Dwyle-flunking

It’s early July, so it’s time for the annual dwyle-flunking contest between the Lewes Arms regulars, and the Lewes Operatic Society. The Friends of the Lewes Arms website sums up this bizarre ‘sport’ as well as anyone could: ‘The annual dwyle flunking match…’ they report, ‘dates back to the last century. The rules of the game are impenetrable, and the result is always contested. Much Harveys is drunk, and spilled.’
There is some debate as to the origins of the sport, which involves ‘flunker’ (participant of one of the teams) who ‘flunks’ (flicks) a ‘girter’ (broom handle) which is attached to a ‘dwyle’ (rag soaked in beer), at the ‘girter’ (ring of opposing team members who dance around him, trying to avoid getting soaked).

The first modern dwyle flunking match was played in Suffolk in 1966, after a group of friends claimed to have found the rules in one of their grandfather’s attics in a book called ‘Ye Olde Book of Suffolk Harvest Rituals’; though there is much doubt that such a book ever existed, and the county archivist could later find no mention of the sport. Its aficionados, however, claim that you can see the sport being practiced in Peter Breughel the Elder’s famous 16th century ‘Children Playing’ painting, though, taking a look ourselves, we’re hard pressed to agree with them. AL