The Fool
The Fool
The role of the fool in English customs is to entertain and be humorous, often being the most vocal and popular character. The fool can normally be recognised through certain costume elements.
Strange/odd combinations of clothing: In the past this sometimes involved the humour of deprivation when it was considered socially acceptable to make fun of people who couldn’t afford decent clothes or else had unusual bodies for example hunch-backs. Several modern fools wear smocks, an old protective over-garment now largely replaced by overalls for dirty work. Smocks were seen as a distinctive English garment – perhaps even a form of national dress. Modern fools wear smocks because they are an old, distinctive form of clothing.
A ‘comedy’ costume
Silly hats, tails or a complete comic outfit. In the 1920s and 1930s some fools wore clown costumes made like a hoodless-onesie with large neck frills. These sort of costumes were worn as stage costumes to play clown characters such as Pierrot. Today a morris fool might, for example, wear a Darth Vader costume as a modern comic costume.
A special fool’s costume
Some elements of the fools costume appear to have come from the medieval period. The hood which it is believed originally mimicked the hoods worn by Christian monks, often had comic attachments, such as asses ears (a donkey-horse cross breed) or a chicken’s comb. Parti-coloured clothes (different sections of the clothes in different colours) represented the idea that the fool had one foot in this life and one foot in another, which meant that he was in a position to poke fun and comment on our world, because he was not quite of it.
Accessories
It is an old tradition that the fool has a special stick – the fools stick. In the past it often had a carved head sometimes with an inflated bladder attached. It probably mocked official sticks of office (such as the Queens’ jeweled sceptre). Today some fools still have an inflated pigs bladder – or more commonly a blown up balloon or plastic glove on a stick with which they assault the dancers. The wearing of bells by the fool also has a long history dating back to the medieval period. In the 19th century several fools used to hide bells in their clothing – perhaps as a practical joke.
Cross dressing
Cross-dressing is when a person of one sex puts on the clothes which are typically worn by the other sex. They may or may not be pretending to be the other sex and they may or may not have a personal association attached to the wearing of clothes normally worn by the other gender. In English folk customs it is nearly always a man who puts on womens’ clothing, although there are many folk songs where women dress in mens’ clothing! In folk customs men tended to cross-dress in two ways:
(a) Occasionally the man cross-dressed Nicely, an attempt to be more naturalistic. Sometimes growing their hair for the occasion and having a clean shave. This was often to play the role of the Lady and the costume normally included a fine dress. This was common in the theatre of the past when it was considered immoral for women to appear on the stage.
(b) More commonly the man cross-dressed Badly. The man would dress in hideous stereotypical female clothing whilst remaining obviously a man. This was normally for comic effect and is a very old form of humour. In the medieval period Christian priests used to put on womens’ clothing as part of the annual Feast of Fools! This type of cross-dressing was used in political riots where people rose up against the ruling order – the most famous probably being the Welsh ‘Rebecca Riots’ (1839 -1844) where male rioters would dress as female ‘Rebeccas’. Cross-dressing remains humorous and sometimes provocative because we still have fixed ideas of how we expect people of different genders to behave. These fixed ideas are cultural and are often unconsciously passed down to us. It is still possible to subvert normal expectations, a man wearing a pink mini-skirt walking down the street will be considered to be doing something strange or different. Today men continue to cross-dress for comic effect at fancy dress parties, stag nights, on the stage and in films. Men involved in customs continue to cross-dress and their deliberately awful appearance remains effectively humorous.
Key words
Bells, cross-dressing, customs, fools stick, hood/s, mini-skirt, naturalistic, parti-coloured, Pierrot, smock/s, stereotypical, subverted
