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A
All Saint Day
All Souls Day
Ancient mode of keeping accounts
April Fools:
The origin of playing practical jokes on April 1st
Archery in England
Ascension Day:
Commemoration of ascension of the Messiah into heaven
Autumnal Equinox
B
Ballad Singers and Grub Street Poets
Bartholomew Fair
Bell Man
Requesting one's heart upon death
Bleeding of horses on St. Stephens Day
Biting of the thumb
: Insulting gesture
Books, the coping of
Bull running in England
C
Candlemass
Canterbury pilgrimages
Carnival
: Time of merry-making and pleasure
Card Playing:
The folklore of predicting the future with playing cards
Christmas Traditions
Boxing-day
Burning of the Yule Log
Christmas Customs Observed In Northern Germany
Christmas custom in Cumnor
Christmas Carols
Christmas Charities
Christmas Decorations
Christmas Pantomimes
Games - Snapdragon
Mince-pies
Old English Christmas Fare
Plough Monday
: First Monday after Twelfth Day
Plum-Pudding
The Christmas-tree: Christmas Eve in Germany and America
The History of the Mummers
The Lord of Misrule
Twelfth Day, or the Epiphany
St. Distaff's Day
Wassail ale
Cider Making
Cotswold Games
Court Fools and Jesters
Crossing the Equator:
On the naval ceremony performed when crossing it
Cross Christ was crucified on
Crying the Mare
Curfew-bell
Curious notions and practices respecting the human heart of a deceased hero
Custom of hoarding or burying money
Customs of the Wiltshire Shepherds
D
Decorating of wells
Doctors in late 1600's
Dress of a lady of fashion in the seventeenth century
The female head-dresses of 1776
Dressing the wells
Drinking
St. Monday - Universal day of debauch among the working classes
Drinking of wine on St. Johns day to prevent poisoning in the ensuing year
Wassail -
New Year's Day Drink
Drinking customs of various nations
Ducking-stool
Burying of the dead
E
Easter Traditions
Distribution of cakes among the poor every Easter Sunday
Easter Day Tradition
Easter Singers in the Vorarlberg
Easter Sunday in Rome
On establishing what day Easter will fall
Eglintoun Tournament
Ember-days
: Fasts for imploring the blessing on the produce of the earth
F
Face Painting
Fairlop Oak Festival
Falconry in medieval England
Fairs
Bartholomew Fair
Feast of the Ass
: Commemorating Flight into Egypt
Feast of the Ingathering
: Celebration of the fall harvest
Feast of St. Nicholas
F�te Diue
: A celebration of the name of God
Festival of the Conception of the Virgin Mary
Festival of the Three Kings
: Commemorating the Magi visit to Christ
Festival of the Miracles
Festival of the Seven Sleepers
Festival of St. Peter's Chair
: Celebration of the Founding of the papacy
Festival of the Rosary
First Friday in July
: Fairlop Oak Festival
Flitting Day
: Day most renters change their residences
Floors:
The use of rushes, straw, and sweet herbs to cover floors
Fox Hunting:
The history of Foxhunting
Funeral Garlands
G
Greenwich Fair
Guy Fawkes's Day
H
Halifax law
Halloween
Handsel Monday
: First Monday of the Year
Hawking in the olden times
Holyrood day
: Empress Helena discovered the true cross
Holy Wells
How England celebrated King George III's
Hock-Tide
: Custom for the women to bind all those of the other sex they met
Hunting practices of the court of James I
I
Inscriptions on Church Bells
J
Jam and jelly making
K
Knight of the Garter
L
Lammas:
One of the four great pagan festivals of Britain
Lamp lighting in old London
Lent
Ash Wednesday
Fish and Fish Pies
Good Friday
Holy Saturday
Hot cross-buns
Mandy Thursday
: The distribution of food in baskets
Mid-Lent
Simnel Cakes
Tenebrae
: The singing of the first Miserere
The ceremonies of Holy Thursday
London fashionable life
London Shoeblacks
Lord Mayor's show
: Festivities on the searing in of a new mayor for London
M
Manners:
English manners of old times
Marriage Dowries
Marriage arrangements in old times
Martinmas Day
Massacre of the Innocents
May Day
May Queen
May pole
May Songs
: Songs that must be sung before the first day of May
Michaelmas Day
Midsummer Day - the Nativity of John the Baptist
Minstrels Festival at Tutbury
Ministerial fish dinner
: Signalizing the close of the parliamentary session
Miscellaneous Sayings
Morris Dancing
Mothering Sunday
N
New Year's Eve Traditions
Burning of the Clavie
Hogamanay
Pinging out the Old Year
Scottish Traditions
Unbarring of the Door to let out the old year
Wassail ale
New Year Traditions
Custom of Wassail
Jack of Hilton
New Year Gift Giving
Night watchmen of old London
Nutcracker Night
: Name for Halloween in Northern England
O
Oak Apple-day
: Celebrate of the day Charles II hid in an Oak Tree
Oatmeal - Its former uses in England
Old English Manners
Old sayings as to clothes
Old suburban tea-gardens
Order of the Garter
P
Painting of faces by women in Elizabethan times
Palm Sunday:
Blessing of palm branches of some other tree, ie box, yew, or willow
Passover
Pentecost Traditions
Plough Monday
: The first Monday after Twelfth Day of Christmas
Perambulating parishes in Rogation week
Precedence between ambassadors in the royal court
Punishment
Dunking Stools
Riding the Stang
The Pillory
Puppets a hundred and fifty years ago
Q
Queen Elizabeth's Day
R
Rat Legends
Relics worshipped by Roman Catholics
Rogation Sunday
: The fifth Sunday after Easter
Robin Hood Games
: Meant to represent the adventures of legendary Robin Hood
Rogation Days
: The Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Holy Thursday
Running Footman
: The custom of keeping running footmen
Rushes, straw, and sweet herbs for floors
S
Scaffold code of etiquette
Seventh sons and their seventh sons
Shrews: The way shrews were tamed long ago
Shrove Tuesday
Signals for servants
Skating on ice
Spray of oak in the hat as a badge of a loyalist
Spurs and Spur-money
St. Blasius's Day
: Patron Saint of Wool Combers
St. Crispin Day
: Patron Saint of shoe makes
St. Distaff's Day
: First free day after the twelve days of Christmas
St. Herilary's Day
: The coldest day of the year
St. Mark's Eve superstition of seeing who will die that year
St. Patrick's driving of the snakes from Ireland
St. Swithin's day
St. Valentine's day customs
Stamford Running of the Bulls
Stephening:
Custom of
Swearing on the Horns
T
Tea Gardens
Thanksgiving Day in America
The feast of St. Agnes
: A holiday for women
The Macaronis
: People who sought to attract attention by eccentricities in dress
The mystery or miracle plays
The Shrewsbury show
The tolling the bells at the time of death
The Tribute of Roses
The way shrews were tamed long ago
Toasting a drink to someone's health
Touching for the King's Evil
: Cure for Scrofula
Turnspits & Turnspit Dogs
Twelfth-Day Eve
: Rustic festival to secure a blessing for the fruits of the earth
Twelfth-Day
: Festival commemorating the last day of the Feast of the Nativity
Festival of the Three Kings
V
Valentine's Day
Visiting cards of the 18
th
century
W
Washing tallies
Wearing of signs by Canterbury pilgrims
Weather notions
Wedding Rings
Wells: veneration paid against disease, witchcraft, fairies, and the like
Whetstone:
On the giving of a Whetstone to a confirmed liar
Winter-Solstice Festivities
Whit Sunday
: Commemoration of the descent of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles
Whitsuntide Festivities
