Woozel Hunt
Every year we are looking forward to the annual event whereby normally sane village folk take it upon themselves to dress in wide and varying degrees of outrageous costume and descend on the Memorial Hall in the hope of draining a glass or three of free wine. No I’m not talking about the Village Dinner; I am, of course referring to the Woozel Hunt!
For the uninitiated, a (not necessarily accurate) history of this auspicious event ensues...
The tale goes back 300 hundred years when a number of strange thefts occurred in the village during the yuletide period. One Boxing Day the landlord of Ye Olde Prinfe of Walef pubbe had prepared a plate of freshly baked mince pies and had left them on the window sill to cool. He then sat down to read the December edition of the Fhrivenham, Bourton and Watchfield Newf wishing that someone would soon invent the letter ‘s’ as it was playing havoc with his dentures every time he read aloud.
Unaware that a similar jam-tart related incident had previously caused a great deal of distress to local royalty, he turned towards the window to check on his afternoon treat. To his horror, the precious pudding had vanished! Suddenly lamenting the decision to have used the window sill instead of somewhere more logical – like anywhere indoors, he rushed to the window only to see a shadowy creature high-tailing it away down the high street. All that was left were a few crumbs ... and a plate.
Grabbing the nearest pitchfork he set out to pursue the nefarious villain using the trail of mince pie crumbs as his guide. Up the high street and onwards to St. Andrew’s Church he ran until suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks. The crumb trail had ended! Regretting that he had not baked a bigger batch of mince pies in order to extend the trail, he wearily trudged back home, muttering something about how it wasn’t fair and that something should be done about it.
And so it went on for many years. Never returning to the same place twice, the secret pilferer worked its way around numerous households in Shrivenham ... only ever on Boxing Day, and only ever stealing mince pies.
It was eventually decided by the ruling party in the village, The Council of Deranged Flumbersnafflers, that something should indeed be done about it. Assuming that the same fate would shortly ensue, an emergency pre-Christmas council meeting was called.
Lady Wherebe-Thatwoozelto opened the meeting by requesting that the Council re-affirm its ongoing commitment to the village by reciting the Privy Council Pledge... “We do solemnly and soberly declare that we shall conduct our business with reverence and fortitude, leaving no stone unturned in our continued quest for the truth; and under no circumstance whatsoever shall we let the truth get in the way of a good yarn.” With the formalities out of the way, and having berated one Council member for sniggering at the word “soberly”, Lord Saveus, one of the council elders, brought the meeting to order. The meeting was duly recorded for posterity by Sir Toby Ornot-Toby, Senior PA to the Assistant Deputy Clerk to the Council of Deranged Flumbersnafflers.
The Privy Council sat for many hours violently agreeing the appropriate course of action. At one point in the proceedings, brief excitement ensued when one senior council member, whilst exuberantly blowing the froth from his evening tincture, inadvertently blinded two other privy council members – not to mention causing considerable damage to the privy itself. Eventually, a decision was reached that (unsurprisingly due to the title of this article) a hunt would be staged this very Boxing Day in order to entrap the village hoodlum that had locally been nicknamed.... the Woozel. After many more hours of heated debate and a considerable number of extraneous motions, Lord Saveus rose from the Privy Seat and declared triumphantly that the hunt should be named.... The Woozel Hunt!
And so it came to pass that Major D’artagnan Quock MWH was duly dispatched to lead a contingent of the village’s finest warriors on a quest to catch the purloiner of prestigious puddings ... and quite frankly they have been trying unsuccessfully ever since. Each year the bleary-eyed throng assembles at the village tree to attempt the annual debacle even though the task is really quite straightforward.
Throughout the Hunt all that is required to lure the Woozel from one of its many hiding places is to make as much noise as possible. Then, abruptly, the Hunt Leader calls for silence. This cunning ruse is merely the precursor to the pre-emptive strike! Having set the Woozel on a high state of alert (in between munching on stolen mince pies of course!) villagers take it in turns to regale the worst joke imaginable. This then renders the Woozel incapable of escape whilst it collapses in a fit of audible, and hence easily tracked, laughter (not to mention a near fatal attack of indigestion after all that mince pie gorging!) Alas this simple theory has proved to be quite a challenge and has, in practise, turned out to be much harder than was at first anticipated. Despite Taiwan’s finest export, the Christmas Cracker, the vast arsenal of Christmas Cracker jokes hurled at the Woozel over the past decades has returned not a single Woozel pelt.
A few years back a yoghurt-knitting brigade of eco-fantasists took it upon themselves to join the pursuit by presenting themselves as “The Woozel Preservation Society”. Not to be confused with the “Society for the Preservation of the Woozel” (let’s face it, no-one trusts that bunch of yobs), these self-appointed protectors of unworthy causes have no political agenda other than to disrupt the honest toil of good, hard-working Woozel Hunters. And boy have they pulled some stunts over the years! At first this pathetic posse of pacifists tried the usual method of petitioning, but the Council of Deranged Flumbersnafflers was having none of it. Hours of agonising debate were conducted. Eventually Lord Saveus was told to sit down and stop waving his baton as it was incredibly distracting and served no practical purpose whatsoever. Eventually, like the privy itself, all legal avenues were blocked.
So the WPS decided to adopt a radical approach when they somehow struck upon the random idea of singing “Good King Wenceslas” as loudly as their post-Xmas hangovers would allow. This immense source of irritation restores the Woozel from its temporarily incapacitated state into the wily creature of village-wide renown.
Regrettably, the WPS have enjoyed some considerable success with this approach so it is entirely feasible that this highly embarrassing spectacle will be repeated this year – you have been warned.
This year, when the rabble finally arrive at the Recreation Ground, morale will undoubtedly be high, which is often surprising given the dismal success rate of previous years. In a final act of desperation, the hounds will be unleashed in a final attempt to take out the Woozel by force. Then the Hunt retires to the sanctuary that is the Memorial Hall in order to relax over a Mulled Wine and any remaining mince pies that the Woozel was unable to get its grubby paws on. If you’re lucky there may be a prize or two for the best attempt at snaring the Woozel through joke telling, as well as for the best attired villager.
Anyone interested in attending this year’s event should assemble at the Village Xmas Tree on Boxing Day at 10:15.
Happy hunting!
For the uninitiated, a (not necessarily accurate) history of this auspicious event ensues...
The tale goes back 300 hundred years when a number of strange thefts occurred in the village during the yuletide period. One Boxing Day the landlord of Ye Olde Prinfe of Walef pubbe had prepared a plate of freshly baked mince pies and had left them on the window sill to cool. He then sat down to read the December edition of the Fhrivenham, Bourton and Watchfield Newf wishing that someone would soon invent the letter ‘s’ as it was playing havoc with his dentures every time he read aloud.
Unaware that a similar jam-tart related incident had previously caused a great deal of distress to local royalty, he turned towards the window to check on his afternoon treat. To his horror, the precious pudding had vanished! Suddenly lamenting the decision to have used the window sill instead of somewhere more logical – like anywhere indoors, he rushed to the window only to see a shadowy creature high-tailing it away down the high street. All that was left were a few crumbs ... and a plate.
Grabbing the nearest pitchfork he set out to pursue the nefarious villain using the trail of mince pie crumbs as his guide. Up the high street and onwards to St. Andrew’s Church he ran until suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks. The crumb trail had ended! Regretting that he had not baked a bigger batch of mince pies in order to extend the trail, he wearily trudged back home, muttering something about how it wasn’t fair and that something should be done about it.
And so it went on for many years. Never returning to the same place twice, the secret pilferer worked its way around numerous households in Shrivenham ... only ever on Boxing Day, and only ever stealing mince pies.
It was eventually decided by the ruling party in the village, The Council of Deranged Flumbersnafflers, that something should indeed be done about it. Assuming that the same fate would shortly ensue, an emergency pre-Christmas council meeting was called.
Lady Wherebe-Thatwoozelto opened the meeting by requesting that the Council re-affirm its ongoing commitment to the village by reciting the Privy Council Pledge... “We do solemnly and soberly declare that we shall conduct our business with reverence and fortitude, leaving no stone unturned in our continued quest for the truth; and under no circumstance whatsoever shall we let the truth get in the way of a good yarn.” With the formalities out of the way, and having berated one Council member for sniggering at the word “soberly”, Lord Saveus, one of the council elders, brought the meeting to order. The meeting was duly recorded for posterity by Sir Toby Ornot-Toby, Senior PA to the Assistant Deputy Clerk to the Council of Deranged Flumbersnafflers.
The Privy Council sat for many hours violently agreeing the appropriate course of action. At one point in the proceedings, brief excitement ensued when one senior council member, whilst exuberantly blowing the froth from his evening tincture, inadvertently blinded two other privy council members – not to mention causing considerable damage to the privy itself. Eventually, a decision was reached that (unsurprisingly due to the title of this article) a hunt would be staged this very Boxing Day in order to entrap the village hoodlum that had locally been nicknamed.... the Woozel. After many more hours of heated debate and a considerable number of extraneous motions, Lord Saveus rose from the Privy Seat and declared triumphantly that the hunt should be named.... The Woozel Hunt!
And so it came to pass that Major D’artagnan Quock MWH was duly dispatched to lead a contingent of the village’s finest warriors on a quest to catch the purloiner of prestigious puddings ... and quite frankly they have been trying unsuccessfully ever since. Each year the bleary-eyed throng assembles at the village tree to attempt the annual debacle even though the task is really quite straightforward.
Throughout the Hunt all that is required to lure the Woozel from one of its many hiding places is to make as much noise as possible. Then, abruptly, the Hunt Leader calls for silence. This cunning ruse is merely the precursor to the pre-emptive strike! Having set the Woozel on a high state of alert (in between munching on stolen mince pies of course!) villagers take it in turns to regale the worst joke imaginable. This then renders the Woozel incapable of escape whilst it collapses in a fit of audible, and hence easily tracked, laughter (not to mention a near fatal attack of indigestion after all that mince pie gorging!) Alas this simple theory has proved to be quite a challenge and has, in practise, turned out to be much harder than was at first anticipated. Despite Taiwan’s finest export, the Christmas Cracker, the vast arsenal of Christmas Cracker jokes hurled at the Woozel over the past decades has returned not a single Woozel pelt.
A few years back a yoghurt-knitting brigade of eco-fantasists took it upon themselves to join the pursuit by presenting themselves as “The Woozel Preservation Society”. Not to be confused with the “Society for the Preservation of the Woozel” (let’s face it, no-one trusts that bunch of yobs), these self-appointed protectors of unworthy causes have no political agenda other than to disrupt the honest toil of good, hard-working Woozel Hunters. And boy have they pulled some stunts over the years! At first this pathetic posse of pacifists tried the usual method of petitioning, but the Council of Deranged Flumbersnafflers was having none of it. Hours of agonising debate were conducted. Eventually Lord Saveus was told to sit down and stop waving his baton as it was incredibly distracting and served no practical purpose whatsoever. Eventually, like the privy itself, all legal avenues were blocked.
So the WPS decided to adopt a radical approach when they somehow struck upon the random idea of singing “Good King Wenceslas” as loudly as their post-Xmas hangovers would allow. This immense source of irritation restores the Woozel from its temporarily incapacitated state into the wily creature of village-wide renown.
Regrettably, the WPS have enjoyed some considerable success with this approach so it is entirely feasible that this highly embarrassing spectacle will be repeated this year – you have been warned.
This year, when the rabble finally arrive at the Recreation Ground, morale will undoubtedly be high, which is often surprising given the dismal success rate of previous years. In a final act of desperation, the hounds will be unleashed in a final attempt to take out the Woozel by force. Then the Hunt retires to the sanctuary that is the Memorial Hall in order to relax over a Mulled Wine and any remaining mince pies that the Woozel was unable to get its grubby paws on. If you’re lucky there may be a prize or two for the best attempt at snaring the Woozel through joke telling, as well as for the best attired villager.
Anyone interested in attending this year’s event should assemble at the Village Xmas Tree on Boxing Day at 10:15.
Happy hunting!