The Dread Wrecker Featherstone

Further to Ropes of sand: a Teignmouth penance, Angela Williams of Literary Places kindly sent me another local-ish example of someone condemned to posthumous torment weaving sand ropes on the beach, this time commemorated through a poem.

The Firing Gatherer

Following on from The Linhay on the Downs, here's another Henry Williamson story hacked out of Google Books snippet view, the 1927 The Firing Gatherer. First published in the magazine Time and Tide, it later appeared alongside The Linhay on the Downs in a 1929 limited edition hardback, then in Williamson's 1930 The Village Book. Williamson is best known as the author of Tarka the Otter, but his output was considerably more varied than nature stories.

How do you do/moo?

Further to Song recollections (April 10th), I just tracked down a musical memory.

In 1972 or so, when I was still at school, I went on a week-long geological excursion of Devon and Cornwall, sponsored by Shell (or maybe BP - that part's hazy). It was an opportunity: dangled in front of me was the experience of the previous star pupil who had gone on the course a year or two previously, and been offered a scholarship and job at the end of it. It turned out a disappointment in that respect, because they didn't offer me either. But it was an excellent tour, a mix of fieldwork and case study classwork; we stayed at Seale-Hayne Agricultural College (not far from here - I never thought I'd end up living in the area), and went to a lot of scenic and geologically interesting places including Meldon Quarry near Okehampton, Cligga Head near Perranporth, Hemerdon Tungsten Mine near Plymstock, and the museum at Camborne School of Mines. I also got horribly sick on the last night from drinking cider and rum, which is probably why I like neither of them.

However, it also left me with a four-decade earworm, a rather catchy song that was playing on the van radio on one of the days when it was chucking it down and we were all, including the organisers, disinclined to look at a quarry in the rain. I've tried Googling, but despite the catchiness, all I could remember of the lyrics was a "N'Na N'Na" section that invariably led to the wrong song, Mah Nà Mah Nà.

But imagine my surprise when the song appeared this evening on a TV advert (embedded above) for yoomoo, a brand of frozen yoghurt. They've slightly changed the words to "How do yoomoo" (here's the full track on SoundCloud), but it rapidly tracked down to the 1972 How Do You Do by the Dutch pop duo Mouth & MacNeal. It was a hit in the USA and Europe, but for some reason flopped completely in the UK. I must have caught one of its few British radio airings.

I'll inflict the original on the rest of you.


- Ray

Betty Stogs

Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog, in an article about the largely forgotten Cornish folklorist William Bottrell - see William Bottrell and the Strangest Funeral Procession in the World - just quoted a wonderful uncredited obituary imagining a funeral cortège for Bottrell consisting of a throng of characters and entities (most of whom/which I'd never heard of) from Cornish folklore.

One not there, who ought to be, is Betty Stogs. The earliest account I can find of her is in Robert Hunt's 1865 Popular romances of the west of England; or, The drolls, traditions, and superstitions of old Cornwall (here's a 1908 reprint in the Internet Archive: ID popularromanceso00huntuoft). It's an extremely interesting book.

The story Betty Stogs and Jan the Mounster, which has a bit of a social engineering subtext, tells of Betty, a scruffy, lazy woman given to "courseying" (wandering house-to-house to gossip); in the version collected by Hunt, she allegedly lived near Towednack. She never darns her stockings, but just lets them sag to hide the worn heels. She finds an equally scruffy partner, Jan the Mounster (i.e. monster) who gets her pregnant but refuses to marry her until her father comes up with a dowry. They don't get on because Betty has in addition got a gin habit, can't cook, and tries to wash his watch in dirty dishwater. She's extremely neglectful to her baby, which gets as dirty as its parents. But at a year old, he disappears. After a search, he's found in a thicket, on a bed of moss, wrapped in clean clothing and sprinkled with flowers, spick and span from having been cleansed in the morning dew. The fairies had planned to take him as a changeling, but had taken so long to clean him up that dawn had broken, and they had to leave him behind. Betty and Jan are chastened by the experience, and mend their ways (or at least somewhat). Here's the story, starting page 103, or you can read the 1865 edition at Google Books.

Betty Stogs beer pump logo

Beer drinkers will recognise Betty from her incarnation as Skinner's Brewery's' "Queen of Cornish Beer"; their flagship beer is named after her. I didn't realise until Googling her name last week that she was based on a folklore character. Skinner's  has adopted her in both her original scruffy incarnation with wrinkled socks, and in her cleaned-up version in which she has become something of a force of nature, represented by the brewery at festivals and charity fundraisers in true mumming / folk custom fashion as a burly man - former Cornish-style wrestling champion Fred Thomas - in drag.

Skinner's promotional poster

I especially like the style of the new promotional poster by by Nick Berringer and Stuart Thorn, "intended to emphasise the ale’s origins as Betty remains devoutly Cornish while exploring the big wide world", in which the now-slightly-genteel Betty goes to a posh restaurant, but still has beer and a giant Cornish pasty. They promise more. See the Skinner's events page for details.

- Ray