Fig-pie Wake at Draycott-in-the-Moors

Mothering Sunday · Draycott-in-the-Moors, Staffordshire

No longer kept

Draycott-in-the-Moors and its neighbouring villages kept Fig-pie Wake on Mid-Lent Sunday, when friends came visiting to eat fig pies. The pies were made of dried figs, sugar, treacle and spice. Dyer, quoting Notes and Queries, found them rather too sweet for anyone not born to them.

The fig-pies are made of dry figs, sugar, treacle, spice, etc. ; they are rather too luscious for those who are not "to the manner born."

From Dyer's British Popular Customs, p. 119. Read the original

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Folklore from the old calendars

Going a-mothering Still kept EnglandOn Midlent Sunday, the fourth in Lent, young people in service or apprenticed away went home to see their parents, especially their mothers, taking a cake or a trinket as a present.
Shrewsbury simnels Still kept Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, ShropshireIn Shropshire and Herefordshire, and above all at Shrewsbury, rich simnel cakes were made in Lent and at Easter and Christmas.
Mothering cakes at Bristol No longer kept GloucestershireA Bristol reader told Hone in 1827 that Mothering Sunday was kept scrupulously in the city and, he believed, all over the west of England, much as Twelfth Night was kept in London.
Simnel Sunday crowds at Bury No longer kept LancashireOn Mid-Lent Sunday thousands of people poured into Bury from all over the district to eat simnels, and shops and public houses stayed open in defiance of the law.
Loins of veal on Mid-lent Sunday No longer kept HerefordshireIn Herefordshire Mid-Lent Sunday was kept by every rank, with children of all ages coming home to dine with their parents on loins of veal.
Pease for the king’s household on Mid-Lent Sunday No longer kept EnglandA roll of the household expenses of Edward I for 1290 records a penny spent on pease on Mid-Lent Sunday.

Fig-pie Wake at Draycott-in-the-Moors

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