Shrove Tuesday is the final day of Shrovetide and might fall anytime between third February and ninth March. The Monday earlier than was referred to as Collop Monday which was the day for consuming up collops of bacon and meat (collops means slices) and Tuesday the final day for wealthy meals and the day to eat up all of the eggs and butter earlier than Lent fasting beginning the following day – Ash Wednesday – and it actually was fasting again then – no eggs, no fat, no meat.
Trying in my ebook The English 12 months by Steve-Roud I found that Shrovetide was the preferred time of the yr for Cock Combating and a bizarre vicious ‘sport’ referred to as Cock Throwing. This concerned maiming or killing cocks by throwing sticks at them or utilizing a flail. Onlookers to the sport could be charged for throwing items of wooden on the Cock chook. Within the 1730’s public opinion about cruelty started to vary, individuals wrote to the newspapers complaining and the final place it was recognized to have occurred was in 1844 in Buckinghamshire.
| Shrove Tuesday throwing at cocks(William Hone, The Each-Day E-book, 1827) |
There have been many different traditions going down in numerous elements of the nation over Shrovetide however most likely factor that the one one we usually participate in is consuming pancakes.
Combine a pancake, stir a pancake, pop it within the pan,
Fry the pancake, toss the pancake –
Catch it when you can.
Anyway, I am prepared
Again Tomorrow
Sue
