Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

And never brought to min’?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

And auld lang syne?

Chorus – For auld lang syne,

We’ll tak a cupo’kindness yet

For auld lang syne,

Pancake day

Pancake Day is the popular name for Shrove Tuesday, the day proceeding the first day of Lent. In medieval times the day was characterized by merrymaking and feasting, a relic of which is the eating of pancakes. Whatever religious significance Shrove Tuesday may have possessed in the olden days, it certainly has none now.

The origin of the festival is rather obscure, as the origin of the custom of pancake eating.

Nancy Price in a book “Pagan’s Progress” suggests that the pancake was a “thin flat cake eaten to stay the pangs of hunger before going to be shriven” (to confession).

In his “Seasonal Feasts and Festivals” E.O. James links up Shrove Tuesday with the Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) festivals of warmer countries. These jollifications were an integral element of seasonal ritual for the purpose of promoting fertility and conquering the malign forces of evil, especially at the approach of spring.”

The most consistent form of celebration in the old days was the all-over-town ball game or tug-of-war in which everyone let rip before the traditional feast, tearing here and rearing there, struggling to get the ball into their part of the town. It seems that several dozen towns kept up these ball games until only a few years ago.

E.O. James in his book records instances where the Shrove Tuesday celebrations became pitched battles between citizens led by the mayor and the local church authorities.

Today the only custom that is consistently observed through Britain is pancake eating, though here and there other customs still seem to survive. Among the latter, Pancake Races, the Pancake Greaze custom and Ashbourne’s Shrovetide Football are the best known. Shrovetide is also the time of Student Rags.