Wrestling and Wrestlers: Biographical Sketches of Celebrated Athletes of the Northern Ring; to Which is Added Notes on Bull and Badger BaitingRobinson, Jacob
History
Wrestling and Wrestlers: Biographical Sketches of Celebrated Athletes of the Northern Ring; to Which is Added Notes on Bull and Badger Baiting
Robinson, Jacob
Wrestlers; Wrestling
The top of High Street, a mountain near Haweswater, in Westmorland, seems a
strange situation for holding Wrestlings, Jumpings, Horse Races, and other
sports. This mountain is 2,700 feet above the level of the sea--a breezy
elevation, forsooth, for such pastimes. Nevertheless, they were held
annually on the 10th of July for many years, and long continued to be a
flourishing institution. The primary object of the gathering was this:--On
the heaves or pastures of mountain sheep farms, stray sheep are kept and
cared for. The shepherds, on the day appointed, drive them to the place of
meeting, and give them up to the rightful owners, who identify them by
certain marks. After this important business has been gone through, a
dinner is set out, and washed down with libations of ale or spirits, and,
by the time keen appetites are satisfied, numerous additions have increased
the assemblage, and then commence the wrestling, &c. It forcibly
illustrates the deep hold these pastimes have in the minds of the rural
population, when they are indulged in at such meetings and in such
situations. From information which has been gathered from an aged native of
Kentmere, it appears that the High Street gatherings fell into neglect, and
were discontinued about sixty years since. They have been supplemented by
similar ones--minus the races and wrestlings--held annually in November at
the little road side hostelry on Kirkstone, and at the "Dun Bull" in
Mardale, where sports and wrestlings are held annually on Whit-Monday.
Mardale is at other times a lonely, little frequented dale, at the head of
Haweswater. On one occasion the landlady of the "Dun Bull," on being
remonstrated with for supplying sour porter in June, excused herself by
saying: "Why, that's varra queer! It _was_ freysh enuff last grouse time!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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