This annual custom in the county of Lincoln is fixed for the 13th of
November; which, in 1825, being Sunday, it was postponed to the next
day, Monday the 14th. A correspondent’s communication sets forth ample
and curious particulars of the usage.
_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._
Sir,
As your very respectable and highly entertaining publication, the
_Every-Day Book_, is a receptacle for local usages and customs,
doubtless the _Stamford bull-running_, which takes place annually on the
13th of November, will be acceptable. It is conducted with a most
determined spirit, and unlike most other customs, seems to increase in
notoriety yearly.
Butcher says, “the bull-running is a sport of no pleasure, except to
such as take a pleasure in beastliness and mischief. It is performed
just the day six weeks before Christmas. The butchers of the town at
their own charge, against the time, purchase a wild bull; this bull over
night is had into some stable or barn belonging to the alderman; the
next morning proclamation is made by the common bellman of the town,
round about the same, that each one shut up his shop-doors and gates,
and none, under pain of imprisonment, do any violence to strangers; for
the preventing whereof (the town being a great thoroughfare, and then
being in term time,) a guard is appointed for the passing of travellers
through the same, without hurt. None [to] have any iron upon their
bull-clubs, or other staff which they pursue the bull with: which
proclamation made, and the gates all shut up, the bull is turned out of
the alderman’s house, and then, hivie, skivy, tag-rag, men, women, and
children, of all sorts and sizes, with all the dogs in the town,
promiscuously running after him with their bull-clubs, spattering dirt
in each other’s faces, that one would think them to be so many furies
started out of hell for the punishment of _Cerberus_, as when _Theseus_
and _Perillus_ conquered the place, as Ovid describes it--
“‘A ragged troop of boys and girls,
Do pellow him with stones,
With clubs, with whips, and many nips,
They part his skin from bones.’
“And (which is the greater shame) I have seen both _Senatores majorum
gentium et matrone de euodem gradu_, following this bulling business.
“I can say no more of it, but only to set forth the antiquity thereof,
(as the tradition goes,) William, earl of Warren, in the time of king
John, standing upon his castle-wall under the same, saw two bulls
fighting for one cow. A butcher of the town, the owner of one of the
bulls, with a great mastiff dog, accidentally coming by set his dog upon
his own bull, who forced the same bull up into the town, which no sooner
was come within the same, but all the butcher’s dogs, great and small,
followed in pursuit of the bull, which by this time made stark mad with
the noise of the people, and the fierceness of the dogs, ran over man,
woman, and child, that stood in his way. This caused all the butchers
and others in the town to rise up as it were in a tumult, making such a
hideous noise that the sound thereof came into the castle into the ears
of earl Warren, who presently mounted on horseback, and rid into the
town to see the business; which then appearing (to his humour) very
delightful, he gave all the meadows in which the bulls were at first
found fighting, (which we now call the castle meadows,) perpetually as a
common to the butchers of the town, to keep their cattle in till the
time of slaughter, upon this condition, that upon the day on which this
sport first began, the butchers of the town should from time to time
yearly for ever, find a mad bull for the continuance of that sport.”
Mr. Lowe speaks more favourably of the “bull-running” than Butcher. He
calls it “a good old custom,” and says, “there is nothing similar to it
in his majesty’s dominions, nor I believe in the dominions of any other
potentate on the globe: no, it stands without a rival.” “If,” says Lowe,
“the doctrine of transmigration be true, nothing can be more certain
than that the soul of earl Warren animated the body of Mr. Robert
Ridlington, once a tanner, alderman, and mayor, of this corporation, who
to perpetuate this gallant diversion as much as in him lay, left
half-a-crown to be paid annually to each of the five parishes (of
Stamford,) for the trouble of stopping the gates and avenues of the
town, which is received on St. Thomas’s-day. I therefore hold it
incumbent on me to record this spirited bequest, and to let this _par
nobile fratrum_ go hand in hand to posterity, for which legacy every
bullard in gratitude ought to drink on that day to the joint memory of
both. Since this account may chance to fall into the hands of some who
are strangers to the town, I would have such know that when this
gala-day falls either on a market-day or on a Sunday, that neither the
market nor even the sabbath is put off on its account; but, on the
contrary, it is itself postponed till the morrow, which must be
acknowledged to be an instance of great forbearance!”
So much for the accounts of Butcher and Lowe. I shall now proceed to
state the manner in which the sport is conducted in the present day.
The bull being duly procured, is shut up the night previous to the
appointed morn, in a place provided for the purpose, and, long ere dawn
of day, no peaceable person lying on his bed, can enjoy the pleasing and
renovating stupor which, if unmolested by the cry of “bull for ever,”
the leaden key of Somnus would afford him. At eleven o’clock, Taurus is
loosed from his prison-house generally into a street stopped at each
end, which he parades in majesty sublime. At this dangerous juncture
every post, pump, and the like is in requisition, and those who are
fortunate enough to get sheltered behind one sit in conscious security,
“grinning with a ghastly smile”
at those who less fortunate than themselves must, for protection, have
recourse to flight. The carts and waggons which form the stoppage at the
ends of the street, are crowded with individuals, as well as the roofs
of houses; in short, every place tenable is occupied. Some years back it
was customary to irritate the bull by goading him with pointed sticks,
but this is now wholly done away with, it being declared unnecessarily
cruel, and different means are resorted to to enrage him. Frequently, a
hogshead with both ends knocked out is brought, wherein a man places
himself, and by rolling it to the bull, provokes him to toss it. He
tosses, but tosses in vain; its inmate is trained too well to the sport
to be easily dislodged; so that by this and other means equally harmless
and teazing, he is rendered sufficiently infuriated to afford “prime
sport.” The street is then unstopped, when, all agog, men, boys, and
bull, tumble one over the other to get free.
_Bridging the bull_ is next thought of; this, if he be much enraged, is
the most dangerous part of the ceremony; it consists in driving him upon
the bridge, which is a great height from the water, and crowds of people
press to him on three sides.
“Shouts rend the air and onward goes the throng,
Arms locked in arms, and man drives man along,”
Regardless of the danger to which the van is exposed, they press closer
and closer; at length, in spite of his amazing powers he yields to the
combined strength of his numerous opponents, and is tumbled into the
water. On again rising to the surface, his first care generally is to
land, which, in most cases, he effects in the meadows; these are very
swampy, full of rivers, and spacious. November being a month invariably
attended with rain, the stay-laced sportful dandy, alas! too frequently
finds that the slippery ground is no respecter of persons, and in spite
of all his efforts to maintain his equilibrium, in submissive, prostrate
attitude, he embraces his mother earth.