The Hall of Waltheof/Chapter XX

by Sidney Oldall Addy

THE street now called Haymarket was formerly called the Bullstake. A Sheffield gentleman once told me that his father remembered the time when a bull was tied to a stake in this place and baited by dogs, the owner of each dog paying a small sum to the keeper of the bull. He further told me that a bull was baited in Sheffield in order that poor people might know that there was bull beef in the town, which beef was disliked on account of its toughness! At Ashbourne in Derbyshire a bull was baited annually on the Monday or Tuesday of the village feast, which was held on the first Sunday after the 16th of August. After the animal had been baited in the usual manner by dogs, it was killed, cut up, and, as I have been told, divided amongst the poor. I cannot ascertain that in Sheffield it was customary to divide the carcase amongst the poor. But the following curious account given to me by an old inhabitant of Sheffield is very significant. "At the end of the last century," he said, "a master, who had a large order for knives on hand, told his workmen that if they got their work done before Christmas they should have a bull cut up amongst them. The bull accordingly was fetched from Tideswell."^[1] Imperfect: as these traditions are we are enabled by their help to see the origin and meaning of the Sheffield "bull week." It was the practice at Tutbury in Staffordshire to cut up and divide the bull, for Dr. Plot, in concluding a long account of the bull-running in that town tells us that "the minstrels had him for their own, and might sell, kill, and divide him amongst themselves as they thought fit."^[2] Bull-baiting seems to be a survival of sacrifices of that animal formerly made in England. At Bury St. Edmunds a white bull used to be brought in procession to the bier of St. Edmund, "curiously adorned with garlands of flowers between his horns, ribbons, etc." This bull had to be found every year by a tenant of the monastery by way of rent, and the custom was kept up down to the dissolution of the monastery.^[3] The ancient ceremony at Tutbury was most remarkable. It seems that certain "minstrels" came to matins there on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin (Aug. 15) and after the service was done a bull was turned out by the Prior, and given to the "minstrels" if they could take him on this side the river Dove nearest to the town. The custom was kept up long after the Reformation, and a service, according to the rites of the Church of England, was read down to 1778.^[4] On the 25th of August, 1678, bulls were sacrificed on the little island of Innis Maree in Scotland. The 25th of August is the feast day of St. Malruba, now called Mourie or Maree, the patron saint of the district, and called by the people of the district the god Maree.^[5] The bull was sacrificed by the ancient Norsemen.^[6] By eating a part of the viclim the people became partakers in the sacrifice. "These sacrifices," says Grimm, "appear to be also banquets; an appointed portion of the slaughtered beast is placed before the god, the rest is cut up, distributed, and consumed in the assembly."

Let me compare this evidence. In Scotland the bull was sacrificed on the 25th of August, the feast day of the god Maree. At Ashbourne the bull was baited on the Sunday next after the 16th of August—that being exactly parallel in point of time—and its body cut up and given to the poor. At Tutbury the "bull running" was on the 15th of August, and its body was divided amongst the "minstrels." Is it too much to infer from all this that bull-runnings or bull-baitings are the survivals of pagan sacrifices.

At Ashover in Derbyshire the bull-baiting was held at the village feast (the first Sunday in July) in the Market Place, where, I am told, the bull ring still remains a few inches beneath the surface. In Sheffield the scene of the bull-baiting seems to have been changed, for in Harrison's Survey, 1637, it is said that a "croft called Skinner Croft, alias Bulstake Croft, lyeth next new lane west and Church lane north, and divers gardens east," whereas the place which is described as "Bull Stake" on Fairbank's plan appears as "Beast Market" on Gosling's plan. It was near Church lane then and under the very shadow of the old church that the bull was formerly tied to the stake. In Sheffield the week before Christmas is known as "bull week." Throughout that week the cutler works with all his might so that he may earn enough wages to maintain himself and his family during the holiday which follows. When the work is over the men say that they have "getten t' bull by t' tail." The question "has ta getten t' bull down?" is also asked. It would appear that these questions were not originally connected with the making of cutlery, but that they point back to the existence in Sheffield of a public bull-running held at Christmas or about that time. And the whole evidence taken together also points to the former existence in this city of a ceremony similar to the one which was observed at Tutbury. At Tutbury the bull's tail was covered with soap to make him harder to catch, and the Sheffield phrase "getten t' bull by t' tail" shows that a similar custom once obtained here.

Footnotes

1. Supplement to Sheffield Glossary, 1891, p. 8. As I have often noticed, such expressions as "the end of the last century" are equivalent to "once upon a time."
2. Plot's Staffordshire quoted in a History of Ashbourne, 1839, p. 94.
3. Antiquarian Repertory, 1808, iii, 338.
4. Brand's Popular Antiq., 1849, ii, 65; Plot's Staffordshire, p. 439; Pegge in Archaeologia, ii, 86; Antiquarian Repertory, 1808, iii, 282.
5. Henderson's Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties, 1879, p. 148.
6. Vigfusson and Powell's Corpus Poeticum Borcale, ii. 68.