Traditions and holidays of Great Britian

And no Halloween party is complete without at least one scary story. It helps too create an air of mystery.

Certain fortunetelling methods began in Europe hundreds of years ago and became an important part of Halloween. For example, such object as a coin, a ring, and a thimble were baked into a cake or other food. It was believed that the person who found the coin in the cake would become wealthy. The one who found the ring would marry soon, but the person who got the thimble would never get married.

Unfortunately now most people do not believe in evil spirits. They know that evil spirits do not break steps, spill garbage or pull down fences. If property is damaged, they blame naughty boys and girls. Today, Halloween is still a bad night for the police…March 1st is a very important day for Welsh people. It’s St. David’s Day. He’s the “patron” or national saint of Wales. On March 1st, the Welsh celebrate St. Davids Day and wear daffodils in the buttonholes of their coats or jackets.

On February 14th it’s Saint Valentine’s Day in Britain. It is not a national holiday. Banks and offices do not close, but it is a happy little festival in honour of St. Valentine. On this day, people send Valentine cards to their husbands, wives, girlfriends and boyfriends. You can also send a card to a person you do not know. But traditionally you must never write your name on it. Some British newspapers have got a page for Valentine’s Day messages on February 14th.

This lovely day is widely celebrated among people of all ages by the exchanging of “valentines”.

Saint Valentine was a martyr but this feast goes back to pagan times and the Roman feast of Lupercalia. The names of young unmarried girls were put into a vase. The young men each picked a name, and discovered the identity of their brides.

This custom came to Britain when the Romans invaded it. But the church moved the festival to the nearest Christian saint’s day: this was Saint Valentine’s Day.

Midsummer’s Day, June 24th, is the longest day of the year. On that day you can see a very old custom at Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, England. Stonehenge is on of Europe’s biggest stone circles. A lot of the stones are ten or twelve metres high. It is also very old. The earliest part of Stonehenge is nearly 5,000 years old. But what was Stonehenge? A holy place? A market? Or was it a kind of calendar? Many people think that the Druids used it for a calendar. The Druids were the priests in Britain 2,000 years ago. They used the sun and the stones at Stonehenge to know the start of months and seasons. There are Druids in Britain today, too. And every June 24th a lot of them go to Stonehenge. On that morning the sun shines on one famous stone – the Heel stone. For the Druids this is a very important moment in the year. But for a lot of British people it is just a strange old custom.

Londoners celebrate carnivals. And one of them is Europe’s biggest street carnival. A lot of people in the Notting Hill area of London come from the West Indies – a group of islands in the Caribbean. And for two days in August, Nutting Hill is the West Indies. There is West Indian food and music in the streets. There is also a big parade and people dance day and night.

April 1st is April Fool’s Day in Britain. This is a very old tradition from the Middle Ages (between the fifth and fifteenth centuries). At that time the servants were masters for one day of the year. They gave orders to their masters, and their masters had to obey.

Now April Fool’s Day is different. It is a day for jokes and tricks.

One of the most interesting competitions is the university boat race.

Oxford and Cambridge are Britain’s two oldest universities. In the nineteenth century, rowing was a popular sport at both of them. In 1829 they agreed to have a race. They raced on the river Thames and the Oxford boat won. That started a tradition. Now, every Spring, the University Boat Race goes from Putney to Mortlake on the Thames. That is 6,7 kilometres. The Cambridge rowers wear light blue shirts and the Oxford rowers wear dark blue. There are eight men in each boat. There is also a “cox”. The cox controls the boat. Traditionally coxes are men, but Susan Brown became the first woman cox in 1981. She was the cox for Oxford and they won.

An annual British tradition, which captures the imagination of the whole nation is the London to Brighton Car Rally in which a fleet of ancient cars indulges in a lighthearted race from the Capital to the Coast.

When the veteran cars set out on the London – Brighton run each November, they are celebrating one of the great landmarks in the history of motoring in Britain – the abolition of the rule that every “horseless carriage” had to be preceded along the road by a pedestrian. This extremely irksome restriction, imposed by the Locomotives on Highways Act, was withdrawn in 1896, and on November of that year there was a rally of motor-cars on the London - Brighton highway to celebrate the first day of freedom – Emancipation Day, as it has known by motorists ever since.

Emancipation is still on the first Sunday of the month, but nowadays there is an important condition of entry – every car taking part must be at least 60 years old.

The Run is not a race. Entrants are limited to a maximum average speed of 20 miles per hour. The great thing is not speed but quality of performance, and the dedicated enthusiasts have a conversation all their own.

The Highland Games – this sporting tradition is Scottish. In the Highlands (the mountains of Scotland) families, or “clans”, started the Games hundreds of years ago.Some of the sports are the Games are international: the high jump and the long jump, for example. But other sports happen only at the Highland Games. One is tossing the caber. “Tossing” means throwing, and a “caber” is a long, heavy piece of wood. In tossing the caber you lift the caber (it can be five or six metres tall). Then you throw it in front of you.