The Waggoner’s Horn at Hoddesdon

Collecting accounts of swearing on the horns at Highgate, Hone heard from the landlady of the Red Lion and Sun there that at the Griffin at Hoddesdon, which her father kept, a new waggoner coming with his team was put through a similar custom. A drinking horn holding about a pint, set on a stand made of four rams’ horns, was brought out and raised above his head, and he had to pay for a gallon of beer and drink out of the horn. She never knew how it began, only that the stand had been in the house from time immemorial.