The Mind Boggles - Some Thoughts on The Haxey Hood Game9th Dec 2003 “The material of legends, fairy-stories and religious myths is far from being a kind of psychological junk-heap, a midden as it were of former mental contents, now happily discarded. On the contrary, I suggest it offers the only hope of making sense of important features of our psychological make-up and the nature of our present society.” Stan Gooch (Ref:1) The Haxey Hood is an ancient game held annually on ‘Twelfth Night’ or January 6th, and although there are no written records of it before 1828, oral traditions link the event to the 13th or 14th centuries. Before the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar, January 6th was celebrated as the ‘Feast of Kings’, the old Christmas. It is claimed, that its origin lies in the following fanciful story regarding Lady de Mowbray, the wife of Sir John de Mowbray who, at the time, owned most of the Haxey parish. It is told that Lady de Mowbray was out riding on 6th January when a gust of wind blew her hood away and thirteen men attempted to retrieve it. One, the village fool, captured it, but lacked the courage to hand it back to its owner. Amused, Lady de Mowbray promised each man a broad piece of land and named the man who eventually returned her hood as the ‘Lord’. The remaining men were known as ‘Boggins’ and were regarded as the Lord’s servants and a ‘Chief Boggin’ was selected to assist the Lord (Ref: 2). The Boggins can be linked to Bogles or Boggarts a local name given to ‘supernatural’ entities that lived beneath the soil and inhabited the northern marshland known as 'The Carrs'. In the summer months, the Boggarts were kept busy attending to crops, but in winter, their inactivity led to mischief. It was during these periods of inactivity, that these ‘guardians of the fields’ were appeased by the offering of bread and salt which was left out for them by farmers. This appeasing ritual is not too dissimilar to the prehistoric votive offerings we have seen at Appleby and at Flag Fen, where tools and weapons were buried or submerged in water, as offerings to the gods to ensure good yields. The sanctity of salt has pre-Christian roots and the spilling of salt is still considered unlucky. The spilling of salt on the site of a sacked town meant that the place was taboo and might not be suitable for cultivation. The bread offering we can link to Holy Communion and is representative of the dead king’s body. In ancient times the feasting on a scapegoat or substitute king had roots in ancient cultures that resorted to cannibalism in the hope that the eating of the flesh would bring the feasters all of the qualities and virtues of the deceased. The Boggins name is rooted from the Gaelic ‘Bogg’, ‘Bogge’ or ‘Boghe’ and is linked to our own word ‘bog’ or all things subterranean and from this we get such words as Bogy - a gremlin, bowel and bugbear - a source of dread. Margaret Murray suggests that the name ‘Puck’, a character from Shakespeare’s ‘A Mid Summer Night’s Dream’, is the Welsh ‘Boucca’ which derives from the Slavic ‘Bog’ or ‘God’ from the same root (Ref: 3). This exemplifies the fall of a high god to a lower state. In our own language it has become ‘Bogey’ and the Scottish ‘Boggle’ both diminutives of the original word implying a small, evil god. In ‘The Aran Islands’ (Ref: 4), the poet and playwright, J.M. Synge refers to a ‘fairy-ring’ of stones that he is sitting amongst. These stones having once been touched by the ‘Fir-bolgs’, a pre-Celtic race who, it is said, ‘disappeared underground’ after near extinction and several defeats in mythological battles with the Tuattha de Danaan (The Children of Dana). It is likely then that the ‘Fir-bolgs’ and the ‘Boggins’ are indeed references to the Ancient British who, when overrun by Celtic tribes, possibly retreated to the hills and lived out a covert existence. The Boggins therefore that ‘police’ the Haxey Hood, are surrogates of those responsible for natural order. Before the Haxey Hood Game commences, ‘The Fool’, dressed in tatters and his face painted, utters a proclamation standing on a plinth of a former cross. Although portrayed as ‘the clown’ of the proceedings, The Fool, demands our attention and the crowd await his arrival with anticipation. It is of course his prerogative to be late and on his arrival the crowd hang on his every word, for he personifies ‘the wolf in sheep’s clothing’. “Hoose against Hoose, Toon against Toon, If tha meets a man, knock him down - but don’t hurt ‘im!” After his speech, the Fool is grabbed by the Boggins and ‘smoked’ over a straw fire. The Lord, along with his Chief Boggin, both wearing scarlet hunting coats and hats decorated with flowers and plumes, lead the other ten Boggins, all wearing scarlet jumpers, along with all the participants and onlookers to a cornfield at Upperthorpe Hill. The first stage of the game, ‘the throwing of the sucking hoods’ acts as a warm-up exercise. The Boggins are positioned around the perimeter of the field which separates the two parishes of Haxey and West Woodside. A game is organised for the children and then the ladies of the village, where false hoods are thrown into the field and anyone who can retrieve one without the Boggins touching, it receives an award. The actual Hood used today, is a sort of long, leather loofah but the original was made from ships’ ropes 24” X 23/4” diameter and then bound with leather. The Hood is then thrown into the field and a ‘sway’ is formed around it. The object of the game is to deliver the hood by pushing the sway to a public house in Haxey in the east, or West Woodside in the west of the parish. The heaving, sweating sway often collapses in the mud and is soon an unrecognisable steaming mass. The hood remains in the winning locality until the following year, when the Lord collects it to begin again the ritual of the Haxey Hood. The fanciful story of Lady de Mowbray is unlikely to be true. It most probably derived from the fact that the lady in question, associated herself with an age old custom to derive notoriety throughout the parish and consequently throughout history. In the case of Lady Godiva, a ‘historical face’ has been superimposed on to an age old myth, a procedure we are already familiar with. The symbolism of the story is all too familiar and is mirrored throughout the land in similar ‘fertility’ games. The idea of the battle to push the Hood from east to west is a familiar journey that we witness each day, the course of the sun. The Fool, as we have discussed in the main text, symbolises the chaos element of nature and the thirteen participants is echoed throughout history from the thirteen disciples of Christ, down to Robin Hood’s ‘coven’. The Scarlet tunic or ‘Lincoln Green’ as worn by Robin is associated with the ‘Scarlet-Oak’ or the Holly Tree and in the Christmas hymn ‘The Holly and the Ivy’, we again witness the link with the ‘Oak King’ in the line; “Of all of the trees that are in the wood, the Holly bears the crown." A line which directly links the Holly to the ‘Holy one’, who’s role is perpetuated in the persona of Dionysus figures such as Robin Hood or Shakespeare’s Robin Goodfellow. The King of the forest at the Haxey Hood Game is of course the ‘Lord’ who presides over a ritual celebrated, coincidentally on Twelfth Night and known as ‘The Feast of Kings’. This mid-Winter festival sits opposite the Oak-King’s own station in the calendar at mid-summer or St. John’s Day. For it is the ‘Lord’ who symbolises Dionysus, who was also born at mid-winter who was responsible for supplanting the Great Mother during our ancestors’ transitional epoch between ‘hunter-gatherer’ and ‘farmer’, an age when man first possibly awakened to his own crucial role in the ‘fertility cycle’. The smoking of the Fool is again a reenactment of the ancient ritual of ‘cattle running’ where livestock were chased through flames to ‘cleanse’ them and rid them of evil spirits, an enactment retold in countless myths of man’s attempt to retain mortality. We have discussed how many of these ‘cleansing’ rituals took place before the onset of winter or on Halloween, metaphorically portrayed by Homer in the story of Achilles who was dipped, by his mother, into the River Styx in an attempt to achieve immortality. We know that the May Bride’s promise of eternal life has been exposed as a fallacy and like Achilles, whose mortality was exposed by an arrow to the heel, simply exposed man’s weakness in the face of the Great Goddess. At Haxey, and so many other similar rituals, we witness the struggle between winter and summer, portrayed in a game that reenacts this perpetual battle. Homer’s interpretation of this ongoing conflict in his chronicles of the Trojan War were most probably based upon much older oral narratives, stories that symbolised all of nature’s conflicts. The battle between, night and day, men and women, winter and summer and eventuality the moral judgement of the monist religions. Religions that failed to see the importance of the equilibrium and believed these battles were there to be won. We can only guess at whether Lady de Mowbray was aware of her own role in the story of the Haxey Hood Game. But unlike many of the other ritual games held throughout the land, there appears to be one element missing here, and that is the portrayal of the Goddess herself. Maybe it was Lady de Mowbray, a local, identifiable character who was supplanted over a more ancient, sinister, female character who once held centre-stage at the Haxey Hood Game? We have seen in the main text of this book that the ancients saw their existence threatened by the annual battle that took place each year between winter and summer. These observations were translated into rites and rituals, which portrayed this conflict and featured in myth and legend and festivals like those of Akitu in Babylon, Sacraea in Persia and Passover in Israel. It is quite possible that the Haxey Hood was originally instigated to portray this annual, perpetual battle. But at Haxey, the goddess has chosen to take a 'back-seat' in this macho fray. A Visit to the Haxey Hood Game - Saturday 6th January 2001 After crossing the Trent at Gainsborough, the bushes and trees along the westward road towards Bawtry were littered with flotsam and jetsam deposited here when the Trent burst its banks in the autumn. The surroundings fields were barren and saturated and provided evidence of the power of nature which had rendered this road impassable only six weeks before. The day was bright and cold as we headed towards the North Lincolnshire village of Haxey to witness the Haxey Hood Game. We were advised by a local man to park our car on the Gainsborough side of the Kings Arms public house, situated on the bend of the Gainsborough to Goole road. The game is known to envelop the town and parking in the village during the course of the game can not only leave unwary motorists stranded and isolated - but also with damaged vehicles! Operating a degree of caution and not wanting to be ‘too closely associated’ with the game, we parked one mile away at the village recreation ground on the eastern side of the Gainsborough road. We arrived at 2.00pm, and a one mile walk was required to reach the church from where the game commences and as we passed heaving pubs, the excitement was enhanced by the strong smell of beer that wafted out onto the streets. As we proceeded westwards, the throng of people began to grow and as the church loomed at the end of Low Street, a multitude of people were seen to be gathered around the stump of an old cross outside of the churchyard. Images of The Sermon on the Mount of Olives sprang to mind, as the crowds had formed into a neat circle in front of the stump as if awaiting a messiah. The anticipation was heightened by the late arrival of ‘The Fool’, who nonchalantly made his way to the elevated altar on the stone plinth. Surrounded by the Boggins, he delivered his speech to the masses, engulfed in the smoke from burning straw that at one time blazed alarmingly, and threatened to ignite the trailing rags of his coat! The crowd roared appreciatively and after the delivery of the proclamation, we were all invited to proceed to the top field where the ‘action’ was to take place. In glorious afternoon sunlight, we trudged across a frost hardened field, still planted with the remains of a crop that had been ‘left to seed’ from the previous harvest. The sunlight on the brittle, starched, white stalks added to the atmosphere of a timeless scene, as participants and onlookers proceeded to the pinnacle of the hill from all directions. The hill is central between the two parishes of Haxey in the east, and West Woodside in the west, and a huge, vulgar water tower marks its position in the landscape. Modern bungalows have also been built on the exact summit and this location would most certainly have been the original starting point for this ancient game. Ignoring this modern encroachment, the congregation assembled yards to the east of the obstructions to commence the Haxey Hood Game. The church at Haxey is positioned on the eastern slope of the hill and is positioned in an east/west alignment. Its position on this isolated hill within the Trent flood plain is reminiscent of the possible site of a Neolithic henge monument that was discovered by aerial photography at Beltoft on the eastern slope near to the village of Belton, four miles north on the Isle of Axholme. One wonders if this church was also once a Neolithic shrine that once stood on the eastern side of this isolated hill. By 3.30pm the sun was low in the western sky and any heat that had been gained from its earlier presence had vanished and a cold wind whipped around the occupants on the exposed hill. We witnessed the throwing of twelve hoods involving the children of the village who relished the challenge and grasped their annual opportunity to be as wild and boisterous as they pleased, without the usual warning of cautions exercised by their parents. Red faced and exhausted, their muddy clothing acting as a badge which highlighted their commitment to the cause. The sight of one youngster, who at first glance, appeared to be too old to be a participant in the junior event, was a sight to be treasured. On having overtantly caught the Hood, a look of horror turned to conviction, when in a split second, he decided not to throw the Hood away but to run with it to the safety of the path and to claim his £1.00 share of the spoils. The women’s event was the most lengthy by far that day, although few took part, the holder of the hood hung on for dear life as she approached the path pursued by her challengers. The scrummage that followed was intervened by the efforts of the Boggins who tried unsuccessfully to reclaim the Hood, but were still doing so by the time the main event was ready to commence. After the proclamation of the main event, the Hood was thrown into the air, luckily away from where we were standing. The scrummage that formed around it surged in our direction like a heaving beast and numerous arms held aloft clutched cameras from within the scrummage and showed the commitment of some, to obtain that ‘ultimate’ photograph. The flashes of the cameras illuminated the steaming mass and as it careered around the eastern slope of the hill and in its wake, the air was filled with a strong smell of stale alcohol. We followed a safe distance behind the pack and the setting sun behind the water tower cast long shadows across the now muddy field. In the golden light, the pale, winter moon high in the eastern sky, also provided a celestial presence to the proceedings. The cumulus clouds that had gathered in the north, were tinged with an orange light and formed a spectacular backdrop to the proceedings. By 4.15pm, the cold had become intense and for those of us not involved in the event, it began to take its toll. Onlookers broke away from the group and headed in a growing procession towards the pubs in the village. It was not long before we followed them, and looking back towards the field, the last rays of the afternoon sun were shinning through the legs of the water tower and onto the heads of the heaving, steaming mass that appeared to be heading east, towards Haxey. A half-hour’s walk brought us to The King’s Arms and on entering, there was another surprise. The floor and the seats had been covered with thick, grey, polythene attached to the fittings with strong ‘gaffa-tape’. It resembled some weird fetish club but was sensibly installed to protect the fixtures and fittings from the sweaty, muddy crowd that was expected within the next few hours. We heard that last year the drinking took part in the pub in West-Woodside, so maybe the owners of The King’s Arms had had a ‘premonition’ of the result of this years Haxey Hood Game! Even the pictures had been removed from the walls and small, coded stickers substituted blank spaces, there to aid the restoration of the pub after the event. From outside the pub, the roar of the crowd could be heard, providing evidence of an advancing pack or maybe just the thin winter air playing tricks with natural acoustics, whichever, we took out leave. I awoke briefly at 1.30am the next morning and in the peace of my bedroom, imagined the heaving pit, that at that precise moment was The King’s Arms in Haxey and imagined the drunken filthy mess that squirmed and danced upon its polythene interior. It was however, difficult to imagine the sight that would confront the pub cleaner the following morning! 1. Gooch S. (1972) “Total Man” Penguin p.41 2. For a full account of the Haxey Hood Tale, see Rudkin E. H. (1936) “Lincolnshire Folklore” Beltons. pp.90-97 3. Murray M.A. (1921) “The God of the Witches” Sampson Low, Marston & Co. p.32 4. Synge J.M. (1996) “Collected Plays and Poems and The Aran Islands” Everyman Paperbacks. p.274 |
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