The Rush, pp166
"Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flag grow without water?" - Job, Viii.,2.
Book Sections:
- Introduction
- Manchester: Alexander Wilson's 1821 picture
- Rochdale
- Scanned image section for pages 68 to 79
- Saddleworth: Burton's eye-witness account
- Skedlock: The children's rush-cart
- Morris: Other morris dance troupes
- Rushes: Other rush customs
- Pictures: 'Photos and Illustrations
- Back to NW Morris
"In the country districts the cry of 'chairs to mend' is frequently heard, the stock-in-trade of the travelling chair-mender consistingof a thick bundle of pliant dried rushes, generally six feet long, and a few tools, and, in some cases, a smaller bundle of split canes. The charge for re-bottoming a chair runs from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d., and they are more comfortable to sit upon than cane ones." p172.
The pith of the rush formed a cheap and easily obtained wick for the "rush-light", and may well
be one of the earliest froms of candle used by humans. Rushes formed the onlt form of carpeting
for many homes for centuries. It also was used to stuff hassocks for kneeling, to make mats,
seats for chairs, for bedding, and for various forms of rope. Children used rushes to plait and bind into a
variety of toys - whips, pipes, caps. They appear as a chram for diseases - thrush, warts.
Cornish miners used them to make fuzes - with the pith replaced by gunpowder.
Other uses were for cheese making (wrapping the cheese)
Rush rings were used
in mock marriage ceremonies:
"A custom extremely hurtful to the interets of morality,
appears anciently to have prevailed both in England and other countries, of marrying with
a Rush-ring. It was chiefly practised, however, by designing men, for the purpose of
debauching their mistresses, who sometimes were so infatuated as to believe
that this mock ceremony was a real marriage" {Brand, Popular Antiquities}.