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The Pattern under the Plough by George Ewart Evans

Review by: H. A. BeechamFolklore, Vol. 78, No. 1 (Spring, 1967), pp. 67-69Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1259062 .

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THE PATTERNNDER HEPLOUGH.By GEORGEWART VANS.London,Faber&Faber,1966.Pp. 269. 35s-

MR Ewart Evans has now produced a third most valuable addition to his

previous records of the old rural community of East Anglia.x Before

describing some of the more specific contributions to be found here, an

interestinggeneral opinion may be noted. This concerns the success of

some of the old folklore remedies: wart charms, for instance, for whosesuccess there is no scientific explanation. The author thinks it may bethat: 'The patient cures himself under the stimulus of a subtly im-

personal suggestion that seems to by-pass the conscious mind and to

operate independently of his reason.... All the hocus-pocus was an

instinctive attempt to stimulate the patient's own healing force.' MrEvans goes on to condemn one of the worst banes of modern medicine.'The old medicine had the least success with the infectious diseases

which modern medicine has to a large extent tamed. Science isolatesthe bacillus or the virus that causes the disease and then proceeds torender it ineffective. And its very success in this field has caused a

contradictory and ultimately harmful trend in modern medicine,

especially in hospitals where various technical improvements, the

specialization in different skills, the better equipment, and improveddrugs, are all tending to emphasize the treatment of a patient as a more-or-less depersonalized case, thus ignoring or undervaluing an importanttherapeutic factor - the force within the patient himself that can

greatlyhelp his own recovery.' The old cures, on the other hand, were addressedto the whole man, not merely to his disease; and those who administeredthem appearto have had an instinctiveknowledgeof how to stimulatethe patient'shopeanddesireto bewell.

Onematterof interest,whichthe authordescribes n detail,concernscertain old methods of house-building.The purposeof much of thisdetail was laterforgottenandabandoned.Unlikemodernarchitects, heTudor buildersprovidedinsulationof both heat and sound. This they

achievedby packingthe spacesbetweenthe floorjoists on the firstandsecond floors with materialssuch as oat husks, walnut shells and seashells. In the course of 'reconstructionand improvement'such oldinsulationmaterialwas often removedand nothing put back to replace

1 Ask the Fellowswho cut the Hay, Faber, 1956. The Horsein the Furrow,Faber,1960.

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it. In consequence the rooms would appear, at a later stage, to be badly

insulated, although they had not been so when the houses were built.

One is tempted to wonder whether such old buildings were in otherrespects as uncomfortable to live in as they sometimes appear to be now,after centuries of ignorant tampering. Walnut shells and sea shells were

also, of course, fertility symbols; and their presence in a family dwellingwould be thought to contribute more than a purely practical architecturaldevice.

This interweaving of the practical and of the magical occurs again and

again throughout Mr Evans' book. The bay-tree, being an evergreen,was one of the sacred trees. Mr Evans records that a Suffolk woman hada bay-tree transplanted when she moved house. 'She said that shewouldn't have been comfortable in the new house without it.' She mayalso, of course, although Mr Evans does not record this, have prizedher bay-tree for its culinary contribution.

While speaking of trees, Mr Evans states in a footnote that 'there is atradition in Suffolk that the elder is a good tree to have growing outside a

dairy as its bitter smell keeps flies away'. It is possible, however, thatmore was needed than the mere presence of the tree. Probably the leaves

would have been plucked, bruised and then hung up in the dairy,perhaps near the doorway. I remember advice given me in the earlytwenties by estate workers of the Earl of Lytton. While riding in the

park of Knebworth House during the hot summer months, clouds offlies (commoner then than they are today) used to pursue both poniesand riders. We were advised to put sprigs of elder in bridles, saddles and

hats, having first bruised the leaves; and this remedy seemed to be atleast partially effective. But the bruising was essential. The juice had tobe forced out of the leaf, just as it must be wrung out of the dock leaf

before it is rubbed on flesh stung by a nettle.Bees are another insect with an aversion to certain smells. One bee-

keeper told Mr Evans: 'I know from experience that if I approachedtheir hives with scented lotion on my hair it would make them angry.'In fact, an extremely heightened degree of olefactory perception in someanimals lies behind many old beliefs and magical practices. Biologistsare now beginning to turn their attention to a field with which countrypeople have long been familiar. Among other animals, the horse has an

acute sense of smell and his reactions to certain smells are extreme. Insome racing stables, it used to be the practice to place a billy-goat in thestable of a race-horse who had become unmanageable. It was alwaysthought, somewhat vaguely, that this unusual companion had a soothingeffect upon the upset horse, without the mechanism of this effect beingunderstood. Now Mr Evans refers to 'the malodorous flank gland of the

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billy-goat' and suggests that possibly 'the goat's smell masked another

odour, undetectable by the human nose, but which was particularlyoffensive to the horse. . .'.

We now come to the most original content of Mr Evans' book: his

discoveries regarding horse magic. It is impossible to do more than to

summarize briefly some of his remarkable finds in this field. The secrets

of the Horse Whisperer are revealed. The secret words he used were of

no importance. He tamed the horse by something which the horse liked

to smell. On the other hand, horses 'bewitched', and apparently unable

to move, were held so by the presence of some substance whose smell

was repellent to them.

As to the Brotherhood of the Horseman's Word, I had previouslysupposed that, if indeed it had ever existed, it had been extinct for too

many centuries to yield more than an occasional trace-memory. Mr

Evans has discovered not only that it existed but that it still exists. He

knows of it as The Horseman's Society and has published as many of its

secrets as he may. By revealing two details of the extant ceremony, the

author makes it apparent that the cult of the horned god still flourishes- in conditions of extreme secrecy. Its survival in remote places such as

north-east Scotland, and through the medium of what may have been

a craftmen's guild, suggest a continuation of something ancient. Pro-

tected as these survivals are by remoteness and secrecy, there is no

chance of their being confused with, or contaminated by, the drug-crazed caperings of our contemporary 'witch-coven' cult. Finally the

Horseman's word was not what the horse-whisperers whispered. This

secret word of power was central and integral to the cult: it was the

essence of it.

Mr Evans' excellent book should find a wide reading public. It will

have an especial interest for those who study the old rural life of EastAnglia. But it will appeal to many other folklorists and also to thoseinterested in the care and welfare of the horse. These last may find

some useful recipes, here published for the first time, but known andused for centuries, for 'calling' and 'drawing' horses to them, as well asfor taming and calming them. H. A. BEECHAM

THE BLACK RTS.By RICHARDAVENDISH.Routledge and Kegan Paul,London

1967. Pp. 373- 42s.THE author states his attitude toward Magic, and many other practicesassociated with it, in his first pages. We are clearly warned that this is a

study of Evil working among humans. The attitude is supported byample documentation, but one remembers that most of the older

documents are from one side of the argument and belong to an outbreak

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