Holland Fen and Fen Skating.
In the Fens there were always some tracts of ground raised above the waters which at times inundated the lower levels there. These are indicated by such names as Mount Pleasant, or by the termination ‘toft,’ as in Langtoft, Fishtoft, Brothertoft, and Wigtoft in the Fens; and similarly in the Isle of Axholme, Eastoft, Sandtoft, and Beltoft. Toft is a Scandinavian word connected with top, and means a knoll of rising ground. When the staple commodities of the Fens were “feathers, wool, and wildfowl,” these knolls were centres of industry. Sheep might roam at large, but in hard weather always liked to have some higher ground to make for, and human beings have a preference for a dry site, hence a cottage or two and, if there was room, a collection of houses and possibly a church would come into existence, and the grassy knoll would be often white with the flocks of geese which were kept, not so much for eating as for plucking; and we know that the monasteries always had ‘vacheries’ or cow-pastures either on these isolated knolls or on rising ground at the edge of the fen. One of the most notable of these island villages was called at one time Goosetoft, now Brothertoft, in the Holland Fen about four miles west of Boston. Here on the 8th of July, O.S., all sheep “found in their wool,” i.e., who had not been clipped and marked, were driven up to be claimed by their owners, fourpence a head being exacted from all who had no common rights.
The custom survives in Westmorland, where in November of every year all stray Herdwick sheep are brought in to the shepherds’ meeting at the ‘Dun Bull’ at Mardale, near Hawes-Water, and after they are claimed, the men settle down to a strenuous day, or rather two nights and a day, of enjoyment; a fox hunt on foot, and a hound trail whatever the weather may be, followed by feasting and songs at night, keep them all “as merry as grigs.” But where there are ten people at the Dun Bull there were one hundred or more at Brothertoft, people coming out from Boston for the day or even for the week, and all being lodged and fed in some thirty large tents.
GOOSETOFT
John Taylor, ‘the water poet,’ wrote in 1640 an account of Goosetoft which is worth preserving:—
In Lincolnshire an ancient town doth stand
Called Goosetoft, that hath neither fallow’d land
Or woods or any fertile pasture ground,
But is with wat’ry fens incompast round.
The people there have neither horse nor cowe,
Nor sheep, nor oxe, nor asse, nor pig, nor sowe;
Nor cream, curds, whig, whey, buttermilk or cheese,
Nor any other living thing but geese.
The parson of the parish takes great paines,
And tythe-geese only are his labour’s gaines;
If any charges there must be defrayed
Or imposition on the towne is lay’d,
As subsidies or fifteenes[29] for the King,
Or to mend bridges, churches, anything,
Then those that have of geese the greatest store
Must to these taxes pay so much the more.
Nor can a man be raised to dignity
But as his geese increase and multiply;
And as men’s geese do multiply and breed
From office unto office they proceed.
A man that hath but with twelve geese began
In time hath come to be a tythingman;
And with great credit past that office thorough,
His geese increasing he hath been Headborough,
Then, as his flock in number are accounted,
Unto a Constable he hath been mounted;
And so from place to place he doth aspire,
And as his geese grow more hee’s raisèd higher.
’Tis onely geese then that doe men prefer,
And ’tis a rule no geese no officer.