Town and county
GEORGE EWART EVANS
Cambridgeshire Customs and Folklore Enid Porter (Routledge and Kegan Paul 105s) One of the biggest disadvantages of collec- tions of county folklore is that they imply that customs and beliefs conveniently follow county boundaries. It is true that collections like the present one give much pleasure to the inhabitants of one county, but they also cause like-minded people in other counties to get hot under the collar and say: 'Why! we've got that one in Lincolnshire'—or Dorset, or whatever county the reader happens to identify him- self with. Miss Porter does not claim that all the customs and beliefs she catalogues are indigenous to Cambridgeshire--many of them are not—and she appears to have followed the principle of listing all the folk- lore collected within the boundaries of the county simply in order to set a convenient limit, however arbitrary, to the field of her researches.
It is questionable whether this is the best method of collection at this date. Many. customs and beliefs are general, even uni- versal: many, again, appear to follow a local pattern; and it can be argued that those customs that are specifically local are closely identified with the historical work of the natural region of which the locality is a part; and usually the natural region cuts across county boundaries. For instance. Miss Porter's most interesting material comes from the Cambridgeshire fens; but one feels that the fens in contiguous coun- ties would bring a crop of comparable folk- lore. Unfortunately, she has made the decision to exclude occupational customs, thereby forfeiting the natural basis for a collection which would undoubtedly have sewed her own county equally as well as the present one but, in addition, would have demonstrated the customs' organic link with the way fen people have got their living from soil and water in other like areas in eastern England.
All this may appear a little carping in the face of what is obviously a fascinating and remarkable collection of county folklore; and it may well be that to suggest a differ- ent approach is to counsel an exceedingly difficult if not impossible course at a time when the main impetus for English collec- tions of folklore comes from county museums and county local history councils.
But in spite of this I believe the limitations of county collections need to be pointed out because their defects are built into their very beginnings; and county chauvinism is not the least of them.
What Miss Porter has given us is a rich catalogue of beliefs and customs, many of which would have been lost but for her labours over long years. It will become a useful reference book for folklorists in Britain. and the book's careful organisa- tion into sections like 'folklore and customs of human life.' folklore of nature,' will make its use an informative pleasure, par- ticularly as it will be assisted by so many excellent photographs.
But the inclusion of the town and univer- sity of Cambridge within her province makes Miss Porter's book vitally different from similar collections and gives it its claim to distinction. It adds extra breadth to the concept of folklore, and makes the two chapters on 'University Customs' and 'Customs of Municipal and Corporate Life the most outstanding sections of the book. The material here will be new to many readers because it is peculiar to the town and the university of Cambridge, and a mere cataloguing of the sub-titles of the university chapter will bring back their Cambridge days vividly to many graduates: college chapel and university church, dress (official and non-academic), examinations.
hall and high table, May week—and so on.
Under 'miscellaneous' are listed such in- customs as riding the stang, the King Stre-et run, roof-climbing, and the Upware Republic. We have glimpses of the running fight between 'town and gown,' both in the streets and at the tables and offices of the great--much of it laughable from this point in time. Four appendices: charity; land- letting and rental customs; food and drink: sayings, proverbs and rhymes, and miscel- laneous beliefs and customs; plus a short glossary of Cambridgeshire words, greatly increase the collection's value as a work of reference for the folklorist.
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