John Noake

“ In the articles of visitation for the diocese of Worcester in 1662 occurs the following: "Doth the parish clerk or sexton take care to admonish the living, by tolling of a passing bell, of any that are dying, thereby to meditate of their own deaths, and to commend the other's weak condition to the mercy of God?" ”

“ The ancient parish of King's Norton keeps up the memory of two traditions—first, that Queen Elizabeth once slept in a large and picturesque building still shown there; and second, that some centuries ago, letters were usually directed to "Birmingham near Kingsnorton." Droitwich likewise boasts of having, in some remote period, been a town of so much more importance than Worcester, that the latter was known chiefly by its vicinity to the former. There is indeed every probability that the salt springs of Droitwich were worked by the earliest settlers in this island. ”

“ We now come to a class of items chiefly connected with ecclesiastical control over matters both secular and religious—instances of the exercise of power by the Church for the punishment of offenders against her discipline. Every reader of history is acquainted with the force and effect of excommunication in the middle ages. By a sentence of excommunication, both greater and less, the victims were excluded from the right of Christian burial, from bringing or maintaining actions, from becoming attorneys or jurymen, and were rendered incapable of becoming witnesses in any cause. ”

“ At Mathon, some people believe that if land is left unsown in a field, there will be a death in the family within the year; and when the accident is discovered they do not sow it again (see Mr. Watson's sketch of that parish) .
Omens, or tokens of death, adhere to the popular belief to a more general extent than any other relic of superstition, perhaps one third of the population attaching more or less credit to them. ”

“ It is in the highest degree unlucky to give your neighbour a light at Christmas time, or New Year's Day; and those who have neglected to lay in a stock of matches at that season often have to repent the oversight by being unable to light their fires in the morning, and in most cases amongst the poor neither prayers nor entreaties will induce them to part with their fire. ”

“ There is a valley in Nottinghamshire, where a village is said to have been swallowed up by an earthquake, and it was the custom on Christmas Day morning for the people to assemble in this valley and listen to the fancied ringing of the church bells underground. At Abbot's Morton there is a tradition that the silver bells belonging to the abbot are buried in the site of his old residence there. At Ledbury, a legend relates that St. Katharine had a revelation that she was to travel about, and not rest at any place, till she heard the bells ringing of their own accord. ”

“ The mere residents of Church Street, if not born there, are also entitled to a cake, but their claim is forfeited when they leave the street. The recipients make themselves truly "jolly" on the night of the distribution.—In the same town the inhabitants formerly assembled at a particular hour on Michaelmas Day, on the occasion of the election of a bailiff, which was announced by the ringing of the town-house bell, and during one hour—termed "lawless hour"—the poorer classes amused themselves by throwing cabbage-stalks at each other, while the higher classes threw apples. ”

“ The parish of Wolverley has likewise its legend, derived from the period of the holy wars. Wolverley Court belonged to one of the Attwoods, who went out as a Crusader, was taken by the Saracens, and kept so long in a dungeon, that his lady at home, supposing him to be dead, was about to marry again, when the knight, having made a vow to the Virgin to present a large portion of his lands to the church at Worcester, was supernaturally liberated from his cell, whisked through the air, and deposited near home, when of course he lost no time in forbidding the banns. ”

“ When the lord of Dudley castle began the dispute which ended in the ruin of the lord of Birmingham, the latter had a large and deep hole made in the castle yard, in the which were buried the treasures and the muniments of his house, with a full charge to his familiar spirit—every great man in those days had one—to watch over them until better days came and justice were done to him. Some years ago, as a gentleman was digging a well in his garden he came unexpectedly upon a strong box. ”

“ The judicious Hooker observes that "the examples of clergy and great men are important, as being seen afar off, like cities set on the tops of hills; but mean men's actions are not greatly inquired into except by those who live at the next door."
During the Commonwealth and the reign of Charles II, as may be expected, the religious disputes and ill-feeling existing between the Established Church and the various sects that snarled and whined and canted in the racy language of the time, are fully exhibited in these records, of which I shall give some instances. ”

“ The allotment to each sex of a distinct place in the church was very strictly [Pg 207] observed among the primitive Christians, and Geoffrey of Monmouth states that the Britons observed the ancient custom of Troy, by which the men and women used to celebrate their festivals apart. There is an old jeu d'esprit in relation to the custom at Worcester:
"The churches in general, we everywhere find,
Are places where men to the women are joined;
At Worcester, it seems, they are more cruel hearted,
For men and their wives are brought here to be parted." ”

“ There is the Devil's Pig-trough, near Leigh; and the Devil's Bowling-green at Inkberrow, ironically so called, it is said by Mr. Allies, as, till lately, it was one of the roughest pieces of ground in that parish. The Devil's Spadeful is the name of a large mound of earth near Bewdley, traditionally said to have been so denominated in consequence of the great impersonation of evil having once intended to drown the Bewdleyites by damming up the Severn, but being misinformed by a drunken cobbler as to the distance he had to go, he dropped the spadeful of earth and decamped. ”

“ Should they grow, a wedding is certain, but if not, the lovers will be parted. On All Saints, commonly called "All Hallows," let a young woman take a ball of new worsted, and holding the end in her fingers, throw the ball through the window (at midnight) saying, "Who holds?" the man who is to be her husband will pick up the worsted, mention his name, and disappear. On Christmas Eve, let three, five, or seven young girls take each a sprig of rosemary and place it in a bowl of water, putting the vessel in the centre of the room. ”

“ The first time a baby is taken out of the lying-in room the nurse must carry it to the highest part of the house for good luck, and that it may "rise in the world."
The colliers at Dudley, in the event of a fatal accident to one of their number, all in the same pit immediately cease from working until the body is buried. A certain sum is also spent in drink, and is called "dead money." The same custom, more or less modified, prevails in many districts. ”

“ The superstitious frequently preserved Good Friday buns from year to year, from the belief of their efficacy in the cure of diseases. And Poor Robin, in his Almanack for 1753, says:
"Whose virtue is, if you'll believe what's said,
They'll not grow mouldy like the common bread."
[Pg 179]
The poorer people of Offenham will by no means allow any washing to be about on a Good Friday, which would be considered the forerunner of much ill-luck. At Cutnal Green it is thought that if you do not empty your lie tub on Good Friday, you will have bad luck in the ensuing year. ”

“ The Little Shelsley people will have it that the Court-house in that parish is haunted, and that a Lady Lightfoot, who was said to have been imprisoned and murdered in the house, comes at night and drives a carriage and four fiery horses round some old rooms that are unoccupied, and that her ladyship's screams are sometimes heard over the whole [Pg 188] Court. She has likewise been seen to drive her team into the moat, when the whole disappeared, the water smoking like a furnace.
Many of the ancient manor-houses of Worcestershire have similar superstitions. ”

“ It is true that Worcestershire cannot boast of being the first place in England where "the wicked weed" was grown. That was an honour claimed by our near neighbours of Winchcombe, in Gloucestershire, who are said to have profited greatly (in a pecuniary sense, I suppose) by its cultivation. Tobacco was, however, grown at Worcester, Feckenham, Eckington, Pershore, Upton Snodsbury, Pensham, Kempsey, and other places in this county. The first mention of its use at [Pg 243] Worcester is in the chamberlain's accounts for the year 1643, about fifty-seven years after its introduction to this country. ”

“ It is said the custom was introduced by the Moors into Spain. A few years ago a dance was performed in Herefordshire by eight men whose united ages amounted to eight hundred years; and Sir William Temple mentions that in a certain year of King James's reign there were ten men in Herefordshire who went about that county as Morris Dancers whose ages altogether numbered twelve hundred years! 'Tis not so much (says he) that so many in one county should live to that age, as that they should be in vigour and humour to travel and dance. ”

“ Watson, in his History of Hartlebury, says that he believes nearly every person in that district who was subject to fits wore such a ring. And there is another parish in the county where I am told even Protestant poor go to the Romanist priest to have the relics of saints applied for the cure of diseases.
The Worcester papers in the year 1845 recorded that a person from this city, being on a visit to a friend about four miles distant, had occasion to go into the cottage of a poor woman, who had a child afflicted with the whooping-cough. ”

“ It is unlucky to point to the moon, there being a notion that the "man" who was transported to that satellite for stealing sticks won't stand being pointed at.
To have a female come into your house the first thing on New Year's morning. So extensively does this absurdity prevail, that in many towns young lads make "a good thing of it" by selling their services to go round and enter the houses first that morning.
As to cutting your nails on a Sunday, the following couplet is very expressive:
"Better a child was never born
Than cut his hoofs of a Sunday." ”

“ The city of Worcester, and the towns of Bromsgrove, Kidderminster, Droitwich, and Evesham, were extensively engaged in it; and when many persons dwelling in other parts of the county had begun cloth making, much to the injury of these towns, an act was passed in the 25th year of Henry VIII, prohibiting all persons from making cloth, except such as resided in the above-mentioned places, but all persons were allowed to make cloths for their own wear, or for their children, servants, &c. ”

“ The statute 9th George II, chap. 5 (1736) , at length repealed the disgraceful Witch Act, and stopped all legal prosecutions against persons charged with conjuration, sorcery, &c.; yet what has once taken so firm a hold of the popular mind is not to be so easily eradicated; and Dr. Nash, who wrote his "Worcestershire" towards the close of the last century, asserts that not many years previously a poor woman, who happened to be very ugly, was almost drowned in the neighbourhood of Worcester, upon a supposition of witchcraft ”

“ He was standing one day at an open window with the child in his arms, when, in some playful action, she threw herself out of her father's arms, and fell into the moat beneath, where life soon became extinct. ”

“ From the earliest period to which the county rolls refer, the constables and churchwardens were charged to present in the Sessions all persons who regularly absented themselves from the service of the church and would not receive the sacrament, all innkeepers who made charges above the scale allowed, all tipplers and houses where tippling was allowed during divine service, to report whether due watch and ward was kept and all vagabonds duly [Pg 83] punished; besides a variety of other returns. The beerhouse nuisance was even at that time the most fertile generator of crime. ”

“ At Henwick, near Worcester, a person died recently who remembered the coronation of George III, and others are still living there between 90 and 100 years of age. There is a saying:
"All about Malvern Hill
A man may live as long as he will."
Dr. Addison, in 1834, showed that there were then living in that parish, on the eastern side of the hill, nearly double the number of persons, at 80 years of age, than were in all England at the same rate of population; and at 90, three times the number, without taking into account still older persons. ”