Romance Customs

Love, courtship and marriage: charms to see a future sweetheart, Valentine customs, wedding ways and the days for divining who you will marry.

51 to 75 of 131 entries

11 March, not tied to the day

Folklore from the old calendars

Dick and Doll’s Easter Monday walk to Islington No longer kept LondonOn Easter Monday afternoon servants who had been kept at home all week walked out to Islington to court.
Kissing at the Walter No longer kept UlsterOn Easter Monday several hundred young people from Portaferry and the country round went in their best clothes to a pleasant spot near the town called the Walter.
The bridegrooms’ silver arrow at Chester No longer kept CheshireEvery man married in Chester who had not yet completed his first year of marriage had to hand the drapers' guild, before the mayor, a silver arrow as the prize for the Easter archery on the Roodee.
The inspector heaved at Warrington No longer kept LancashireIn Lancashire the lasses heaved the lads on Easter Monday, lifting them off the ground, and the lads heaved the lasses on the Tuesday.
When the daughter is stolen, shut the Pepper-gate Lore and belief CheshireChester's proverb for locking up too late came from an Easter football game.

Folklore from the old calendars

Birch for a sweetheart, alder for a scold No longer kept CheshireIn Cheshire young men used to put birch boughs over their sweethearts' doors on May Day, and marked the house of a scold with an alder bough.
Fishing for the ring in the May syllabub No longer kept NorthumberlandHutchinson's History of Northumberland describes a syllabub made for the May feast from milk warm from the cow, sweet cakes and wine.
Rosemary at the maidens’ windows on May morning No longer kept WalesUntil about forty years before Trevelyan wrote, young Welshmen decked a large bunch of rosemary with white ribbons on May Day morning and set it at the bedroom window of the girl they admired.
The May ball for the newly married No longer kept Ireland, MunsterOn May Day the young men of each district in the south of Ireland went in procession in ribbons and garlands, their leader carrying a pole with a double hoop and a gilt ball hanging in it.
The Raine’s school bride No longer kept LondonA correspondent told Hone that every May Day a girl from Raine's charity school at St George in the East, near London, was chosen to be married.
The snail on the slate Lore and belief StirlingshireRobert Kier's letter from Falkirk said that in Scotland no one would marry in May.