Friday, April 2, 2021

Good Friday

Out of pure curiosity I enquired within the Oxford English Dictionary online and found these gems:

1825 Manch. Guardian 2 Apr. 3/3
In the houses of some ignorant people, a Good Friday bun is still kept ‘for luck’, and sometimes there hangs from the ceiling a hard biscuit-like cake of open cross-work, baked on a Good Friday, to remain there till displaced on the next Good Friday by one of similar make.

 
1876 F. K. Robinson Gloss. Words Whitby Pref. p. xii
Best flour biscuits are made on Good Friday, to be kept as a year's supply for grating into milk or brandy and water to cure the diarrhÅ“a; and with holes in the centre, we have seen ‘Good Friday biscuits’ hanging from the ceiling.
 
It seems Good Friday has been Good Friday since about 1300AD and not, as I've occasionally been told, "God" Friday.

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