Remembering the Easter sun dance over the Wrekin which drew the crowds
You'll have to get up early to witness it. But if you climb the Wrekin on Easter Sunday, you will be rewarded by an extraordinary spectacle - the sun dancing.
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Well, that's what folk used to believe anyway, and big crowds would ascend the summit to witness the sun dance. Presumably they were disappointed, but a couple of centuries back it was a widely held belief and some people swore that they had seen the sunrise leaping over the Wrekin.
Another Easter custom in Shropshire long forgotten is the "heaving" ceremony. According to one account parties of young men would go from door to door with a decorated chair, a basin of water, and a posy of flowers. They "heaved" the girls - that is, lifted them - three times in the chair and then sprinkled their feet with a bunch of flowers dipped in water. Their reward was a kiss.
It happened the other way round too, as there are accounts of female servants lifting men in decorated chairs and turning them about. It has been suggested that the custom was religious in origin, commemorating the resurrection.
A Shropshire superstition had it that bread baked on a Good Friday would keep for years, and similarly sewing done on that day was supposed never to come undone.
Easter is a time of feasting after the fast of Lent, with lamb being traditional, but in Ludlow it was the custom to eat a leg of pork stuffed with ground ivy, which must have led to an interesting aftermath as ivy is mildly poisonous and would probably have caused vomiting and diarrhoea.