Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/197

 C ORRESP OND ENCE.

The Hood-Game at Haxey.

(Vols, vii., p. 330 ; viii., 72.)

Miss Mabel Peacock has followed up her interesting article on " The Hood-Game at Haxey " by a communication in which she discusses its relation to Cornish hurling, &c. Miss Peacock asks what is Mr. Thiselton Dyer's authority for the statement in his Popular British Customs that at Tenby, on St. Crispin's Day, the 25th October, a figure of the saint used to be hung up, and after being taken down was kicked about as a football. Mr. Thiselton Dyer gives as his authority an extract from Mason's Tales and Traditions of Tenby (p. 26) to the following effect : "At Tenby an effigy was made and hung on some elevated and prominent place (the steeple for instance) on the previous night. On the morning of the saint's day it was cut down and carried about the town, a will being read in doggrel verse, purporting to be the last testament of the saint, in pursuance of which the several articles of dress were distributed to the different shoemakers. At length nothing remained of the image but the padding, which was kicked about by the crowd. As a sort of revenge for the treatment given to St. Crispin, his followers hung up the effigy of a carpenter on St. Clement's Day."

The game of ball at Scone in Perthshire, as played before the end of last century, is thus described in the Old Statistical Account of Scotland. The facts stated may be relied on, though one may doubt the reason assigned for the origin of the local custom.

" Formerly, on this day (Shrove Tuesday), the bachelors and married men drew themselves up at the Cross of Scone, on opposite sides. A ball was then thrown up, and they played from two o'clock till sunset. The game was this : he who at any time got the ball into his hands ran with it till overtaken by one of the opposite party, and then, if he could escape from those of the