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HOOD |
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placed amongst the crowd at certain distances. 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. This pastime is said to have been instituted by the Mowbrays, and that the person who furnished the Hood did so as a tenure by which he held some land under the lord. How far this tradition may be founded on fact I do not know, but no person now acknowledges to hold any land by that tenure.—Stonehouse's Isle of Axholme, p. 291.
W. J. Woolhouse (Notes and Queries, 2nd series, v. 95) says when the Hood is thrown up by the Chief of the Boggons or by the officials, it becomes the object of the villagers to get the Hood to their own village, the other eleven men, called Boggons, being stationed at the corners and sides of the field, to prevent, if possible, its being thrown out of the field; and should it chance to fall into any of their hands, it is " bog-goned," and forthwith returned to the chief, who again throws it up, as at the commencement of the game. The next day is occupied by the Boggons going round the villages singing as waits, and they are regaled with hot furmenty; from some they get coppers given them, and from others a small measure of wheat. The day after that they assume the character of Plough-bullocks, and at a certain part of Westwood-side they "smoke the Fool"—that is, straw is brought by those who like, and piled in a heap, a rope being tied or slung over the branches of the tree next to the pile of straw; the other end of the rope is fastened round the waist of the Fool, and he is drawn up and fire is put to the straw, the Fool being swung to and fro through the smoke until he is well-nigh choked, after which he goes round and collects whatever the spectators choose to give him. The sport is then at an end till the next year. The land left by Lady Mowbray was forty acres, which are known by the name of " Hoodlands," and the Boggons' dresses and the Hood are made from its proceeds.
In the contiguous parish of Epworth a similar game is played |
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