Immediately after the wedding-ring had been put on, the youths of the company would race from the church porch to the bride’s house, and the first who arrived claimed the right of removing the garter from her left leg, the bride raising her skirts to allow him to do so.  He would afterwards tie it round his own sweetheart’s leg as a love charm against unfaithfulness.  The bridegroom never took part in the race, but anyone else could enter, runners often coming from distant villages to take part.

At the time of the outcry against the custom it is interesting to find one, William Denis of Pickering, writing to a friend and stating that “this racing for the bride’s garter and the taking of the same from the leg of the bride, is one of the properest public functions we have so far as modesty is concerned.”

Elaborately worked garters were worn “by any lass who would be happy in her love.”  The one illustrated here is drawn from a sketch given by Calvert.  It bears the date 1749 and the two spaces were for the initials of the lovers.

A Pickering man named Tom Reid who was living in 1800 but was an old man then, was in his day a noted runner and won many races.  He must have owned several of these garters which are now so difficult to find.  It is said that one of the vicars of Pickering did much to put an end to the belief in the powers of the garters as charms, collecting them whenever he had an opportunity.  He also put his foot down on every form of superstition, forbidding the old folk to tell their stories.

The village maidens considered it a most binding vow to remain true to their sweethearts if they washed their garters in St Cedd’s Well at Lastingham on the eve of St Agnes.  Other practices performed at the same spot are, like the spectre of Sarkless Kitty, better forgotten.

There can be little doubt that the death blow to this mass of ignorant superstition came with the religious revival brought about by the Methodists.  Despite the hostile reception they had in many places the example of their Christian behaviour made itself felt, and as the years went by parents became sufficiently ashamed of their old beliefs to give up telling them to their children.  This change took place between about 1800 and 1840, but the influences that lay behind it date from the days of John Wesley.

The sports common in the early part of last century include:—­

Fox-hunting. 
Badger-drawing. 
Duck hunting with dogs and sometimes duck and owl diving. 
Cock-fighting. 
Cock-throwing at Eastertide. 
Bull baiting and sometimes ass baiting. 
Squirrel-hunting. 
Rat-worrying.

“To make it quite sure to you howe greatly cocking was in voge seventy years agone,” says Calvert, “I have heard my own grandfather tell how he and others did match their cocks and fight em for secret sake in the crypt of Lastingham Church.”

The entrance to the crypt was not at that time in the centre of the nave, and the fact that it could be reached from the north side without going into the church would make the desecration seem a far less scandalous proceeding than it sounds.