British Popular Customs, Present and Past. T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

it was because she was dusty, and therefore it was needful that she should be well swept with a broom, and then afterwards equally well kissed by the young men of the house, and those living near, who used to go round to their intimate friends’ houses to perform this custom.—N. & Q. 4th S. vol. ix. p. 135.

Herefordshire.

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      In many parts the poor and middling classes of children assemble together in some part of the town or village where they live, and proceed in a body to the house of the chief personage of the place, who, on their arrival, throws them wreaths and true lovers’ knots from the window, with which they adorn themselves. Two or three of the girls then select one of the youngest among them (generally a boy), whom they deck out more gaily than the rest, and placing him at their head, march forward, singing as they go along:

      “Good morrow to you, Valentine;

       Curl your locks as I do mine,

       Two before and three behind.

       Good morrow to you, Valentine.”

      This they repeat under the windows of all the houses they pass, and the inhabitant is seldom known to refuse a mite towards the merry solicitings of these juvenile serenaders.—Hone’s Year Book, 1838, p. 201.

Kent.

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      The following extract is taken from the Gentleman’s Magazine, 1779, vol. xlix. p. 137: “Being on a visit in a little obscure village in Kent, I found an odd kind of sport going forward: the girls, from eighteen to five or six years old, were assembled in a crowd, and burning an uncouth effigy, which they called an holly-boy, and which it seems they had stolen from the boys, and in another part of the village the boys were assembled together, and burning what they called an ivy-girl, which they had stolen from the girls; all this ceremony was accompanied with loud huzzas, noise, and acclamation.”

Norfolk.

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      Independent of the homage paid to St. Valentine on this day at Lynn, it is in other respects a red-letter day amongst all classes of its inhabitants, being the commencement of its great annual mart. This mart was granted by a charter of Henry VIII. in the twenty-seventh year of his reign, “to begin on the day next after the feast of the purification of the blessed Virgin Mary, and to continue six days next following.” Since the alteration of the style, in 1752, it has been proclaimed on Valentine’s Day. About noon, the Mayor and Corporation, preceded by a band of music, and attended by twelve decrepit old men, called from their dress “Red Coats,” walk in procession to proclaim the mart, concluding by opening the antiquated and almost obsolete court of “Piepowder.” Like most establishments of this nature, it is no longer attended for the purpose it was first granted, business having yielded to pleasure and amusement. Formerly Lynn mart and Stourbridge (Stirbitch) fair, were the only places where small traders in this and the adjoining counties supplied themselves with their respective goods. No transactions of this nature now take place, and the only remains to be perceived are the “mart prices,” still issued by the grocers. Here the thrifty housewives, for twenty miles round, laid in their annual store of soap, starch, &c., and the booth of Green, from Limehouse, was for three generations the emporium of such articles; but these no longer attend. A great deal of money is however spent, as immense numbers of persons assemble from all parts. Neither is there any lack of incitements to unburthen the pockets: animals of every description, tame and wild, giants and dwarfs, tumblers, jugglers, peep-shows, &c., all unite their attractive powers, in sounds more discordant than those which annoyed the ears of Hogarth’s “enraged musician.”

      In the early part of the last century, an old building, which, before the Reformation, had been a hall belonging to the guild of St. George, after being applied to various uses, was fitted up as a theatre (and, by a curious coincidence, where formerly had doubtless been exhibited, as was customary at the guild feasts, religious mysteries and pageants of the Catholic age, again were exhibited the mysteries and pageants of the Protestant age) during the mart and a few weeks afterwards, but apparently with no great success.—Every Day Book, vol. ii. p. 223.

      In the parish of Ryburgh it is customary for the children to go round to the houses in the village for contributions, saying:

      “God bless the baker;

       If you will be the giver,

       I will be the taker.”

      N. & Q. 4th S. vol. v. p. 595.

Northamptonshire.

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In this county children go from house to house, on the morning of St. Valentine’s Day, soliciting small gratuities. The children of the villages go in parties, sometimes in considerable numbers, repeating at each house the following salutations, which vary in different districts:[18]

      “Good morrow, Valentine!

       First it’s yours, and then it’s mine,

       So please give me a Valentine.”

      “Morrow, morrow, Valentine!

       First ’tis yours, and then ’tis mine,

       So please to give me a Valentine.

       Holly and ivy tickle my toe,

       Give me red apples and let me go.”

      “Good morrow, Valentine!

       Parsley grows by savoury,

       Savoury grows by thyme,

       A new pair of gloves on Easter day.

       Good morrow, Valentine!”

[18] See History and Antiquities of Weston Favell (1827, p. 6). Brand in his Pop. Antiq. mentions this custom as existing in Oxfordshire.—1849, vol. i. p. 60.

      It was formerly customary for young people to catch their parents and each other on their first meeting on St. Valentine’s morning. Catching was no more than the exclamation, “Good morrow, Valentine!” and they who could repeat this before they were spoken to, were entitled to a small present from their parents or the elderly persons of the family; consequently there was great eagerness to rise early, and much good-natured strife and merriment on the occasion.[19]

[19] The custom was observed at Norfolk.—Brand, Pop. Antiq. vol. i. p. 60.

      In Peterborough and in some of the villages in the northern part of the county sweet plum buns were formerly given, and I believe are still made, called Valentine buns; and these buns, I am told, are in some villages given by godfathers and godmothers to their godchildren on the Sunday preceding and the Sunday following St. Valentine’s Day.—Baker, Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases, 1854, vol. ii. p. 373.

Nottinghamshire.

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      Drawing lots or billets for Valentines