The Hurlers : 無料・フリー素材/写真
The Hurlers / Giles Watson's poetry and prose
| ライセンス | クリエイティブ・コモンズ 表示-継承 2.1 |
|---|---|
| 説明 | Very few things bore me so much as the modern game of football. The sight of a few overpaid grown men trying desperately to kick an inflated pig's bladder (or still more boring modern equivalent), into a boringly-rectangular net, on a boringly flat and featureless pitch, in front of a boring crowd playing on boring and downright annoying plastic trumpets, is enough to bring on a catatonic state. How much more interesting it would be if the pitch was covered with potholes, heather and sphagnum moss (with the occasional interesting sundew to divert the attention), if the powers-that-be were to dispense with that confusing offside notion (and other silly rules, like the idea that it is wrong to trip your opponents, and that scrums are only for rugby), and if the ends of the pitch were a few miles away from each other, with pubs for goals! The Cornish game of 'hurling' did not put its players in quite the same danger of decapitation as the Irish game of the same name, but it must have been far more amusing than its modern descendant. The picture is a very old one, and has been manipulated in Flickr's new editing programme, which is also infinitely inferior to its predecessor. Here is an old song-lyric on the subject:The HurlersThe ball, the ball! There's nothing like the ball!None of us shall come inside and none of us shall fall!We, the Hurlers, sabbath-breakers, revel in our crime,And now we'll chase the ball forever, 'til the end of time.They gathered upon Bodmin MoorUpon a merry Sunday,And wished that they could end the gameA week or so from Monday,For hurling is a game for all,For rich, for poor, for fools,The better for being unencumberedBy such things as rules.They kicked off at the CheesewringNot far from Stowe's Pound,And as the ball bounced down the hillEach shot off like a hound.Upon the ground behind the ball,Their feet beat like bass drums,And blue were the contusionsThey got from all the scrums.Two pipers played a merry jigWhile the mist was swirling,And loud were all the lusty shoutsOf all who went a-hurling.And merrily did they dispenseWith the referee's opinions:One goalmouth was the Henwood InnAnd one the inn at Minions.Sometimes the ball went northwardAnd sometimes to the south,Sometimes a player had to spitThe teeth out from his mouth.Sometimes they ran on through a hedge,Sometimes into a pond;At last the ball bounced to the south,Through bracken and beyond.And soon the Henwood boys seemed poisedFor one last dash victorious;One well-aimed shot at Minions Inn,The ending would be glorious!They'd pound their fists upon the bar,Get drunk on Minions ale –But then the fellow with the ballTurned ghastly white and pale.The local killjoy, he stepped out,"This is the sabbath day!All of you are sinful soulsAnd all of you must pay,For you are unrepentant allAnd nothing can atone!"The local killjoy twitched his noseAnd turned them all to stone.But if that was their punishmentThen none of them lamented;The killjoy was a craven foolTo think that they repented:For sabbath day and working dayAre now for hurling all,And they shall be eternallyA-playing at the ball.Song Lyric by Giles Watson, 2000. The Hurlers comprise an early Bronze Age triple stone circle between the towns of Henwood and Minions on Bodmin Moor, North Cornwall. Two outlying menhirs to the west are known locally as "The Pipers", and legend has it that the stones are the petrified remains of people caught playing the game of hurling on the Sabbath. Ronald Hutton relates that the Cornish game of hurling was like football, but played with a smaller ball. There were other fundamental differences between the rules of hurling and those of its more genteel northern cousin, the most notable being that the Cornish game did not permit such extravagances as goalposts. According to Hutton, "Richard Carew, writing in 1602, commented that in the east of the country there were goals, marked by bushes two or three hundred yards apart, but in the west the victor was the person who got the ball to a village, or a gentleman's seat, which could be miles from the starting point. He compared the ball 'to an infernal spirit, for whosoever catcheth it fareth straightways like a madman, struggling and fighting with those that go about to hold him." (The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain, Oxford, 1996, p. 155.) Those of more Puritanical spirit no doubt frowned on such misrule at any time, let alone on a Sunday. The legend itself was recorded by William Camden in l6l0. |
| 撮影日 | 2012-05-16 23:09:23 |
| 撮影者 | Giles Watson's poetry and prose , Oxfordshire, England |
| タグ | |
| 撮影地 | Middlewood, England, United Kingdom 地図 |