Pancake Day 'Dorset Lent Crocking'

 

Lent Crocking was an old Dorset custom that used to take place on Pancake Day. It was similar to ‘trick or treat’ although some would say it was ‘just blackmail’.

Boys would gather in the evening and parade through the villages each armed with a collection of relics of broken pots, washing pans, jugs, dishes & plates. The broken pots originally signified that as Lent was beginning they were of no use. A lead youth would step forward and knock on a door. As William Barnes wrote:

‘When the door is opened, the hero, who is perhaps a farmer’s boy, with a pair of black eyes sparkling under the tattered brim of his brown milking hat covered with cow’s hair and dirt like the inside of a blacksmith’s nest, hangs down his head and with one corner of his mouth turned up into an irresistible smile pronounces in the dialect of his county.’

‘I be come a-shrovin’

Vor a little pankaik,

A bit o’ bread o’ your baikin’.

If you’ll gi’ me a little, I’ll ax no more

If you don’t gi’ me nothin’

I’ll rattle your door.’

If disappointed, the youths would pelt the front door with broken crockery and other missiles. This chant would vary across the county and on Portland it was:

‘Slit, slat, sling,

If you don’t give me a pancake

I’ll make your doors ring.’

An enterprising headmaster encouraged his pupils to throw wood which he used to supplement his pile of wood to be burnt for the winter heating of his house. It is reckoned the custom of Lent Crocking dated back to Roman times. However, the practice started to die out when the victims started to resort to legal action. In an early case, two young girls were fined six shillings (30p) costs as well as eight shillings (40p) damages which were payable to the widow, Harriot Cooper.