2012 is shaping up to be a great year for sure. I was going to wait on this, but as there is only a week to enter as of this writing, I thought I’d better hurry up so any of you who wish can get your application form in for a chance to bring home the bacon.
Bacon, you say? Why, yes. Yes I did. For a side, or “Flitch” of bacon is the prize for the winners.
Winners, as in plural, you say? Why, yes. Yes I did again. For the prize is awarded to a married couple as part of a quaint little tradition from that quaintest of all places – England. It’s the Dunmow Flitch Prize and has been around for far longer than our nation. Much longer.
If you haven’t heard of it, I’m hardly surprised. To win the Dunmow Flitch, you must, and I’ll quote here from a reliable source – this then from the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (not the stupid people dictionary mind you, but the Advanced learners, so you know it’s true…)
“a very large piece of bacon which is regularly given in the Essex village of Great Dunmow as a prize to a man and woman who can prove that, after being married for at least a year and a day, they have never once wished that they were not married.”
How awesome is that!? Write your love story and win bacon!
Now, the reason you’ve probably never heard of this is because it didn’t really travel across the Atlantic well. Seriously, raise your hand if you think any woman in her right mind wouldn’t have wanted to keel-haul her husband as she entered her sixth week of nausea from a sea voyage in what amounts to a life boat with no running water, proper bathrooms or soap. (Or much in the way of food or water for that matter). Most people who populated America were ineligible for the prize about 3 days after leaving port. Hell, they were probably still in sight of England when they threw their vows overboard.
Mindless of that, however, this tradition only rolls around once every four years – so 2012 is just packed full of stuff to do. We’ve got the Olympics, a leap year, an election, the Dunmow Flitch and the end of the world as we know it! Oh, yeah and bacon! What’s not to like?
Now the English know how to throw a tradition. None of this piddling decades-long stuff for them. This obscure little contest has been around since 1104. Read it aloud... eleven, oh-four. In 1104 even the Native Americans were still on their way to Virginia from the Bering strait.
So, the story goes, according to www.dunmowflitchtrials.co.uk/history that in 1104 Lord of the Manor Reginald Fitzwalter (really) and his good lady wife, dressed themselves up “as humble folk” (which I assume means peasants) and asked a blessing of the Prior after 1 year and 1 day of marriage. The Prior was charmed and gave them some bacon and Lord Fitzwalter gave up his estate to the church with the condition the priory keep giving away bacon to devoted couples. Which I think is an excellent deal for the priory and I also imagine that if Lady Fitzwalter didn’t want to kill him at that moment, Lord Fitzwalter Junior probably wanted a crack at the old man for giving away the farm for half a pig.
Now, in the interest of fair play, it should be said that the average life expectancy in 1104 was somewhere well south of 40 – probably much closer to 30 – so the ‘achievement’ of not wanting to be unmarried to your meal ticket probably isn’t such a big deal. But, again in the interest of fairness, also consider there were no feminine hygiene products or professional sports, so it’s probably an accomplishment in any age.
Anyway, once the good Vicar put bacon on the menu, everyone wanted in on the action and so a tradition was born – and it was so popular that no less a figure than Geoffrey Chaucer mentioned it in that book we’ve all heard about and adore quoting, but have probably never read – the Canterbury Tales. To which the Wife of Bath’s Tale and Prologue reads:
“But never for us the flitch of bacon though/ that some may win in Essex at Dunmow”
Interestingly, if Chaucer were to write that today, at only 80 characters that little couplet could be Tweeted world-wide and promptly ignored.
But it wasn’t Tweeted and it hasn’t been ignored and so here we sit on the fourth year with the deadline for entry fast approaching on Feb. 29! You'd better hurry. The entry form is three pages, but it’s simple enough although you’ll have to provide copies of passports, driver’s licenses and marriage certificates. Go to: http://www.dunmowflitchtrials.co.uk/files/pdf/dunmow-flitch-trials-application-2012.pdf
And if you’re reading this outside the Empire, don’t think for a moment that you can’t win if you’re not in England – or that only one couple wins. In 2008 there were four winning couples (which is really pretty sad considering there are tens of millions of married couples and only four could prove they didn’t once ever want to just hand over half their stuff and start their mid-life crisis in peace.)
Jeff Dotts and Erin Albers of Nashville, Tenn., were so enamored of each other they didn’t even share a last name – and yet they still won in 2008. In 2000 and 2004 combined only seven couples won and they were all English. But, the Dotts/Albers have created a precedent and I think you should all take advantage of it and enter the contest.
And if you win, I want some of your bacon.
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