Swig Day at Jesus College

1 March · Jesus College, Oxford

No longer kept

On St David’s Day Jesus College, Oxford, the college of the Welsh, filled a great silver-gilt bowl holding ten gallons with swig and passed it round the guests at its table. The bowl had been given by Sir Watkin Williams Wynne in 1732, and it was the custom for visitors to the bursary where it was kept to fill its half-pint ladle to the donor’s memory. Swig was made of warm beer, sugar, sherry, nutmeg and ginger with slices of toast floated in it. At the college it was called the wassail bowl, though Hone notes that true wassail had roasted crab apples in place of the toast.

it is an established custom, when strangers visit the bursary, where this bowl is kept, to fill the ladle alone to the memory of the worthy donor.

From Hone's Year Book, cols. 265-267. Read the original

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Folklore from the old calendars

Wearing the leek Still kept WalesOn St David's Day the Welsh wear a leek, and Chambers collected several reasons given for it.
Hanging Taffy No longer kept LondonOn St David's Day the English used to mock the Welsh by making a stuffed figure of a Welshman, with hay-filled breeches and coat, a hat, shoes and a wooden sword, and hanging it from a public tree.
The Ancient Britons’ procession No longer kept LondonSt David's Day in London was the anniversary of the Honourable and Loyal Society of Ancient Britons, founded in 1714, which kept it in aid of the Welsh charity school in Gray's Inn Road.
A peck of March dust Lore and belief EnglandMarch was expected to be a dry, blustery month, and its dust was welcomed because dry weather was wanted for sowing and planting.
Oats and barley in the clay Lore and belief EnglandRay's collection of English proverbs gives a farming rule for St David's Day: it was the time to put oats and barley into the ground.
The serjeant-porter’s leek No longer kept LondonThe Flying Post of 1699 reported that on St David's Day the king, according to custom, wore a leek in honour of the ancient Britons.
The crows begin to search Lore and belief Northern EnglandAmong the proverbial sayings for St David's Day that Ellis found still current in the north of England was a short rhyme about the crows.
Leeks in Lide Lore and belief West CountryIn the West Country March was called Lide, and eating leeks that month was thought to keep the doctor away all year.
Tid, Mid, Misera No longer kept Northern EnglandNorthern country people counted down the Sundays of Lent as Tid, Mid, Miseray, Carling, Palm and Paste-egg Day, with Tid the first of the run.
Whuppity Scoorie at Lanark Still kept LanarkshireWhen the Lanark town bell began its six months of nightly ringing in March, the young folk gathered at the cross for Whuppity Scoorie.
The daffodil for St David Lore and belief EnglandThe early daffodil was reckoned the flower of St David's Day, coming into bloom about 1 March and soon filling the fields with its hanging yellow cups.
Gingerbread taffies on a goat No longer kept LondonOn St David's Day the gingerbread bakers and pastry-cooks of London set out taffies, little white figures of a Welshman riding on a goat, stuck on wooden skewers for children to buy.
The leek and the field of Poictiers No longer kept South WalesPeter Roberts believed the leek worn on St David's Day recalled the Welsh archers at Poictiers and Cressy, as Fluellen tells it in Henry V, rather than any Druid rite.
Round the leek-bed on St David’s Eve Lore and belief WalesA Welsh love charm said that anyone who walked three times round the leek-bed in silence at midnight on St David's Eve would see their future husband or wife.
Blind Days in Devon Lore and belief DevonOld farmers in one Devon parish called the first three days of March the Blind Days, and no farmer would sow any seed on them.

Swig Day at Jesus College

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