Fridays can be a confusing day

That simple sentence led me to research other events or beliefs that affect Friday and an obvious one relates to the weather. There is a very old verse that is used in France as well in this country, and it states Fine on Friday, fine on Sunday; wet on Friday, wet on Sunday. Another one reads If the sun sets clear on Friday, it will blow on Sunday. A clear sunset on a Friday is also believed to herald rain before Monday.

Washing clothes on a Friday used to be regarded as very slovenly and should be undertaken only in cases of great necessity. An old verse was usually quoted as the authority for this – it said Wash on Friday, wash in need; wash on Saturday, a slut indeed.

In some parts of this region, Friday used to be known as Fettling Day because the house was dusted and cleaned after a busy week’s activities. But there was a downside – if bedding was turned on a Friday in some of our seaside villages, it meant a ship would capsize at sea.

A widespread superstition was that Friday is the unluckiest day of the week. Friday 13th is a very bad omen with the worst being Friday May 13th which is too terrible to contemplate. In some rural areas, people would never call a doctor on a Friday.

Cutting hair or nails on a Friday was generally thought to attract bad fortune and this also applied to getting married on a Friday. Good Friday was widely regarded as the worst possible day for a wedding with all sorts of ill-fortune awaiting the couple who dared to take that risk. In the former North Riding of Yorkshire, there was an old dialect verse that read:

Deearn’t o’ Friday buy yer ring;

On Friday deearn’t put t’spurrings in,

Deearn’t wed o’ Friday – think o’ this

Nowther blue nor green mun match yer dress.

Spurrings is an old word for publication of the banns of marriage.

If Friday was a bad day for weddings, then it was widely regarded as a lucky day to be born, unless you were a lamb! It is said that children born on a Friday are loving and giving but no child should be weaned on a Friday. Rather oddly, Friday 13th is widely regarded as a lucky day to be born. Moving house on a Friday was generally regarded as unwise. An old verse said Friday flit, short sit which meant the occupants would be unhappy and would soon move to another home.

Despite the bad omens surrounding events on Fridays, there used to be a custom in rural Yorkshire when love-sick youths and girls would go out silently at midnight on a Friday. They would pick nine female holly leaves, tie them in nine knots in a three-cornered handkerchief and then place them under their pillow upon going to bed. It was then thought an image of their future spouse would appear to them in a dream.

Another romantic Friday custom occurred after a girl became engaged to be married. To ensure fruitful child-bearing, she had to go into a harvest field on a Friday night to draw straws from the stooks. For every son she desired, she had to draw a wheaten straw and for every daughter, it had to be oat straws.

These were plaited into a garter and worn around her leg from that Friday until the following Monday morning. If the garter remained in position for that period, the omens were good but if it fell down, she would not have the children she wished. One important part of this ritual was that her future husband had not to know anything about its use by his future bride, otherwise the charm would not work.

When fastening the garter around her leg, the girl had to quote the words of a special verse, but no-one seems to know the words! Unless our readers know otherwise!

And finally, Friday was often known as POET’S day by some workers. It meant Push Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday.

A howl for aid

It’s not often one sees a pack of Canadian timber wolves wandering unaccompanied along an English country road but that was my experience in the early hours whilst a village constable in Ryedale.

I was on a GP (General Purpose) night patrol in a radio equipped car when my headlights picked out reflections of the yellow eyes of some animals on the road ahead. At my approach, the pack moved quickly into the side of the road and took refuge in a bus shelter. I halted and my headlights held them there.

There were half a dozen and they crowded into that shelter clearly terrified of my lights and probably upset at the noise of the car. For a very brief moment I thought they were Alsatians but soon realised they weren’t – I had found a pack of Canadian timber wolves wandering around the English countryside and it was about three o’clock in the morning.

So what could I do?

I did not know whether they were dangerous and had no means of containing them apart from the presence of the car. Certainly, I was not going to get out of the car to interrogate them but fortunately police cars were equipped with radio. And, as I was near Pickering I guessed they must have escaped from Flamingo Park Zoo as it was then called. I radioed Force Headquarters and asked them to contact the night duty supervisor at Flamingo Park Zoo to tell them their wolves had escaped.

I gave the location but had no guarantee these rather timid animals would remain. Happily they were content to crowd into the shelter as my headlights immobilised them. No other cars came that way, and eventually a wolf-carrier arrived along with two men and a net, and with surprising speed the escapees were shepherded into the vehicle and driven away. The next time I saw them, they were behind wire at the zoo.

There is sometimes talk about re-introducing the wolf to the wilds of Scotland but, quite understandably, there is also concern. Although wolves are now maintained in secure parklands and zoos, the idea of them in the wild, however remote, is guaranteed to cause alarm. To claim they would be totally secure cannot be guaranteed and we know how introduced creatures like mink and grey squirrels have spread destruction.

A few years ago, Sweden had problems with its wild wolves. After almost dying out during the 1970s, they replenished their numbers to such an extent that culls became necessary. Wolves were roaming into towns and villages to attack farm animals and pets and so, in 2009, the Swedish authorities authorised the hunting of wolves.

Yorkshire’s wild acres supported wolves later than any other English county, with hunting ending around the 14th century whilst at Flixton in the East Riding, a special wolf-proof shelter was built “to defend passengers against wolves lest they be devoured by them.” Let’s hope that shelter isn’t needed in the future. end