Christmas of T'Awd Roy in t'old days in t'dales of Yorkshire

It drew all dalesfolk – leadminers and farmers alike – from miles around for days of rollicking good fun eating spiced cakes, singing dialect songs, drinking good ale, dancing strange Yorkshire “whishing” dances, and, let’s not beat about the mistletoe, snogging pretty lasses.

The joys of T’Awd Roy were described vividly in the Echo’s sister paper, the Darlington & Stockton Times, of 100 years ago this week by dales author TP Cooper, who lamented that, after the First World War, the festival had died out.

The word “roy”, he said, was an old leadminers’ word for a “spree”, or party, but T’Awd Roy also acted as a market and as a way for tradesmen to get their year’s accounts settled.

Muker in 1966

It began three or four days before January 6, which was known as “old Christmas Day” – until 1752, when Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar and lost 11 days, January 6 was the day on which Christmas was celebrated.

The festival began with “eight or ten canny lads going about the village wearing large aprons held out by the corners, and the housefolk each in turn threw in cheesecakes, Christmas loaves, secret cakes, tarts and all sorts of spiced confections and even flesh meat”, wrote TP Cooper.

A large drum appeared from nowhere and they chanted as they went:

“Now T’Awd Roy is come

Let us beat up the drum

And call all our neighbours together

And when they appear

Let us make them such cheer

As will keep out the wind and the weather.”

The food was taken to three inns: the Queen’s Head, kept by Will Peacock and known as “t’awd house”; the Farmers’ Arms (above), where Jim Kearton was the landlord, and the King’s Head, where Frank Kendall was the “boniface”.

The pubs kept an open house throughout T’Awd Roy.

The first day of the festival was a market, with traders from all over the dale congregating to sell their wares.

On the second day, said Mr Cooper, “there were outdoors sports: lowping, two hitches, three hitches, hipsy-gipsy, and cat gallows, hurdle jumping and pole jumping, trotting matches, shooting at Loaning – that is in the lane, where an improvised target was placed on a convenient tree”.

Muker in the 1960s

We have no idea what any of those sports were. If you can tell us how to lowp, or to play hipsy-gipsy or cat gallows, or what the difference might be between two hitches and three hitches, we’d love to hear from you.

“Work was suspended in the leadmines,” continued Mr Cooper, who was a Yorkshire antiquary who wrote more than 100 books about the county’s history and customs in the early decades of the 20th Century, “and the feast was a general gathering of Dales folk.

“The badgers – flower and meal dealers – were there collecting their accounts as the miners were flush having just received their monthly pay.”

Badgers were a variety of travelling salesmen who specialised in foodstuffs, but presumably other travellers who needed paying were also present, like pedlars, chapmen and packmen.

Mr Cooper continued: “The blacksmith, an eccentric person nicknamed “Jordy at Brigend wrong side out” attended for the payment of his charges and Dr Rudd, with others, presented their bills.

“The inns were frequented day and night and their ample boards were the haunt of good fellowship and mirth. The jollifications, of course, were greatly enhanced by the usual fiddlers or wandering minstrels who habitually visited the feast.

“T’Awd Inn was my favourite resort. It was in the spacious kitchen, with its gleaming utensils, well scoured floor, and its cosy inglenook, that the buxom hostess promoted the mirth of the company with her roguish smiles and humorous rejoinders.

“At intervals, amid bursts of honest and unceremonious laughter, good old fashioned native ballads were lustily rendered and the refrain of a quaint Muker song still rings in my ears: “I love Jock Willy Betty, Jock Willy Betty loves me”.

“The old fiddlers strummed many a melody and dancing proper generally commenced about six o'clock and a large room upstairs, garlanded with glistening holly and mistletoe and partially illumed with candles, was utilised for the purpose.”

The grand finale of T’Awd Tom was the Princum Prankum, or “whishing dance”, held in the upstairs of the Queen’s Head.

It was, said Mr Cooper, “a merry proceeding, perhaps only known to those acquainted with the district and its dialect”.

Muker Bridge over the River Swale taken by a photographer from The Northern Echo on September 16, 1933. Did "Jordy at Brigend wrong side out" have his blacksmith's shop somewhere near here?

He remembered it being begun by Tish Tom, “the bravest of lads”, who danced about the room with only a cushion for company. The cushion was known as the “whishing” and, when directed by the musicians, he placed in front of the bonniest lass – Rose Herd, of Reeth. She knelt on the cushion while he kissed her, and then “they both rose up and took up the whishing, tripped round and round, up and down, and with lilting voices sang: ‘Princum Prankum is a very fine dance, shall we dance it once again, arm in arm, round and round, me that loves a bonny lass, will kiss her on the ground’.”

Then it was Rose’s turn to place the whishing in front of her favourite lad who, after a snog, joined the dance, and so it went on, with more and more people joining via the whishing until everyone was dancing and singing and kissing.

“It was a pleasant, lively and natural scene,” said Mr Cooper. “With unconstrained careless gait, they danced in the freedom and gaiety of their hearts. How they did dance! The streaming hair and fluttering skirts of the lasses greatly enhanced the happy frolic.”

Of course, all good things come to an end, all merry-making runs its course.

“The hours of happiness and festival pass,” concluded Mr Cooper. “They end in soft and pensive regrets, and throughout the year we think of Christmastide ‘as the King of the seasons all!’.”