Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/51

Rh The riding of the stang was not an act of such sheer barbarity, expressing as it did a sense of offended justice, and reserved as it was for occasions when the recognised code of honour was broken. But it was a horrible ordeal. I myself have more than once witnessed the ceremony in the cathedral churchyard of Durham, when, after a clamorous recitation of the culprit’s misdeeds and a sound thrashing, the poor boy was finally bumped against a tombstone specially devoted to the purpose. But the riding of the stang is no mere piece of schoolboy Folk-Lore. It has been and still is widely practised among men. In old times, when law was less powerful than it now is for the repression of evil, the moral sense of the poorer classes, if outraged by witnessing some flagrant wrong, did not fail to find some way, coarse and rough perhaps, of expressing its instinctive feeling. Such was the riding of the stang, which set forth the public reprobation of certain disgraceful actions, e. g. sins against the seventh commandment, cruelty to women, especially the beating of wives by their husbands, unfaithfulness of workmen to their fellows when on strike, and dishonest tricks in trade. Originally the offender was himself compelled to ride, but, as law became stronger and the liberty of the subject was more respected, some young fellow of powerful lungs and obtuse sensibilities was selected as his deputy.

The custom is very ancient. LongstafFe, in his History of Darlington, says: “Eric, King of Norway, had to fly from the hatred of his people for inflicting this stigma on a celebrated Icelandic bard. It was then of a most tremendous character. The Goths erected a nidstaens, or pole of infamy, with the most dire imprecations against the guilty party, who was called niddering, or ‘the infamous,’ and was disqualified from giving evidence.”

The riding of the stang has been practised from time immemorial in the towns and villages of the North of England, and is still resorted to on occasion of notorious scandal. A boy or young man is selected, placed on a ladder or pole, and carried shoulder height round the town, the people who accompany him having armed themselves with every homely instrument whence