Holy Innocents’ Day, or Childermas, was reckoned the unluckiest day of the year, and no one who could help it began any work or undertaking on it. Marrying on Childermas was especially ill-omened, and Edward IV’s coronation was put back a day because it would have fallen on it. Children were once whipped on the morning to keep the memory of Herod’s massacre fresh. In Chambers’s time Cornish housewives still would not scour or scrub on that day.
Childermas
28 December · Cornwall
Lore and belief
To the present hour we understand the housewives in Cornwall, and probably also in other parts of the country, refrain scrupulously from scouring or scrubbing on Innocents' Day.
From Chambers's Book of Days, vol. 2, p. 776. Read the original
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