Aug. 2.]

Buckinghamshire.

Hunting the ram was a very ancient custom observed at Eton, but is now abolished. Lipscomb, in his History of Buckinghamshire (1847, vol. iv. p. 467), thus describes it:—

The college had an ancient claim upon its butcher to provide a ram on the Election Saturday, to be hunted by the scholars; but the animal having upon one occasion been so pressed as to swim across the Thames, it ran into Windsor Market, with the boys after it, and much mischief was caused by this unexpected accident. The health of the scholars had also occasionally suffered from the length of the chase, or the heat of the season. The character of the sport was therefore changed about 1740, when the ram was ham-strung, and, after the speech, was knocked on the head with large twisted clubs, which are reported to have been considered as Etonian curiosities. But the barbarity of the amusement caused it to be altogether laid aside at the election in 1747, and the flesh of the ram was given to be prepared in pasties. The dish still continues nominally to grace the Election Monday, though the meat no longer boasts its original toughness, being in fact the flesh of excellent wethers.

Browne Willis (quoted by Brand, Pop. Antiq. 1849, vol. i. p. 441) would derive this custom from what was used in the manor of East Wrotham, Norfolk, where the lord of the manor, after the harvest, gave half an acre of barley and a ram to the tenants thereof; the which ram, if they caught it was their own; if not, it was for the lord again.

In the Gent. Mag. (Aug. 1731, vol. i. p. 351) is the following:—

“Monday, August 2nd, was the election at Eton College, when the scholars, according to custom, hunted a ram, by which the provost and fellows hold a manor.”