UK tradition?
 

I was born in the UK but now live in Canada. When I was a kid my parents would put our tooth under a pile of salt for the tooth fairy - in the morning the tooth was gone and the money would be left in the salt. Now that I have my own son, nobody in Canada has heard of doing this and I was just wondering if this is a UK traditon or something peculiar to my Mum and Dad?

I never heard of that. Whereabouts in the UK?

We just put it under our pillow and the fairies came and replaced it with money

Wirral - I'm thinking this was just my Mum and Dad then, but they were never that imaginative to come up with something so individual!!

Everwhere else on Merseyside, the fairies (and NEVER, BTW, "the tooth fairy": plain, ordinary fairies, and lots of them) took the old tooth from under your (or rather my) pillow.

If you were the privileged minority who had a pillow of course. Most of us used to dream of pillows....

Is it possible that kmowatt's family didn't run to pillows, and used to evaporate Mersey water for salt to make a pillow?

We used to leave our tooth for the tooth fairy in a cup of water on the landing! It was so exciting to see a few pennies in the bottom of the cup next morning!

Well flanner, this is clearly not a Merseyside tradition then and I have the best of both sides of the river in me, Mum from L'pool and Dad from Wallasey. Don't know about pillows, but I heard plenty of hard luck and amusing wartime stories from both parents. Dad died last March, which is I guess, why I'm thinking about these longlost family traditions. By the way, we took his ashes back to Landican cemetery and scattered him with the rest of his family so hopefully he has a nice soft pillow now.

We had pillows in Mellor and I used to put my teeth under it and get a sixpence. Very soon I shall be putting them in a glass by the bedside. Wonder what I will get then?

Yes teeth always went under the pillow for the tooth fairy when I was a child, The tooth fairy very kindly left a silver sixpence.
My kids now expect a pound and have had more teeth fall out than grew in the first place. Progress I guess...

;-)

Muck

Hi, kmowatt. Another Wirralian here (Higher Bebington). We always called it the tooth fairy,but have never heard of your salt tradition. Nice to have something unusual to pass down the generations though!

The Wirral isn't that far from the salt-producing areas of Cheshire - maybe this was a very local tradition. You could try tracking down the local newspaper and asking them?

Thanks for the morning laugh, gertie3751 :d

There's quite a lot about this in the Opies' book "The lore and language of schoolchildren"

According to them, there are three distinct practices.

In the North, it's most usual to burn the shed tooth, usually after sprinkling it with salt.

In Wales, they are said to carry the tooth into the open and throw it backwards over the shoulder or head.
In Aberystwyth they sprinkle it with salt first.

The third way is placing the toothin or under the pillow, a mat, an eggcup, a clock or in a glass of water. In the night, the fairies remove it and leave a coin.
Sometimes salt may be used.

The book was written in 1959 and quite possibly the twee tooth fairy has crept into Britain alongside "Halloween" and "Santa Claus".

A pile of salt? Luxury! We used to dream of a pile of salt.

In the soft shandy-drinking south, the tooth went under the pillow and in the morning had been replaced with money. It was the tooth fairy that took it.

In East Anglia, the tooth went under a glass and the fairies took it.

I remember when my son swallowed one of his teeth and I had to leave a note of explanation for the fairies.
His suggestion of retrieving it luckily didn't have to be followed.

Miss Prism:

Can't find my copy of the Opies' book. But there's a wonderful example in there somewhere of all this twee folk tradition going the other way.

They described (in 1959) a skipping song, still being sung on streets somewhere in England (drat! Where DID that damn book get to?), which went something like:

"Not last night, nor night before
24 robbers at my door
I went down to let them in
Hit them on the head with a rolling pin"

Which those of a certain age will recall re-emerged in 1964 on Stax as "Jump Back" by Rufus ("Walking the Dog") Thomas.

Were the Opies big in Memphis? Was Rufus Thomas doing a course in English folksong to relax from all those funky chickens? Did Elvis hang round English playgrounds when he was supposed to be in Germany and take the songs back to Memphis? Was there a secret song swap deal between Kennedy (the sober one) and Macmillan?

Incidentally, I suspect all those Britons claiming they remember stories about the tooth fairy are all well BELOW a certain age.

It's the pound under the pillow in our household now. It started at 20p but as it got to be molars and what with peer pressure too...(Sixpence when I was a child

The problem is our family's Tooth Fairy often falls asleep before the child, so explanations and excuses have to be offered in the morning.... said child knows it is me, but likes to prolong the myth. Bless....

Just last night he brought me a tooth - I said go and get my purse, but he insisted on leaving the tooth under the pillow. But I then had to borrow a pound from him!!

Never heard of the salt though..

I am American, and always left a tooth under the pillow for the tooth fairy. We've even had tv commercials featuring the tooth fairy.

However, my mom did live in the UK for two years, she may have picked it up there, too.

Not last night but the night before
24 robbers came a knocking at my door
I ask them what the want, and this is what they said.
Spanish dancers do the splits, the kicks
they turn around, touch the ground
Spanish dancers please come back, back, back

LOL---Sit down quietly Sheila have a nice cup of Camomile tea I'm sure all will be well soon......lol


:-)

Muck

Sheila, I bet you were one of those intimidating girls who skipped with two ropes!

No, I was the one who knew all the rhymes because she couldn't skip for toffee.

Ha!

When I read the original post it rang a couple of bells but it wasn't until I read MissPrism's post that they really started to clang.

When I was a 'little one' we used to put our teeth in an eggcup covered in salt!

I'm from Yorkshire - we have some strange customs :-)

Thanks Miss Prism, an answer at last!! My Dad was an intelligent, well read sort of man with loads of useless and useful knowledge so he must have come across this idea at some point in his reading - just wished I'd asked him a few more questions about it when I had the chance!!

I'm heading to London to visit my brother in March - think I'll look for a copy of your listed book - is this a second hand bookshop sort of item or is it still produced?

By the way, one of my Dad's best stories is about when he was a member of the Cavern Club, which at the time was supposedly a serious Jazz Club and at break times from the jazz bands local groups would come on and play while everyone went to refill drinks and chat - he says that one of these groups no one listened to was the Beatles!! Never knew which of my Dad's stories to believe but this one was always fun.