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Abstract
This paper examines the emergence, over the past three decades, of innovative folklore motifs in "The Hunting of the Earl of Rone," in the Devon village of Combe Martin. This calendar custom, which was extant prior to 1837, was reconstructed in 1970 and has now become an established annual tradition. Detailed records of the source, stimulus and function of the various "new" elements (including plant-lore, dance steps, cross-dressing and rites of passage) show that individual creativity and group aesthetics have operated in constant tension to evolve the custom as it is today.
Introduction
The subject of this paper is the modern reconstruction and development of "The Hunting of the Earl of Rone," a calendar custom that formerly took place in the village of Combe Martin on the North Devon coast over a period of days (perhaps even a fortnight), climaxing on Ascension Day. It has been reported that it was banned by local by-law in 1837 because of "rough horse-play and drinking habits" (Coxhead 1957). The village lies five miles east of Ilfracombe in a valley that runs from the north-western edge of the Exmoor upland down to the Bristol Channel. It consists of a single main street, running for one and a half miles along the valley floor with side roads and lanes running off it, particularly to the north, up the steep sides of the combe. Apart from farming and market gardening, local industry up to the twentieth century was concerned with fishing, lime burning and coastal trade in the lower end of the village ("Seaside") and mineral mining, primarily for lead and silver, in the higher part of the village ("Head-town"). The name of the small river that runs down the combe, the Umber, is a clue to the fact that the mineral pigment, umber, also used to be dug and processed in the village. Various sources describe certain aspects of the old custom. There are only two eyewitness accounts: The Reverend G. Tugwell's North Devon Scenery Book (Tugwell 1863, 109-14) and The Transactions of the Devonshire Association (Devonshire Association 1917: 74-5). There are other descriptions in a number of travelogues and early folklore books (Wade 1895, 117-19; Chope 1938, 431-2; Coxhead 1957, 89-92). These, however, are of uncertain provenance...