Ashdown Forest English Hummer bullroarer

Hummer

Source term: Bullroarer

Hummer: the name the Pitt Rivers Museum recorded with the blade — the word Haddon gave for the toy in West Suffolk in 1898.

An oak slat the length of a forearm, its cord still wound tight around one end, came out of Ashdown Forest under the name Hummer. Alfred Haddon had recorded the same word a decade earlier in West Suffolk: one English name for the roaring toy, traveling between counties. A London dealer passed the piece to the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1909.

Bull-roarer, Ashdown Forest, Sussex.

Pitt Rivers Museum Annual Report 1909

Particulars

Object

Oak slat, 270 x 40 mm, with cord wound around one end.

Function

Boys' toy, whirled on its cord for the hum that named it.