Now! Then! An effigy of Jack Nelson, wife-beater, is paraded with rough music through Hedon (Holderness) by a furious crowd

18 February 1889: An effigy of Jack Nelson, wife-beater, is paraded with rough music through Hedon (Holderness) by a furious crowd

John Nicholson. 1889. The Folk Speech of East Yorkshire. London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. Get it:

Excerpt

Here we cum, wiv a ran a dan dan;
It’s neeather fo’mah cause nor tha cause that Ah ride this stang,
Bud it is fo’ Jack Nelson, that Roman-nooased man.
Cum all you good people that live i’ this raw,
Ah’d he’ ya tak wahnin, fo’ this is oor law;
If onny o’ you husbans your gud wives do bang,
Let em cum to uz, an we’ll ride em the stang.
He beat her, he bang’d her, he bang’d her indeed;
He bang’d her afooar sha ivver stood need.
He bang’d her wi’ neeather stick, steean, iron, nor stower,
Bud he up wiv a three-legged stool an knockt her backwards ower.

Up stairs aback o’ bed,
Sike a racket there they led.
Doon stairs, aback o’ deer,
He buncht her whahl he meead her sweear.

Noo,’if this good man dizzant mend his manners,
The skin of his hide sal gan ti the tanner’s;
An if the tanner dizzant tan it well,
He sal ride upon a gate spell;
An if the spell sud happen ti crack,
He sal ride upon the devil’s back;
An if the devil sud happen ti run,
We ‘ll shut him wiv a wahld-goose gun;
An if the gun sud happen ti miss fire,
Ah ‘ll bid ya good neet, for Ah’s ommast tired.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations

Comment

The dates are shortly before the pre-Reformation carnival season that year, and I think the event, while probably sincere, was also staged (although the Roman nose distinguishes it from antisemitic carnival and Easter traditions). Wikipedia on charivari: “As species of popular justice rituals Charivaric events were carefully planned and they were often staged at times of traditional festivity thereby blending delivering justice and celebration.”

Bryan Palmer describes another 19th century English example:

The first instance, recorded in 1860, documented the use of the custom in the Surrey and Sussex region during the 1840s. It was suppressed by the police, who grew irritated with forms of rough music because they frequently rendered the roads impassable. Offending wife-beaters were first warned of the community’s wrath, chaff from the threshing-floor strewn on their doorsteps in the dead of night. If the offence continued, the man was subjected to rough music. Under the cover of darkness a procession formed, headed by two men with huge cow-horns, followed by an individual with a large old fish-kettle around his neck, representing the trumpeters and big drum of a serious parade. Then came the orator, leading “a motley assembly with hand-bells, gongs, cow-horns, whistles, tin kettles, rattles, bones, frying-pans, everything in short from which more and rougher music than ordinary could be extracted.” At a given signal, the group halted, and the orator began to recite:

There is a man in this place
Has beat his wife!! (forte. A pause)
Has beat his wife!! (fortissimo.)
It is a very great shame and disgrace
To all who live in this place,
It is indeed upon my life!!

A bonfire was then lit, and the charivari party danced around it, as if in a frenzy. The noise was heard as far away as two miles. The orator closed with a speech recommending better conduct, and the practitioners of rough music departed, encouraged by the offender* s neighbours, who provided beer for “the band” (Palmer 1978).

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Original

The village is in an uproar. The very sparrows, by their lively movements and twittering, and the rooks, in the rookery bordering one side of the village green, by their wheeling flight and incessant cawing and clamouring, seem to partake of the common excitement. A throng of men and boys, aye, and women too, some with sticks and some with old tins and pans, are as eager as bees at swarming time; and are talking long and loud, with faces red with excitement and intensity of purpose. Jack Nelson has cruelly beaten his wife, a gentle, noble, uncomplaining woman, always willing to help a neighbour; but, alas! as is too often the case, united to a wretch, whom to call a brute, would be to degrade the brute creation.

So now public opinion is roused, and Jack must be taught that the whole community disapproves of his cruelty, and if it cannot punish, at least it will endeavour to shame him.

An effigy of Jack is tied on a stang (a long pole, though most frequently a ladder) and carried by two men through the village, accompanied by a motley crowd, with instruments more famed for sound than music. A drum is a decided acquisition, and he who has a horn is envied by those who have nothing more melodious than a tin whistle, an old kettle, or their own hoarse voice. So on the grand procession sweeps, to halt before Jack’s door, when at a given signal all instrumental music (?) is hushed, while the vocalists have their turn. With voices loud and harsh, they break out:

Here we cum, wiv a ran a dan dan;
It’s neeather fo’mah cause nor tha cause that Ah ride this stang,
Bud it is fo’ Jack Nelson, that Roman-nooased man.
Cum all you good people that live i’ this raw,
Ah’d he’ ya tak wahnin, fo’ this is oor law;
If onny o’ you husbans your gud wives do bang,
Let em cum to uz, an we’ll ride em the stang.
He beat her, he bang’d her, he bang’d her indeed;
He bang’d her afooar sha ivver stood need.
He bang’d her wi’ neeather stick, steean, iron, nor stower,
Bud he up wiv a three-legged stool an knockt her backwards ower.

Up stairs aback o’ bed,
Sike a racket there they led.
Doon stairs, aback o’ deer,
He buncht her whahl he meead her sweear.

Noo,’if this good man dizzant mend his manners,
The skin of his hide sal gan ti the tanner’s;
An if the tanner dizzant tan it well,
He sal ride upon a gate spell;
An if the spell sud happen ti crack,
He sal ride upon the devil’s back;
An if the devil sud happen ti run,
We ‘ll shut him wiv a wahld-goose gun;
An if the gun sud happen ti miss fire,
Ah ‘ll bid ya good neet, for Ah’s ommast tired.

The instrumentalists, jealous at their enforced silence, now burst in with an united blast; not a bad representation of musical chaos. And so, with cheering and loud noise, Jack’s effigy is carried round the village, for three successive nights, and finally burned in a huge bonfire on the village green. (Ridden in Hedon, 18th, 19th, and 20th, February, 1889.)

595 words.