The Bullroarer Atlas

HAD1898-043 - secondary catalog

East Derbyshire bummer bullroarer

United Kingdom - East Derbyshire - England - Europe - British Isles

Play / practical

Haddon's East Derbyshire bummer: half-serrated oak blade, its bundled cord tied into the notches.
Haddon's East Derbyshire bummer: half-serrated oak blade, its bundled cord tied into the notches. Image source
Haddon's published figure of the same blade (The Study of Man, fig. 38 no. 5).
Haddon's published figure of the same blade (The Study of Man, fig. 38 no. 5). · Public domain Image source

bummer / buzzer English

bummer / buzzer: East Derbyshire sound-names for the bull-roarer; 'buzzer' here names the cord-whirled slat itself, not the doubled-cord spinning toy.

Nearly every English bullroarer Alfred Haddon handled had its string through a drilled hole; the one he got from East Derbyshire did not. Its cord is tied into a nick cut in each side near the squared end, and only the far half of the slat, down to its rounded tip, is toothed - a plano-convex board just over ten inches long. Boys there whirled it on that side-lashed cord, and the noise it made earned both of its local names: 'bummer' and 'buzzer.'

In East Derbyshire it is known as a 'bummer' or 'buzzer.' My Derbyshire specimen is plano-convex, the string end is square and the other rounded.

A. C. Haddon, The Study of Man (1898), pp. 278-280
Object
Haddon's own East Derbyshire specimen: a plano-convex wooden slat, 257 x 47 mm, square at the string end and rounded at the free end; the single cord is tied into a nick cut in each side near one end, and only the opposite half and the free end are serrated (Fig. 38 no. 5).
Function
A boys' whirring toy; the East Derbyshire names 'bummer' and 'buzzer' record its sound.
Map confidence
high - East Derbyshire regional anchor (Chesterfield-Alfreton-Bolsover belt); Haddon localizes the specimen only to 'East Derbyshire'.
Source location
Page references

pp. 278-280; Fig. 38 no. 5

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