A very rude comment from a young man from Bath and some racism.

[I have been in hospital again - and took to people watching again!

This post might really easily offend people, so please do not read if you are easily offended. Its not even really that folkloric.

I was chatting to an impatient young man from Bath waiting for a scan when an exceptionally large woman was wheeled passed in a chair.  The young man was in pain and very bored but now he turned to me, his face momentarily lit up with laughter. The woman was barely around the corner when he remarked "Cor! You would have to plough deep to reach the wet on that one!".  He then went on to further detailed descriptions of trying to have (and avoid) sex with the poor woman.  I was rather intrigued by the agricultural nature of his first comment - he said he was from Bath and dressed like an inner-city boy - clean new white trainers, clipped and jelled hair, tattoed neck and the odd fighting scar, bit scrawny - much like some of my childhood friends from the more run down bits of Bristol.  I wander how ploughing as a euphemism had reached this boys vocabulary? Its probably just my folklore intoxicated mind, but "ploughing deep to reach the wet" on a large woman was all a bit earth-mothery and pagan - even when it was clearly just (for him) amusing and distracting!

Not much else to report from hospital other than Devon old men are more likely to freely partake in racism than Bristol and Somerset ones, even when they are talking about the nationality of the nurses who are caring for them so unfailingly. In Bristol the only racism I heard was directed towards a cleaner in a black headscaff and clothes.  The woman was described as "that". It was all the more shocking because the man didn't seem to have any problems with any other ethnicity or accent or religion.  It is the first time I have seen the results of the Daily Fail etc's attempts to build Islamiphobia. In Devon all of the old men on my ward indulged in casual and not so casual racism towards foreigners both general and specific - pretty eye opening for someone in their 30's for whom this tripe was all left behind in the previous generation in the sub-cultures I grew up in. 

One Devon nurse even forgot herself for a moment and came in with the dinners saying "Eeny Meeny Miney Mo, Catch a nigger by his toe..."  She then caught herself, was greatly embarrassed and one of the old men said - "You cant say that any more!"  To which she replied (trying to dig her way out of the hole) "Oh no, because its not alright to say 'whities' any more is it?" (she was white, with a strong accent, West country but not any Somerset or Devon one that I recognized) As soon as she had gone the retired old men returned to chatting about the Polish and how they only came here for the benefits and also took our jobs...]

Two Devon Ploughing Proverbs

Modern Ploughing near Higher Gabwell, near Torbay (of course this sort of ploughing does not require a holder, only a driver!) - by Derek Harper [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

"He who by the plough would thrive,

Himself must either hold or drive.

Who ploughs deep while sluggards sleep,

Will have corn to sell and to keep."

Hewett 1900

Devon / Westcountry weather lore #18 July (part 2)

Oak tree on Exmoor near Pool Bridge Campsite, in July - if you wish to use my photos please attribute this blog

[cont.] "...A shower of rain in July, when the corn begins to kern, is worth a plough of oxen, and all belonging thereto.

Very hot July, August, and September, breed hard frosts and intense cold for the next January.

If the deer rise up dry and lie down dry on St. Bullion's day (July 4th), it is a sign there will be a good goose harvest.

Dog days bright and clear,

Portend a happy year ;

But if accompanied with rain,

For better times all hopes are vain.

A heavy rainfall in the middle of July shows that St. Mary Magdalene is washing her handkerchief to go to her cousin St. James' fair."

Hewett 1900

Saint Neot's Well - part 3

Roe Deer
By Die4Dixie [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], from Wikimedia Commons

"At another time St. Neot was praying at this well, when a hunted deer sought protection by his side. On the arrival of the dogs the saint reproved them, and, behold ! they crouched at his feet, whilst the huntsman, affected by the miracle, renounced the world, and hung up his bugle-horn in the cloister. 

Oxen -By Allen Drebert (Allen Drebert) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Again, the oxen belonging to the saint had been stolen, and wild deer came of their own accord to replace them, and returned to their woods at night, until the stolen bullocks were restored. When the thieves beheld St. Neot ploughing with his stags they were conscience-stricken, and returned what they had stolen. Such stories as these are represented in the stained-glass window, c. I500-1530, and many more may be gathered from the country people, who affirm that the church was built by night, and the materials brought together by teams of two deer and one hare. They also show in the churchyard the stone on which the saint used to stand to throw the key into the keyhole, which had been accidentally placed too high. (St. Neot was of small stature, and either this lock or another was in the habit of descending, so that his hand could reach it.)... [cont...]

Hope 1893

Cadbury, Dolbury and the dragon

'...Cadbury Castle, a British camp on a lonesome hill, such as could not fail to stimulate local superstion.

"If Cadbury and Dolbury dolven were,

All England might plough with a golden share."

Dolbury is another camp-crowned hill, 4 miles south-east, across the Exe.  It is said that in teh bosum of these hills a vast treasure is hidden, and gaurded by a fiery dragon who, at "the mid-hour of night", may be seen on his flight from one to the other, but no English Siegfried has yet acheived the adventure of this double Drachenfels.'

Hope Moncrieff 1895

Tom, Jane and Jack the Tinker, Part 7

[Part 7] '...The miners satisfied themselves that it was Jane, sure enough, and quietly beat a retreat. Soon was St Ives in a state of excitement, and all Jane's cousins, believing from the accounts given by the miners that Jane was well off, resolved to pay her a visit. These visits worked much confusion in Tom's castle and family. He and his wife quarrel, but the tinkeard is the never-failing friend. All this part of the story is an uninteresting account of fair-weather friends.

Jack the Tinkeard taught Tom how to till his ground in a proper manner. He had hitherto contented himself with gathering wild herbs, -- such as nettles, wild beet, mallows, elecampane, various kinds of lentils, and chick or cat-peas. Jack now planted a garden for his friends,--the first in Cornwall,--and they grew all kinds of good vegetables. The tinkeard also taught Jane to make malt and to brew beer; hitherto they had been content with barley-wort, which was often sour. Jack would take the children and collect bitter herbs to make the beer keep, such as the alehoof (ground ivy), mugwort, bannell (the broom), agrimony, centuary, woodsage, bettony, and pellitory. Jane's beer was now amongst the choicest of drinks, and her St Ives cousins could never have enough of it. Tom delighted in it, and often drank enough to bewilder his senses..." [cont...]

Hunt 1903

Hunt, 1903, miner, Jane, St Ives, Cousin, Tom, castle, Tinker, Jack, Plough, Nettle, Wild Beet, Mallow, Elecampane, Vetch, Chickpeas, Garden, Vegtables, beer,