David Castleton (Author)

The town of Lanark, Scotland, hosts a strange spring custom called Whuppity Scoorie. On 1st March at 6.00 pm, a 'wee bell' is rung. This is a signal for children to start running around St Nicholas Kirk, making noise & whirling paper balls over their heads. After three laps have been completed, coins are thrown, for which the children 'scramble'. Some say the custom originated in attempts to drive off evil winter spirits. Others claim it recalls the relaxing of curfews as the days lengthened, meaning children could play out longer. Yet another explanation asserts the custom stems from a religious practice in which penitents were whipped as they ran around the church before bathing (or 'scooring') their wounds in the River Clyde. The first written records of the custom date to the mid-1800s though one writer in 1893 claimed the practice was already 120-years-old. #weird #FolkloreSunday #folklore #Scotland #churches #history

In St Levan's Churchyard, Cornwall, is St Levan's Stone - a boulder split down the middle. It's said that St Levan would sit on the stone to rest after his fishing trips. One day, he struck the stone with his staff and repeated this rhyme:

" When with panniers astride,
A packhorse can ride,
Through St Levan's Stone,
The world will be done."

Thankfully, the split is not yet wide enough to usher in the apocalypse. Some have speculated that the stone, due to its 'labial' shape, may have been a focus of pagan rituals that later transferred themselves to a Christian saint. #mythologymonday #folklore #weird #mythology #Cornwall #history