On
a Wing and a Chair
It’s a strange
place, Oxford: full of weird and wonderful traditions that would, in any other
city, have been consigned to history long ago. People can’t believe it when I
tell them of the students hurrying to their exams in ‘sub fusc,’ the oddly
archaic uniform of the university that includes a mortar board, a black gown and
a white bow tie. But it’s true, and it’s so common that, somehow, I no longer
think it strange, or really even notice it at all.
Nor do I notice the bells that chime according to Oxford time (five
minutes behind London time) or the bowler hat wearing bulldogs that stand guard
outside Christ Church College.
There are still
plenty of strange traditions that do surprise me though. Plenty that baffle me,
confuse me, or just make me wonder ‘why?’ Unusual events, interspersed among
the everyday traditions, that familiarity has
not yet made normal. On Ascension Day of each year, for example, students stand
on the roof of Lincoln College, throwing heated pennies onto the lawn below for
local children to collect. The pennies are heated to teach the children a
valuable lesson about greed; the children seem to have learnt a rather different
lesson and nowadays attend wearing thick gloves. On the very same day, students
from neighbouring Brasenose College are granted free access, and free beer, by
Lincoln College as reparation for an occasion when they refused to open their
gates to a fleeing Brasenose student, who was subsequently killed by an angry
mob of townspeople.
Bizarre as these
ceremonies may be, and even accounting for the fact that they are but a few of
Oxford’s many eccentric events, the one we’re waiting for now must surely be the
most surreal of all. It’s a freezing cold night in the middle of January and the
small group of students jockeying for position around the gates in hope of a
better view might just as easily be huddling together for warmth. We’ve been
here for hours already: nobody really knows what’s going to happen or when, but
still we wait. A few people suggest going home, but nobody does. There’s no way
we could leave now: we’ve waited too long for this. In fact, we’ve waited a
hundred years. Well, we haven’t waited that long, obviously, but it was a
hundred years ago to the day, on 14th January 1901, that Oxford last
bore witness to this particular celebration.
Our setting, in
Radcliffe Square, outside the gates of All Souls College, must be one of the
most beautiful in the world. The soft, warm curves of the Radcliffe Camera rise
from the ground behind us, the yellow limestone glowing where it meets the fuzzy
spheres of light surrounding the antique, cast-iron lampposts. In front of us
the intricately carved towers of All Souls extend languidly to the sky, perhaps
the most glorious of all of those famous dreaming spires.
Spectacular as it may be, however, the beauty
of the location is, for tonight at least, of little concern to those of us
waiting outside the gate. Ignoring our surroundings we strain to see through the
intricate black metalwork and into the quad, the immaculate grass square
at the centre of the college’s finest architectural achievements, where
eventually the fellows of All Souls will emerge from their fourteen course
dinner to begin the ceremony. It doesn’t help that the college have decided to
erect a large board in front of the gates to keep out most of the prying eyes.
But then
suddenly, without explanation, the board is removed and our view is extended. We
hear a noise and everybody peers yet more intently into the gloomy darkness on
the other side of the gate. There’s no sign of any movement on the rough stone
slabs that pave the cloisters, but the noise grows steadily louder, and more
melodious; although we can make out none of the words, it is singing that we can
hear. We wait, staring resolutely through the gates and into the darkened
college, as the sound of the singing grows louder. Flaming torches appear,
drawing slowly closer to the gate as the singing gets still louder. Slowly,
steadily the disembodied orange orbs bob gently along the darkened path until,
after what seems like an age, the torches finally pass by the gate at which we
stand, their flickering light illuminating their bearers and the sight that we
have all come to see: a man bearing a wooden duck atop a tall stick, pursued by
a man held aloft in a sedan chair, who is in turn pursued by all of the
remaining fellows of the college, their long, black gowns dusting the stone
floor as they repeat their single song. This is it, the highlight of “Mallard
Night”.
The precise
reasons for this ornithological obsession have been lost to time, but it is said
that when builders were digging the foundations for the college, sometime around
1437, they freed a mallard that had been trapped underground for many years. It
is the search for this fabled mallard, led by the Lord Mallard on his sedan
chair, that is the purpose of the current procession.
In what seems
like a flash, the slow moving procession has passed and the singing begins to
fade once more.
“Is that it?” A
voice from the crowd murmurs, sounding somewhat disappointed.
“I think it might
be,” replies another.
But nobody moves.
We’ve been here so long that it seems worth waiting, just in case; after all,
the torches are still moving and the song still drifts gently over the
quadrangle. Deep down we all reluctantly acknowledge that the debauchery of
previous years has probably passed - we don’t expect to see forty fellows
marching along the roof of the library as they did in 1801 - but surely this
event that has been one hundred years in the planning has a little more life in
it.
Gradually silence
falls over the college again; darkness returns where the torches briefly shone
and people begin to discuss leaving more seriously. But still there is a
lingering doubt amongst most of the crowd. Imagine the disappointment, to have
waited for several hours in the freezing cold only to leave early and miss part
of a ceremony that will not happen again for another hundred years. We stay
where we are. Suddenly, as we continue to stand uncertainly in the dark, gazing
hopefully through that gate, there’s a shout from the other side of the square.
“They’re on the
tower,” the anonymous voice exclaims through the darkness.
We look up to the
skies and sure enough, high above us, there is the telltale flickering light.
For the past few hours people have jealously jostled for their position, edging
and elbowing their way as close to the gate as possible, but in a moment, all is
forgotten. Everyone at the gate breaks from their hard fought berth beneath the
tall college walls and sprints across the cobbled square for a better view of
the tower. A small group of figures stands at its summit: their robes flap
gently in the breeze; their faces glow eerily in the torchlight, and they begin
to belt out their song, louder now than ever before. By now, we have heard the
chorus enough times that we can begin to discern what they are saying:
“Hough the bloud
of King Edward,
by ye bloud of
King Edward,
It was a swapping,
swapping mallard!”
As the final
chorus draws to a close, this strange collection of flickering flames, robes and
mallards says its final goodbye to 21st century Oxford and fireworks
begin to burst overhead. Flashes of coloured light bathe the square and everyone
seems happy to accept that this must be the true end to the ceremony. It doesn’t
matter that the words to the song make no sense. After all, in the finest of
Oxonian traditions, nothing about this evening really makes sense.
