Folk Calendar – Find Folk and Traditional Music Events

Sunday 4 October

Folklore from the old calendars

Pack Monday and the horn boys Still kept DorsetSherborne's great fair was held on the first Monday after 10 October, with cattle, sheep and horses in the fields and shows, stalls and gingerbread in the town.
A pair of gloves for the new moon Lore and belief NorthumberlandA Newcastle reader told Hone of a custom he called very common and very pleasant.
The New Moon Through Glass Lore and belief SuffolkA Suffolk correspondent of Chambers kept a night school for rough country lads, and one winter evening they caught sight of the new moon through the schoolroom window.
Money Spinners Lore and belief EnglandTo make sure of always having money in your pocket, the 1831 list advised putting in it the small spiders called money spinners, or keeping in your purse a bent coin or one with a hole in it.
Turning Money at the New Moon Lore and belief EnglandA Chelsea reader sent Hone a charm he called well known and almost universal in former days, handed down by grandmothers.
Greeting the New Moon Lore and belief HerefordshireIn notes made about 1678 and printed by Chambers, John Aubrey recorded that Highland women curtsied to the new moon.

Folklore from the old calendars

The New Forest keepers’ offerings to St Luke No longer kept Gloucestershire, Hampshire, WiltshireAt 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.
St Luke’s ointment Lore and belief EnglandThe 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.
Whip-dog Day at York No longer kept YorkshireDrake 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.
Horn Fair No longer kept KentA 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.