by Albert Jack
And so the legend of the exploits of St George – possibly a form of early propaganda intended to bolster Crusader morale, later adopted by Edward III as he revised his military machine, making George the patron saint of England in the process – became part of English folklore, accounting for why you may have a pub or hotel near you bearing that name. (Interestingly, the St George’s cross that forms the flag of England was originally the flag of Genoa, adopted by the City of London in 1190 so that English ships would be protected by the Genoese fleet when they entered the Mediterranean. It was then taken up by the English soldiers during the later Crusades as the insignia for their uniform – hence its association with St George as a crusading knight.)
Despite coming from Libya and being the patron saint of several other exotic places ranging from Beirut to Brazil to Bulgaria, St George remains the epitome of English patriotism. The king’s rallying cry at the Battle of AGINCOURT in Shakespeare’s Henry V – ‘God for Harry, England and Saint George!’ (Act 3, Scene 1) – offers up a memorable trilogy for victory, especially during time of actual war. St George’s Day in England falls every year on 23 April, which is incidentally also the day of Shakespeare was both born on and on which he died.
The Goat and Compass
A BIBLICAL SCAPEGOAT OR A MASONIC SYMBOL?
The origin of this popular pub name (also rendered the Goat and Compasses) could have a number of different sources, foremost being the idea that it is a corruption of the phrase ‘God encompasses us’. But written evidence for this can be found only in one place – a book by Anthony Trollope, who refers to the pub name in his novel Framley Parsonage (1861):
… he came to a public-house. It was called the Goat and Compasses – a very meaningless name, one would say; but the house boasted of being a place of public entertainment very long established upon that site, having been a tavern in the days of Cromwell. At that time the pious landlord, putting up a pious legend for the benefit
of his pious customers, had declared that – ‘God encompasseth us.’
Trollope is clearly suggesting how the pub’s name could have become corrupted over time. The theory is a neat and appealing one, but unfortunately there is no further proof to back it up.
Charles Swift explains in his book Inns and Inn Signs, written in 1936, that the name could have come from the belief in medieval times that goats could take on the illness and hard luck that would otherwise affect others. Country folk would traditionally keep a goat with other cattle, believing any illness among the herd would be absorbed by the poor goat, leaving the herd free of disease. Some even kept a goat inside the house of a sick person for this purpose. The following address might also be delivered at such a time: ‘The goat that compass thee around is needful for compassing this end. That through whose compassment ye may be changed, from pain to happiness, disease to health.’
The belief that goats can shoulder the responsibility of the ills and misfortune of others has its origins in the Hebrew ritual for the Day of Atonement, in which two goats were presented to the altar of the tabernacle where the high priest would draw lots for the Lord and for Azazel, the desert demon (usually depicted with goat’s horns, rather like the Devil). The goat selected to represent the Lord would then be sacrificed and, by taking confession, the high priest could transfer the people’s sins to the second goat, which would then be banished to the wilderness, taking all the sins with it. In other words, the lucky goat had escaped sacrifice and became known as the escaped goat, or scapegoat, the expression we still use when blaming someone else for our mistakes or passing on what we should accept as our own responsibility.
A more likely reason the Goat and Compasses is used as a sign to represent an alehouse is connected with the historic livery companies of London – two in particular (but see also THE ELEPHANT AND CASTLE and THE SWAN WITH TWO NECKS). The Worshipful Company of Cordwainers (established in 1272) – leather workers using fine goatskin imported from Cordoba in Spain – has a crest with three goats’ heads proudly displayed, while the Worshipful Company of Carpenters (founded in 1271) has three compasses on their crest. Could it be that these two groups of tradesmen, one established only a year after the other, had their own tavern distinguished by a sign bearing their joined crests?
Another suggestion is that the name may originate with the Freemasons, whose symbol consists of a set square and compasses (to denote the tools of the stonemason) and who allegedly used a goat in their initiation ceremonies. Could it be, then, that, rather like other pubs associated with an ancient order (see THE FORESTERS’ ARMS and THE ODDFELLOWS’ ARMS), a tavern bearing the sign of the goat and compasses was advertising itself as a venue for Freemasons? Whoever its sign was originally aimed at – cordwainers, carpenters or Freemasons – the Goat and Compasses represents a place of escape, although sadly not for goats.
The Golden Hind
FAMOUS SHIP OF THE ORIGINAL ‘PIRATE’ OF THE CARIBBEAN
The many pubs bearing the name the Golden Hind do so in commemoration of the celebrated ship (historically spelled Golden Hinde) belonging to Britain’s most famous sailor. Born near Tavistock in Devon sometime around 1540, Francis Drake was the son of a farmer and Protestant preacher. By the time he was nine, the family had been caught up in the Prayer Book Rebellion, and had to flee Devon for the safety of Kent. Aged thirteen, he was apprenticed to a ship trading between London and European ports. Drake proved such a talented sailor that, by the age of twenty, he was already the owner and captain of his own vessel. Like his father, he was a committed Protestant and implacable foe of the Catholic Spanish; this suited his occupation, which was to raid Spanish ports and ships and seize their possessions. After Drake was ambushed in the Mexican port San Juan de Ulua, in the Caribbean, he and his cousin John Hawkins swore vengeance on the Spanish that they attempted to wreak for the rest of their lives. In 1573 Drake tracked down and intercepted the ‘silver train’, a convoy of mules and donkeys carrying a vast fortune in precious metals and spices. The Spanish called him El Draque (the Dragon), based on their pronunciation of ‘Drake’: Philip II is reputed to have offered a reward of 20,000 ducats (equivalent to about £4 million today) for his life. Returning to England with a cargo of Spanish treasure, Drake received a hero’s welcome.
In 1577 Queen Elizabeth I, by then realizing the riches the wider world had to offer, raised funds for an expedition to South America and beyond. A brave move as the costs involved were astronomical and there was every chance nothing of interest, or value, would be discovered. Imagine the Queen today personally paying for an expedition into space to find out what lies beyond the reaches of the Hubble Telescope.
Francis Drake’s reputation as a sailor and adventurer had risen over the previous years and his hatred of the Spanish was also well known. With Elizabeth’s personal support Drake was no longer a simple pirate; he now had a mandate to attack the Spanish in the name of the crown wherever he encountered their ships, including along the Spanish-owned coast of South America, helping himself to whatever he could lay his hands on. It was still piracy, of course, albeit state-sponsored, with the full authority of the English queen and the protection of her navy, and that was obviously something that appealed to Drake immensely.
Drake reached the Brazilian coast by the spring of 1578. After taking on water and food supplies, he performed a small ceremony, renaming his flag ship Pelican the Golden Hind in honour of the voyage’s principal financial backer, Sir Christopher Hatton, a wealthy English politician, Lord Chancellor (1587–91) and, some believe, a lover of the queen herself. The hind, or female deer, featured prominently on Hatton’s coat of arms. Having navigated the Straits of Magellan, the first Englishman to do so, Drake and his Golden Hind plundered the Spanish ports on the Pacific coast of South America and sailed as far north as (what would later be named) San Francisco Bay, which he claimed for the queen in the name of ‘New Albion’ (see THE ALBION for more on the origins of this name).
Drake continued west, more out
of curiosity than anything else as no man had done so before, and by the end of 1579 he had sailed past the Philippines, Indonesia and navigated the Indian Ocean back to the more familiar seas around the Cape of Good Hope. The Golden Hind then headed home, arriving in Plymouth in September 1580, laden with spices and other treasures, with Drake having become the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. A few months later Queen Elizabeth boarded the Golden Hind and knighted the most famous sailor of them all. Which isn’t too surprising as the queen’s own share of Drake’s booty amounted to around £160,000, enough to pay off her entire foreign debt and have £40,000 left over, an unimaginable sum in 1580. Elizabeth ordered all written accounts of Drake’s voyage to be considered classified information, and its participants sworn to silence on pain of death; her aim was to keep Drake’s activities away from the eyes of arch-rival Spain.
The Spanish, however, were not impressed with the English buccaneer and wanted revenge and their money back. In 1587, with the Spanish preparing for war with England, Drake once again took matters into his own hands and surprised the Spanish with a pre-emptive strike at Cadiz by sending fire ships into the harbour, effectively destroying the Spanish fleet in a single night.
The Singeing of the King of Spain’s Beard (as the raid became known) left the Spanish furious and within a year they had assembled the famous Armada to take revenge on the English fleet, in particular Sir Francis Drake, off the coast of Plymouth. The famous story of Drake’s reluctance to interrupt a game of bowls when the Spanish ships were sighted is an iconic example of British sangfroid in the face of danger, although it is likely to have been invented for use as propaganda. The English fleet was hopelessly outnumbered, but, helped by a luckily timed storm, Drake, under the command of Lord Howard, managed to crush the Spanish. In the end fewer than half of the Armada’s 130 ships returned safely to Cadiz.
Drake continued seafaring all his life, although his later campaigns lacked the success of his earlier ones. He died in 1596 while anchored off the coast of Portobelo, Panama, and was buried at sea in a lead coffin. There is a legend that if England is ever in danger, beating on Drake’s drum will cause him to come back and save the country.
The Green Man
THE PAGAN FERTILITY SYMBOL ADORNING CHURCHES AND PUBS ALIKE
A popular name for a country pub, the Green Man is possibly the oldest figure in English folklore. His image can be found in the architecture of medieval cathedrals and churches all over Europe. In this form, it’s only his head that’s depicted, usually wreathed in greenery – branches, leaves or vines, in some cases sprouting from his eyes, ears and nose. The foliage is frequently recognizable as oak or hawthorn (called the ‘May tree’ because it blossoms in that month) and the face is generally severe, with a decided frown. The Green Man is commonly believed to be an ancient fertility symbol, predating organized religion, but then the Church, pragmatically, has never been slow to embrace images and ideas from other cultures and claim them as its own.
In fact, as Christianity grew throughout Europe, missionaries often deliberately assimilated pagan stories and beliefs in an effort to encourage conversion. Christ’s birthday is now commonly thought to have been in September, for instance, but the dates of Christmas usefully coincide with Yule and other midwinter festivals. In some cases, churches were built on ancient pagan sites, often on the very foundations. All of which indicates a far stronger pagan element in modern Christianity than many Christians would care to admit.
Because of his association with rebirth, representing the new growth of spring, some Christians adopted the Green Man as a symbol of Easter (itself a pagan festival, relating to the goddess Eostre, celebrated at the spring equinox) and of the resurrection, although it comes as no real surprise that others regard him as a demon or even the devil. Many equate the Green Man with Jack-in-the-Green, the May King of traditional British May Day cere-monies, who wreathed himself with green leaves and flowers, feigned death and then came to life, jumping up to console his disconsolate May Queen and dance with her. There is also evidence to suggest the Green Man existed in the traditions of many ancient cultures and belongs to no single country. Outside Europe similar figures have been found in the Middle East and further afield, in Nepal, India and Borneo.
Before Christianity, the ancient Britons worshipped trees, believing protective spirits to live inside them. People in need of good fortune would make a pilgrimage to a designated tree and stroke or hug it, leading to the traditional expression ‘touch wood’ when we are hoping for a little luck to come our way. The Celts considered the Green Man to be the god of spring and summer, disappearing each autumn for the long harsh winter, before returning again in the spring to provide warmth and crops, and the pagan festival of Beltane held on 1 May every year celebrates this. May Day was a holiday throughout Europe – and a great excuse for a day of drunkenness and celebration, thus making the Green Man an ideal name for a pub.
The Green Man is also associated with one of the greatest English folk heroes of them all – ROBIN HOOD, whose image also appears on many a pub sign. Both live in the woods and dress all in green; indeed, it’s thought Robin Hood and his adventures may have arisen from the myth of the Green Man. The Green Man has also been linked with Robin Goodfellow, more familiar as Puck, the mischievous nature spirit immortalized in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The Green Man could be connected, too, with the Green Knight, of Arthurian legend, whose story is told in the fourteenth-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In this tale, a man clad completely in green, and even with a green beard, hair and skin, strides into the court of King Arthur on New Year’s Day and issues a challenge. He asks for someone in the court to strike him once with his axe, on condition that he will return the blow one year and one day later. Sir Gawain accepts the challenge and severs the man’s head at one stroke, expecting him to die. The Green Knight, however, picks up his head, reminds Gawain to meet him at the Green Chapel in a year and a day and rides away. When Gawain eventually, after many adventures, finds the knight and submits to his blow, he also escapes with his life, receiving only a small nick (which he could have avoided, it turns out, by not flirting with the Green Knight’s wife a little earlier). The Green Knight then explains how the whole thing had been been set up by Arthur’s evil sister, Morgan le Fay, always looking for an opportunity to make trouble, and they part on good terms.
So, whichever way you look at it, the pub name the Green Man – whether you regard him as a fertility symbol, a nature god, Robin Hood, Puck or a figure from the time of King Arthur – comes steeped in legend and folklore.
The Hansom Cab
(Kensington, London)
HORSE-DRAWN PREDECESSOR OF THE MODERN TAXI
The Hansom Cab pub, which served its first drink in 1810, claims to have been named in honour of Joseph Aloysius Hansom (1803–83), designer and builder of the popular hansom cabs used originally in London from 1834. Seeing as he was just seven at the time, it’s more likely the pub was renamed at a later date in honour of the man who built the replacement to the more cumbersome hackney carriage and exported his vehicle all over Europe and the British Empire. By the way, the word ‘cab’ is in fact an abbreviation of ‘cabriolet’, an open-topped horse-drawn carriage with a folding hood that could cover two occupants during bad weather, the forerunner to the modern-day convertible sports car with a soft top, also known as a cabriolet.
The hansom cab remained in use until the 1920s when motorized transport and the London Underground began to limit its effectiveness, and the last hansom cab was licensed in 1947, after which the vehicles soon vanished from our streets. Hansom was also responsible for building Birmingham Town Hall between 1833 and 1835, although, having tendered a price that was too low for the project, he was bankrupted in 1834. Luckily for him, he had already started work on his new cab design that would lead to wealth, fame and, most importantly, a pub named after his new invention.
Harry’s Bar
Although many traditional pub names came about hundreds of years ago and need a bit of explaining, the world’s most famous bar is called, quite simply, Harry’s Bar, which sounds straightforward enough but there’s a quite a story behind it even so. The name has caught on, too: every Harry’s Bar you walk into throughout the world derives its name from the original Harry’s Bar, on Calle Vallaresso near St Mark’s Square in Venice.
First opened in March 1931 by Giuseppe Cipriani, Harry’s Bar became an instant success when Giuseppe’s imaginative cocktails proved popular with young Venetians. However, with the outbreak of the Second World War, the fascist authorities prohibited the use of English names and Giuseppe was forced to change ‘Harry’ to ‘Arrigo’ (the Italian version of the name). Then, in 1943, the bar was closed to the public and became a mess hall for German and Italian officers. At the end of the war, as Europe slowly returned to normal and people began rebuilding their shattered lives, Cipriani reverted to the original name for his watering hole. Harry’s Bar once again opened its doors to tourists and locals alike, immediately becoming popular with the likes of Noël Coward, Humphrey Bogart, Charlie Chaplin and the legendary film director Orson Welles, who placed the same order every time he visited, two bottles of champagne – and that was just for him.
