Content area
Full Text
Reviewing Ronald Hutton's The Stations of the Sun in a recent issue of Folklore, Malcolm Jones reminds us that 29 May, Shickshack Day, better known as Royal Oak Day or Oak-Apple Day from its association with Charles II's concealment in an oak after his defeat at Worcester in 1651, most probably gets its name from the word "shit-sack" (Hutton 1997; Jones 1997, 139). This was originally a term of abuse applied to Nonconformists and others not wearing the loyal sprig of oak or oak-apple on that day. Whether or not euphemism, or just linguistic wear and tear, has been responsible for diverting "shit-sack" from its original form and meaning, these have been persistently disregarded, as has an anecdote purporting to explain the appellation (Smith 1998). A version of this anecdote is to be found, for instance, in Francis Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, following the headword Sh-t Sack and its definition as "A dastardly fellow: also a non-conformist" (Grose 1981, n.p.). Grose's ultimate source for the anecdote must be Granger's Biographical History, which dates back to the third quarter of the eighteenth century and explains the name Sh-t Sacks as having its origin in the reign of Charles II as follows:
As the laws, in this reign, were very severe against all religious assemblies which were not of the established church, the Nonconformists sometimes met in very obscure places in the country. There is a tradition, that a congregation of Protestant Dissenters were assembled in a barn, which frequently harboured beggars and other vagrants: and that the preacher, for want of a ladder or a tub, was suspended in a sack affixed to a beam. He preached that day upon the last judgement, and towards the close of his sermon, entered upon a description of the terrors of that tribunal. He had no sooner mentioned the "sounding of the trumpet," than a strolling mimic-trumpeter...