Grottoes, Scallops and Dancing With the Devil

Today, if today is 25th July (you see, I've lost track of time already), is St. James' Day, Grotto Day and St Christopher's Day. It is also the day, back in 1688, when a Richard Dugdale, whilst attending Lancashire's Whalley Rushbearing feast, decided to sell his soul to the Devil.

(I hope this isn't typical Lancashire behaviour, given I am myself married to a Lancashire lad. Andy assures me it isn't, but then he is very easily distracted and we all know what an opportunist the Devil can be.)

Anyway, in exchange for his soul, Dugdale got to be the most terrific dancer this side of the Great Dancing Kingdom of Dancedom, in the Universe of Dancelot. He performed his dance before an amazed crowd; I suspect they were more amazed at the fits, talking in tongues and vomiting of stones that accompanied the dancing rather than the dancing itself. And the fact that as Dugdale danced, a boil travelled from his leg up to his chest where it began to supperate in quite magnificent fashion. The Devil drives a hard bargain, methinks.

Dugdale was duly exorcised by a group of men who went about their task by ridiculing the Devil with such pithy and cutting witticisms as 'Canst thou dance no better, Satan? Is this the top of skill and pride, to shuffle feet and brandish knees thus, and trip like a doe, and skip like a squirrel? And wherein differs thy leapings fromt the hoppings of a frog, or bounces of a goat, or friskings of a dog, or gesticulations of a monkey? Dost thou not twirl like a calf that has had a turn, and twitch up thy houghs like a spring-haught tit?'

Well, such insults would have had me crying in my boots, that's for sure.

St James, on the other hand, who had been dead a few days, managed, whilst being transported to his funeral, to rescue a man from drowning by covering him with scallops. No mean feat for a dead dude, don't you think? In honour of St James, pilgrims collect a scallop shell from his resting place in Compostella in Spain. Possession of a scallop shell means favourable treatment on Judgement Day. Who'd have thought it, eh?

Failing a trip to Compostella, one can collect a scallop shell from a shell grotto with the rhyme 'Please to remember the Grotto, it's only once a year; Father's gone to sea, Mother's gone to fetch him back, so please remember me.'

No, I wasn't sure either. But I think I'll manage a trip to Whistable next oyster festival and see if I can pick up a shell or two there. Just to be on the safe side.

Tomorrow is St Anne's Day, which is not for the faint-hearted apaprently. I wouldn't know, because tomorrow I am going to the dentist for a check-up, and then I'm going into Laura Ashley to get some wallpaper for the stairs. It's in eau-de-nil, don't you know, which will be quite a change from the roasted red pepper shade that currently dons the walls.

All I need after that is to find a good painter and decorator. I am having enormous problems securing the services of one at the moment, which is partly why I refuse to believe the recession is as bad as people are making out.

It's going to be a busy week: I can feel it in my aura.