Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/369

 Rh called boggans march up the village to the base of an ancient cross near the church. The king of the boggans bears the hood, which is a roll of leather about two feet long, and as thick as a man's arm. He is helped up to the top of the stone, and there delivers a rigmarole speech inviting the crowd to attend him to the top of the hill, and enjoy the sport which is about to begin. He then moves to the appointed spot; the twelve boggans are posted at intervals, five or six hundred yards away, and the game is begun by the king throwing up the hood. One of the expectant multitude seizes it, rushes off with it, and throws it in advance of him to be caught by another of the players; and the game continues thus. The boggans, meanwhile, get possession of the hood, if possible; and when a boggan has captured it he carries it back to the king unopposed. The king throws it again, and the performance is repeated till the gathering dusk puts an end to the struggle. The next day the boggans and their king go round asking for money, which they spend in drink. "Hood-Day" is a general holiday in Haxey. Friends and relations of the parishioners come to visit them; and the ringers ring the church-bells at intervals without special payment.

Mr. C. C. Bell, who has long been resident in the Isle of Axholme, informs me that in these days there are often only three or four boggans, as men cannot be found to take the office. He also says that he has never seen the fool smoked, and believes that the practice has not been observed for some years. "At Epworth," he continues, "the hood is played on the day after the Haxey-hood, but the Haxey people look on it as a mere imitation, and I believe rightly so. A friend tells me that in his boyhood Haxey and Epworth-hoods were both played on the same day." The hood-game was also formerly a favourite diversion at Belton, in the Isle of Axholme; and a paragraph in the Retford News, January 18th, 1895, furnishes an account of the revival of the sport after a lapse of twenty years. The contest, which, like