Folklore of Gloucestershire

1 January

Folklore from the old calendars

Rosemary blossoms at midnight in the Forest of Dean Lore and belief GloucestershireThe foresters of Dean held that Old Christmas, not the new, was the true Christmas, and that exactly at midnight that night the rosemary blossomed and the oxen knelt.
Twelve fires against the smut at Pauntley No longer kept GloucestershireOn Twelfth Night eve the farm servants of Pauntley gathered in a field sown with wheat and lit twelve straw fires in a row to keep the smut off the crop.
Twelve Fires and the Ox’s Cake No longer kept Gloucestershire, HerefordshireOn Twelfth Night eve Herefordshire farmers and their servants lit twelve small fires and one large one on the highest part of a wheat field, drank old cider and hallooed, and fifty or sixty other fires might be seen at once across the country.