Carnival or Shrovetide is a Christian festive season that occurs before Lent, consisting of Quinquagesima or Shrove Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras.
Monday is the day of the week that takes place between Sunday and Tuesday. According to the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 8601 standard, it is the first day of the week.
Advent is a season observed in most Christian denominations as a time of expectant waiting and preparation for both the celebration of the Nativity of Christ at Christmas and the return of Christ at the Second Coming. Advent is the beginning of the liturgical year in Western Christianity. The name was adopted from Latin adventus "coming; arrival", translating Greek parousia from the New Testament, originally referring to the Second Coming.
Corn dollies or corn mothers are a form of straw work made as part of harvest customs of Europe before mechanisation.
Molly dancing is a form of English Morris dance, traditionally done by out-of-work ploughboys in midwinter in the 19th century.
In the Catholic Church, holy days of obligation are days on which the faithful are expected to attend Mass, and engage in rest from work and recreation, according to the third commandment.
Whittlesey is a market town and civil parish in the Fenland district of Cambridgeshire, England. Whittlesey is 6 miles (10 km) east of Peterborough. The population of the parish was 17,667 at the 2021 Census.
Christmastide, also known as Christide, is a season of the liturgical year in most Christian churches.
Twelfth Night is a Christian festival on the last night of the Twelve Days of Christmas, marking the coming of the Epiphany. Different traditions mark the date of Twelfth Night as either 5 January or 6 January, depending on whether the counting begins on Christmas Day or 26 December. January 6 is celebrated as the feast of Epiphany, which begins the Epiphanytide season.
In Italian folklore, the Befana is an old woman or witch who delivers gifts to children throughout Italy on Epiphany Eve in a similar way to Santa Claus or the Three Magi Kings.
Epiphany, or Eid al-Ghitas, also known as "Theophany" in Eastern Christian tradition, is a Christian feast day commemorating the visit of the Magi, the baptism of Jesus, and the wedding at Cana.
Plough Sunday is a traditional English celebration of the beginning of the agricultural year that has seen some revival over recent years. Plough Sunday celebrations usually involve bringing a ploughshare into a church with prayers for the blessing of the land. It is traditionally held on the Sunday after Epiphany, the Sunday between 7 January and 13 January. Accordingly, work in the fields did not begin until the day after Plough Sunday: Plough Monday. Although the nature of farming has changed over the centuries, Plough Sunday is seen as a way of generally celebrating farming and the work of farmers. In the Church of England book of liturgy, Common Worship: Times and Seasons, there is a suggested prayer for the "Blessing of the Plough", for the "Blessing of Seed" and passages of Scripture related to the agricultural theme.
The Swabian-Alemannic Fastnacht, Fasnacht or Fasnat/Faschnat is the pre-Lenten carnival of Alemannic folklore in Switzerland, southern Germany, Alsace and Vorarlberg.
The Paris Carnival is an annual festival held in Paris, France. The carnival occurs after the Feast of Fools and has been held since the 16th century or earlier, with a long 20th century interregnum.
Bachelor's Day, sometimes known as Ladies' Privilege, is an Irish tradition by which women are allowed to propose to men on Leap Day, 29 February, based on a legend of Saint Bridget and Saint Patrick. It once had legal basis in Scotland and England.
Carnival in French Guiana is a major event. Its style is described as Afro-Caribbean. A moveable holiday, it takes place between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday, ending on Mardi Gras. Known internationally for its Paré-masqué balls and its emblematic character, the Touloulou, it is considered the longest carnival in the world.
The name horkey was applied to end of harvest customs and celebrations, especially in the Eastern Counties of England, although the word occurred elsewhere in England and also Ireland. Since it is found in dialect, there is no standard spelling and other versions include hawkie and hockey. Mentioned from the 16th century onward, the custom became less common during the course of the 19th century and was more or less extinct in the 20th. It is chiefly remembered now because of the poem dedicated to it by Robert Bloomfield in 1802.
England traditionally celebrates a number of Christian and secular festivals. Most are observed throughout the country but some, such as Oak Apple Day, Souling, Rushbearing, Bawming the Thorn, and Hocktide, are local to certain regions.
Mummers' plays are folk plays performed by troupes of amateur actors, traditionally all male, known as mummers or guisers. Historically, mummers' plays consisted of informal groups of costumed community members that visited from house to house on various holidays. Today the term refers especially to a play in which a number of characters are called on stage, two of whom engage in a combat, the loser being revived by a doctor character. This play is sometimes found associated with a sword dance though both also exist in Britain independently.
The Goathland Plough Stots are a team of Long Sword Dancers based in the village of Goathland, North Yorkshire, England. The traditional dance that they perform had died out by the start of the twentieth century but was revived in 1922. The team were expelled from the Morris Ring for allowing women to be trained in the art of the dance, the tradition being that it is a male-only dance. The Goathland Plough Stots dance is recognised as one of the oldest in England, with a history dating back more than a thousand years.
