Page:Folklore1919.djvu/607

Rh in companies. The Bench discharged the youngsters on their parents promising to pay the amount of the damage to the door (4s.). In commenting on the case the Editor of the paper gave the following information with regard to the custom. Throwing at the cock was one of the many cruel pastimes in general vogue at Shrovetide in the olden time. That a relic of the custom should still linger here is only another proof of the pertinacity, so to speak, with which old customs keep their hold upon the people, and it is the more curious inasmuch as we are not aware of its existence in any of the neighbouring rural parishes, which as a general rule are the most favourable for the retention of ancient customs. Heath in his Account of the Scilly Islands, p. 120, has the following passage: "On a Shrove Tuesday after the throwing at cocks is over the boys in this island have a custom of throwing stones in the evening against the doors of the dwellers' houses—a privilege they claim from time immemorial, and put in practice without control for finishing the day's sport. I could never learn from whence this custom took its rise, but am informed that the same custom is now used in several provinces in Spain, as well as in some parts of Cornwall. The terms demanded by the boys are pancakes or money to capitulate."

"In Dorsetshire," says Brand, "boys go round begging for pancakes singing:

A very similar custom formerly obtained in South Petherton. In the first volume of Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries Mr. Hugh Norris wrote: "Another custom in this place (South Petherton) was for the young of both sexes to assemble in the 'dumps' of the evening and run through the streets throwing pot-sherds, previously collected for the purpose, against the doors of the principal inhabitants, at the same time singing out lustily some doggrel lines in which the word 'pancake' figures