The Burning of the Bartle

The Burning of the Bartle is an annual ceremony held in the village of West Witton near Leyburn in Wensleydale which usually takes place after sunset in the evening on a Saturday close to St. Bartholomew's Day in August.
The tradition sees locals carrying an effigy of "Old Bartle" through the village while pausing for doorstep drinks at selected houses along the way. A verse about the pursuit and fate of Old Bartle is chanted:


On Penhill Crags he tore his rags
Hunters Thorn he blew his horn
Cappelbank Stee happened a misfortune and brak’ his knee
Grassgill Beck he brak’ his neck
Wadhams End he couldn’t fend
Grassgill End we’ll mak’ his end
Shout, lads, shout!


Once outside the village at Grassgill Lane, after one last chant of the rhyme, the effigy is burned, everyone cheers and those with the sense to bring them, drink their beer in the light of Bartle’s fiery demise.


Nobody seems to know the origins of the tradition, or who Old Bartle actually was. The connection with St Bartholomew's Day has led some to suggest that "Old Bartle" is actually "St. Bart" (i.e. St. Bartholomew) himself, though quite why his pursuit, capture and ritual murder by immolation should be celebrated in a pagan style ceremony with overtones of the classic British horror drama film "The Wicker Man" one can only surmise..
Another theory holds that Old Bartle was a sheep rustling ne'er do well (or perhaps simply just an innocent victim?) who fell out of favour with his peers and came to a grisly end. The doggerel chanted tells of some kind of chase taking in Penhill and other local landmarks, with Bartle succombing to various terrible injuries before being finished off just outside the village. But there may also be a connection with the story of the Penhill Giant who supposedly broke his neck tumbling from the heights of the hill.