STOKE SUNDAY HISTORY SPOT
Investigating the Past, to Understand the Present, to Plan for the Future
Click HERE for Main History Site
'ROYAL OAK DAY' on Friday 29th May (and also the 75th Anniversary of the Opening of Stoke Playing Field - but more about that next week). In the mean time you are invited to hear Dave Evans's 'Historical Wanderings Round the Village' as part of the Annual Parish Meeting on Thursday 28th. The APM is in the Williams Hall and starts at 7.30 pm.
Shig-Shag Day, Oak Apple Day, Royal Oak Day
On Friday it's Shig-Shag Day. What is it and what has it to do with us? The 29th of May is a day that commemorates the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 and is known by various names: Oak-apple Day, Oak-ball Day, Royal Oak Day, and Shig-Shag Day. It has many regional permutations: sheets-axe, shick-sack, shiff-shack, shiff-shig, shiff-shag, shit-sack, shit-zack, shuck-shack.
Cultural anthropoligists suggest that the custom may have been a relic of ancient pagan tree-worship festivals, but for most people, the day was simply an excuse to get drunk. There's some controversy about the origin of the term "Shig-Shag." Some people say oak apples were known as "shig shags" or "shick shacks" in some parts of England. But another theory is that shig-shag was a euphemism for "shit sack," which was a popular term for non-conformists and enemies of the monarchy back in the 17th century.
What we do know is that it is rooted in Charles' dramatic escape from Parliamentary troops in 1651, when he hid in an oak tree at Bosobel House after the Battle of Worcester.
Charles, hiding in the Oak Tree
“Oak apple day.
The 29th of May;
If you don't give us holiday
We will all run away.”
In 1938, a correspondent of the Somerset County Herald gave this account: "So sang Somerset children of my own childhoods days on the morning of the 29th May, but although the jingle had a defiant note, I cannot recall that many carried out their avowed intention of running away. Up to a few years ago in some of our Somerset villages, when the principal inhabitants looked out of their windows on this morning they found their gates, decorated with oak boughs, and later on they were visited by those who had so decorated the gates, mainly youths, and who were usually rewarded with money or cider-.This was done. I know, at Stoke St. Gregory. Not only is Oak Apple Day being celebrated, but that the villagers are asserting and maintaining their rights to cut wood from a wood in the neighbourhood."
If they were not offered anything at a house, they would recite the following verse:
"Shig-shag, penny a rag,
Bang his head in Cromwell’s bag,
All up in a bundle."
Though it used to be a public holiday, it was abolished by the Victorians in 1859.
The children would wear sprigs of oak in their caps, but sometimes they were hidden. If you were found before noon without the sprig of oak you would expect to get a pretty severe pinch and a shout of "Shig-Shag", but if you then produced the sprig you could then pinch your accuser as many times as you liked. If you kept the emblem after noon then some kind friend would step on your toes as a reminder.
If anyone applied the term "Shig shag" to a youngster found without an oakleaf alter twelve o'clock on May 29th the likely retort would be:
"Shig shag's gone past,
You're the biggest fool at last
When Shig shag comes again,
You'll be the biggest fool then."
Maybe 'Royal Oak Day', 'Shig-Shag Day', or whatever, should be revived? Anybody up for wearing a sprig of oak on Friday? Paul. as events co-ordinator, how about next year?