We all wonder stuff,
particularly when it is very very hot again today and our minds have melted
slightly and are dripping out of our ears making our thoughts mushy as well as making
passers by shout Oooo look YUCK. So I thought to myself today, well to tell
the truth I thought to myself about five minutes ago because I was thinking
what will I write tonight. Yes I thought
where do all these strange old traditions come from that folk do, like the old Shropshire tradition of Goat Murmuring on the first
Sunday of August where folk gather in the local tavern or hotel and murmur away
to entice the local goats in.
Lets face it, it is all
very well with its strange rules and instant disqualification for using trails
of peanuts, crisps or beer and everyone singing long into the night as they
parade the goat proudly aloft if they have succeeded in the quest, in its gilded
goat throne. But it is not the sort of thing you sit about thinking I bored
today lets try Goat Murmuring. It takes years for such things to take hold and
become a part of the local tradition, so that folk turn up from all over the world
to take part.
Some say this particular
tradition is from the days of Charles 1st, when he was being hunted
down by the parliamentarians and he found himself cornered in Ye Olde Pig and
Trolley Inn . . . . . (full English Breakfast available all day). They say that
the sharp thinking inn keeper had an old goat skin behind the counter and
dressed the King up as a goat. The
Curious but slightly stupid parliamentarians questioned the inn keeper who
explained he was practicing his murmuring for the annual Goat murmuring
competition. The King joining in by butting the parliamentarians and becoming
docile and friendly when the inn keeper started to murmur.
That’s all well and good
but traditions like that just can not get going these days, lets face it the
old tradition of throwing grannies off the bus is not quite the same.
Particularly as it happens every Friday night rather than once a year.
