By Hook or By Crook

Devon Hedge near Coffinswell - cant actually see the use of Crooks here - image by Derek Harper [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

""By Hook or by Crook"—I imagine that the expression "By hook or by crook" is in very general use throughout England. It was familiar to my ear forty years ago in Surrey, and within these four years its origin was (to my satisfaction at the moment) brought home to my comprehension in the north of Devon, where the tenant of a certain farm informed me that, by an old custom, he was entitled to take wood from some adjoining land "by hook and crook;" which, on inquiry, I understood to include, first, so much underwood as he could cut with the hook or bill, and, secondly, so much of the branches of trees as he could pull down with the aid of a crook.

Whether this crook originally meant the shepherd's crook (a very efficient instrument for the purpose), or simply such a crooh-ed stick as boys use for gathering hazel-nuts, is not very material. It seems highly probable that, in the vast forests which once overspread this country, the right of taking "Jire bote" by "hook or crook" was recognised; and we can hardly wish for a more apt illustration of the idea of gaining a desired object by the ordinary means—" a hook," if it lay close to our hand ; or, by a method requiring more effort, "a crook," if it were a little beyond our reach. J. A. S.

NOTES AND QUERIES. [No. 25. April 20. 1850.]

[We made use of Hooks (bill hooks) and Crooks hedge-laying on Dartmoor, but weirdly the crook was the piece of wood used to pin down the hedge - a sort of 7 shaped piece of wood hammered into the hedge (hedge here being the name for the bank, not the bits of tree on top.)]

Saint Columb and the hurling of the silver ball #2

Silver Hurling ball from Saint Columb - Original photo by Denis Ellery reproduced with permission. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. (I cant find the name of the contributor)

[cont.] "...Passing from pancakes to “hurling,” it may be necessary, for the sake of the uninitiated, to explain what hurling is. It is not an eatable, as might be supposed from its association with pancakes, but a wild rough-and-tumble game. A silver ball, or rather a hard wood ball, the size of a cricket-ball, eased in silver, and costing about three guineas, is provided by public subscription, or by some generous patron of the game; and on the silver casing is engraved a legend beginning—

“Town and Country do your best,

for in this Parish I must rest.”

The game consists in a contest between the townsfolk and the country-folk. Two goals (granite stones, resembling drinking-troughs) stand two miles apart, one a mile on the road to Newquay, and the other a mile on the Padstow road. One is the Town goal, and the other the Country. The hurling starts from the market-place, and the side that first plants the ball in its goal wins.

For weeks previous to Shrove Tuesday both sides are busy practising in the lanes and fields, and for this purpose “lattice balls" are used—that is, wood balls cased with tin; and it is surprising how quickly the hands are accustomed to catch the ball, even when thrown with great force. The game starts at 4.30 p.m., and throughout the afternoon the country-folk, young farmers, farm-labourers, village tailors, blacksmiths, and shoemakers may be seen pouring into the town, the majority wearing white ‘smock-frocks and warlike countenances..." [cont.]

Burrow 1899

Map - Saint Columb

The Boy's Own Annual. Volume 21. 1898 - 1899

Devon charm to cure an itching hand

Hand

"To cure itching in the palm of the hand

Rub it on the eye,
'Twill go by-and-bye ;
Rub it on wood,
'Twill sure to come good.

Hewett 1900

Devon charm / amulet / talisman against ague

Gallows - By Pearson Scott Foresman [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

"For amulets against ague one must use chips of a gallows. These chips must be sewn into silken bags and worn near the heart."

Hewett 1900

The Fire in the Abbey

The main structure of Glastonbury Abbey, 1900 - By Photoglob AG, Zürich, Switzerland or Detroit Publishing Company, Detroit, Michigan [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

"The kitchen of the abbey, some fragments of the church, and the chapel of St. Joseph alone remain now; and of the origin of the kitchen the following anecdote is told. The abbot had offended Henry VIII., and the king sharply reproved him for his sensual indulgences in food and wine, which he asserted disgraced the abbey, and added that he would burn the monk's kitchen. The abbot replied haughtily that he would build such a kitchen that all the wood in the king's forests would not suffice to burn it; and he forthwith built the one whose ruin we see. Thus runs the story, but the architecture of the kitchen is of an earlier date, and the speech would scarcely have been made to the despotic Tudor."

Valentine  (undated)

Map - Glastonbury Abbey

The Kitchen of the Abbey - By NotFromUtrecht (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Corfe Castle - part 2

"Edward was hunting in the forest of Wareham one day, when the clever, cankered dwarf of the queen, Wulstan, came up to him, and by some story of strange bird or beast, lured the boy-king to follow him into the wood, and leave his attendants. Then, finding that Corfe Castle, where his brother dwelt, was close at hand, Edward thought he should like to see little Ethelred - then ten or eleven year' old - and rode thus unattended to the door of his stepmother's home. She received him at the doorway, kissed him, and asked him to alight. He declined, but asked to see his brother. Elfrida then called for wine, and whilst the king held the cup to his lips, either the queen or one of her attendants stabbed him in the back. The wounded prince had, however, strength enough to set spurs to his horse, and attempt to rejoin his suite; but fainting from loss of blood, he fell; his foot got entangled in the stirrup, and he was dragged a considerable distance, till the horse stopped of itself Elfrida, alarmed at his apparent escape, sent servants after him, who found the poor young prince dead, and his face much cut by the flints of the road over which he had been dragged. The queen ordered his body to be lodged in a house near; on that spot a church was afterwards built. The next morning she had it conveyed to a marshy place, and retired herself to a mansion of hers called Bere, ten miles off. Little Ethelred had seen the murder, and was overpowered by his mother's wickedness; he reproached her so bitterly, in his childish grief and horror, that she beat him most severely with the great wax tapers, the only weapons she had near her hand. Ethelred was so much hurt that he hated the sight of them ever afterwards. Edward's body was found, and the murder discovered; but Ethelred, who of course was quite innocent of his beloved brother's death, succeeded to the throne. Dunstan was compelled to crown him ; but as he placed the royal diadem on the boy's head, he accompanied the act with an awful prophecy. It ran thus: "Even as, by the death of thy brother, thou didst aspire to the kingdom, hear the decree of Heaven. The sin of thy wicked mother and of her accomplices shall rest upon thy head, and such evils shall fall upon the English as they have never yet suffered, from the days when they first came into the isle of Britain even until the present time."..." [cont.]

Valentine (undated)

Saint Ruan's or Saint Rumon's Well, Grade

"The well is about a quarter of a mile from Grade Church, rudely built of granite. Its water is used for all baptisms in the church. St. Rumon is believed to have come as a missionary from Ireland in the ninth or tenth century, and to have dwelt in a wood near Grade Church and the Lizard Point, having a cell and chapel, and regardless of the wild beasts which then roamed there. His name excited such reverence, that his remains were removed to Tavistock Abbey."

Hope 1893

Map -Saint Ruan's Well

Map - Lizard Point

Map - Tavistock Abbey

Saint Keyne's Well - part 2

St Keynes Well, 2007 - By Buckstymie [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], from Wikimedia Commons

"...Her nephew, St. Cadock, making a pilgrimage to the same place, in surprise found her, and tried to persuade her to return to Brecknockshire, which eventually she did. Cadock stuck his stick in the earth, and originated the spring, which St. Keyne gave to the people (in return for the church) which they had dedicated in her honour. One of her fancies was to reside in a wood at Keynsham. The chief of the country warned her of the venomous serpents which swarmed the wood. St. Keyne answered that she would by her prayers rid the country of snakes, and they were turned into the ammonites, frequently found in the lias rock in that district. The well is said to share with St. Michael's Chair at the Mount the marvellous property of confirming the ascendancy of either husband or wife who, the first after marriage, can obtain a draught of water from the spring, or be seated in the chair..." [cont.]

Hope 1893

Morva or Morveth (Sea-daughters) part 2

"...Mr Blight, in his "Week at the Land's End," speaking of the church in the adjoining parish, Zennor, which still remains in nearly its primitive condition, whereas Morva church is a modern structure, says--"Some of the bench ends were carved; on one is a strange figure of a mermaid, which to many might seem out of character in a church." (Mr Blight gives a drawing of this bench end.) This is followed by a quotation bearing the initials R. S. H., which, it is presumed, are those of the Rev. R. S. Hawker, of Morwenstow: - "The fishermen who were the ancestors of the Church, came from the Galilean waters to haul for men. We, born to God at the font, are children of the water. Therefore, all the early symbolism of the Church was of and from the sea. The carvure of the early arches was taken from the sea and its creatures. Fish, dolphins, mermen, and mermaids abound in the early types, transferred to wood and stone."..." [cont...]

Hunt 1903