The Bullroarer Atlas

No. MUS2026-119

English folk bullroarer, Suffolk (Lovett collection, NMAH)

United Kingdom · Suffolk, England · Europe · British Isles

Play / practical

Bungay English folk bullroarer cut from recycled wood, with shallow scallops along its long edges and a cord attached at one end.
Plate I. Bungay bullroarer cut from recycled wood, with its terminal cord, Pitt Rivers Museum 1894.42.1. Image source
Suffolk wooden bullroarer with deeply notched edges, a line of holes through its face and several cords wrapped around the blade.
Plate II. Wooden bull roarer from Suffolk, England, collected by folklorist Edward Lovett — National Museum of American History DL.211913. Image source
The Suffolk woozer: a palm-sized blade sawn into deep teeth along both edges.
Plate III. The Suffolk woozer: a palm-sized blade sawn into deep teeth along both edges, its cord still coiled (PRM 1902.16.1). Image source

woozer

Source term: bull-roarer

woozer = Suffolk name for the bullroarer, recorded in 1902 with a deeply side-notched blade.

While Victorian anthropologists compared the secret bullroarers of Australia and New Guinea, the same instrument still rattled through English childhood. Edward Lovett's Suffolk specimen is a six-and-a-half-inch wooden blade with its rope wound neatly around it, ready to be carried in a pocket and unwound for play.

Particulars

Object
Three wooden Suffolk bullroarers: Edward Lovett's blade with its rope coiled round it; a 203 mm slat from Bungay, roughly cut from a wooden box and notched all along; and the woozer, 139 x 61 mm, with deeply indented sides.
Function
English children’s folk toy.

Source

Smithsonian National Museum of American History, DL.211913 (Suffolk, England; Edward Lovett collection); Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, 1894.42.1 and 1902.16.1

View the source · archived

Part of The Bullroarer Atlas, companion to The Eve Theory of Consciousness.