Yesterday (Sunday 15th October) was the 2023 edition of the Charlton Horn fair:
Today, the Charlton Horn Fair has evolved into a family-friendly celebration, but its origins continues to intrigue, as they mostly remain a mystery, blending legends and historical events.
And some of the theories explaining how it came to be are much less family friendly. Of course, I am not starting with those, what do you expect?… ?
The fair was famous for its obsession with horns, which were carried, worn, sold, and displayed by the thousands of visitors who flocked to it. But why?
There are several – at least four – main theories about how this originated:
St Luke
The 18th of October is St Luke’s Day, and Luke is the patron saint of the local parish church. In medieval pictures, Luke was always represented in writing posture, with a winged ox or cow by his side – a figure of sacrifice, service and strength.
It is likely that the carrying of a large pair of horns, on a pole, indicated the opening of St Luke’s Fair.
There is an early reference to the fair in Kilburn’s Survey of Kent (1659), which already has the Horn nickname, and a previous reference dating back to 1598 already mentions the horns, if not explicitly the fair.
A Pagan Festival?
The Horn Fair might also be a relic of a pagan fertility festival. In many pagan cultures, horns were associated with fertility and virility. It is possible that the Horn Fair was originally a way to celebrate the harvest and promote fertility.
The Magna Charta de Foresta
Another possible origin story for the Horn Fair is that it is connected to the Magna Charta de Foresta (Charter of the Forest – 1217/1225), a lesser-known document that was issued a few years after the Magna Carta. It relaxed the forest laws that had been enacted by King John, which made it almost a capital offense to hunt in the forests, which were solely the preserve of the Monarch.
The charter reduced the size of the land controlled by the Monarch, making it more available for common folk to use. It is possible that the Charlton Horn Fair was originally a way to celebrate this.
The horns would (somehow) make sense, then, as they would have been worn as a symbol of the common people’s new freedom to hunt on the land.
And this theory is supported by the fact that the Charlton Horn Fair, as well as several other Horn Fairs around England, seem to date back to the reign of King Henry III, who signed the Forest Charter.
Ok, I promised, so I wont shy away from it:
The Bawdy Theory
This version of the story involves King John again, who, weary from hunting, entered a miller’s house in Charlton. Only the young, beautiful wife of the miller was at home, and when the miller, upon returning home unexpectedly, found the king ‘’kissing’’ his wife, he drew a knife.
To avoid harm, the king revealed his identity and the miller, eventually very happy to see that this was no ordinary individual, asked a boon of the king. The king consented, and granted him a long strip of land, on the Charlton side of the river Thames, as far as the point near Rotherhithe.
There was a condition thought: that the miller would walk annually on that day – October 18th – with a pair of buck’s horns on his head. Which according to the legend gave birth to the tradition.
Historical Doubts
This story, while fascinating, raises doubts about its authenticity, as granting such vast land for a single encounter seems most improbable, and the granting of such a huge piece of land had to be recorded somewhere, and unfortunately this record is nowhere to be found…
A ‘’Not-so-Family-Friendly’’ Celebration
Given the popular connection between horns and cuckoldry in folk culture, and the story above, this (horns and cuckoldry) really was the main theme of the fair.
The fair would begin with a parade from Bermondsey to Charlton, with the revellers wearing horns, and blowing on musical versions of them.
The people who visited the fair made a point of wearing horns if they could, and many appeared in fancy dress, with sexual cross-dressing a common theme.
William Fuller, for example, relates how his landlady’s clothes were spoilt by horseplay, while he was wearing them (William Fuller, The Whole Life of William Fuller (1703).
Victorian Suppression and Revival
The fair became (in)famous for its rudeness and indecency, as people engaged in drunken and licentious behaviour. This was denounced by many, anonymous disgruntled local residents, as well as famous writers like Daniel Defoe:
“Charleton, a village famous, or rather infamous for the yearly collected rabble of mad-people, at Horn-Fair; the rudeness of which I cannot but think, is such as ought to be suppressed, and indeed in a civiliz’d well govern’d nation, it may well be said to be unsufferable. The mob indeed at that time take all kinds of liberties, and the women are especially impudent for that day; as if it was a day that justify’d the giving themselves a loose to all manner of indecency and immodesty, without any reproach, or without suffering the censure which such behaviour would deserve at another time.”
Daniel Defoe – ‘’A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain’’ (1724–1726).
The fair was discontinued in 1872 due to the raucous and drunken behaviour of its attendees. However, it seems that despite the ban, the Horn Fair was unofficially celebrated in the 1920s, before making an official comeback in 1973.
From this time onward, it took a more subdued and family-oriented form: the parade from Cuckold’s Point in Rotherhithe was not reinstated, until the tradition of the parade was brought back in 2009.
Helene
