Elizabeth Ashworth – author

Lancashire is a very superstitious place, and there are many superstitions associated with Fridays even when they aren’t the 13th of the month.

The origin of Friday being unlucky is often associated with it being the day on which Jesus was crucified, and the number 13 represents the number who were present at the Last Supper.  But it seems that it is also unlucky because when people began to convert to Christianity the old Norse gods were banished, including Frigga or Freya, after whom Friday is named.  It seems that she was called a witch and it was beleived that on Fridays she met with eleven other witches plus the devil to make a coven of 13, to plan bad luck for the coming week.  In some places Friday is known as the ‘witches’ sabbath’.

In Lancashire, the fisherman were particularly afraid of Freya and boats from the port of Fleetwood would not put to sea on Friday 13th.

And please don’t cut your fingernails on a Friday.  That is bound to bring bad luck as explained in this rhyme – though cutting them on a Sunday may bring even worse luck:

Cut your nails on a Monday, cut them for news;
Cut them on Tuesday for a new pair of shoes;
Cut them on Wednesday, cut them for health;
Cut them on Thursday, cut them for wealth;
Cut them on Friday, cut them for woe;
Cut them on Saturday, a journey you’ll go;
Cut them on Sunday, you cut them for evil,
For all the next week you’ll be ruled by the Devil.

You also need to be careful which day you sneeze on:

Sneeze on a Monday, you sneeze for danger;
Sneeze on a Tuesday, you kiss a stranger;
Sneeze on a Wednesday, you sneeze for a letter;
Sneeze on a Thursday, for something better;
Sneeze on a Friday, you sneeze for sorrow;
Sneeze on a Saturday, see your sweetheart tomorrow;
Sneeze on a Sunday, your safety seek,
For the Devil will have you the whole of the week.

It is also unlucky to marry on a Friday.  And it is improper for a courting couple to meet on a Friday.  If they do they are liable to be followed home by a crowd of people beating pans – although nobody seems to know why.

And speaking of weddings it is important to get the colour of your wedding gown right to ensure future happiness:

Married in red, wish yourself dead.
Married in yellow, ashamed of your fellow.
Married in blue, they’ll never be true
Married in green, ashamed to be seen
Married in white, married all right.

Many superstitions are connected with the moon.  A full moon shining in through the window after children have gone to bed will cause them to go mad.  If the new moon is lying on its back it is ‘holding water’ and it will rain. But be careful about looking at a new moon.  It’s unlucky to see it through glass and if you do you must turn over some money in your pocket.

Other superstitions include not putting new shoes on the table as it will bring bad luck.  And if you accidentally put an item of clothing on inside out you must leave it like that because it is unlucky to take it off and put it on again the right way. 

But the weirdest Lancashire superstition that I’ve come across is that eating fried mice will cure bedwetting.  I’m sure the very thought is enough to cause it!   

Stay safe today.  There are two more Friday the 13ths to come this year – on 13th April and 13th July.  And remember that searching for information about Friday 13th on Friday 13th is – you’ve guessed it – unlucky!

The new novel that I’m planning is set in the reign of Elizabeth I and I’ve begun to do some background reading into the period.  It’s so easy to make mistakes when you’re describing the every day life of Tudor England and I didn’t want to  embarrass myself by writing about some scullery maid peeling the potatoes in the kitchen whilst the stable lad leans against the door having a crafty smoke.

So I began by having a quick look on the internet to see what information was available and came across a useful looking site that told me, amongst other things, that “There were no forks in Tudor times. People ate with knives and their fingers or with spoons.”

Well everyone knows that’s true, don’t they?  Every historic hall you visit these days is made ready for a school visit where pupils sit at trestle tables and learn about what the Tudors ate and how they ate it.  The tables are set with platters, beakers, knives and spoons – and not a fork in sight.

But never willing to trust other people’s research I continued with my own.  Wikipedia informed me that ‘Its (the fork’s) use was first described in English by Thomas Coryat in a volume of writings on his Italian travels (1611), but for many years it was viewed as an unmanly Italian affectation.’  The unmanliness of using forks has a long history and one well known example is the disapproval of Piers Gaveston, the friend and companion of Edward II, who in 1313 owned three silver forks for eating pears.

Wikipedia goes on to say that ‘It was not until the 18th century that the fork became commonly used in Great Britain’.

An article about the history of the table fork told me that ‘The earliest fork known to have been made in England is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It bears the crests of John Manners, 8th Earl of Rutland and his wife Frances, daughter of Edward Lord Montagu of Boughton [Bailey]. It is two-tined and squarish, made of silver, and bears the London hallmark for 1632-3 [Hayward].’

Well that all seemed fairly conclusive until I began to read an old book from my own shelf.  It contained a quote from a historian named John de Brentford.  In his ‘black-letter’ book published in 1602 he says: ‘The manners and customs of the inhabitants of Lancashire are similar to those of the neighbouring counties, except that the people eat with two pronged forks’.

What?  Can that be true?  And why did only Lancashire people use forks?

Well, Lancashire at the time was the centre of the illegal Catholic underground movement and many of the young sons of the wealthy families were sent to the Continent to receive a Roman Catholic education at the colleges of St Omer in Bruges and Liege, or at Douai in France.  Was it there, I wonder, that they became used to eating with forks and brought them back when they returned home?

And more importantly, dare I portray the use of forks at table at Hoghton Tower in 1580?

Don’t miss my exclusive short story for the Christmas season.  It’s called Coming Home For Christmas and you can read it here: http://elizabethashworth.com/read-a-short-story/

In the restructuring of county boundaries in 1974 the traditional county of Lancashire was divided to form new administrative areas such as Greater Manchester and Merseyside.  In 1998, new unitary authorities Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool also ‘removed’ those towns from Lancashire.  But the traditional boundaries of the County Palatine still remain and anyone who lives within them is entitled to consider themselves a Lancastrian.

The 27th November is Lancashire Day and on this day a proclamation is read across the county including on the steps of the Lancaster City Museum by the town crier.

“To the people of the city and County Palatine of Lancaster, Greetings!

Know ye that this day, November 27^th, in the reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Duke of Lancaster, is Lancashire Day.  Know ye also, and rejoice, that by virtue of Her Majesty’s County Palatine of Lancaster, the citizens of the Hundreds of Lonsdale, North and South of the Sands, Amounderness, Leyland, Blackburn, Salford and West Derby are forever entitled to style themselves Lancastrians.  Throughout the County Palatine, from the Furness Fells to the River Mersey, from the Irish Sea to the Pennines, this day shall ever mark the peoples’ pleasure in that excellent distinction – true Lancastrians, proud of the Red Rose and loyal to our Sovereign Duke.  God Bless Lancashire and God save the Queen, Duke of Lancaster!”

Celebrating Lancashire Day is a fairly recent tradition. It was introduced a few years ago by the Friends of Real Lancashire to promote the fact that although the traditional county of Lancashire has been divided into new regions the ‘real’ county still exists and anyone who lives within its boundaries is a Lancastrian.

The 27th November was chosen as Lancashire Day because it was on this date in 1295 that the first elected representatives from Lancashire were called to Westminster by King Edward I to attend what later became known as ‘The Model Parliament’.

The audiobook of The de Lacy Inheritance read by Gordon Griffin is out now.  I’m looking forward to listening to someone else reading my words.  You can download through amazon and even get it for free if you sign up to audible’s trial membership!

I’ve taken a short break from tracing the family history of the de Lacy family to have a look at my own ancestors.  So far I’ve managed to follow the direct line of my father’s family, the Eastwoods, right back to Whalley in Lancashire in the 16th century.  I’ve been helped by the parish records kept by St Mary’s at Whalley as well registers from the church of St Leonard’s at Langho and St Mary’s in Blackburn, which is now the cathedral.

I’ve visited the ancient church at Whalley many times and it features in my novel, The de Lacy Inheritance, but what I didn’t realise until last week was how many of my ancestors were baptised, married and buried there.  The first recorded family members are Richard Eastwood and Margretta Aspinall who were married on the 23rd October 1598.  I’ve also found a photograph that has four generations of the Eastwood family in it.

The boy in the middle of the back row is my grandfather.  The man seated on the left is my great grandfather and the man in the middle is my great, great grandfather William Eastwood. He was born in 1824 and died in 1909 at the age of 85.  I think this photograph of him with his son, grandsons and great grandsons must have been taken in the early 1900s.

The audiobook version of The de Lacy Inheritance read by Gordon Griffin is now available.  https://www.isis-publishing.co.uk/osb/itemdetails.cfm/ID/6805

Witches have been closely associated with Lancashire for 400 years and a stylised image of a woman with a big nose and a pointed hat riding on a broomstick is one which has become associated with the county, especially the Pendle Hill area.  On Halloween crowds of people climb Pendle Hill after dark, with candles or torches, to look for witches.  This follows an old tradition of Lating (lighting) the Witches, when people would climb the hill carrying lighted candles from eleven until midnight on the eve of All Hallows.  Popular belief was that whilst the candle burned you were safe, but if it was blown out by the witches it was a bad omen and disasters would follow.

Those who climb the hill today may not realise that the traditions they are following date back hundreds of years and have their roots in beliefs and customs that predate the Lancashire witch trials of 1612.  Halloween marks the pagan feast of Samhain when the harvest is gathered in and the darker half of the year begins. As darkness fell on the 31^st October pagans celebrated the eve of the Feast of the Dead.  This was a time when the veils between this world and the Otherworld were believed to be at their thinnest.  As Christianity took hold, the feast day on the 1^st November was changed to that of All Saints, or All Hallows, which commemorates the souls of the dead and so the previous evening became known as Halloween.

Fire, to ward off evil spirits, was an important part of the Samhain celebration and early Christian rituals were heavily influenced by the old pagan ones.  Even after the Reformation, when old Catholic rites were outlawed, people continued to hold vigils for the dead under cover of darkness.  Until the early 19^th century, in the parish of Whalley, families would gather at midnight on All Hallows Eve and one person would hold a large bunch of burning straw on a pitchfork whilst the others knelt in a circle and prayed for their dead until the flames burned out.  Carving turnips and more recently pumpkins with faces and setting a candle inside them is also connected with this night and may have been influenced by ancestor worship – the earliest candles possibly being placed inside the skulls of the dead.

The 2^nd November is All Souls Day.  On this day special prayers were said for the dead who were in purgatory awaiting entry into heaven.  Children and the poor would go door to door to receive soul cakes and in return they would promise to say prayers for the souls of the dead to speed them into heaven.  Soul cakes or mass cakes were made with oatmeal and varied from place to place.  Sometimes they were flat, round cakes with the shape of the cross on them, but in Lancashire they were similar to what is now known as parkin.  Many of these old traditions have now become associated with both Halloween and Bonfire Night.

Other traditions associated with the Lancashire witches include the belief that there is a witch’s grave in the churchyard of Newchurch in Pendle and that the ‘eye of God’ on the tower of the church wards off evil.  There is a grave located near to the south wall of the church that is engraved, not only with a skull and crossbones, but with the names of members of the Nutter family.  Alice Nutter, who lived at nearby Roughlee Hall, was a gentlewoman who was hanged at Lancaster as a witch in 1612.  In his book The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster Thomas Potts describes her as a rich woman who had good estate and children of good hope.  She was ‘in the common opinion of the world, of good temper, free from envy or malice.’  But this is not her grave.  Those accused of witchcraft were not given a Christian burial but their bodies were burned to destroy the evil of their souls.

You will see witches at Newchurch though.  There are three who sit outside the small shop named Witches Galore.  They have become quite a tourist attraction with their pointed hats and ugly faces leering at passers-by and inside the shop you can buy all manner of witchy memorabilia.  You will also see the witch on a broomstick logo on the buses called the Witch Way that run between Pennine Lancashire and Manchester.  Each bus is named after one of the Lancashire witches.

I’ve just seen the cover image for the large print version of The de Lacy Inheritance.  I had no input into this one but I like it, especially the shadowy figure in the background.  I’m looking forward to getting hold of a copy of the book and seeing it properly.

The de Lacy Inheritance is featuring at Royalty Free Fiction http://royaltyfreefictionary.blogspot.com/  It’s an excellent site run by fellow author Deborah Swift and features historical novels that are about ‘ordinary’ people rather than the well known kings and queens.  Lots of good reading there.  Do take a look.