Folklore of Sussex by Jacqueline Simpson

Author:Jacqueline Simpson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780752499994
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2013-05-19T16:00:00+00:00

10

The Turning Year

JANUARY

‘Well begun is half done’, they say, so it is not surprising that there should be traditional rites to bring good luck to the beginnings of periods of time. One which was common in many parts of Sussex in the 1930s, and is still extant, concerns the first day of each month: if the first word you speak on waking up is ‘Rabbits!’, you will get a present before the month is out, while if you can add ‘white ones with pink eyes’ before anyone else has spoken to you, the present will be even better. Others say you should cry ‘Rabbits!’ three times, for good luck all through the month; and others too that, in addition, your last word the previous night should have been ‘Hares!’ Some families played a game of forfeits; if the children could say ‘Hares and Rabbits!’ to their parents before the latter said it to them, they claimed sixpence.

For similar reasons, the first glimpse of the new moon in January was once thought significant, either for good or ill; it must of course be greeted with the honours due to every new moon, such as bowing, curtseying, and turning one’s money, and should never be first seen through glass, but in addition it could be used for divination. Writing in 1878, Mrs Latham records:

Should a girl wish to know what will be the personal appearance of her future husband, she must sit across a gate or stile and look steadfastly at the first new moon that rises after New Year’s Day. She must go alone, and must not have confided her intention to anyone, and when the moon appears, it is thus apostrophised:

All hail to thee, Moon, all hail to thee!

I pray thee, good Moon, reveal to me

This night who my husband must be.

I know of no recent instance of this charm being tried, but I do hear that the new January moon is still watched by our Sussex maidens.

Rather less poetic is the belief recorded by Parish in 1875 that in January it is lucky to bring mud into the house (presumably on one’s shoes), and that mud is called ‘January butter’. Judging by parallels concerning sand or dust elsewhere in England, the underlying idea would be that to bring something into the house, especially on New Year’s Day, means bringing luck and wealth into the house all the year; sweeping or throwing things out, in contrast, would be unlucky.

A few special customs formerly marked New Year’s Day itself. At Hastings in the 1870s apples, nuts, oranges and coins were thrown from windows for fishermen and boys to scramble for them. At the Red Lion Inn at Old Shoreham it was customary, throughout most of the nineteenth century, that a bushel measure should be filled with ale and decorated, and served free to all comers, at the brewers’ expense. The Sussex Daily News of 5 January 1883 describes how it was done that year: the measure was decorated with green paper

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