The Mermaid, though only a semi-human sign, is most conveniently noticed here. There is no example of it now existing in the county, though it occurs on the farthing token of Michael Arnold of Colchester. As a sign it used formerly to be not uncommon.
The *Silent Woman is the name of a public-house, with a truly pictorial sign, at Widford. The signs of the Good Woman and the Quiet Woman, which occur occasionally in other counties, are identical with this, and, all alike, constitute a piece of unwarrantable slander on the fair sex, being intended to convey the idea that a woman can only be silenced by being deprived of her head. Larwood and Hotten say (p. 455):
“There is a very curious example of this sign at Widford, near Chelmsford, representing on one side a half-length portrait of Henry VIII., on the reverse, a woman without a head, dressed in the costume of the latter half of the last century, with the inscription Forte Bonne. The addition of the portrait of Henry VIII. has led to the popular belief that the headless woman is meant for Anne Boleyn, though probably it is simply a combination of the King’s Head and Good Woman.”
The inscription on the sign-board is, presumably, intended to be the French for “Very Good,” but it is spelled “Fort Bon,” and it has been “Fort Bone.”
A writer in Once a Week (N. S., ii. p. 487) says:
“The Essex tradition is that St. Osyth, when the convent was attacked by the Danes [A.D. 635], fled down the park to a thicket, since called ‘Nun’s Wood,’ where she was overtaken, and her head cut off; and that on the spot where the head fell, a spring of water burst forth, which flows to this day. Another local tradition asserts that on one night in each year St. Osyth revisits the scene of her former abode, walking with her head under her arm. It is this legend which probably gave rise to the sign of the ‘Good Woman,’ at Widford, near Chelmsford,—of whom, by the way, I may remark that she is currently said to be the only good woman in Essex.”
Larwood and Hotten say that the sign was largely used by oilmen, which makes it very probable that the device has some reference to the “heedless virgins” who had no oil in their lamps when the bridegroom came—heed and head having formerly been pronounced alike, according to those authors. The sign is not uncommon on the Continent also.
A writer in Notes and Queries (Fifth Series, vol. iv. p. 337) very ingeniously explains the origin of this sign. He says: