Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/367

 Rh to keep the hood confined to themselves, but allow the crowd to carry it away. The swiftest runners and best jumpers carry it over hedge and ditch, and when it has once been 'laid' on the doorstep of an inn, it cannot be run for again. It is taken inside, roasted before the fire, and basted with ale, the players drinking this ale whilst hot. The rest of the evening is spent at the inn. The landlords of various inns offer sums of money, from five shillings to twenty shillings, to the man who carries the hood to their house.

"The senior boggan, styled the Lord Duke, has the power of settling all disputes.

"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.

"I never could quite catch the words of the songs, or the doggerel speeches. As to the origin of the game, what I have always understood was that a lady lost her hood, and it was restored to her by a man wearing a red jacket. The Dutch settlers may have originated the game, or it may have been brought from the south by attendants of King Edward IV., he having a hunting-lodge in this neighbourhood.

"I do not know whether the bids of the inn-keepers for the hood to be taken to their houses had so much weight with the players, as the feeling amongst the men of taking it to their own town."