The Folk-Lore of Somerset.
The following notes are taken from a useful column of Notes and Queries in the Somerset County Herald, devoted to the collection of information on the antiquities and folk-lore of the county.
Feb. 16.—Collop Monday.
Formerly on the Monday before Shrove Tuesday in the hill district of West Somerset (Withypool), the custom of "Drowin' o' Cloam" (crocking) obtained, the thrower departing secretly after the act. At Hawkridge the throwers said some rhyme and decamped. The residents followed to catch them, blackened their faces, and gave pancakes. At Wellington stones were thrown at doors. Do these customs still exist in Somersetshire?
The day before Shrove Tuesday was formerly known as Collop Monday, from the practice of eating collops of salted meat and eggs on that day. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1790 says:—"Most places in England have eggs and collops (slices of bacon) on Shrove Monday, pancakes on Tuesday, and fritters on the Wednesday in the same week, for dinner." A correspondent, writing in these columns in 1898, said that in many places at that time it was still the custom to have eggs and collops for dinner on Collop Monday. A collop was a slice of meat salted or cured, as a steak was a slice of fresh meat.
Mr. A. L. Humphreys, in his History of Wellington, says a curious custom is that of throwing a handful of stones against a neighbour's door on the night before Shrove Tuesday.
The following interesting extracts are taken from the late Mr. F. T. Elworthy's Dialect of West Somerset (pub. 1875)—"A very curious old custom, of the nature of a practical joke, is observed in the Hill district. On the night before Shrove Tuesday (last night but one of the Carnival), if the back door or any outer door of the Parsonage or a farm-house be left unfastened, it is quietly opened, and before anyone can stir to prevent it, a whole sackful of broken bits of crockery is shot in the middle of the kitchen, or wherever the bearer can penetrate before he is observed. He then decamps and disappears
