Loremen Podcast - Mock Mayor Minisode

Episode Date: August 19, 2021

A brief side-bar of a side-bar, covering Mock Mayors, the etymology of "nuts" and the legacy of Ron Seal (RIP). It's all in aid of tonight's livestream as part of the Twinge Festival. We are live at 9pm BST in the usual spots... twitch.tv/loremenpod youtube.com/c/loremenpodcast

Hello, Alistair. Hi, James. How are you? I'm vaccinated. Your boy got jabbed. Double jabbed. Yeah. Two taps to the arms.

Like a schoolyard bully giving you a dead arm. I cannot operate heavy machinery right now. But when can you, really? I don't mean to have a pop. You don't see me on the forklift. I'm always on it. I'm always forklifting. Yeah, but you're always on the forklift going,

how do i drive this what's what's going on what is the situation that has led to me being sat here i prefer to sit on the prongs and be moved around lying on the prongs alistair becker king lying on the prongs his seminal double album well we've only gone and going to do another live stream later. For the benefit of the listener, that's the second take of James trying to describe something happening in the future and failing. We're only going to do another live stream tonight. We're doing another live stream tonight. Yeah, that's a better way of saying it.

Thursday the 19th of, what month is that? August. August. 2021. 2021. At 9pm. 9pm. BST.

BST. Yes, we're part of the Twinge Festival. So I've just been on holiday to Cornwall. Very nice. I passed the Duchy on the left-hand side and then I stayed in it. Is that the Duchy of Cornwall? Yeah. And I've got a little tale, a little Cornish adventure story.

It's a real swashbuckler. So that's what you're going to tell us tonight that's what I'll tell you later have you got a little mini story then for this trailer yeah have you heard of mock mares no it's a tradition that they have in towns where they have a mock mare election so usually when the real election of the real mare ship hood mare hood happens there's like a pretend joke one where they make a joke mayor and they often chuck them in the water. It's a bit like Saturnalia.

Saturnalia. I was about to say it sounds like Saturnalia, where you have a king who you then murder at the end of it. Yeah, they don't kill them. I can't stress this enough. They do not kill them. That's the first thing they tell you when you arrive in Cornwall. We don't kill the mares.

We don't kill the fake mares, honestly. But they do it all over the shop. They do it in Woodstock, near my manor. So they elect a mock mare, and then I think they chuck them in the river. And the reason for that one is you'd think Woodstock, there's just one Woodstock. No, there's two Woodstocks. There's old Woodstock and new Woodstock. And in the middle is the River Glyme. Glyme?

When they fenced in some of Witchwood Forest, probably in part to create that excellent menagerie we talked about with the lion, the tiger, the bear and the porcupine. Of course, I remember it. They started building a new town there called New Woodstock. And the people of Old Woodstock were very jealous because new woodstock was getting all the praise this ain't your old woodstock we're talking new woodstock but yeah so they would to spoof them had a mayor election sub fun fact of this already fun fact the first mock mayor was the brother of the real mayor oh There's perhaps some sibling rivalry going on in there.

And they parade them through the town and then dump them in the river, the Mock Mare, sort of like as a warning, kind of like a voodoo mare. Yeah, yeah, that's quite good. Look what we've done to your actual brother. Yeah, if we can throw your brother in the river, think what we could do to you. But the tale I want to tell in the live stream comes from Penryn,

and they have a similar tradition in Penryn in Cornwall. Oh, and I'm taking this from an 1865 publication, Robert Hunt's Popular Romances of the West of England. Around September, October, when the hazelnuts are ripe, the Festival of Nutting Day is kept. Oh. Which had a different meaning back then, I think. And apparently the

rabble of the town go into the country to gather nuts and come back shouting and making a great noise and in the meantime the tailors of the town have gone to the adjoining village of my law and elected one of them to be the mayor of my law what the tailors were left alone for a minute and they've elected a mayor and they're like let's go get a mayor from the next town quick everyone's going getting nuts what and so they bring him on a chair on their shoulders and the mayoral party proceeds from the good town of myla to the ancient borough of penryn and there's there's a bunch of bodyguards with cudgels who knock people out the way if they're in the way, torchbearers, two town sergeants in official gowns, and each, instead of a mace, they carry a big cabbage.

To wallop people with. Yeah. An offensive cabbage. Imagine bouncers at the club in Penryn, patting people down for, was that a cabbage? Come on. It's just a leak, mate. No.

You can eat it now. come on it's just a leak mate no you can eat it now or yeah the rear is brought up by the rabble of the nutters who are the people who went to get the nuts and fun fun fun fact oh about the phrase nuts nuts to mean crazy that's obviously a bit of an offensive term but do you know its origin i think it comes from nut house but i don't know why the Nuthouse is called the Nuthouse. Well, the Nuthouse comes afterwards. Oh. Back in 1785 to be nuts on something meant to be very fond of, and nuts meant a pleasure or delight from around 1610.

This is what's so difficult to understand about the past is that life was so bland that the best thing they could think of yeah the thing that provokes joy the thing that represents delight were nuts is nuts is some nuts what is essentially now a punishment for children who shouldn't have asked for food if they didn't want to be offered nuts then in 1846 it started to mean crazy or not right in the head because people had become obsessed with the thing. So they were nuts about something. And to be off one's nut came around in 1860

because it's like the head people thought then. So to be off your nut was to be out of your mind. The word nutty to mean crazy is around 1898 but nutter didn't come around until 1959 1959 and it's a peculiarly british phrase so that's a bit of a explanation for any of our american listeners so when you hear people in the 60s saying nutter i would never have guessed that was a new, relatively new phrase. That's like someone saying, oh, Confused.com now. Confused.com has already passed into obscurity though, right?

Not with my mum. I suppose people are still doing that Ron Seal joke. It does what it says on the tin. People are still saying that. Yes. Are Ron Seals still advertising like that? I don't know. I don't know if Ron's's still uh is ron still sealing i don't think ron is with us anymore but i tell

you what that coffin hard wearing yeah yeah there is no rain damage on that when the sun dies and goes supernova and the planet is blown to smithereens. There'll just be one. That coffin. One hardwood coffin containing Ron Seal. Ron Seal's Ron Sealed Coffin. Yes. Also, he's a seal. Yeah. Oh, yeah. By the way, we forgot to mention he's a seal.

Very sad funeral, but a lot of clapping. Yeah. From his family who are also seals. And everyone sort of bounced a ball into the grave. Ashes, psh, ash, p ashes ash and then loads of little beach balls ashes to acid beach balls to beach balls and oh yeah so off the sidebar back to the main bar the procession moves on to the center of town and the sham mayor does a big speech satirising the politics of the day.

Oh, I could just imagine it. And then they're taken from pub to pub, where they're given lots of booze, and they repeat the speech. Presumably it gets worse and worse delivered as it goes round. Or better and better. And then they adjourn to a council chamber, and that council chamber is a euphemism for a pub, and they devote the rest of the night to drinking.

And everyone else has a big old party throwing fireballs, discharging rockets, and there are huge bonfires. And apparently the legal mayor actually tried to stop this. No, he tried to stop the drunken fireball thing. Yeah. The giant bonfires,balls rockets yeah but then the sham uh issued orders to his bodyguards uh the ones with the cabbages and uh they chased the mare away so there you go there you have it the problem with i mean the cabbage is an offensive weapon you've basically got one hit haven't you unless you've got really good grip you're not getting a

second go with a cabbage are you if you've got a cabbage grip, you're not getting a second go with a cabbage, are you? If you've got a cabbage and somehow sort of attached like a sweetheart cabbage to the end of a leek. Then once you get a bit of a swing going, you've got yourself a morning star. A morning star. What's that? A morning star is like a spiky thing on the end of a chain, I think. Is it?

Like a floppy mace. And I suppose if you've got starfruit, you could cut them up into little shurikens. Of course, we can't advise any listeners to do any of those very dangerous sounding things. Yeah, let's not turn vegetables and or fruit into weapons

for once. For one week.