Custom
Jack in the Green
Release the Jack, and summer comes.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- Old Town streets and the West Hill
- Legend from
- Revived custom
- Tone
- Light-hearted
A walking bush three metres tall, its green Bogies, and an Old Town full of Morris dancers.
Jack in the Green is a May Day figure nearly 3 m tall, covered in greenery and flowers. It grew out of milkmaids' and chimney sweeps' May processions in the 18th and 19th centuries. The custom died out in the early 20th century. Hastings revived it in 1983 through the Mad Jacks Morris dancers, and it is now one of the biggest gatherings of Morris dancers in the country. In Hastings the Jack is attended by Bogies, who are covered in green, and at the end the Jack is 'released'. The old idea that it is a pagan fertility survival was rejected after Roy Judge's 1979 study.