Haxey Hood

Описание: The Haxey hood game has been played out at the beginning of January each year since the early 1800’s. It is between two local villages on the Lincolnshire-Nottinghamshire border in Northern England; Haxey and Westwoodside.

It is a boisterous form of rugby conceived following an incident involving the first Lady de Mowbray in the late 13th Century.

Legend has it that while she was out riding, her hood blew away and a dozen gallant farmworkers set off to retrieve it. Her Ladyship was so impressed, that in her will she left a piece of land called the “hoodlands” to the village on condition that they re-enacted the event each year.

The central participants in the game are the fool (whose face is blackened and smeared with red ochre and who wears trousers of sackcloth with coloured patches and a red shirt), 13 boggins (or farmboys) a lord and one king Boggin.

The occasion begins with a time-honoured ritual in front of the parish church. The ceremonial Fool, jumps up on his personal stone to yell out the rules to all-comers. His speech is one of welcome and ends with the rules: “Hoose agin hoose, toon agin toon, if thou meet a man, knock ‘im down. But don’t ‘urt ‘im.”

The reward for his pains is to smoked over a straw fire which is lit beside the stone. This part of the day is called “smoking the fool”. After the speech they make there way up to the field where the action takes place.

The “hood” is a thick piece of rope, about 3ft long and covered with leather. When the hood is flung into the air there then ensues a huge scrum, this is known as the “sway”.

The sway is constantly collapsing and reforming in the mud and swiftly becomes one unrecognisable mass of humanity.

The aim of the “ game” is to manhandle it all the way back to the winners' favourite public house.

It can take hours for the steaming, grunting, groaning, heaving pack to sway the Hood ''home'' through the darkened streets.

Eventually, if the sway arrives at one of the local hostelries victory is signaled by the landlord who is handed the muddy, sweating Hood.

This year a crowd of several thousand turned to see this annual spectacle.

The fun started just before 3PM – when the fool made his speech, then the crowd made their way to the fields outside of the village, for the game to begin.

The hood stayed in the fields and after dark eventually made its way to the village of Westwoodside, and the Carpenters Arms pub, where the landlord was lifted high into the doorway to receive the hood, at about 5.40pm, a fairly brisk game.