Ascension Day

We are getting so behind on our blogging - sorry! A few weeks ago we celebrated Ascension Day with Scooter's college - Lincoln College. Ascension Day is a day where our college celebrates these strange traditions that originated so long ago that no one is entirely sure how they started. The first thing you do on Ascension Day is participate in "Beating the Bounds." This is where you walk with sticks along the medieval borders of our college parish. These borders now cut through all kinds of interesting places: through stores, through other colleges, down alleys full of dumpsters, etc. There are stones all along the way marking the boundaries. At each stone the priest marks it with some chalk, a prayer is said, and we all "beat" the boundary stone with our sticks. We looked really strange walking along with our long sticks in this long procession following huge religious banners and various priests. Our procession went through fire exits, the stockroom of a shoe store, through the lingerie section of a department store, another college's pub, and a restaurant, among other places. People kept stopping us to ask what was going on. All of the stores were expecting us and some places even had treats waiting for us.

After we "beat the bounds" we go back to our college and celebrate the rest of our traditions. Read what Wikipedia says about Ascension Day at Lincoln College and the rest will make more sense:

"As is common with Oxford colleges, the College has a longstanding rivalry with neighbour Brasenose College (which was also founded by a later Bishop of Lincoln). The two colleges share a tradition revived annually on Ascension Day. The story goes that, centuries ago, as a mob chased students at the University through the town, the Lincoln porter allowed in the Lincoln students but refused entry to the Brasenose member, leaving him to the mercy of the mob. An alternative is that a Lincoln man bested a Brasenose man in a duel. Either episode resulted in the Brasenose student's death, and ever since, on Ascension Day, Lincoln College has invited in members of Brasenose College every year through the one door connecting the two colleges, for free beer as penance."

For many years the Lincoln students (because they were upset about having to part with some of their precious beer every year) started "poisoning" the beer with ivy. It really doesn't poison it but it does make it taste really gross. So they opened the secret passage and let the students from our rival college though and we all ("we" meaning everyone except for Scooter and I) drank some of this bad tasting beer.

Many years ago the college started contributing to orphanages every year. Somehow over the years they started making some kids come to college to receive the donation, then someone got the bright idea to start giving the donation by throwing it at the kids from the college tower. Then in order to teach the kids to not be greedy they started super-heating the coins (which they have only just recently stopped doing for safety reasons). Kids are still bused in to have coins thrown at them from the tower. All of the kids love it. They scramble all over picking up as many as they can gather.


We also went to see the preliminary races of the Summer VIIIs. It was the first proper race that we have attended. We stood on the top of the Lincoln boathouse and cheered for our college. The boats try to overtake and bump each other. It was a lot more exciting than we had expected. We really love Oxford.