“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."

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If they were not offered anything at a house, they would recite the following verse:

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"Shig-shag, penny a rag,
Bang his head in Cromwell’s bag,
All up in a bundle."

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Though it used to be a public holiday, it was abolished by the Victorians in 1859.