Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/222

 2 12 Collectanea.

disputes on this day by fighting; oranges were thrown down the slope and lads used to rush headlong after them.- At the present day only a few children stroll about the hill on Palm Sunday.

Boundary Ctistom. — On Bidcombe Hill " gathering together of people did continue some few years ago on Palm Sunday ; it was in some way connected with the maintaining of bounds."^

Furmety Eating. — On Palm Sunday an annual excursion is, or was until quite recently, made to Bidcome Hill, where there is an excavation, known as Furmety Hole, round which the people used to sit and eat furmety.'*

Silbtiry Hill. — " Silbury Hill is to this day thronged every Palm Sunday afternoon by hundreds from Avebury, Kennet, Overton, and the adjoining villages."^

A Sacred Spring. — It was formerly the custom to make merry with cakes, figs, and sugar mixed with water from the Swallow Head, the sacred spring of the district, and the principal source of the river Kennet.c j g Partridge.

Folklore from Durham.

Nezv Year's Day. — In Sunderland every one, however poor, buys a cake for New Year's Day, and the streets are crowded to see the New Year in.

Passion Sunday. — Passion Sunday is known as Carling Sunday, when, in the poorer parts of the town, everyone eats pease pudding, and the children are provided with pea-shooters.'

J. B. Partridge.

"Cf. the "Cheese-bowling" at Cooper's Hill, Gloucestershire, Folk-Lore, vol. xxiii., p. 351.

^ Wilts Archaeological Magazine, March, 1878, vol. vii., p. 290.

■* Notes and Queries, 5th Ser., vol. v., p. 273.

^ Wills Archaeological Magazine, December, 1861, p. iSi.

^ W. Long, Abury Jllusirated, 1858, p. 34.

' Of. J. Brand, Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, 1848, vol. i., p. 113 et seqq.