Fa Hingit the Monkey? - no.1 in a series

Who indeed? Funny how both Boddam and Hartlepool seem to claim the legend of the monkey who was apparently hanged from the mast of the French ship on which he was found when it was wrecked.

For those that are blissfully ignorant of this bit of blason populaire - (popular insults), let me take you back to Napoleonic times - like the days of Senator McCarthy's witchhunts in the 1950s, it wasn't Reds folk saw under the beds, but Frenchies! Everyone was terrified of French spies - especially cos they had no idea what a Frenchman looked like.

Enter a French merchant ship - it's wrecked - in one version off the coast of Hartlepool, County Durham, and in the other, off Boddam, a fishing village in Aberdeenshire -

Boddam locals' reaction - Ee! There's a beastie on board, let's dae awa wi it so we can claim the salvage!

Smart, couthy and spendthrift locals who know that the law of the sea is finders' keepers, so long as there's no-one aboard! They also 'recycle' their monkey carcase and make 'potted heid' - a butcher's delicacy that I have never had the misfortune to sample!

Hartlepool locals' reaction - Ere, look at that hairy man wi a tail and hairy hands! He winna speak English, he must be a Frenchie spy! Let's hang him on the square and show what good citizens we are! We'll send his body back to Napoleon and make sure Boney doesn't send any more hairy men!

These Northern folk are apparently too thick to tell the difference between a monkey and a Frenchman. They get riotously drunk and chop up the poor monkey's corpse, and declare that they have maintained England's sovereignty at sea. Duh!

So, the Hartlepudlians get the rawest deal out of this - Boddamers are merely greedy; but they are completely stupid! Tell me why then should Hartlepool United FC adopt the monkey as a mascot?

This is H'angus the Monkey (gettit? hang-us? Doh!) - Hartlepool United FC's mascot. He even ran for mayor and won! (Hiding inside H'angus was a local guy who wanted the publicity).

This fella here is Mervyn, who is the logo of the HUFC's supporter's magazine 'Monkey Business'.

And ...

This is a stone monkey in Hartlepool where folk chuck coins for charity.

The footballing fraternity seem very happy to have the soubriquet Monkey Hanger!

Boddam on the other hand is strangely quiet on the matter.

You may have already seen on the original Scottish Storyteller's blog her entry about the monkey. Her father was a joiner to trade, and he would often be the subject of jokes relating to monkey-hanging. Apparently once he came back to his work bench to find a noose in his piece-box!

The Boddam version of the song is short and sweet -

Eence a ship sailed round the coast
And a' the men in her was lost
Burrin' a monkey up a post
So the Boddamers hanged the monkey-O

Noo the funeral was a grand affair
All the Boddam folk was there
It minded you o' the Glesga Fair
Fin the Boddamers hanged the monkey-O

Noo a' the folk frae Peterhead
Cam oot expectin' tae get a feed
So they made it into potted heid
Fin the Boddamers hanged the monkey-O

The Hartlepool version has an acknowledged author, Geordie music hall singer, Ned Corvan who died at the youthful age of 35. It's an epic, and perhaps inspired by the Boddam song. He wrote it in 1862, just a few years before his death. It would seem to suggest that the song was in popular use before then.

The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection of the North East of Scotland has a version relating to the fishing village of Cullen, Banffshire, sung by a Miss H Rae, in 1907. It does not mention Boddamers! So, it would seem our monkey-hangers are greedy fisherfolk of the North East of Scotland, rather than NE England!

I'm away to do a paper on this at the 38th International Ballad Conference in Cardiff at the end of July, so we'll see what they make of it! And, strangely enough, the monkey legend is OLDER than Cardiff Uni itself, which celebrates its 125th anniversary this year. Maybe we could get Dr Who to take them back in the TARDIS and visit Hartlepool in the 1860s to hear Ned Corvan in the flesh! Plenty scope for Torchwood & Dr jokes coming up...

Boddam Lighthouse - obviously not any help to the poor French sailors, built in 1827, 12 years after the Napoleonic Wars ended.