Hocktide

Previously unbeknownst to me, today is Hocktide. Thank you twitter.

The origins are here:

It's Hocktide, the second Tuesday after Easter, a day with some pretty odd customs in medieval England... pic.twitter.com/BH4y6I6w4x

— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) April 5, 2016

Click to enlarge

Love the attributed origins. We forget so much.

Women for the noble act that they did in the destruction of the Danes, whych so cruelly reigned in this realme have a date of memorye thereof called hoptide, wherin it is leaful for them to take men, bynde, wasshe them, if they will give them nothing to bankett . . . (Quoted in Journal of Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 20 (1957), 178)

This account also contains the popular explanation of the custom, that it commemorates a time when a group of Saxon women outwitted and captured some invading Danes.

As people become more mobile, we lament the loss of a sense of community. But more is lost than that sense of belonging. We lose the community memory of times past as commemorated in local customs, sayings, and adages. Not all memories are committed to paper. Some of them are embedded in our customs and habits.