8 OLD VILLAGE JOKES AND GAMES. 



" nut-brown beer " and, after having finished shearing one 

 sheep, in his fuddled condition he essayed to lay hold of 

 another, but instead he seized the old shepherd's shaggy- 

 coated dog, and proceeded to divest it of its jacket. The dog 

 waa only a "passive resister," and when the operation was 

 finished the Ansty man, whose name tradition does not hand 

 down, turned up the old dog and let him go, remarking 

 admiringly " Ther' now, 1 calls thic zheep turned out darned 

 well," and Ansty has had to pay the penalty of his folly ever 

 since. 



MAPPOWDER HEDGE-PIGS. 



The real origin of this is obscure. From two sources I have 

 been told the same tale that it originated through two Map- 

 powder men having been mistaken at a public -house at 

 Haselbury Bryan for two gipsies wiio had stolen something. 

 Mappowder men were also called " Gips," as Mappowder 

 Common before its enclosure was a noted rendezvous for gipsies, 

 and gipsies were supposed to eat hedgehogs, hence the not very 

 logical connection between a Mappowder man and a hedge -pig. 

 Anyway, this seems to have been sufficiently established to the 

 bucolic mind. The nickname seems to have been much re- 

 sented by some of the more susceptible inhabitants, and as a 

 consequence was assiduously applied to them either in fun or 

 spite by their neighbours. An old inhabitant told me that 

 there was one Michael New who was particularly irritated at 

 the sobriquet, and that as a boy he used to delight in looking 

 over the hedge and saying " Michael, hav' e' zeed ar'a hedge- 

 pig to-day ? " and Michael would drop his tool and chase him 

 tor a mile. Not infrequently, when one ot these touchy people 

 came out of doors in the morning, he would find a hedge-pig 

 suspended by its hind leg to the latch of his door. This 

 badinage seems to have been carried on especially between the 

 Haselbury Ba-lambs and the Mappowder hedge-pigs. The 

 following amusing incident was told me by my old friend W.M. 

 of Haselbury. 



