Whip-dog Day at York

18 October · York

No longer kept

Drake wrote in his history of York that St Luke’s Day was known in the city as Whip-dog Day, because the schoolboys whipped every dog they found in the streets. He thought the custom certainly old, though not as old as the Romans. The tradition he heard was that a priest saying mass on this feast in a York church dropped the pax, which a dog lying under the altar snatched up and swallowed; the dog was killed, and its whole tribe was persecuted on the day ever after.

St. Luke's Day is known in York by the name of Whip-dog-day, from a strange custom that schoolboys use here of whipping all the dogs that are seen in the streets that day.

From Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. 1, p. 374. Read the original

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Folklore from the old calendars

Horn Fair No longer kept KentA three-day fair was held at Charlton on St Luke's Day, where visitors wore horns in their hats and rams' horns, horn toys and even horned gingerbread were sold.
St Luke’s ointment Lore and belief EnglandThe chapbook Mother Bunch's Closet Newly Broke Open held that St Luke's Day was better than St Agnes's for seeing a future husband.
The New Forest keepers’ offerings to St Luke No longer kept Gloucestershire, Hampshire, WiltshireAt St Luke's-tide the keepers and foresters of the New Forest came every year to St Luke's chapel at Stoke Verdon, in the parish of Broad Chalke, to make offerings for luck with their game, deer and cattle.
The ladle in a sling at York Dish Fair No longer kept YorkshireOn St Luke's Day a fair for small wares was held in York, commonly called Dish Fair from the wooden dishes and ladles brought to it.

Whip-dog Day at York

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