On the 25th of February 2008, on a cold bright morning, I visited the village of Hallaton in Leicestershire. I was told to expect something strange. A field full of violent people, small kegs of beer called ‘bottles’ and man with a rabbit on a stick were also mentioned.
How could I not go?
They were nearly right. The man actually had a hare on a pole.
Local folk law states that long ago two ladies of Hallaton were saved from a raging bull when a startled hare distracted it from it’s charge. Thinking this an act of God they donated money to the church so that every Easter Monday the Vicar would provide hare pie, twelve penny loves and more importantly, two barrels of beer for the poor of the village.
The villages would fight for the food and beer and on one occasion the residents of the bordering village of Medbourne joined in the chaos and stole the beer. The village rivalry continues to this day.
It is also possible that the custom dates back to the Pagan ritual of sacrificing hares to the goddess Eostre.
Bottle Kicking in it’s present form has been and annual event for over 200 years and has occurred yearly apart from in 2001 where the national foot and mouth scare canceled many rural activities traditions and sports.
Once a hill outside the village is reached (Hare Pie Bank) the chopped pie is thrown to the onlookers and shortly after, the chaos begins.
There are hardly any rules to Bottle Kicking. Each barrel is thrown in the air three times and then all hell breaks loose.
The emergency services were on hand with more than one ambulance and I saw people carried off bleeding and broken.
It still appeared that all were smiling in some strange way.. A nervous, insane kind of smile as a rallying cry would cause another serge. If you were lucky you caught a glimpse of a barrel, deep in the scrum through a forest of muddy-bloody legs.
I did my best to get as close to the action as I could armed with my precious tech. That said, my trousers were torn and muddied, i took an elbow to the eye socket and lost a lens hood in the fray.
If i were to visit again it would be with some kind of body mounted camera, filming the shouts and screams along with the action. I would probably also join the locals in having a few numbing beers before leaping into the scrum.
The whole spectacle is watched by families friends and the injured. Ales in hand, cheering madly. In the distance over one of the winning line streams on the next hill, more spectators can bee seen in the pub. Staying clean, dry and drunk. There is also the possibility I will be there next year. With a long lens.
The game was won by Hallaton. Everyone was happy. Some were bruised, most were drunk.
Who wants to join me next year.. with or without cameras?
Click this link to see more photographs of Bottle-Kicking on my Flickr page.
nice photos. quite mad us brits. 🙂
Wow, sounds like a great time was had, and I’m encouraged that some of the old traditions of the British isles (I include Eire in this) are still around.
I love these type of things and it’s a real shame that as more people have moved to the big smokes from the local communities or ‘health & safety’ issues, that these things aren’t passed down to next generations and we lose the colour, uniqueness and community identity that they for the most part instil. I agree sometimes there are also dubious traditions around, but I believe we should be given the chance to (re)make them our own way also.
That’s not to say that there is a dearth in the cities of life and culture, because that is always being reinvented, but I don’t want to see the extinction of these island’s pockets of individual history that have been laid down by the common forebears. The background to these traditions, isn’t the stuff that makes the history books, but in a sense is more real because it was by ordinary people.
I have a lovely book from the 70’s with great photos of traditions and events that even 30 years ago were dying out. Sorry the name escapes me, but I have to point you in it’s direction.
Great photographs by the way Christian. I can feel the crispness of spring in the air and body heat of the crowd with the accompanying hustle and bussel. You’ve made it tangible and transferred the vibe. Next best thing to being there. My mind is filling in the fruity audio. LOL.
As well as the bril photography as usual, your prose has done a great of job of evoking the spirit of the event.
If possible I’ll come along next time and I have to get you down to Lewes for Guy Fawkes for another wild display and great booze from Harvey’s.
All my best regards,
Derek
So, to thank the are for saving them, they arranged for its descendants to be eaten…
The next time someone asks me why it is that I try not to venture outside of London… I shall point them to this post.
So they thanked the Hare by eating it???
surely they should be sacrificing the bull instead?
Ah well! I love old Pagan traditions and more of them should be resurrected ;o)
Sounds like a great deal of fun to be had chasing the bottle.
I’ve been to Lewes for the Bonfire event and it was incredible. Very very Pagan and intense ;o)
The hare pie is not made of hare, and possibly never has been. I believe that these days it is made of beef. The name possibly comes from the source of the alms, the income from “Hair Pie Leys”.
This is incorrect, The hare pie is made of hare, i know the people who make it!
Thanks for the comment. Who makes it?
The more that I think of it is possible that the Hare Pie name might have a more mundane meaning. Many field names and field name elements describe the soil in the field. A nearby example would be the field name “Plum Pudding Meadow” in the village of Humberstone, is given to a very sticky clay field close to a brook. The place low German name element ‘har’, ‘hare’ that is found in many place names as Haar (in early sources ‘Hare’) and which is stated to mean ‘height’, ‘ridge’, ‘height covered with wood’.
Another intriguing possibility for its origins could come from the Old English ‘hearg’ meaning temple and the Old Norse ‘horg’ meaning ‘heap of stones’ or ‘altar’, especially given the proximity of Hare Pie Bank to the recent discovered foundations of what appears to be a sub-rectangular building somewhat remanisant of a Roman-British shrine, possibly a shrine to St Morrell. (See http://www.le.ac.uk/users/grj1/morrell.html).
Hi some nice photos here. I wonder if anyone can help about 3 or 4 years ago I was in the centre of the scum with a barrel (the closes I have ever got) as it collapsed and my head was pushed into a lump of cow muck and I was covered to say the least, but just as I saw getting up I remember two photographers taking pictures of me and I wood love photo of this event.
Hi, all the photos I took are on my Flickr account linked off these images. 🙂