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- 2 In the meantime here is an outline of the history of the January Sale. Our present custom is an adaptation of a ritual performed by our pagan ancestors in the period following the winter solstice. After spending the cold damp months huddled in hovels and rude shelters, they quite naturally felt the need for a bit of fresh air. Their limbs were stiff and the atmosphere in the rude shelters was getting a bit too much to bear. Also the animal skins with which they clothed themselves were now itchy, rigid and uncomfortable. So, at this time of year, they would all emerge from their hovels, gather in crowds and jostle each other. By bumping and barging into each other, they warmed themselves up and got a bit of flexibility into the animal skins. It was also an occasion to meet friends after the lonely months of huddling. The practice continued in the Middle Ages. By now, this period immediately after Christmas was known as Jostling Time. It became an occasion for merrymaking; they would sing the song "Here we come ajostling." It was an opportunity for young men and women to meet and begin courtships. And as they barged and jostled each other, they would cry out "Barge again!"- which is, of course, how we got the word "Bargain." When exhausted, they would drink a potent liquor made out of distilled parsnips. While they went through their jostling rituals, the parsnip vendors would gather to sell their wares, with their traditional cries of "It's a parsnip." This expression was corrupted over the years and became "It's a snip." The church authorities soon decided to stamp out Jostling Time. They suspected that too much energetic physical contact and too much parsnip liquor were leading to immorality. However, the tradition was too well established - when it was banned by the bishops, jostling just went underground. The jostlers now found unlikely allies among England's tripe dressers. The wealthy and powerful Guild of Master Tripe Dressers had a long-running feud with the bishops because of a complicated dispute over the ownership of a meadow next to Canterbury Cathedral, and so they were delighted to take any opportunity to thwart the bishops. When jostling was banned, the tripe dressers allowed it to take place on their premises away from the prying eyes of the clergy. So, for a few days at the beginning of January, the jostlers all thronged to the tripe dressers' sheds and when an inquisitive priest asked them why they were all going in, they would reply: "There's some offal in there." So this became the accepted euphemism. When you went to jostle you would say you were going to look for some special offal. The tripe dressers, meanwhile, saw an opportunity to get rid of some of the hides of slaughtered cattle, so, as the people left after a good day's jostling, they were asked to take a hide with them. As the years passed, some tripe dressers used these occasions forgetting rid of the unwanted objects, such as pots and pans with holes in them, worn-out cartwheels, single-pronged pitchforks, smocks that had shrunk, and odd inconvenient lengths of rush matting. The people were so exhilarated after all that barging, and after all the home-brewed parsnip liquor, that they would gladly agree to take home any of the tripe dressers' old junk. Then some days later, a neighbour might ask them about the broken bit of harness or the useless leaky butter churn that they had in their house and they would reply; "Oh, I got that on the special offal." No further explanation was needed. The irony is that the Church itself benefited in the end from all this illicit jostling. Most of these unwanted objects, acquired at these events, found their way to markets set up to contribute to church funds. And this was the origin of the [rummage] sale. [Oliver Pritchett: Weekly Telegraph, January 1994] Tony Scammell Editor