Folklore of Northamptonshire Read online

  The skeleton of the garland is formed of two hoops of osier or hazel crossing each other at right angles, affixed to a staff, about five feet long, by which it is carried; the holes are twined with flowers and ribbons so that part of them is visible. In the centre is placed one, two, or three dolls according to the size of the garland and the means of the youthful exhibitors; great emulation is excited among them [the makers] and they vie with each other in collecting the choicest flowers and adorning the dolls in the gayest attire; ribbon streamers of all the varied colours of the rainbow, the lacemakers adding their spangled bobbins, decorate the whole.

  A sketch of a Northamptonshire May garland from William Hone’s Every-Day Book, 1824.

  Taking the garland from house to house could have a remarkable effect on the occupants of each home visited. H. Bazely wrote about his experiences of May Day at Ecton in 1883, when he and his elder brother were woken by their father coming up the stairs with a large garland made of hawthorn branches tied in hoops decked with dolls, flowers, and ribbons, one doll larger and more beautiful than the others, as the centrepiece. They went downstairs and returned it to the ‘sweet golden-haired Queen of May with the lovely eyes’ and her attendants with shining happy faces waiting below. They then gave a verse of their May song:

  This is the first of May, the bright time of the year

  And if I live to tarry here, I’ll call another year.

  Anne Baker, in 1854, mentions that in some of the villages around Northampton a garlanded doll was carried round from place to place concealed in a large cloth and occupants were asked: ‘Would you like to see the Queen of May?’ If the reply was in the affirmative they would chant simple ditties and conclude with wishes for a joyful May. This accords with what a resident of Rothwell, Norah Field, said of her May Day experiences in the town in the early part of the twentieth century:

  All the girls at that time used to decorate a washing basket with flowers, a doll or dolls and a money box in the middle. They would come and ask for flowers the day before and then come in pairs on May Day, the basket covered with a sheet to see if the householder wanted to ‘see the May Garland’. If they said ‘yes’ then the sheet would come off. One lady always insisted they sing the May Song before putting money in the box.

  Going round from house to house, the children would sing a special May song; either one written by someone in the village or the standard May song, which had lyrical variations depending on where it was sung in the county. These variations are discussed in Chapter Ten.

  Some villages had a formal May Queen crowning ceremony. A pretty girl was elected as May Queen and, in some cases, a May King would also be chosen, who would give the queen a kiss and swear allegiance to her. A rare copy of a script for one of these ceremonies has come down to us, with a slight variation in that the May King has been substituted with a Captain of the Guard. The script is from Woodnewton and dates from the first decade of the twentieth century:

  Presenter of the Garland:

  You are the Queen of May, as May throws over the land

  Bright garlands of beauty. My loyal duty is thus with loving hand,

  To put this Garland green, over the neck of our Queen.

  The May Queen, Bessie Palmer, with her retinue and the maypole outside the National School in Oundle, c. 1910.

  May Queen (on receiving the garland):

  For your loyal hand to deck, low I bend my royal neck,

  Lovely is your garland gay, that adorns your Queen of May.

  Presenter of the Crown (the crowning):

  Spring is the Queen of the year, and May is the Queen of Spring,

  You are the Queen of May most dear, and so your crown I bring.

  Bend your pretty head, I pray, that I may crown you Queen of May.

  May Queen (on receiving the crown):

  Brighter far than gold or gem, is this flowery diadem,

  I wear upon my brow today, that does crown your Queen of May.

  Presenter of the Sceptre:

  Gentle is your royal mien, rule as gently, lovely Queen,

  Now your flowery sceptre hold, bright with gems of green and gold.

  May Queen (on receiving the sceptre):

  Sceptre, bright with leaf and flower, token of my queenly power,

  Love shall guide its royal sway, while I rule as queen of May.

  Captain of the May Queen’s Guard:

  I am the Captain of the May Queen’s Guard,

  If anyone harms her, I shall fight him hard.

  Men of the Guard:

  So shall we!

  Captain of the May Queen’s Guard:

  And that no danger shall come upon her,

  I pledge my life and my sacred honour!

  Men of the Guard:

  So do we!

  Captain of the Queen’s Guard:

  And now I bravely take my stand,

  The May Queen’s Guard at the Queen’s right hand.

  Men of the guard:

  So do we!

  May celebrations in Castle Fields, Wellingborough, c. 1910.

  At one time, cottages in the north of the county had their own unique way of celebrating May. A native of Fotheringhay, Charles Peach, reminisced about his childhood in the village and described a custom which existed for many years until the beginning of the nineteenth century. A long branch of a tree, with hawthorn being the most esteemed and symbolic, was ceremoniously planted in a specially made hole at the front of the house and made to look as if it was growing. Known as the May Bush, it would be decorated like a Christmas tree, which was introduced into the country many years later. It was garnished with cowslips, bluebells, primroses and other spring flowers. Apart from its attractiveness, there was an underlying notion of spring being honoured and the spirit of the season bestowing its beneficial power on the household.

  There was also another custom unique to the north of the county, which involved a rope being strung across the street from chimney to chimney, from which garlands were suspended close to the centre. At Fotheringhay and Polebrook, children would compete with each other by attempting to successfully throw small balls through the centre of the hoop of the garland. At Nassington, the Mayers would dance beneath the rope and there would also be a game known as Duck under Water, in which the young people ran in pairs under a handkerchief held aloft by two persons standing on either side with extended arms.

  Nassington also had a strange custom which took place at Sulehay, an extraparochial area of meadowland between Nassington and Yarwell. On May Eve, a barrier was placed across entrance to a particular field by local lads. There was a lot of rivalry among them, so much so that they watched through the night until the break of dawn, when the girls came along with the cows. Then they would see which cow could leap over the barrier first, the successful animal being led round village in the afternoon, its horns decorated with ribbons. The least successful one was decked with nettles, elder and thistles as a token of its failure, accompanied by the jibes and jeers of onlookers. No doubt there were sour grapes and a confused cow.

  In the 1790s, a new character appeared in the May ceremonies and soon became popular: Jack-in-the-Green, a man covered in a frame of foliage who would be led round a village or town to the accompaniment of music and dancing. Chimney sweeps, a symbol of the new industrial age, had adopted May Day as their holiday and festival. It replaced an older festival in which dairymaids, their heads crowned with flowers, danced in the streets with their pails and garlands, for money. Together with Jack-in-the-Green, the other participants would usually be a fiddler and drummer, a Lord and Lady or King and Queen of May and sometimes a fool. The Jack may well be based on an earlier figure of the May celebrations known in the sixteenth century as Jack-in-the-Bush and in the seventeenth century as George-a-Green. The custom of having a Jack-in-the-Green was popular throughout the nineteenth century but had virtually disappeared by the 1920s. There is an interesting glimpse of the old custom recorded by the late Dorothy Grimes in an interv
iew with Rose Clark of Barton Seagrave, recalling her younger days at Broughton:

  In the blacksmith’s garden at Broughton was a plant we always used to wait for. It was the Crown Imperial, a lily-like plant that was always ready for May Day. It would be placed on top of the green man’s face and frame and used to nod as he bowed in time to the singing. It was never picked till the green man needed it ...Two boys used to walk with the Jack o’ the Green, one each side, ready to lift off the frame by the handles when Jack got tired ... The other name for him was ‘the Old Man of the Woods’.

  In another part of the county, at Boughton, Charles E. Kimbell recalled his younger days in the village in a book Boughton in the 1880s. He describes how, prior to May Day, a wicker frame would be covered with spring flowers, especially tulips, primroses, ladslove, sweetbriar and flowering redcurrant. When it was finished:

  Jack-in-the-Green. A chimney sweep with blackened face would be enclosed in a frame covered in leaves and led around the streets on 1 May.

  The Jack had a charming appearance and delightful combination of scents ... [it] enveloped the one appointed to carry it, and unable to see, he was guided around by companions ... the honour to bear him was eagerly sought by the bigger lads at the start, but gradually the lot fell to the younger, weaker ones until eventually no one volunteered.

  Although a youngster in terms of folklore and custom, the figure’s association with spring and rebirth is rooted way back in the mists of time. In 1996 a local folk musician, Paul Rogers, wrote a song which perfectly encapsulates the spirit and deeper symbolism of the Jack-of-the-Green, the lyrics bringing the figure and his world of nature to life:

  Over the hills and into the woodlands, out past the trees and

  into the glade

  Catchers catch can, but you’ll never find me, I am the sun to

  banish your shade.

  Bury me deep in my snowy white blanket, you may forget

  me and think that I’ve gone

  I will rise up to colour the springtime, follow the circle and

  lead the bells on.

  (Chorus)

  Up in the morning, gone without warning, there lies the

  spirit that you’ll never see,

  Lord of the harvest, king of the woodlands, I am forever Jack-in-the-Green!

  Hear my laughter deep in the forest, Oak and Ash will bow

  as I pass,

  I am the flames that leap in your fireplace, I am the barley that

  fills up

  your glass.

  Many’s the name I’ve had since my coming, some call me

  Robin, and

  some the Green Man,

  I’ve seen your birth and I’ll see your dying, so join in the Wild

  Hunt, and catchers catch can.

  After 1660, on 29 May it was a tradition in Northampton for families to put a large branch of oak over the doorways of homes or on balconies, and later to cover a statue of the King with oak boughs to commemorate the Restoration. By the 1850s, however, the custom had virtually disappeared, though the corporation still had a procession to the church of All Saints in which boys and girls of the town’s charity shools participated, each wearing an oak sprig or a gilt oak apple pinned to the front of their clothes. Some villages around the town also decorated their houses with oak branches or the children carried sprigs of oak around with them; anyone not wearing one was beaten with nettles. The custom survived longer in Northampton than elsewhere as the town was still expressing its gratitude to the king for giving large quantities of timber from Whittlebury to help rebuild the town after the great fire of 1675, and for exemption from the crippling chimney tax for seven years.

  Perhaps the most highly awaited festival of the year was that of Whit-tide, which got its name from the white clothing worn by the newly baptised. It was traditionally celebrated fifty days after Easter, somewhere between mid-May and 13 June, and was originally a week-long holiday. This was later reduced to Whit Sunday and Whit Monday; the latter is known today as the spring Bank Holiday.

  In the county, two men were chosen before the festival to be churchwardens, their first task being to bake cakes and brew a special Whit ale. Another election was then held for a Lord and Lady of the Ale to preside over the festivities on Whit Monday in a decorated barn or a specially constructed bower in the churchyard, to which everyone would make their way, dressed in their best clothes, to join in the merrymaking and enjoy the food and drink.

  For opulence and innovation, however, it would be hard to beat Greatworth, where until 1785 the overseer for the occasion was not a lord but a specially designated house steward with his lady as Queen of May and a local lad acting as their son. The court was similar to that at Kings Sutton with the addition of a constable and the ‘fool fiddler’ replaced by a different fool, dressed in colourful clothing with a gridiron depicted on his back and holding a stick to which a bladder and calf’s tail were attached. In addition to the barn, the festivities spilled over outside, where a garlanded maypole was erected for the dancers. A unique feature of the celebrations was a rigorously enforced law against anyone misbehaving, the penalty in the first instance being ‘to ride a wooden horse’. If they persisted in being unruly, they were put into the stocks, a sentence humorously referred to as ‘being my lord’s organist’.

  Treading the maze

  Boughton Maze was first mentioned in 1364 in the charter for Boughton Fair granted by Edward III. It lay in a large enclosed area on the green and was known as the Shepherd’s Race. It was made up of a series of grass verges 1ft in width, with 4in trenches on either side, spiralling to the centre and back to a single entrance.

  A sketch of Boughton Maze as it was before its final destruction, resulting from troop movements during the First World War.

  Originally it would have been used in village games by the young people of the area, who walked to the centre for amusement and back out again. On other occasions, the maze was used for games in which young people could potentially win a partner; one version of the game involved an attractive unattached girl standing in the centre while each young man took turns racing to where she stood, keeping to the pathway without falling off or changing track, at the penalty of being disqualified. Each competitor would be counted and the fastest was deemed the winner and won a kiss from his prize, whom he duly led slowly back to the entrance. Whether the pair went their separate ways on coming out or stayed together is unknown.

  This was a secular version of the religious custom of crawling on hand and knees to the centre of a maze on the floor of the church or cathedral as a form of penance, losing any sins and weaknesses en route and coming out reborn, spiritually cleansed. It also acted as a form of pilgrimage for those unable to travel far.

  By the time Boughton Fair had expanded and changed in nature, the maze was no longer used. This was true of many other mazes around the country, several of which had disappeared during the Reformation. Boughton Maze was finally ploughed up by troops during an exercise in 1916.

  Another maze existed at Maze Green,Woodford and it is highly probable that there were others in the county but, as is normally the case, there are no records, crop marks or other signs as evidence. Today, only eight survive out of over 200 known examples in England; two lie close to the border of the county at Wing in Rutland and Hinton in Cambridgeshire.

  Village feasts and special occasions

  Village feasts were originally an annual week-long affair in honour of the dedication of the local church but over the centuries they were whittled down to a single day and many died out during the nineteenth century.

  By the turn of the twentieth century, church feast days often involved gardens being tidied, hedges trimmed, hams boiled, special cakes – especially cheese cakes – baked, cowslip wine made, sports events held and the community packing the church. A new feature of the day, especially in the north of the county, was decorated bicycles: children adorned their bikes with flowers, foliage, ribbons and flags and the most
attractive designs won prizes. It began as a feature of the celebrations for the Coronation of Edward VII in 1902. The custom was particularly popular at Nassington and Geddington and lingered on in some parts of the county until the 1940s.

  Some of the feasts were eagerly awaited events, as in Aynho where the event centred around the annual summer flower show. Until recent years, the village was probably the last place in the county to indulge in a form of the old custom of pig running, which took place during wakes and other festivities, in which the tail of a large pig was well soaped and the pig let loose in the street to be chased by males of all ages. The person catching the animal – and keeping hold of it – would receive a prize. The Aynho game of Greasing the Pig was similar but took place in a confined area in which contestants attempted to catch a specially greased young pig without using gloves or wiping off the fat.

  Two girls proudly pose for the camera in the grounds of the Rectory at Geddington, during a Decorated Bicycle event, c. 1910.

  As was the case elsewhere around the realm, the Golden and Diamond Jubilees of Queen Victoria, in 1887 and 1897 respectively, were celebrated with street parties and concerts and the decoration of homes. Earlier, in 1839, parts of Northamptonshire had welcomed the arrival of the young Queen and her consort Albert, who were passing through the county en route to Burghley House for a christening. Arriving at Weedon by train, the couple disembarked and travelled the rest of the way via Northampton by horse-drawn carriage. This account comes from Vic Lawrence of Kettering:

  Triumphal arches were erected and houses and streets were specially festooned for the occasion in those towns and villages along the route the royal couple were passing. At Kettering, flags, foliage, and flowers could be seen everywhere, some in the form of crowns and hearts, and there were four arches formed of greenery and lettering spanning the roads, which were crowded with people, including 1,100 Sunday school children, some standing in wagons, and who later enjoyed a ‘grand tea’ in some of the town’s school buildings. The bells of the parish church were rung, as the royal couple passed through the cheering masses, to the Market Place, where, to the strains of the national anthem, they alighted at The White Hart for refreshment and a change of horses. [The inn was later renamed The Royal] Accompanied by a troop of the Northamptonshire Yeomanry, they proceeded on their way, with more villagers lining the route, waving flags as the procession passed through Weekley, past Boughton House, Geddington, Little Oakley, Stanion, and on to Weldon where the horses were changed again, at the Kings Arms. They rode on past Deene Park through Bulwick and past Fineshade where the troop left the cortège to return to Kettering. A little way on, at Duddington, they changed horses again for the final leg, and after passing Collyweston and Easton, reached their destination, Stamford.