HOW'S this for a strange tradition?
This photo, courtesy of Looking Back regular Andy Hutchings, shows an ancient and curious tradition.
Local children and adults would be bumped into each boundary stone on a 15 mile walk around the borough of Weymouth and Portland.
The procession would make its way to each of the boundary stones where members of the council were 'bumped' against the stone.
In this photo we can see a boy being 'bumped'.
The boy would be suspended upside down and his head gently tapped against the stone or he would be taken by the feet and hands and swung against a tree!
Nobody knows why or how the tradition originated. One explanation advanced is that it was intended to teach the young their parish's limits and that the bumping of choir boys - at one time all the local children would have been involved - was 'to help them remember'.
It is believed the ceremony was pagan in origin.
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