Another gem from The Folklore of Sussex. She’s talking about various customs requiring men to dress up wearing horns:
“Bawdy humor of this sort is exemplified in Sussex by the eighteenth-century Cock Fair at Ticehurst, at which, according to the Sussex Weekly Advertiser‘s report of an unfortunate street accident which spoilt the fun in 1788, the landlord of the Cock Inn was ‘according to local custom presented with a load of wood, on condition he could get it drawn home by men having the appellation of cuckolds, of whom he had assembled a sufficient number and provided them with a waggon for the purpose.’ Whether the self-professed cuckolds of Ticehurst were expected to wear the symbols of their state the newspaper unfortunately does not say; but a grotesque expression of this sort is known to have taken place regularly in Kent up to 1768, at the famous Charlton Horn Fair[…]”
I just want to hear the stories of every single guy in that group.
Not only that, but what was the “unfortunate street accident?” How can she bring up that detail and then leave us wondering?
Right? Probably it was just an overturned cart or something, but WHO KNOWS?
I picture the cart overturning, taking all the cuckolds with it and spilling the lumber all over the road. Then all the people who’d assembled to laugh and point at them got to laugh and point some more.
Really, what incentive could there possibly have been for those guys to agree to that? Did any of them think, “Boy, won’t my wife feel bad when she sees what I’ve been reduced to!” ? Or maybe there was just a whoooole bunch of free beer.
Well, that’s the mystery, isn’t it? There’s clearly a narrative here and I want to know what it is!!!! Possibly it was in fact just “free beer” though. But maybe they were really a swingers club! Who even knows?
I wish someone would write a romance with one of these cuckold guys as the hero. I just want to see someone pull it off.
The heroine could inadvertently cause the street accident!