with their host, and.it was thought most impolite and unlucky to refuse. "WHIPPING THE HERRING."

"A red herring riding away on horse-.

back" was one of the dishes often served up at Easter, in token that fasting was gone for the present. In Cork down to quite modem times there was a quaint pastime, or custom, of "whipping the' herring" on Easter Saturday, with the same, idea of indicating that fasting had come to an end.

Not only was roast lamb the orthodox dish in England, as in most other parts of Christendom, but many people made a point of eating bacon, or ham, to show that they were not Jews! Tansy-puddings, as well as tansycakes, were popular, and quantities of pancakes, -fritters, and custards were made, the idea being to eat as many eggs as possible.

In the North; of England the custom of "lifting" or "heaving" during the Easter holidays, in memory of our Lord's Resurrection, lingered down to quite ■ recent times, especially in 1" Durham. lam riot certain if it is entirely obsolete yet. It was also popular in the Midlands, ■ and along some parts of the Welsh border. In Shropshire and Cheshire women carried about a decorated armchair, in which they lifted any man they met'in. the streets, exacting a small forfeit. Up to a few years ago "heaving" • took place in North Wales at Easter,- the men -. going, preceded by a fiddler, to "heave" the women on the Monday, the ladies returning the compliment ■on Easter Tuesday. EGG DANCES. At Hungerford, Wiltshire, there is a quaint old custom connected with some ancient charter, when a toll is claimed by the municipal authorities from the inhabitants of- the. town. Every man is, 'or was- supposed to contribute a penny, and every woman a kiss! The }evy, is made by. two beadles, who go from house to house to exact it. ; ■ Egg dances are among the old customs that have-fallen into oblivion; in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries they were highly .popular. An Elizabethan dramatist, William Wager, Upon one foot prettily can I hop, And dawnpe it trimley about an egg. In its simplest form this consisted in hopping round a single egg, in the more elaborate version, a number of eggs were laid on the, ground, arid _the dancer, who sometimes was blindfolded had to dance between them to the music of a lively tune, without touching or ibreakirig one of them— not a very easy feat.