Thread by @sallyhal3

If you'd like a Halloween tale of local townsfolk resisting religious change, secretive midnight ceremonies and folklore of uncertain origin, a fine example would be the hilltop fires of Hallowtide after the Reformation. A #FolkloreThursday thread:

The tumultuous times would have seen local customs and practises swept away, decried as 'superstition'. There are records of isolated resistance - buried statues and altar items, which gained talismanic or protective status - but some acts were more widespread.

All Souls Day was a time for praying for the souls of loved ones in purgatory and of ringing the church bells to comfort the souls. Protestantism rejected purgatory and deemed the bell-ringing superstitious, thus the praying and ringing was outlawed in 1559.

However the people were not so willing to let this custom go. Court records in all regions show people cited for continuing to ring the bells. Bishops condemned it through the 1580s. The men of Hickling 'used violence against the parson' in 1587 to maintain the ringing.

Driven from the churches, people developed new ways to pray for their dead. In Whalley, Lancashire, families gathered on a hilltop, one holding burning straw upon a fork. The others gathered in a circle to pray for souls.

These were known as 'teen-lay' fires; the word is of uncertain etymology. Possibly related to the Old English 'tendan', to kindle, local terms 'teanle' or 'tend' for 'bonfire', or Old Irish 'tenlach', a hearth.

Hardwick notes in 1872 the fires were called 'tindles', 'teanla' or 'tinley', reporting them to be 'connected with superstitious notions respecting purgatory'.

"The last evening in October was known as 'Teanlay Night', till late years, the hills shone brightly with many a bonfire, kindled for the avowed object of succouring their friends whose souls were supposed to be detained in purgatory."
- John Harland, 1867, Lancashire Folk-Lore.

'Teanla' and 'tindle' fires were recorded in other regions, even those with strong Protestant presence. It was observed in Derby in 1768 that villagers lit 'tindle fires' for 'reasons to do with purgatory', and another observation was made in 1868.

If you'd like to explore a little more, I recommend @clerkofoxford 's brilliant article on the cultural and religious changes to our relationship with the dead, which really stuck with me, especially the peoples' resistance and adaptation.
unherd.com/2020/11/how-we…

Sources:
Lancashire Folk-Lore, J Harland and T Wilkinson, 1867.
Traditions, Superstitions and Folklore, C Hardwick 1872.
The English Reformation and Evidence of Folklore, R. Hutton, 1995.
Stations of the Sun, R. Hutton, 2001.
Have we Stopped Talking to the Dead, E Parker, 2020