Old Tavern Signs Part 12

"'O, my Billy, my constant Billy, When shall I see my Billy again?'

'When the fishes fly over the mountain, Then you'll see your Billy again.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: SALUTATION INN IN MANGOTSFIELD]

Our design of two gentlemen saluting each other politely is such a club sign, reproducing in miniature the sign of the "Salutation Inn"

in Mangotsfield, and representing the last link in the chain of salutation signs, which began with the old religious scene of Mary saluted by the angel.

Price Collier, in his book "England and the English," has dedicated a whole chapter to English sport, on which the nation spends every year $223,888,725, more than the cost of her entire military machine, navy and army together. On fox hunting alone she spends $43,790,000. This love of sport is an old English trait, shared by both s.e.xes. One of the first books printed in England was a book on sport, "The Bokys of Haukyng and Huntyng," supposed to be written by a lady, Juliana Berners, the prioress of the nunnery of Sopwell, and published for the first time in the new black art in 1486. A schoolmaster of the abbey school of St. Albans had arranged the edition, and it is therefore sometimes quoted as "The Book of St. Albans." No wonder, then, that such a popular subject was readily chosen by the sign painters, and that they love to picture the hunted animals, the white hart and the fox, and not less often the faithful companions of the hunter, dog and horse, hawk and falcon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PACK-HORSE IN CHIPPENHAM]

A great role is played by the horse, not only as the heraldic animal in the coat of arms of the Saxons and of the House of Hanover, but the real beast, from the good old pack-horse to the lithe-limbed racer. In the early Middle Ages, when the roads were so bad that it was impossible for heavy wagons to travel on them, the pack-horse was the only medium for the transportation of goods, post-packages, and mail.

Those were hard days for impatient lovers, who would have preferred to send their _billets-doux_ in Shakespearean fas.h.i.+on, "making the wind my post-horse." Sometimes the horse's burden, the wool-pack--the wool business being the chief trade in England in the twelfth century--appears on the signboard. In fact, in the time of Ben Jonson "The Woolpack" was one of the leading hostelries of London.

Another sign is the race-horse, celebrated by Shakespeare in such lines as:--

"And I have horse will follow where the game Makes way, and run like swallows o'er the plain."

from "t.i.tus Andronicus" (II, ii), or those other lines in "Pericles"

(II, i):--

"Upon a courser, whose delightful steps Shall make the gazer joy to see him tread."

In the reign of Henry VIII, a tavern called "The Running Horses"

existed in Leatherhead, a place not exactly fitted for n.o.ble hunters, since a contemporary poet complains about the beer being served there "in rather disgusting conditions." Not infrequently we find more or less happy portraits of famous race-horses, such as "The Flying Dutchman" and "Bee's Wing"; sometimes even a hound was honored in this way, guarding the entrance of a tavern as his famous Roman colleague, pictured in mosaic, did in the days of antiquity. "The Blue Cap" in Sandiway (Ches.h.i.+re) was such a sign.

In Chaucer's time it was a popular fas.h.i.+on to decorate the horses with little bells, as we may infer from the Abbot's Tale:--

"When he rode men his bridle hear, Gingling in a whistling wind as clere, And eke as loud as doth a chapel bell."

Curiously enough, these bells, sometimes of silver and gold, are designated in old ma.n.u.scripts by the Italian word _campane_, as if this custom had been adopted by the English gentry from Italy. The "gentyll horse" of the Duke of Northumberland, the old doc.u.ments would tell us, was decorated with "campane of silver and gylt." Most naturally such valuable bells were very welcome as prizes in the sporting world; in Chester, for instance, the great prize of the annual race on St. George's Day consisted of a beautiful golden bell richly adorned with the royal escutcheon. But independent of this custom the bell has always been very popular in England. The great German musician Handel has even called it the national musical instrument, because nowhere else, perhaps, do the people delight so much in the chimes of their churches. We find it, therefore, everywhere on the tavern sign, sometimes in absurd combinations like "Bell and Candlestick" or "Bell and Lion"; very prettily in connection with a wild man, "Bell Savage," which is changed under gallant French influence into "Belle Sauvage," or even "La Belle Sauvage." "c.o.c.k and Bell" points again to a popular sport, the c.o.c.k-fight. Like the little slant-eyed j.a.panese, the small boys of Old England loved to watch this exciting game; on Lent-Tuesday special c.o.c.k-fights were arranged for them, and the happy little owner of the victorious animal was presented with a tiny silver bell to wear on his cap. No wonder that "The Fighting c.o.c.ks" themselves appear on the signboard. We find them on taverns in Italy, too, where the popularity of this sport goes back to the Roman days. The Bluebeard King Henry VIII issued an order prohibiting all c.o.c.k-fights among his subjects, all the while establis.h.i.+ng for himself a c.o.c.kpit in White Hall as a royal prerogative. In the days of Queen Victoria the rather cruel sport was definitely abolished.

Another not less cruel sport still lives in the tavern sign "Dog and Duck." The birds were put into a small pond and chased by dogs.

Watching the frightened creatures dive to escape their pursuers const.i.tuted the chief joy of the performance. We may still hear the wild cries of the spectators urging on the dogs, when we read the old rhyme:--

"Ho, ho, to Islington; enough!

Fetch Job my son, and our dog Ruffe!

For there in Pond, through mire and muck, We'll cry: hay Duck, there Ruffe, hay Duck!"

An old stone sign of such a "Dog and Duck" tavern, dated 1617, can still be seen in London outside of the Bethlehem Hospital in St.

George's Field. The popular name of this lunatic asylum is Bedlam--favorite word of Carlyle to designate confusion and chaos.

Here in South London special arenas were built for the spectacle of bear-baiting, and it is no chance that as early as in the time of Richard III the most popular tavern of this quarter was called "The Bear." It stood near London Bridge, and was frequented especially by aristocratic revelers. In these scenes of rough amus.e.m.e.nts for the people the muse of Shakespeare introduced the gentle dramatic arts.

Here his "Henry V" was introduced for the first time, perhaps, with its solemn chorus: "Can this c.o.c.kpit hold the vasty fields of France?"

Still more than these artificial and butchery sports of the citizen, the real joys of the hunter found their echo in the productions of the sign-painters. There is hardly an English town without a "White Hart Inn." Since the days of Alexander the Great, who once caught a beautiful white hart and decorated his slender neck with a golden ring, since Charlemagne and Henry the Lion, the white hart has been a special favorite of the hunter, whose joys no poet perhaps has sung so charmingly as Shakespeare in these lines of "t.i.tus Andronicus" (II, ii and iii):--

"The hunt is up, the morn is bright and grey, The fields are fragrant, and the woods are green: Uncouple here

The birds chaunt melody on every bush; The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun; The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind, And make a chequer'd shadow on the ground: Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit, And--whilst the babbling echo mocks the hounds, Replying shrilly to the well-tun'd horns, As if a double hunt were heard at once once-- Let us sit down...."

Another group of signs celebrates Master Reynard. We see him hara.s.sed by dogs and riders on the sign "Fox and Hounds" in Barley (Hertfords.h.i.+re). We miss only the sportive ladies who dip their kerchiefs of lace in the poor devil's blood to show that they, too, were in at the finish. This sign, by the way, was used long centuries ago, since we hear of a "Fox and Hounds Inn" in Putney that claims to be over three hundred years old.

The German Nimrod took no less pleasure than his English cousin in seeing a hunter's sign on the tavern door, as is amply proved by the many golden harts, flying in great bounds, or our George sign from Degerloch, daintily wrought in iron. The German poets, too, sang many a song celebrating the adventures of the chase.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ZUM HIRSHEN WINNENDEN]

Not so often do we find on the Continent the so-called "punning sign,"

which might well be called an English specialty, since England's greatest poet used to indulge a great deal in punning,--"mistaking the word" as he calls it. In a dialogue full of quibbles in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona" he admits himself that it is a weakness to yield to it:--

"_Speed._ How now, Signior Launce? What news with your masters.h.i.+p?

"_Launce._ With my master's s.h.i.+p? Why, it is at sea.

"_Speed._ Well, your old vice still: mistake the word.

What news then in your paper?

"_Launce._ The blackest news that ever thou heard'st.

"_Speed._ Why, man, how black?

"_Launce._ Why, as black as ink."

And thus he goes on against his better judgment and "the old vice"

triumphs, not only here, but in nearly all his plays. Following the ill.u.s.trious example of the great poet the English landlord puts all kinds of puns and puzzles on his signs, and the private citizen of simple birth and aristocratic ambitions created for himself the most ridiculous escutcheons by childish plays upon his own name. Thus, Mr.

Haton would put a hat and a tun in his coat of arms and Mr. Luton a lute and a tun without giving a thought to etymology. Likewise the landlord's name would account for such curious signs as "Hand and c.o.c.k," which was simply the punning sign of a certain John Hanc.o.c.k in Whitefriars.

Diligent authors like Frederic Naab--who, together with Thormanby, made a special study of sign puzzles--are indefatigable in searching out the deep meaning of all these tavern sign absurdities. "The Pig and Whistle" alone has been explained in twelve different ways. We mentioned above how "The Cat and Fiddle" was a mutilation of the old religious sign of "Catherine and Wheel." In similar fas.h.i.+on the n.o.ble-sounding "Baccha.n.a.ls" were degraded to a common "Bag of Nails."

Topers and tipplers, whose forte was certainly not orthography, loved to confuse "bear" and "beer," words that might very well sound alike when p.r.o.nounced by beery voices. A certain Thomas Dawson in Leeds, who evidently sold a rather heavy beer, warned his customers on his sign: "Beware of ye Beare." Lovers of cards invented the amusing distortion of "Pique and Carreau" into "The Pig and Carrot." The popular political sign of "The Four Alls," representing a King ("I rule all"), a Priest ("I pray for all"), a Soldier ("I fight for all"), and John Bull as farmer ("I pay for all"), was changed into "Four Awls," a sign which presented infinitely less difficulties to a painter of few resources. Sometimes the Devil is added as fifth figure saying, "I take all."

Cromwell's soldiers once took offense at the sign of a tavern where they were obliged to put up for the night. They took it down and in its place wrote over the door the words, "G.o.d encompa.s.ses us." The next day, when they were gone, the landlord had the brilliant idea to change the pious words to the punning sign, "Goat and compa.s.ses."

Maybe, too, the compa.s.ses were a commercial trade-mark, as we see them still to-day on boxes and casks.

Very popular was the joking sign, "The Labor in Vain," representing a woman occupied in the hopeless task of was.h.i.+ng a colored boy:--

"You may wash and scrub him from morning till night, Your labor's in vain, black will never come white."

This particular sign was imported from France, where the _calembour_ sign flourished. Some even say that the punning sign became popular in England only "after Edward ye 3 had conquered France." The French have two interpretations of the "Labor in Vain": one corresponds with the English version; the other, "Au temps perdu," represents a schoolmaster teaching an a.s.s. As counterpart we find "Le temps gagne,"

a peasant carrying his donkey. The French _calembours_ were decidedly less reverential than the English punning signs. Neither religion nor good morals are sacred to the Gallic wag, who is allowed to say anything if he understands how to turn it gracefully. "Le Signe de la croix" is depicted by a swan (_cygne_) and a cross, and even the tragic scene of Jesus taken prisoner in the Garden of Gethsemane--_le juste pris_--is turned into the shameless words, "Au juste prix," to advertise the cheapness of drinks and victuals. More innocent is the distortion of the "Lion d'or" into the undeniable truth, "Au lit on dort," or the inscription on a white-horse sign: "Ici on loge a pied et a cheval." The temptation to use such _calembours_ no trader could resist. A corset-maker praised his goods thus: "Je soutiens les faibles, je comprime les forts, je ramene les egares." We shall see in the following chapter how such pointed jokes and blasphemies roused the righteous indignation of the honorable and pious citizens and increased the enemies of the sign, who finally gave it the _coup de grace_.

CHAPTER XII

THE ENEMIES OF THE SIGN AND ITS END