Old Cumbria Gazetteer - Penrith (MOREinc)


included in:-	Penrith
	Penrith (MOREinc)
hearsay:-	At villages round about - Skirsgill, Edenhall, Clifton, Dickie Bank - each of the Sundays in May was known as Shaking Bottle Sunday or Sugar Water Sunday, presumably an old pagan fertility custom.
	"The wells of rocky Cumberland Have each a saint or patron Who holds an annual festival The joy of maid or matron."
	"And on this day as erst they wont The youths and maids repair To certain wells on certain days And hold a revel there."
	"Of sugar stick and liquorice With water from the spring They mix the pleasant beverage And May Day carols sing."
	The custom began to include more common spirits in the water, with cock fighting and wresting too; so a self righteous bishop banned the celebrations, 1824

notes:-	Iona and Peter Opie reported on the truce terms used by children when playing games; what you say when your shoelaces come untied, for instance. These terms are not a usual part of an adult's speech. The most widely used term found in the 1970s in the north west of England is:-
	"Barley"
	*This is an old term, used in the 14th century Middle English poem, Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight:-*
	"And I shal stonde hym a strok, - stif on this flet; Elles thou wil dight me the dom - to dele him an other, barlay, And yet gif him respite, A twelmonith and a day."
	There are local variants, in Cumbria:-
	*Broughton Beck, near Ulverston barley-o; Windermere area parley* and parleys,**
	and
	*Penrith barlow* and bees and pees and skinch and twigs.**
	*Some terms are accompanied by crossed fingers; twigs* by holding up crossed twigs.**
	*The terms change over time. You may have forgotten what you said long ago. I'm an offcomer from the south, my term is fainites* which nobody here recognizes.**
	Opie, Iona & Opie, Peter: 1977: Lore and Language of Schoolchildren: Paladin

Lakes Guides menu.