A Folklore Calendar for the UK: Seasonal Customs from Samhain to May Day

Ask most people when the year begins and they will say 1 January. Ask a cider grower in Somerset and you may get a different answer. The older year in these islands runs from dark into light and back: Samhain, wassailing, Imbolc, May Day, harvest, and round again. You need not believe a word of it to enjoy it. These customs survive because they are sociable, cheap and a fine excuse to stand outside in February with a mug of something hot.

Samhain: The Year Turns in the Dark

Samhain — roughly sow-in — is the Gaelic festival that begins winter, kept on the night of 31 October and into 1 November, when the harvest is in and the cattle have come down from the summer pastures. In the older telling, the boundary between the living and the dead is thinnest that night. Children in Scotland and Ireland went guising from door to door, singing for nuts, apples or coins, and turnips were hollowed out, carved with faces and lit with a candle stub — the ancestor of the pumpkin, and far harder on the wrists.

Regional versions survive. Soulers still sing for soul cakes in parts of Cheshire and Shropshire, and at Hinton St George in Somerset the mangold lanterns of Punkie Night come out on the last Thursday of October.

Midwinter: Wassailing and the Orchard

The Twelve Days of Christmas carried most of the winter merrymaking, and much of it was about luck for the year ahead. In first-footing, the first person over the threshold after midnight should ideally be a dark-haired man carrying coal, shortbread or a dram; fair-haired visitors were once thought unlucky. In South Wales, the Mari Lwyd — a horse's skull on a pole, ribbons and all — goes from door to door between Christmas and Twelfth Night, challenging households to a rhyming contest.

Wassailing is the custom most worth reviving. The house wassail passes a bowl of spiced ale round with a song; the orchard wassail wakes the apple trees and asks them for a good crop. It happens on Twelfth Night, or Old Twelfth Night on 17 January, in the cider counties of Somerset, Herefordshire, Devon and Kent. The order of play is old and simple:

1. Choose a tree — usually the oldest, or the best cropper in the orchard.
2. Gather a crowd and bring something to make a noise with: pots, pans, whistles, drums, and in some places a shotgun fired over the branches.
3. Soak a piece of toast in cider and set it in the fork of the tree.
4. Sing the wassail song; the Carhampton version in Somerset is the best known.
5. Share out the cider and finish with a toast to the trees.

It looks eccentric for the first ten minutes, then like the best idea anyone has had all winter.

Old apple tree, we wassail thee, and hoping thou wilt bear.

Imbolc: The First Stirrings

Imbolc falls on 1 February, halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. The name is often translated as "in the belly", a nod to ewes coming into milk, and the day belongs to Brigid, goddess and saint. The rush cross — four arms woven from rushes or straw and hung above a door — is the custom that travels best. Rushes are at their driest in winter, and the weave is quick once you have the knack.

The weather lore is worth knowing. The Cailleach, the old woman of Gaelic tradition, gathered her firewood on 1 February; a fine, bright day meant she could gather plenty, and so winter would run long. Candlemas gives the same warning: if it be fair and bright, winter will have another flight.

Shrove Tuesday, Lent and Easter

Shrove Tuesday was the last chance to use up eggs, butter and fat before Lent, which is why pancakes are everywhere. Olney in Buckinghamshire still runs its pancake race, and Ashbourne in Derbyshire disappears into two days of Royal Shrovetide Football, played through the streets with goals three miles apart. Mothering Sunday brought servants home to their families and their mother church, and with it simnel cake: a rich fruit cake with a layer of marzipan baked through the middle. At Easter come pace egging in Lancashire and Yorkshire, egg rolling on hillsides, and the bottle kicking at Hallaton in Leicestershire on Easter Monday.

May Day, Midsummer and the Wells

The first of May was the great outdoor festival. Maypoles went up on village greens, and dew gathered before sunrise was said to keep you fair for the year. Padstow has the 'Obby 'Oss on 1 May, Hastings has Jack in the Green over the bank holiday weekend, and chimney sweeps still dance in some towns. Beltane is the Gaelic counterpart, marked by a fire festival on Calton Hill in Edinburgh on 30 April. "Ne'er cast a clout till May be out" is the saying, and whether the May in question is the month or the hawthorn blossom is still argued over in print. Both readings point the same way: wait a while before putting your coat away.

St John's Eve, 23 June, was a night for bonfires on hills and torches carried through fields. Penzance keeps Golowan, and in Derbyshire the wells are dressed: trays of damp clay pressed with petals, leaves and seeds, built up over a wooden frame and set beside a spring or a village pump. Well dressing usually runs from May to September, tied to Ascension, St John's or the local saint, and it is one of the prettiest customs on this list.

Lammas to Michaelmas: The Harvest Round

Lammas on 1 August — from the Old English hlafmæsse, loaf mass — was when the first grain of the new crop was baked into a loaf and taken to church. In Ireland the same quarter held Lughnasadh, with hilltop gatherings and bilberry picking. Harvest home, whenever the last field was cut, was the big one: the final sheaf was kept, dressed into a corn dolly or a kern baby and hung in the farmhouse, while in Cornwall the last stand of corn was "cried" with three shouts. Michaelmas on 29 September closed the farming year: rents fell due, hiring fairs were held, and a goose went in the oven.

Keeping the Calendar at Home

You do not need to join a society to make any of this real. Start with food, because food is the easiest door in.

• Pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, simnel cake in Lent, a plain Lammas loaf in August, goose or chicken at Michaelmas.
• Check the village hall noticeboard, the local pub and the county museum for what is happening near you; wassails and well dressings are often small and quietly advertised.
• Turn up as a spectator first. Morris sides, mummers and wassail crowds are used to onlookers and are usually glad to explain what is going on.
• Ask before taking a role in a ceremony that has a real job to do, whether that is carrying the bride's cross or leading the wassail toast.
• Note the weather on the quarter days. After a few years you will have your own set of proverbs, which is how most of this began.

One caution: customs involving fire, shotguns, livestock, alcohol or freezing water need common sense and, usually, the landowner's permission. If you are organising anything public, sort out insurance, licences and consent well in advance. The old calendar runs on luck; the modern one runs on paperwork.

The good thing about a year this long is that you do not have to finish it. Pick Samhain, or May morning, or a January wassail, and mark it properly. The rest will be waiting next year.

Photo: Eden FC / Pexels