Rough Music

When villagers learned that a man beat his wife, or that a husband or wife was unfaithful, they gathered outside the house at night with cows’ horns, frying pans, kettles, pot lids and pails and made as much noise as they could, jeering and calling out the offence. A mock herald proclaimed the wrongdoing through the village, often for a week or two of evenings. In the south this was Rough Music; in the north it was Riding the Stang, when the herald was carried astride a pole. Chambers’ writer saw it done from 28 October 1862 for ten days.