The Norfolk Horkey

24 September · Norfolk

No longer kept

In Norfolk the harvest home was the horkey. The last or horkey load came home decked with flags and streamers, sometimes with a sort of kern baby at the front of the load called a ben, and the farmer’s friends and neighbours were asked to the horkey supper of roast beef and plum pudding. After supper came a piece of rough fooling in which a man dressed as a woman was seized with toothache and a doctor rode in on another man’s back to pull the tooth with the fire tongs, reviving the patient with the bellows. Next day the men went round the neighbouring farms in ribboned hats and tall paper caps to taste their horkey beer and beg largess.

sometimes a sort of kern baby is placed on the top at front of the load

From Hone's Every-Day Book, vol. 2, cols. 1165-1168. Read the original

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Folklore from the old calendars

Harvest Home and the Hock Cart No longer kept EnglandIn the southern counties the reapers chose a lord of the harvest to bargain with the farmer and lead the work, and in Buckinghamshire a lady as well, with fines for anyone who got the order of drinking wrong.
The Corn Baby and the Mell Supper No longer kept Northern EnglandIn the north of England the harvest feast was the mell supper.
Crying the Mare No longer kept Hertfordshire, ShropshireIn Hertfordshire and Shropshire the reapers left the last few stalks standing and tied them up as the mare, then threw their sickles at it until one cut it down.
The Cripple Goat No longer kept Inner HebridesOn Skye the farmer who finished his harvest first sent the last handful he had cut to the next farmer still at work, calling it the cripple goat.
Crying the Neck Still kept Devon, West CountryIn Devon the last handful of standing corn was called the nack or neck.
The Kirn No longer kept ScotlandIn Scotland the words harvest home were unknown, and the feast at the end of harvest was the kirn or kirn supper, thought to be named from the churn of cream served at it.
Crying Largess No longer kept East Anglia, Essex, HertfordshireIn Suffolk the harvest lord would leave the field to ask any passer-by for a largess, then stand his reapers in a ring and call from a gate post while they answered with a groan and then three great shouts.
The Harvest Catch in Norfolk No longer kept Essex, NorfolkThe last thing before parting at a Norfolk harvest supper was a health-drinking catch sung first to the mistress and then to the master.
Burning the Witch No longer kept YorkshireIn the East Riding, on the evening the last of a farmer's corn was cut, the reapers heaped eight or ten small piles of dried peas together in the field and set them alight.
The Harvest Goose No longer kept EnglandTusser advised the farmer that when harvest was in he should give his ploughman a harvest home goose.
Wrexham Honey Fair No longer kept DenbighshireBefore the railways, Wrexham held a honey fair four times a year, and the March fair lasted a fortnight.

The Norfolk Horkey

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