- published: 29 Jun 2015
- views: 35663789
"Hot Cross Buns" is an English language nursery rhyme, Easter song and street cry referring to the spiced English bun associated with Good Friday known as a Hot Cross Bun. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 13029.
The most common modern version is:
<poem>Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns! One ha' penny, two ha' penny, Hot cross buns! If you have no daughters, Give them to your sons One ha' penny, Two ha' penny, Hot Cross Buns!</poem>
The earliest record of the rhyme is in Christmas Box, published in London in 1798. However, there are earlier references to the rhyme as a street cry, for example in Poor Robin's Almanack for 1733, which noted:
<poem>Good Friday come this month, the old woman runs With one or two a penny hot cross buns.</poem>
There are two versions. The simple version features a 3-note descending stepwise sequence; the original features the distinctive falling octave on the dominant. The version current in North Yorkshire has this tune:
-
A hot cross bun is a spiced sweet bun made with currants or raisins and marked with a cross on the top, traditionally eaten on Good Friday.
In many historically Christian countries, buns are traditionally eaten hot or toasted on Good Friday, with the cross standing as a symbol of the Crucifixion. They are believed by some to pre-date Christianity, although the first recorded use of the term "hot cross bun" was not until 1733.
It is believed that buns marked with a cross were eaten by Saxons in honour of the goddess Eostre (the cross is thought to have symbolised the four quarters of the moon); "Eostre" is probably the origin of the name "Easter". Others claim that the Greeks marked cakes with a cross, much earlier.
In the times of Elizabeth I of England (1592), the London Clerk of Markets issued a decree forbidding the sale of hot cross buns and other spiced breads, except at burials, on Good Friday, or at Christmas. The punishment for violation of the decree was forfeiture of all the forbidden product to the poor. As a result of this decree, hot cross buns at the time were primarily made in home kitchens. Further attempts to suppress the sale of these items took place during the reign of James I (1603-1625).