Folklore of Lincolnshire (27 page)

To scare a poor child who had an inflamed spot or bite on the face, the custom was to tell them that a pig’s foot was growing there. Some other sayings to tell
children were less frightening; thunder was said to be ‘elephants falling out of bed’ and snow was ‘the Old Lady shaking her feather pillows out of her window’.

Statue of St Guthlac, minus his hand and legendary whip, standing above the west door of the church at Fishtoft.

A well-known Lincolnshire answer to a child’s awkward question was, ‘How should I knaw, bairn; why does craws pick lambs’ eyes oot?’ When a child asked why they would not play, the adult answered, ‘I’ve got a bone in my leg.’ The question ‘Where are you going?’ was answered with, ‘There and back again to see how far it is.’ And the enquiry ‘What’s that for?’ had the reply, ‘Just for fancy, to please old Nancy.’

A canny belief among Lincolnshire children was that if they were to see a white horse pass by, then they should spit on the ground and cross their feet over it, then they would shortly receive a present.

Many places in the country have a rhyme about the magpie, but Lincolnshire has its own version:

Not far from the centre of Fishtoft, signposted from the village, is a memorial to the Pilgrim Fathers who tried to sail from this area in 1607. The tower of Boston Stump can be clearly seen from this spot.

G. Edward Campion explains that in Lincolnshire there are variations for the meaning of the word ‘parson’. As well as a minister of religion, he says it also denotes a black lamb. A superstition commonly believed at one time was that when one saw the first lamb of the season, you should turn over the money you had in your pocket and then you would be bestowed with good luck. This action should also be taken when seeing the first new moon of the year, or when hearing the first cuckoo. If you did not happen to have any money in your pockets it was considered bad luck and you would be short of money all the rest of the year. Superstition around money was important and it was said that to ensure good luck for the day, any tradesman would spit on the first money they receive that morning.

‘Parson’ also meant a black rabbit and it was apparently considered extremely bad luck to shoot one. Campion says that if a black rabbit was shot, the luck of the shoot would fade away and that the bag at the end of the day would be very small.

A fourth meaning for the word ‘parson’ was a guide-post and so a lost traveller, for instance, would ask ‘What does the parson say?’ With typical Lincolnshire humour the signpost was called a parson because it points the way to go, but does not take it.

Luck, good and bad, has always had superstitions attached to it, such as not opening an umbrella indoors, or not walking under ladders. In Lincolnshire it was
thought that to place an umbrella on the bed would bring bad luck but to walk into a church with the right foot first would bring good luck. If you moved into a new house or married on a Saturday it was a bad start and another bad luck occurrence would be if two people were to look simultaneously into a mirror or cross knives at the dining table. One should also never place a pair of new boots onto a table. To put the left shoe on first when dressing was considered bad luck, but to throw an old shoe after someone who was starting a new business meant good luck for them. If you saw a pin on the ground it was thought lucky to pick it up but to pick up a flower that had been dropped was bad luck. If you dropped your stick when out walking, someone else must pick it up for you or else bad luck would follow, possibly an argument with someone. This was also considered true when dropping an umbrella, money or a comb. To burn mistletoe, even by accident, was always seen as a bad omen.

Cross yourself when seeing a solitary magpie or bad luck will follow. The swallow, however, was a good omen, especially if it made a nest on your house; this would protect you from being struck by lightning. When making the bed, do not flip the mattress on a Sunday as this would bring bad luck all week long. Four was believed to be a lucky number, but the name Agnes was unlucky, as the bearer would invariably turn mad!

Singing before breakfast was a sure sign that one would cry before night and laughing before praying in the morning, or after praying at night, would also bring misfortune. One should not sweep out a doorway, for fear of sweeping luck away.

It used to be the custom for sellers to give a little of the asking price back to the buyer, for luck. It is said friends should never wash their hands in the same water, unless they first spat into it, otherwise a quarrel was inevitable.

When a cow had recently calved, it used to be customary to make a rich custard pudding with her milk and to give friends a gift of this milk. The rule was, however, that the jug in which the milk had been carried to the friends must be returned unwashed, otherwise misfortune would follow.

Gutch and Peacock told of an old tradition concerning a double nut.
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If one cracks a nut and it turns out to be double, the common practice was to share the nut with a friend and whilst eating, both were sanctioned to make a wish, but to keep that wish a secret – rather like when blowing the candles out on a birthday cake, or sharing a wishbone with someone. In Lincolnshire it was also the tradition to make a wish when tasting the first strawberries of the year.

They also mention the story of a poor man who was killed on the railway lines near Mumby. When talking about the incident later, a local was heard to have said that it was not a strange event, as the man had been approached by a carrier earlier in the day who wanted to kill a duck for his tea. He asked the deceased to hold the duck while he killed it; this was his fatal mistake. It is mortally unlucky to hold anything whilst it is dying.

Apparently, especially around the Barnoldby-le-Beck area, it was thought to be very bad luck to take your cat with you if you moved house. However, if you had
to take it, then the idea was to rub its paws with butter in the new house, or leave it locked in the (cold) oven overnight, and it would then surely stay in the new house.

For brides it was thought very unlucky to tear the veil, as it was a sign the marriage would not last. To forget or to drop something on the way to the church was also a bad omen as it signified looking back instead of forward to a new life with her husband.

When playing cards it was customary for ladies to turn their chairs round three times for good luck during the game. For good fortune during the time of the moon, one should bow or curtsey at the first sight of the new moon, and to avoid bad luck, burning evergreens that were used for Christmas decorations was to be avoided. A flock of sheep was thought to be unlucky if it did not have one black one amongst them.

It was said to be bad luck if, on seeing a dead body, one should leave without touching it. It does not seem to matter if you knew the unfortunate person or not – not touching them would lead to hauntings and nightmares of the departed.

Gutch and Peacock cite a rather unusual belief that the people around Barboldby-le-Beck used to trust: ‘Shrews and Hedgehogs are always to be killed, if possible. Vague, unknown powers of mischief are theirs.’
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It is not entirely clear why these particular animals were hated, although there are a number of suggestions. It was once believed that witches would transform themselves into hedgehogs to escape or hide from people, and thus hedgehogs were not to be trusted. Also hedgehogs were known for suckling cows in the night and leaving the farmer short of milk, and for sucking eggs, thus being a costly nuisance to the farmer. They were known for stealing apples as well, apparently carrying them on their spines by rolling on them to attach the fruit. There was even a well-known saying when talking to a bad-tempered person: ‘You’ve yer back up today like a peggy otchen goin’ a crabbin,’ (a ‘peggy otchen’ being a hedgehog and the ‘crabbing’ the apples.)

Shrews and hedgehogs were also accused of biting other animals, giving them the same swelling symptoms as an adder bite and thus wasting a poultice for treatment. This hatred obviously came before our roads got so busy and the hedgehog population became threatened. Their species was once much more prolific, so much so that before barbed wire was invented, farmers used to use the skins of hedgehogs on gate-posts to stop the cattle rubbing themselves against it.

Being a huge farming community, the people of Lincolnshire put much stock in what the weather was doing and have many a saying about how it behaves and what that means for them. For instance, duckweed seen rising in a pond was a sign of fine weather. When frogspawn was at the side of a pond it was thought that it signalled a wet summer, and when in the middle of the pond it would be a dry summer. Folk believed that every month had its own weather and that a deviation in that system was not a good sign for crops:

February, for instance, was nicknamed ‘February Fill Dyke’, as snow was always expected during this month and it was seen as very unusual for there to be none:

Candlemas, an ancient festival marking the midpoint of winter between the shortest day and the Spring Equinox, celebrated on 2 February, was an important time, with its own omens and superstitions:

However, the weather, it seems, was still fairly unpredictable, as some of the following ditties imply – although perhaps not as unpredictable as what we have now, with the changes that global warming has brought about:

Gutch and Peacock add a few other random weather superstitions.
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These include, ‘If a cat washes over her ear, it is a sign of fine weather. When a dog or cat eats grass, it betokens approaching rain. When a swallow flies low, rain is at hand. Shooting stars are a sign of wind. When it rains with the wind in the east, it will rain for twenty-four hours at least.’

Some folk used a certain phrase to describe the lingering patches of snow under hedgerows. They called them ‘dead men’s bones’ and the belief was that as long as they remained, more snow could be expected. The
Lincolnshire Poacher
magazine quotes a lovely snippet of what they call ‘yellow-belly humour’, concerning two Lincolnshire gentlemen discussing the weather: ’One said, “It’s an owery owd mornin’, ’Arry.” “Aye, it is” replied the other. “My wireless sez rain. What’s yars say?”’
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As well as the weather, the moon and the sun encouraged many superstitions as they had great influence upon the weather but also over crops, women and animals. For instance it was said that one should not kill a pig at the wane of the moon as it was bad luck, and meant the bacon would not swell in the pot. To see the moon reflected in a mirror was a sign that something would happen during the day to make you angry. At the new moon, girls would bind their eyes with a silken scarf and look up and count how many moons they could see. Whatever the number they counted represented the number of years they would have to wait until they married.