Frendsbury

A Strood Tails

In this article, Derek Barnard tells us about Strood's Tail

     It is a well-known fact that the people of Strood have tails. Not the incomers of course, but those who trace their ancestry back to good king Henry the Second, though they are not likely to mention their deformity because of the embarrassment it would cause them. William Lambarde, of Lincolnes Inne, Gent., eminent lawyer and antiquarian, who published in 1576 the first county history, entitled ‘A Perambulation of Kent, containing the Description, Hystorie and Customes of That Shire,’ devotes almost the whole chapter on Stroude to the subject.

     He tells us that ‘Polydore Virgil (handling that hot contention between the King and Thomas Becket) saith, that Becket (being at the length reputed for the kings enimie) began to be so commonly neglected, contemned and hated, that when as it happened him upon a time to come to Stroude, the inhabitants there abouts (being desirous to despite that good father) sticked not to cut the taile from the horse on which he roade, binding themselves whereby with a perpetual reproach: For afterward (by the will of God) it so happened, that everyone who came of that kindred of men which had plaid that naughty pranke, were born with tailes, even as brute beasts be.’

     Lambarde goes on to say that another like tale was written by Alexander Esseby, about St Augustine, ‘who had fish tailes thrown at him by the men of Dorsetshire, which so furiously vexed him that he called to God for revenge, and God hearing him, struck the offenders with tailes to punish them. This fable did John Maior, the Scot, by what warrant God woteth, translated from Dorsetshire to Rochester and so made the way open for Polydore, by like poetical or popish license, to carry it to Stroude, and also to honour his great God St Thomas. But Hector Boetius, another Scot, looking better upon the matter, sendeth it home to Dorsetshire againe.’

       Regardless of Lambarde and his scources, the story was well known in 1435 for Aeneas Sylvius, afterward Pope Pius II, who was on his way to fulfil a secret mission in Scotland, mentions Strood ‘whereof the natives are reputed to be born with tails.’

     On the Continent, the story that all Englishmen had tails, grew into a popular belief through the Middle Ages, and especially among the French, who avenged their many defeats by their hereditary foe by calling them coues (tailed) which became a term of derision and cowardice. The English soldier asked how the French would ever know the truth, for an English warrior never turned his back on any Frenchman. There are many references to this deformity in French writing, when Richard the Lionheart was betrayed and taken before the King of Allemayne he represented himself and his companions as pilgrims but the King replied with a jeering allusion to their tails. A poem dating about 1340, celebrating the exploits of Joan of Arc, opened with the words Arriere, Englois coues, Arriere! Another reference suggests that this added appendage made it easier to drag an Englishman to the scaffold. In the sixteenth century the English king is described as having a tail, but by the seventeenth century only the odd reference remains, though a poem of this period that contains a reference to ‘ English tails’ has a footnote that says that in most Englishmen the end of the os scarum called “coccyx” actually protrudes and forms a tail.

      Our northern neighbours soon picked up the taunt from their continental allies and there are many references in Scottish writings from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century of ‘English tails.’ At the festivities accompanying the christening of the child of Mary Queen of Scots in December 1556 a masque was written which figured satyrs wearing tails. As the mummers passed the English guests they put their hands to their tails and wagged them, thus nearly causing a brawl. The Italians also got in on the act. A fourteenth century poet from that country refers to England as an island where people are born with short tails, such as are seen in stags and other beasts.

     I suppose if you read Lambarde’s chapter on Stroude carefully, he dismisses the Strood version as a myth, but why let the truth ruin a good story. If only one could stand at Strood corner and watch the historic events pass by, what an array of famous people we would see. If however you do have a tail, I would suggest you keep quiet about it.

Scources. 

                Lambarde and The British Medical Journal of 10^th May 1913. The page containing ‘The Legend of the English Tail’ which someone had inserted in my copy of Lambarde’s history printed in 1826. 

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