Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/415

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All agree that the body was made of sacking stuffed with hay or straw, among which gunpowder was sometimes put. It was clothed in a black suit—generally velvet.

On the back were put the initials of the last couple married in the parish church in the Old Year. (As the year drew to a close there was great competition to avoid this distinction.)

The "arms" were sticks stretched out at right angles to the sides, and the "hands" were bunches of daffodils, or holly, or "besoms"—i.e. ling.

The head was wooden, and on it was placed a helmet. Some say its face was florid, some bronzed, some black. (The head was kept from year to year; see below.)

The figure was always carried round on horseback.

The Black Lad was always taken first to the Hall, and afterwards through all the oldest—which were generally also the roughest—parts of the town, his noisy escort everywhere asking for money and drink. At the end of his rounds his head was detached and thrown to be scrambled for; the man who secured it receiving money in exchange for the head where it was kept for use at the following Easter. It used to be kept at the Hall, afterwards it was simply exhibited there, or at the estate office, and lodged at some public-house until next wanted. Some say that the body was stripped of its velvet suit, which was divided among old women to make bonnets for themselves.

The body was then taken (some say dragged by the legs) to the Old Cross; there it was hung up and shot at until set on fire (some say it was also shot at while being carried through the town, but this seems to have been a comparatively modern innovation, in no way part of the old rites). It was then torn to pieces, and the fragments flung among the crowd. At this point, or thereabouts, the water in the marl-pit (then known as "Garther's Reservoir") was let out by the cutting of a sluice, and ran down the narrow street now known as Cricket's Lane or Cricketty—a dirty stream flowing the whole width of the way—into the place of the Old Cross. Here, not only the burning fragments of the Black Lad, but any rags, sackings, or mops which could be obtained were dipped in the slutch and used for clouting and