Folk Calendar round-up for w/c 17 October 2026

Folklore from the old calendars

What this week used to mean:

• St Audrey’s Fair and Tawdry Lace, Saturday, Ely, Cambridgeshire: St Etheldreda, or Audrey, founder of the abbey at Ely, was remembered on 17 October, and a fair called St Audrey's fair was held at Ely.
• Horn Fair, Sunday, Charlton, Kent (now south-east London): A three-day fair was held at Charlton on St Luke's Day, where visitors wore horns in their hats and rams' horns, horn toys and even horned gingerbread were sold.
• Whip-dog Day at York, Sunday, York: Drake wrote in his history of York that St Luke's Day was known in the city as Whip-dog Day, because the schoolboys whipped every dog they found in the streets.
• St Luke’s ointment, Sunday: The chapbook Mother Bunch's Closet Newly Broke Open held that St Luke's Day was better than St Agnes's for seeing a future husband.
• The New Forest keepers’ offerings to St Luke, Sunday, Broad Chalke, Wiltshire: At St Luke's-tide the keepers and foresters of the New Forest came every year to St Luke's chapel at Stoke Verdon, in the parish of Broad Chalke, to make offerings for luck with their game, deer and cattle.
• The ladle in a sling at York Dish Fair, Sunday, York, Yorkshire: On St Luke's Day a fair for small wares was held in York, commonly called Dish Fair from the wooden dishes and ladles brought to it.

Find the books: Chambers's Book of Days at Amazon, Bookshop.org or AbeBooks; Hone's Every-Day Book at Amazon, Bookshop.org or AbeBooks; Brand's Popular Antiquities at Amazon, Bookshop.org or AbeBooks; Aubrey's Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme at Amazon, Bookshop.org or AbeBooks; Hone's Table Book at Amazon, Bookshop.org or AbeBooks. (Affiliate links: we may earn a small commission.)