Burning Judas

[Nicodemus]

I would be interested in knowing the name of the book mentioned here. I have the little book called Liverpool Oddities but I would like to have the Britain one too

Hi Ronijayne. I think the best book on the subject is The English Year, "a month-by-month guide to the nation's customs and festivals from May Day to Mischief Night" by Steve Roud. It has recently been published in paperback by Penguin Books in the UK. Steve Roud quotes from an article in the Folklore Society journal Folk-Lore for 1954 by Frank Turner for a very full account of the custom as it was practiced in the 1950's.

Strange though that in 1887, the practice is reported as going out of date yet just one year later it is reported that there were five Judas' paraded around the neighbourhood and in fact my father-in-law born in 1945 remembers it was still going on when he was a lad.

Hi Ged; I think any definitive statement about a folk practice or custom (including this one!) is liable to be proved wrong.

It was thought that the custom was confined to the Toxteth/Dingle area, but contributors to this forum have shown on this and other related threads that it turned up elsewhere. It was also thought to have died out by the 60's, but again contributors here have shown it was going on much more recently. Folk customs are pretty tough creatures; they can carry on undetected long after being declared extinct!

Nicodemus