An Daras | Customs & Traditions

The �Crying of the Neck� is a traditional harvest celebration. The �neck�, the final sheaf of corn at harvest time, is held aloft by the farmer who cries �I have�n, I have�n, I have�n� to which is replied �What havee?�, the answer being �A neck!�. The neck was kept to ensure a good harvest in the next year. The tradition of the �Crying of the Neck� celebration is still kept alive in many farms in Cornwall today. Information taken from - �Festivals of Cornwall� Douglas Williams (1987).

We are grateful to Gillian Nott, historian and Archivist for the Guild of Straw Craftsmen for permission to include the article below:

Crying the Neck

In July 1826, the following letter was published by William Hone, Editor of the Every-Day Book:

(extract) As the harvest has now become very general, I am reminded of a circumstance, which I think worthy of communicating to you. After the wheat is all cut, on most farms in the north of Devon, the harvest people have a custom of ‘crying the neck’. I believe that this practice is seldom omitted on any large farm in that part of the country.

On a fine still autumn evening, the ‘crying of the neck’ has a wonderful effect at a distance, far finer than that of the Turkish muezzin…..I have once or twice heard upwards of twenty men cry it, and sometimes joined by an equal number of female voices. About three years back, on some high grounds, where our people were harvesting, I heard six or seven ‘necks’ cried in one night, although I know that some of them were four miles off. They are heard through the quiet evening air, at a considerable distance sometimes.

What a wonderful mental image is conjured up by such a descriptive passage. A.K. Hamilton Jenkin, a Cornish author and historian of some note, also quotes from this letter in his book Cornwall and its People, and writes: Thanks in a large measure to the initiative of the St. Ives Old Cornwall Society, ‘the crying of the neck’ was heard once again, at Mr. Hugh Dunstan’s farm at Towednack, in the summer of 1926. Although only a revival on that occasion, yet amongst those who were present many must have experienced a sense of the old solemnity which lent to the picturesque little ceremony a dignity not unworthy of its age long tradition.

Hamilton Jenkin goes on further to add: In any case it is in the highest degree improbable that the ‘crying of the neck’ will ever again become a regular feature of the harvest-tide in Cornwall.

How wrong he was! Since those early years of the 20th century, Old Cornwall Societies all over Cornwall have re-enacted this ceremony, and it has become one of the highlights of the Cornish year. I have had the opportunity to attend many of these in recent years, in fact no summer would ever seem complete without it. Each year, a different farmer is invited to allow his field to be used, and he will leave a swathe of corn standing uncut in a corner. From villages near and far, people will make their way to this field, and in the last rays of the summer sunshine a short service of thanks will be said, in Cornish and in English:

Pysadow gras kens es treghy an Pen Yar

A Dhew, Nep usy ow tenewy warnch lanwes a’th tregereth, ha scullya war an has genen re be gorrys y’n dor a’n yl torn tomder an howl ha treveth aral glybor an glaw, may halla sowyny hag egyna ha dyworto bos tevys oteweth an ys, anodho a vyth treghys y’n ur-ma an dewetha pennow, ha drehevys yn ban gans garm lowen herwyth gys agan hendasow: Ny a wor dhyso mur ras a’n bennothow bras-ma, orth dha bysy a besya ow tysquedhes yndella dhyn dhe gerensa, agan tyr may hallow dascor dhyn pup bledhen-oll y encressyans kepar ha kens, dhe’th whordhyans-sy ha dh’agan confort-nyny: Dre Jesus Cryst agan Arluth. Amen.

Prayer before cutting the Neck:

O God, who dost shower upon us the abundance of Thy Mercy, and cast upon the seed which we have sown in the ground, at one time the heat of the sun, at another the moisture of the rain, so that it should thrive and shoot forth and from it be grown finally the corn, the last ears of which are now to be cut and lifted up with a cry of gladness after the custom of our forefathers; we thank Thee for these great blessings beseeching Thee thus to continue to show to us Thy Loving kindness, that out land may yield us its increase in all years as heretofore, to Thy glory and our comfort, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Sometimes one of the harvest hymns will be sung to the accompaniment of an accordion, and then the last of the standing corn will be cut with wide sweeps of an old-fashioned scythe. The cutter will bundle together the stalks of wheat, and holding them above his head, he will face the East, the South and the West (but never the North, as no sun comes from the North) and ‘Cry the Neck’ in English and then in Cornish to each of the three points in a litany that has survived with little change though the centuries:

Nowadays, the Neck is taken to the nearby church for a short service of thanksgiving, and it is lovely to see the church decorated for the forthcoming Harvest Festival (the introduction of which in 1843 is attributed to our eccentric Parson (Pass’n) Stephen Hawker of Morwenstow in North Cornwall). After this, the culmination of the harvest is celebrated in the village hall in true Cornish style with a wonderful feast of goodies – saffron buns, Cornish splits loaded with jam and clotted cream, pasties brought in piping hot on the baker’s tray, all washed down with a cup o’ tay (tea). Then follows an evening of song and dance, ending with everyone rising to their feet to sing Trelawny, the Cornish national anthem.

In previous centuries, once the Neck had been cut, there would follow a mad dash across the fields to the farmhouse. One of the young women would be lying in wait with a pail of water, and would attempt to douse the young man as he approached. If he could enter the house unwetted, still carrying the Neck, he could claim a kiss as his prize. The Neck would then be set in a place of honour in the barn, and the harvest feast would commence with great jollification and gallons of cider and beer. Our celebrations today are of a much more sedate nature!

Gillian Nott
Historian and Archivist
Guild of Straw Craftsmen

You can see pictures of Crying the Neck on the Guild’s website: http://www.strawcraftsmen.co.uk/cryneck.html