Even More of the Strange and Eccentric Festivals and Events of the UK- March

March is a month with not too much going on in the odd world it would seem, the Anglo Saxons called this month the Stormy or Rugged month. March is named after Mars the god of war. Originally March was the first month of the year until 1752 and the Gregorian calendar was introduced with the additional months being January and February.

Traditionally games played this month were Marbles and Skipping. On Good Friday the games were stopped at midday, some places call this day Marble Day or Long Rope Day.

A piece of superstition for you, if Lady Day (25^th) should be Easter, then some disaster will shortly follow.

The last three days of March were said to be borrowed from April.

1^st- St David's Day- the Patron Saint of Wales.

17^th- St Patrick's Day- the Patron Saint of Ireland.

29^th- In 1886 Coca Cola was introduced.

Tichborne Dole is a very eccentric British tradition that dates back to the 13^th Century. Tichborne, a village in Hampshire in the south of England is where this particular tradition is still carried out to this day every 25^th March.

Lady Maybela started giving out bread to the poor on this day, the name being given to this bread being the Dole. As the lady was dying, her husband who was not keen on her charitable contributions was made to promise that he would continue with this after the death of his wife. As a way to avoid giving out too much of his wheat from his fields he took a burning log from the fire and told his dying wife that for each of his acres of land she could get around before the flames were blown out in the wind, then he would hand over that wheat to the poor. It was a very windy day as she struggled outside, as she set off, crawling across the land the wind dropped. She covered a distance of 23 acres, these fields are still known as the 'crawls' to this day.

Before she died she put a curse upon her husband, if he or any future member of his family didn't comply with this dying wish, then only daughters would be born and the family name would die out with that generation. This continued until 1796, and the then Sir Henry Tichborne gave money to the church instead, his eldest son had 7 daughters, so a worried son restarted the custom once again.

Many years ago as barges traveled up the river Thames in London, on the 31^st of this month they would stop at St Clements Dane church. Local school children would recite the famous nursery rhyme 'Oranges and Lemons', before being presented with an orange and a lemon by the church.

From this rhyme came a game formed of two teams through choosing whether they were oranges or lemons, and the two equal teams would then have a game of 'tug o' war.'

As I wrote at the beginning not too much odd stuff for this month, I am hoping for a little more foolishness in April.

Sources:

www.countrylife.co.uk/countryside/article/197943/Country_customs_calendar.html - 62k -

http://www.enjoyengland.com/attractions/

www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/year/march.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar

Regional tourist boards throughout Britain