A fanatical folklorist has spent a lifetime cataloguing Britain’s strangest rites. He picks his five favourites, from blazing barrels and sacred pies to a May Day ceremony bigger than Christmas

Doc Rowe is looking remarkably fresh for a man who has just been for a 10-hour hike around the Lancashire town of Bacup with the Britannia Coconut Dancers. We meet at his archive in Whitby, Yorkshire, where he is surrounded by the fruits of a lifelong obsession. As Britain’s greatest folklorist, Rowe has accumulated files, folders and field notes, not to mention 20,000 books and pamphlets, as well as 7,000 audio cassettes, photographs and films – all chronicling rites and traditions that show Britain at its strangest and most fascinating.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Folklorist Doc Rowe. Photograph: Derek Catley

Rowe, now 74, has almost certainly attended and documented more folk rituals than anyone else alive. He maps out his year according to calendar customs: by the time you read this, he’ll be in Padstow for the town’s Obby Oss festival, which takes place on May Day. It’s his 57th visit.

Rowe’s trove is the subject of a new exhibition, Lore and the Living Archive, opening shortly in Rochdale. Three young artists have created work in response to his collection and this will be displayed alongside his own film footage and stills. “People often think of these traditions as being rather twee,” he says. “Little girls in white dancing round maypoles. But they are very far from that.”

To prove the point, we asked him to describe five of the most memorable …

‘I’ve seen landlords held horizontally over the crowd’

The Haxey Hood (North Lincolnshire, 6 January)

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Moment of triumph … A villager holds aloft the ‘hood’ in 2014. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Mayhem. There are 200 or more guys crushed together, a bit like a rugby scrum, which is known as “the sway”. The idea is that you try to move the “hood” – a leather cylinder about 2ft long – to whichever of the village pubs you favour. I’ve seen hedges go down and cars moved out of the road by the weight of this mass of humanity. The steam that comes off them is incredible. It’s rough.



The game ends when the hood is touched by one of the landlords while still on his own premises. I’ve known landlords to be held horizontally over the front edge of the sway, with their feet only just touching the lintel of the pub’s doorframe, stretching for the hood. Then it’s hung up in the bar for the year. And we all go and have a free pint.

Haxey Hood is said to go back to the 14th century, when Lady de Mowbray, the wife of the local landowner, was out riding and the wind blew her hood off. Some farm workers chased and caught it and as a reward, she gave them land on the condition that they re-enacted the chase every year.

There’s a threat to the future of the event, in that one of the three remaining pubs – which are the goals – could close and be demolished. This is really worrying. It’s so important that these traditions survive. The whole community comes together – people return home from far and wide.

‘The only protection they have is potato sacks’

The Tar Barrels of Ottery St Mary (Devon, 5 November)

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Quite insane’ … A boy tears through the streets of Ottery St Mary. Photograph: PA

I love this tradition, being a Devon lad – and a bit of a pyromaniac. I have all these scars on my hands from running alongside the burning tar barrels while holding my camera. The heat is intense. The secretary of the committee once told me: “Doc, we don’t mind you running with us – because we know if you got killed, you wouldn’t complain.”



Each barrel has been lined with tar or pitch over the previous year. Next, it is filled with straw. Then they pour in paraffin and set it alight, rolling it backwards and forwards until it’s nicely ablaze – at which point locals pick them up, put them on their shoulders, and run through the streets as flames flicker out the back. The only protection they have is potato sacks, folded over and stitched with wire, worn on their hands.

Nobody knows the origin. There have been fanciful tales of the Spanish Armada being sighted and a local lad using a barrel to light a warning beacon. But we really don’t know – and anyway, who cares? What matters is that it still happens now. It’s a wonderful event. Quite insane.

‘One year he had 23 whiskies before 2pm’



The Burryman (South Queensferry, second Friday of August)

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Nature’s Velcro’ … The Burryman meets residents in 2017. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

This is more extraordinary than anything at the Edinburgh festival, which is on at the same time just a few miles away. I’m sure festivalgoers would love to see the Burryman. If they only knew about him.



I have the honour of dressing him on the morning of Burryman Day. He is completely covered, except for his hands, with thousands of prickly burrs. These are burdock seeds – nature’s Velcro. He’s often scratched and bleeding at the end of the day.

He puts on long johns and a long-sleeved T-shirt, then these burrs are slapped on. Up top, he wears a balaclava-type hood, also covered in burrs, with space left for his eyes so he can see, and his mouth so he can drink whisky through a straw. As a final touch, there’s a bowler hat decorated with a glorious array of flowers. The whole suit is very heavy and covered in little beasties that come crawling out of the burrs.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photograph: J Chettleburgh/English Folk Dance & Song Society

The Burryman walks around South Queensferry all day with his arms outstretched, helped by two attendants. The story is that if you put a coin in his pot, you have good luck for the rest of the year. It is rather an ordeal for him, though he is offered drink by locals as he walks around. One year, he had 23 whiskies before two in the afternoon. People wonder how does he go for a pee, but we don’t ask.

‘The bloodiest event in England’

Hallaton Hare Pie Scramble and Bottle-Kicking (Leicestershire, Easter Monday)

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘There are no clear rules’ … the second round of the bottle kicking gets under way in 2017. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

This is probably the bloodiest event in England. It’s contested between the neighbouring villages of Medbourne and Hallaton. The object is to get a barrel – or “bottle” – over the other village’s boundary. The person who does that gets to drink the beer it contains and share it around.

I’d say there’s about eight pints in each, and it’s the best of three barrels. You can kick them, roll them, run with them – there are no clear rules. People have had their heads split open from a barrel coming down on them. I once photographed a guy with blood pouring out of his mouth and bits of his teeth flying out.

The day begins with a parade through the streets with the three barrels, accompanied by a band and a large hare pie, which the local vicar blesses. Then it’s chopped up in front of the church and thrown to the crowd. I know people who keep that bit of pie – green and mouldy – on their mantelpiece for the whole year, for luck.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

On Hare Pie Bank, the barrel is thrown up three times, then it’s anybody’s. People get severely damaged. I remember one lovely sunny day when there were 19 ambulances called to come and pick up the bodies.

It’s a bit like the Cheese Rolling at Cooper’s Hill in Gloucestershire, where the St John Ambulance waits at the bottom to treat those who get injured chasing a nine-pound Double Gloucester rolling at 70mph. One year, when they couldn’t sort out security and safety in time, some local lads decided to hold a scaled-down version. I believe they used a Babybel.

’The day ends as the beasts gather to dance round the maypole’

Padstow Obby Oss (Cornwall, 1 May)

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Last year’s Obby Oss festivities. Photograph: Alamy

This is where it all started for me, back in 1963. I’ve only missed one year since. I once said I always went back because I couldn’t believe this was happening in England. And of course the local people replied: “Well, it isn’t. This is Cornwall.”

Padstow’s is one of the few remaining ’obby ’osses, or hobby horses. It’s a communal event to welcome in the summer. But in a sense it’s Padstow people celebrating themselves: it’s more important to them than Christmas, birthdays or New Year.

There is the Old Oss and the Blue Ribbon Oss, ferocious-looking beasts that seem very un-English. Each creature has a man concealed under its enormous frame, his head covered with a heavy mask. They and their followers take separate routes through the town during the day, accompanied by singing, drums and accordions. Later, they come together briefly to dance around the maypole.

The words of the May song, the passion and emotion – these are absorbed by the crowd in a way that seems to synchronise the collective heartbeat of the town. It’s overwhelming. I get moved just talking about it – and I’ll keep returning, even if I’m in a wheelchair. I’ve promised some of my ashes to Padstow, although some will have to be scattered in Haxey Hood as well. I’m looking forward to that.