Tindles at Findern

At Findern in Derbyshire the boys and girls went every year on the evening of All Souls’ Day to the common and lit a number of small fires among the furze, which they called Tindles. The villagers supposed it a relic of the old religion, meant at first to light souls out of purgatory. A writer of 1784 thought the recent enclosure of the common had probably ended it for want of furze. Elsewhere Catholics lit up their fields on All Souls’ Eve by carrying burning straw round them, a ceremony called Tinley.