PFINGSTL

“At Bridgwater, in the English county of Somersetshire, the Whitsuntide representative of the Tree-Spirit, the Pfingstl, was clad from head to toe in leaves and flowers. On his head he wore a high pointed cap, the ends of which rested on his shoulders, only two holes being left for eyes. The cap was covered with water-flowers and surmounted with a nosegay of peonies. The sleeves of his coat were also made of water-plants and the rest of his body was enveloped in alder and hazel leaves. On each side of him marched a boy holding up one of the Pfingsthl’s arms. The two boys carried drawn swords. They stopped at every house where they hoped to recieve a present; and the people, in hiding, soused the leaf-clad boy with water. All rejoiced when he was well and truly drenched. Finally he waded into a brook up to his middle; whereupon one of the boys pretended to cut off his head.” - Sir James Fraser, Accounts of the Customs of Somerset and Devon, 1900.
In 1937, on Whitsuntide, the Royal Excavation Corps went searching for this obscure ritual: We headed down to the mouth of the river Parret as it seemed as likely a place as any to start.
“Pfingsthl!” exclaimed a scraggly looking fisherman hooking maggots on his line.“Ay, you mean Fingsty, he'll be flooting down at half noon, ’er by de weir, see fer yerself.”
Right he was - at quarter past twelve we heard the distant cry of children upriver in the direction of St. Osbert’s steeple: “Fingsty, my Fingsty, who’ll give a groat for my Fingsty”. The sound grew louder and louder, though no one by the river seemed to be giving it much mind. Impatiently, Bindon and I crossed the weir and bolted madly towards the sound, with Tyler trailing behind with the unweildy view camera with its heavy wooden tripod. What we saw little resembled the glorious rite related by Sir James Fraser. A sorry, sad, and dirty child with a single long leaf rolled into a beak and rudely wired onto his snout dragged himself dejectedly from two slightly older children in tattered liederhosen. They occasionally swatted at the beaked child with an old switch. No one seemed to open their doors for the children, who nevertheless continued with their plantive chant (one woman did however empty her scrubbing pail in their general direction). At half past, as the fisherman had said, the boys reached the river. The small beaked child bent down gingerly and touched the water, looked around, saw that it was just us three watching, mumbled something to the oldest boy, tore off his beak and ran off towards the village. The others, embarrassed by their feeble costumes avoided our bemused gaze and wandered home.” - 1 2 3 GREENHOME -