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The name horkey was applied to end of harvest customs and celebrations, especially in the Eastern Counties of England, although the word occurred elsewhere in England and also Ireland. Since it is found in dialect, there is no standard spelling and other versions include hawkie and hockey. Mentioned from the 16th century onward, the custom became less common during the course of the 19th century and was more or less extinct in the 20th. It is chiefly remembered now because of the poem dedicated to it by Robert Bloomfield in 1802.
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The harvest-home
In the introduction to The Horkey, Robert Bloomfield sets the scene it goes on to describe: “In Suffolk husbandry, the man who goes foremost through the harvest with the scythe or the sickle is honoured with the title of ‘Lord’, and at the Horkey, or harvest home-feast, collects what he can for himself or brethren, from the farmers and visitors, to make a ‘frolic’ afterwards, called the ‘largess spending’.” Leaving the hall after the feast, they then shout “largess” so loudly that it is heard in all the farms around.
A later account of Cambridgeshire celebrations mentions that, “as the wagon rolled along the street, the locals would pelt it with buckets of water. This was a sign that, since harvest was now over, it didn't matter if it rained. Then came the meal itself: mountains of roast beef, vegetables and plum puddings - washed down with locally brewed strong ale. All paid for by the farmer. In some Cambridgeshire villages, the revelers performed a dance in which they wore stiff straw hats on which they balanced tankards of ale.” Among additional details in The English Dialect Dictionary, it is mentioned that the last load of the harvest was brought in decked with festive boughs or decorated with a corn dolly woven of stalks. Accompanying it came a procession of farm labourers ‘crying the mare’ with the song
John Greaves Nall's Glossary of East Anglian Dialect, originally published in 1866, conjectured that the word 'horkey' referred to the hallooing that followed the feast and was connected with the Norse hauka, to shout, that is also found in the words ‘hawker’ and ‘huckster’.
Late survivals
Bloomfield noted in his introduction that “these customs are going fast out of use”. In the illustrations provided by George Cruickshank for the children’s edition of 1882, those at the feast are dressed in the fashion of a bygone time. The scene is distanced, much as the poet himself presents it, as a piece of folklore. But there were still survivals of the custom, and even revivals, as evidenced by news items from 1901-2 that speak of “old-time horkeys” in the village of Foxearth.
By 1934, the artist Thomas Hennell was commenting that “since the passing of the Agricultural Wages Bill, the Horkey has been generally abandoned, though one or two landowners in the eastern counties are still generous enough to give a supper each year”. There was, nevertheless, one revival at the end of the 20th century by the Morris Men of the Suffolk village of Glemsford.