Making faces at Egremont Crab Fair

By

 The Cumbrian town of Egremont is known for its Crab Fair, held annually on the third Saturday in September. Though it is a coastal town, the Fair gets its name not from the pincery sort of crab, but from crab apples. The Lord of Egremont started a tradition of giving away crab apples, and this tradition continues with the Parade of the Apple Cart, which sees apples thrown to the crowd gathered along the Main Street.

The Fair has a long history: it began in 1267, and has been held continuously since then, except for interruptions due to war and, more recently, Covid. 

Sporting events are a key part of the Fair. One such event is Cumberland wrestling, an ancient lakeland sport. Wrestlers lock hands behind one another's back: the object is to lift up your partner and throw them onto the ground, face up. Cock fighting and bull baiting used to be held, but these practices ended in the mid-nineteenth century. Other events include pipe smoking, racing and street dancing.

The most unusual event held at the Fair is the World Gurning Championships. Gurning involves making a grotesque face: the word means "snarl like a dog, look savage, distort the countenance". In this competition, contestants must wear a horse collar. Entrant Tommy Mattinson has won the contest no less than 16 times.

Contestants at the World Gurning Championships

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Halloween: it's not an American holiday

By
Image
 As Halloween gets bigger and bigger in the UK, many individuals complain about how this "American holiday" is taking over. While a reluctance to open the door to strange children and hand out sweets is somewhat understandable, Halloween itself has ancient roots in Celtic culture, although some of the modern day trappings of the holiday do come from the land across the pond. The Celtic festival of Samhain ('SAH-win') was a pagan religious celebration to mark what was then the New Year and celebrate the harvest. Bonfires were a big part of the celebration, and people would wear costumes to confuse and ward off ghosts, who were believed to wander the earth at this time. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III chose 1 November as All Saints Day, and the evening before became known as All Hallows Eve, later Halloween. The idea of the dead coming into contact with the living continued. Jack-o'-Lanterns originated in Ireland, but originally, turnips were used instead of...
Read more

It's Panto time! (Oh no it isn't!)

By
Image
Dick Whittington at Richmond Theatre, 2023-2024 A traditional Christmas in the UK would not be complete without a trip to the local pantomime. Each year, theatres fill up with families eager to see TV, music and (in recent years) social media stars take to the stage in a fairytale adapted for the modern age, with songs, audience participation and usually some sweets thrown into the audience. Some of the most common pantos are Aladdin , Cinderella , Sleeping Beauty  and The Snow Queen , but the stories are always written afresh and often contain local in-jokes. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a British tradition, panto has its roots abroad. 'Commedia dell-Arte' was a sixteenth-century Italian style of entertainment which made use of stock characters, such as Harlequin, Pantaloon and Pierrot, and a mixture of dance, music and acrobatics to tell a story. By the eighteenth century, this style of performance had made its way to London. The early pantomimes were based on classical storie...
Read more

Happy New Year! The custom of first footing

By
Image
First footing observed in Scotland Well, 2023 is nearly over, and it's nearly time to welcome in 2024. To mark the occasion, I'm going to talk about a custom I grew up with: first footing. The tradition of the first foot is common in Scotland, and is also known close to the border in northern England. My family observed the tradition thanks to my mam, whose family in Cumbria (north west England) celebrated New Year in a big way. The idea is that to ensure good luck for the upcoming year, the first person to step over the threshold of your house after midnight strikes on New Year's Eve should be a tall, dark-haired man. At 6' 4" my dad fitted this criteria perfectly. Even today, now his hair is white, we still send him outside just before midnight so he can step back in afterwards! As a child, I never really questioned this tradition, but researching it as an adult it is suggested that the man needing to be dark-haired is a throwback to the days of Viking invasion, ...
Read more