HARE PIE SCRAMBLING AND BOTTLE-KICKING - Hallaton, Leicestershire. Famous for their annual "Bottle Kicking" contest. Easter Monday: Bottle kicking, in which three villages compete to push casks filled with beer over a steam, and a pie sharing ceremony, the "hare pie scramble", at Hallaton. Easter Monday. This custom is still very "alive" despite various attempts over the centuries to suppress it as too rowdy, violent or just not modern enough - the latter in 1878!
Three men carrying the "bottles" which will be used for the bottle-kicking. The Scramble originates in a piece of land which was given, at a date which is unknown but believed to have been sometime in the Middle Ages, to the Rectory of Hallaton on the condition that each year the serving rector would provide two hare pies, two dozen penny loaves and a certain quantity of ale, all to be scrambled for by the parishioners on Easter Monday. In practice, these days, the two hare pies are invariably replaced by a single large pie made of beef or other meat. The pie is cut up by the Rector, put into sack and carried to Hare-Pie Bank in a formal procession which winds round the village. The procession also includes three men carrying the "bottles" which will be used for the bottle-kicking which follows the Scramble. The "bottles" are in fact small wooden barrels, hooped with iron; two contain the ale which forms part of the ceremony and the other is empty. The men carrying the barrels in the procession hold then high above their heads on the flat of their hands.
When the procession reaches Hare-Pie Bank, a piece of sloping ground, the sack is emptied and everyone joins in the scrum to try to get a piece of the pie. This is followed immediately by the "bottle-kicking" - one of those violent inter-parish football games - in which one of the full barrels is lodged in a hollow on top of Hare-Pie Bank and teams from Hallaton and Medbourne attempt to take possession of the "bottle" and to get it across their own marked boundary. There are no other rules and no limits to the numbers in a team and although the Hallaton team is open only to residents of the village, absolutely anyone can join the Medbourne team and join in. The dummy or empty "bottle" is then also fought for, after which the other full one is carried in procession to the Market Cross on Hallaton Green where it is broken open and the contents shared out. The captain of the winning team is lifted onto the top of the cross where he ceremonially takes the first drink. The bottles are kept and repainted for the next year, only being replaced when too weak to take further punishment
HARE PIE SCRAMBLING AND BOTTLE-KICKING - Hallaton, Leicestershire IIOne of the best-known Easter Monday customs is that of the hare-pie scramble and bottle-kicking match at Hallaton, in Leicestershire. The pies are now made of beefsteak, hares being out of season, but otherwise the custom still follows its traditional course. The rector of Hallaton divides the large pics, which have been baked in his kitchen and tosses the slices to the crowds of people who assemble to scramble for them on his lawn.
After the game is over, the bottle-kicking match begins. Thc bottle is not a glass one but a miniature wooden cask, of the sort known as `plough-bottles' which workman formerly carried to the fields with their daily ration of ale or cider. The contest is between the men of Hallaton and those of the neighboring parish of Medbournc, the later reinforced by anyone else who cares to join in. The object is to kick the little barrel over the brook which marks the boundary of the parishes. There arc very few if any rules, and the game is decidedly vigorous. Afterwards a much larger barrel of beer is broached on the village green and shared by victors and vanquished alike.
Christina Hole (English Custom and Usage, 1941) suggests that the bottle-kicking event may be a survival of an ancient ceremony symbolizing the chasing away of winter by spring, and so it may, but it almost certainly owes its survival to the opportunity it provided for the inhabitants of two neighboring villages to work off their antagonisms. Intcnsc rivalry between two adjacent communities is very common, and bottle-kicking is one of many safety-valves.
As for the hare-pie; vestiges of similar ceremonies have been used in other Midland parishes. Christina Holc records that at Colcshill, in Warwickshire, a hare had to be caught and presented, live, to the parson before ten o'clock in the morning of Easter Day. In return, he had to give the donors a hundred eggs, a calf's head and a groat. At one time the Mayor and Corporation of Leicester, in full regalia, used to go to a spot on the Dane hills on Easter Monday `to hunt the hare'. Hares were sacred animals to the pre-Christian Celts. Later, when the old gods came to be regarded, by pious Christianss, as devils, hares were associated with witchcraft. Customs which feature hares would therefore seem to offer direct links with a pagan past. And, of course, the old traditions would be kept fresh in people's minds each spring by the spectacular behavior of `mad Much Hares at mating time.