"Shrove or Pancake Tuesday" and "Ash Wednesday" are both well known days in the year, but I would suggest that quite a few of us are unaware of "Egg Saturday" and "Collop Monday" but they too, are or were, an integral part of the four day festival of Shrovetide.

The word Shrovetide comes from the verb "to shrive" - to confess sins. Folk were called to church on Shrove Tuesday to be shrived (forgiven and cleansed of all sins) before Ash Wednesday which marked the beginning of Lent. As we all know, Lent is a time of fasting or at the very least, giving up many of the good things in life for six weeks.

In past times, the festival lasted for four days during which larders were emptied of all but the bare necessities. "Shrove Saturday" or "Egg Feast Day/Egg Saturday" as it is called in Oxfordshire, was a day when eggs, often limed or pickled were given as gifts to children. "Shrove Sunday" was the day on which the revelries and feasts, due to be held on the following days, were discussed and planned.. "Collop Monday" was so called (especially in the north of England) because on this day collops were cooked and eaten. Collop is the Norse word for a slice of meat and the collops eaten on this day were our traditional bacon and eggs. Finally "Shrove Tuesday" of "Pancake Day" when the remaining fat and eggs were used up to make the pancakes much loved today.

Along with the food went the fun - Mardi Gras, pancake racing, cock dinging, football, and mass skipping to name but a few! Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) is associated with carnivals which began in Paris with the parading of a fat ox through the streets usually accompanied by a colourful and noisy procession. When French colonists settled in the southern states of America in the eighteenth century they took the custom of Mardi Gras carnivals with them. The most famous one today is that held in New Orleans for which the preparations go on for weeks before the event. They are a mixture of both European Christian traditions and those of African peoples carried into slavery.

Pancake races take place in many towns and villages The most famous is that held in Olney in Buckinghamshire. The story goes that on Shrove Tuesday in 1448, a harrassed housewife was hung into a panic when she heard the Pancake Bell ringing. Fearing she would be late for the shriving service, she ran to church still in her apron and clutching her skillet. To commemorate this, the Olney Race is run by women over sixteen, resident in Olney for three months, wearing cap and apron and tossing their pancakes at least three times. They race over a course of 415 yards and the winner receives a kiss from the Pancake Bell Ringer and a prayer book from the vicar. Olney’s race is now copied in Liberal in Kansas.

The Pancake Bell was heard in most parishes on Shrove Tuesday until the early twentieth century. It rang to tell the villagers three things. Firstly, to go to church for shriving, secondly to stop work and thirdly, to start making pancakes! The bells had special names - in Maidstone it was the Fritter Bell, in Daventry the Pan Burn, and in Wellingborough, Old Pancake. In Hoddesdon the bell was rung at eight in the evening to remind the people to stop cooking and safely extinguish their fires. Interestingly, the piece of equipment used for this purpose, shaped like a half bell, was called a "couvre feu" or curfew and the bell was called the Curfew Bell.

After church, the fun began. Various games of what could be loosely called football were played, usually with few if any rules and the majority of the population taking part! Earlier Shrovetide games which involved animals have now been banned. These included dog and bear baiting, cock fighting and "throwing or flinging at cocks" where cocks were tethered and contestants paid to throw sticks and stones at them. If the poor cock was stunned and the thrower could pick it up, he won the bird. Samuel Pepys wrote in his dairy of one Shrove Tuesday. "Very merry, and the best fritters that I ever ate in my life. After that looked out at the window; saw the flinging at cocks." The origin of this "game" is said to date back to Norse times. A plan by the English to massacre a Danish settlement was frustrated by the crowing of a cock and so cocks were punished as a result! There are also theories that the games of bowls and battledore and shuttlecock are derived from cock throwing. The latter game was very popular at Shrovetide.

In schools and colleges there were various Shrovetide rituals. At Westminster from the early eighteenth century the boys took part in the "Westminster Greeze". Here the school cook tossed his pancake over a beam sixteen feet above the ground and the boys scrambled for it, making sure that it did not touch the ground. The scholar with the largest piece received a guinea. In more recent times the numbers taking part have been reduced for practical reasons and the winner later exchanges his guinea with the Dean for its equivalent value. At Eton until the nineteenth century, the senior pupils wrote poems in honour of the Roman god Bacchus which were then displayed on the inside doors of the school. This somewhat unusual Shrovetide custom is believed to have come from the Roman pre-Christian festival of Bacchus who was the patron of poets amongst his more widely known attributes!. Children of poorer families would go out "Shroving" or "Gooding" (begging for food) on Collop Monday.

Possibly the most curious Shrovetide custom takes place to this day in the town of Scarborough. At midday the Pancake Bell rings and the good citizens of the town make their way down to the South Bay. The foreshore road is closed to traffic and the assembled throng commence a "mass skip", either singly or in groups. Why they do this is largely unknown. It began somewhere between ninety and two hundred years ago. The first documented occurrence of skipping was in 1903 with a few children skipping by the lifeboat house to keep warm probably using surplus rope given to them by the fishermen. The Scarborough fishing fleet used to change from line fishing to the use of pots on Shrove Tuesday. The festivities included other activities involving varieties of ball games but these ceased at the outbreak of the Second World War. However, the skipping continued curtailed only in 1953 for an hour when the First Battalion of the Green Howards marched along the Foreshore Road. Inclement weather might reduce the number or skippers., and only recently, the North Riding County Council attempted to ban the closing of the town’s schools. (Shrove Tuesday had usually fallen in half term week, or a Baker Day was used) I have to admit that I cannot report the outcome of that decision one trusts they came to an agreement amicable to all parties.

However you plan to celebrate Shrovetide - enjoy yourselves!

Barbara Hothersall