Today
is, according to the Christian calendar, Whit Monday. Whit Sunday, (or
Pentecost), is the seventh Sunday after Easter, and is commemorated by
Christians as the day in which the Holy Ghost is said to have entered the
twelve Apostles. The day used to begin three days of religious observances
known as Whitsuntide, but as with so many early Christian celebrations, over
the centuries elements of the pagan festivals occurring at around the same time
became incorporated.
Today,
of course, the day after Whit Sunday, is Whit Monday. Now, I do particularly
love any celebration with any spiritual connections whatsoever that includes
cake. And I have found one for you today.
From
Old English Customs Extant at the Present
Time: an account of local observances (London, 1896) by Peter Hampson
Ditchfield:
Whitsuntide
is the great season for old club feasts. From an economic point of view, no one
who has the welfare of the people at heart will regret the decline of the old
village benefit clubs. They were nearly all rotten; they were conducted on the
most unsound systems of financial organisation; they usually failed to benefit
the members when aid was most needed; and their place is well supplied by the
admirably conducted benefit societies, the Oddfellows, Foresters, and other
sound benefit clubs.
But the student of the
manners and customs of our race regrets the disappearance of many of our
village clubs, because it has entailed the destruction of many old customs
associated with the annual club feast, which were not without their special
interest and importance. Those that have survived the lapse of time are here
recorded.
At
Bampton, Oxon, in order to celebrate the club feast, which is held on
Whit-Monday, a procession goes round the town; it is made up as follows : —
1. A drum-and-piper, or,
as he is more commonly called, “whittle-and-dub” man (the term pipe-and-tabour
was in use within living memory); the music is now, however, played by a
fiddler.
2. Eight morris-dancers,
dressed in finely-pleated white shirts, white moleskin trousers, and top-hats
decorated with red, white, and blue ribbons. Only six dance at a time, two
standing out to relieve the others. They dance to certain well-known tunes (a
list of which is given), and sing while they dance.
3. A clown called the
"Squire," who carries a staff with a calf s tail at one end and a
bladder at the other, with which he belabours the bystanders. He also carries a
money-box, known as the “the treasury,” which in this case is a wood box with a
slit in the lid.
4. A “sword-bearer,” who
carries a cake in a round tin impaled on a sword. The cake is a rich
pound-cake, and is provided by some lady in the town. The tin has its rim cut
into zig-zags, and has a slit in the bottom to admit the sword-blade. Both cake
and sword are decorated with ribbons.
When the dancing begins,
anyone who wishes can taste the cake by applying to the “sword-bearer.” When
all is over at night, what is left of the cake is divided amongst the eleven
men, who generally give it to their friends.
I have given you recipes for Pound Cake before, of course:
Here
is an even earlier recipe, from Hannah Glasse herself, as it
appeared in her famous book The Art of
Cookery, published in 1747.
To Make a Pound Cake.
Take a Pound of Butter,
beat it in an earthen Pan with your Hand one Way, till it is like fine thick
Cream; then have ready twelve Eggs, but half the Whites; beat them well, and
beat them up with the Butter, a Pound of Flour beat in, a Pound of Sugar, and a
few Carraways: beat it all well together for an Hour with your Hand, or a great
wooden Spoon. Butter a Pan, and put it in, and bake it an Hour in a quick Oven.
For Change, you may put
in a Pound of Currants clean wash’d and pick’d.
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