ABSTRACT
The documentary record of the Hood’s history is not extensive and the earliest known reference is in W. Peck’s A Topographical Account of the Isle of Axholme (1815). Other accounts appeared sporadically in the periodical press and folklore journals thereafter until the mid to late twentieth century when the custom became annual fodder for the local and regional media, and every now and then caught the national eye. Yet very many sources on the custom contain some version of the de Mowbray story, something that is probably very telling about the meanings that have accrued to it over the past two hundred or so years. The legend firmly anchors the Hood and therefore Haxey in the past, and thus asserts a dynamic link between the contemporary place, its people and their history. It speaks eloquently of Haxey’s rural and agrarian roots and the people’s historic relationship with the land; and it casts Haxey as a unique place, with a unique history out of which the unique custom of the Hood has – almost organically, it seems – sprung. In all these ways the Lady de Mowbray legend and the game of which it tells can be read as speaking volumes; in all these ways the Haxey Hood can be said to be much more than just a game.
