Portal:The Folk-Lore Society

“ If the tatterdemalion who is finally smoked represents the spirit of fertility and growth of the past year, the hood itself stands no less certainly for the sun, and the boggans and their chief seemingly occupy the places once held by the high-priest of the sun-god and his assistants; in which case it may be maintained without much exaggeration that ministers of the old pagan worship, having succession from dusky antiquity, continue to survive in England in the closing years of the nineteenth century. ”

“ The day following the fool is smoked. A rope used to be fastened round his waist, the other end was thrown over the branch of a tree, and held by men, who hoisted him up and down, and dangled him over a fire made of damp straw. But as the boggans had nearly suffocated a fool at Westwoodside, and had some difficulty in restoring him, that part of the performance was dispensed with at the time I attended the 'throwing of the hood.' He also used to be smoked at Haxey and Burnham two other days. ”

“ The king of the boggans bears the hood, which is a roll of leather about two feet long, and as thick as a man's arm. He is helped up to the top of the stone, and there delivers a rigmarole speech inviting the crowd to attend him to the top of the hill, and enjoy the sport which is about to begin. He then moves to the appointed spot; the twelve boggans are posted at intervals, five or six hundred yards away, and the game is begun by the king throwing up the hood. One of the expectant multitude seizes it, rushes off with it, and throws it in advance of him to be caught by another of the players ”

“ The midsummer festival has nothing to distinguish it from other similar meetings, but that held on the 6th of January has a sport or game peculiar to the place. The hood is a piece of sacking rolled tightly up and well corded, and which weighs about six pounds. This is taken into an open field on the north side of the church about two o'clock in the afternoon, to be contended for by the youths assembled for that purpose. When the hood is about to be thrown up, the plough-bullocks, or boggins, [2] as they are called, dressed in scarlet jackets, are placed amongst the crowd at certain distances. ”

“ Even the older forms of the tradition accounting for the supposed institution of "throwing the hood" can scarcely be accepted as having any historical foundation; unless, indeed, some mishap occurring to the headgear of one of the Mowbray family resulted in a bequest for the purpose of keeping up an old and popular diversion, or unless it was the Mowbray family which introduced this survival of hoary nature-worship into the Isle of Axholme. ”

“ To the quiet dignity of an old-fashioned English gentlewoman she added the painstaking accuracy of the truly scientific student. "To all faithful workers" she dedicated her book. Her knowledge of Bushman lore was unique. It is pleasant to know that before the end came she had been able to impart much of it to Dr. Bleek's only surviving unmarried daughter, Miss Doris Bleek, who inherits the precious manuscripts and follows up the researches of her father and aunt. ”

“ Twelve farming men who were working in the field saw the occurrence and ran to gather up the hood, and in such earnest were they that the lady took so much amusement at the scene, she forbade her own attendants joining in the pursuit. The hood being captured, returned, and replaced on the lady's head, she expressed her obligations to the men, giving them each some money, and promised a piece of land (to be vested in certain persons in trust) to throw up a hood annually on old Christmas Day ”

“ An interested observer of folk-custom who has lived for many years in the Isle of Axholme informs me that the ancient game traditionally known as "Haxey Hood" seems to be losing its popularity, and that there is reason to fear it will soon have to be numbered among the bygone amusements of English country life. ”

“ Their persons are sacred; and if amidst the general row the hood falls into the hands of one of them the sport begins again. The object of the person who seizes the hood is to carry off the prize to some public-house in the town, where he is rewarded with such liquor as he chooses to call for. ”

“ The hoods were thrown up about midway between Haxey village and Upper Thorpe, close to the ordnance mark showing the highest ground in the Isle. They are stout rolls of sacking (leather for the last) about two feet in length, and the object is to carry them off the field away from the boggans. If any of these can get hold of them, or even touch them, they have to be given up, and carried back to My Lord. For every one carried off the field the boggans forfeit half-a-crown, which is spent in beer, doubtless by the men of the particular hamlet who have carried off the hood. ”

“ It is almost certain that the dead man who is revived by the doctor in the ordinary Plough-Monday play of English rural life symbolises the power of vegetation reviving after death (winter) , [7] or rather, fills a rôle which in far-past days symbolised that power. In the Haxey-hood the character who ends his career by being smoked plays the part formerly allotted to a series of actors for whom the fiery ordeal must have concluded in grim earnest. ”

“ The day after that they assume the character of plough-bullocks, and at a certain part of Westwoodside they 'smoke the fool,' that is, straw is brought by those who like and piled on a heap, a rope being tied or slung over the branches of the tree next the pile of straw, and the other end of the rope is fastened round the waist of the 'fool,' and he is drawn up and fire put to the straw, the 'fool' being swung to and fro through the smoke until he is well-nigh choked ”

“ Such being the case, the present seems the fitting time to set in order and to print the more important notes which I have been able to collect with regard to this curious custom—a custom which almost certainly dates from a period when the great mid-winter feast was still understood by all men to be held in honour of the sun, and of the powers connected with light and organic development. ”

“ He died, we are told, before his hour, broken by the effect of the moral energy that strains everyone of us in these days when our hopes of a free and peaceful Europe have been so rudely threatened. His labours, however, were accomplished—labours such as few men have the capacity and the opportunity to perform. ”

“ The extent and value of these contributions during a short period show the energy with which he worked, both in the field and at the desk, and they amply prove the great loss to science by his untimely death, when his powers were at their fullest, and much more valuable books and articles might have been expected had his life been spared. ”

“ Frazer, they were sacrificed to the power which they represented while yet full of strength and vitality: it being both unseemly and dangerous that the earthly symbol of divine energy should be permitted to decline in strength and vigour. ”

“ The second deals with traditions of hidden and other treasure and the means by which it is won. In treasure are included not only money and similar valuables, but also health, long life, everlasting youth, everlasting love, wisdom, everlasting life in Paradise. With so large a definition the author has cast his net widely. He has overlooked very few of the relevant tales of Europe and Asia. He discusses, among other matters, the dragon as guardian of the treasure to be won ”

“ C. C. Bell, who has long been resident in the Isle of Axholme, informs me that in these days there are often only three or four boggans, as men cannot be found to take the office. He also says that he has never seen the fool smoked, and believes that the practice has not been observed for some years. "At Epworth," he continues, "the hood is played on the day after the Haxey-hood, but the Haxey people look on it as a mere imitation, and I believe rightly so. A friend tells me that in his boyhood Haxey and Epworth-hoods were both played on the same day." ”

“ J. G., the author of a paper in Jackson's Brigg Annual, 1895, entitled Lincolnshire Agricultural Sketches, also says that at the old-fashioned village-feast—usually held, it is to be remembered, on the day sacred to the saint to whom the parish-church was dedicated—it used to be customary for boys to play cricket "with bats of various sizes, with a ball of rags tightly tied with string, and with extemporized wickets, and a football, almost solid, was kicked by youths." ”

“ It went up into the air like a bolt, and dozens of hands were outstretched to catch it, as it was not possible to calculate where it would come down, any more than if they had tried to catch a sky rocket. As soon as a man got it, he tried to run away with it, and of course was balked by the crowd, unless he had plenty of his own friends round him. ”

“ Whoever is fortunate enough to get it out of the field tries to get it to his village, and usually takes it to the public-house he is accustomed to frequent, and the landlord regales them with hot ale and rum. The game usually continues until dusk, and is frequently attended by broken shins and broken heads. I have known a man's leg broken. The next day is occupied by the boggons going round the villages singing as waits, and are regaled with hot furmety ”

“ In the death, on the 23rd April last, of M. Paul Sébillot, the founder, and for many years the secretary of the Société des Traditions Populaires, and editor of the Revue des Traditions Populaires, our French colleagues and the scientific world have suffered a severe, if not irreparable, loss. He was born at Matignon, Côtes du Nord, in 1843, of an old bourgeoise family. ”

“ Brittany. But unsurpassed in charm as these tales are, they are by no means his only, perhaps not his most important, contributions to traditional science. He was an unwearied and methodical worker. Indeed, none but such a student could have accomplishcd his voluminous labours, which have laid his fellow-students under a debt they can never adequately repay to his memory. His longest work, that remarkable digest, Le Folklore de France, in four volumes, is indispensable to every one who desires information on its subject. ”

“ The University of Capetown subsequently granted her the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters, a public recognition of her labours which gave her great pleasure. In 1887 she had returned to Europe, where she resided for some time in North Wales, afterwards removing to Berlin ”

“ By the death in action at Loos on 25th September last of Major Arthur John Newman Tremearne the sciences of anthropology and folklore have lost an enthusiastic and diligent student. Major Tremearne was born at Melbourne, Victoria, in 1877, and studied in the universities of Melbourne, Cambridge, and London. ”