# ferret legging **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 21, 2003, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferret-legging/189857 "2003-07-21T04:42:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![settlement](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@settlement](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/settlement)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferret-legging/189857/1 "2003-07-21T04:42:49Z")
I read an article in Outside magazine (I think) quite awhile back, about a sport in northern England involving stuffing crazed ferrets into one’s pants and keeping them there for as long as one could stand it. I believe this website has similar content[http://gci.gospelcom.net/dw/1995/11/20/](http://gci.gospelcom.net/dw/1995/11/20/) . This has to be a spoof or urban myth…right? ---
**Author:** ![settlement](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@settlement](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/settlement)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferret-legging/189857/2 "2003-07-21T06:03:42Z")
In reference to the moderator: I have mildly searched for definitive information on ferret legging, to no avail. I did check Snopes and Urban [Legends.com](http://Legends.com). I also searched the Straight Dope archives for this topic using a variety of terms. I am hoping that there is someone out there who knows more. I’ll admit that it is a strange topic to want to…explore, but where else but here for such a thing? Here is a more complete link to a similar version of the story: [http://kzsu.stanford.edu/~dougm/Humor/95/November/FerretLeggers.html](http://kzsu.stanford.edu/~dougm/Humor/95/November/FerretLeggers.html) …perhaps I should search out the Outside Magazine archives. ---
**Author:** ![trabi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecae2f/32.png) [@trabi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trabi)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferret-legging/189857/3 "2003-07-21T06:53:46Z")
No, people really do it. ---
**Author:** ![trabi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecae2f/32.png) [@trabi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trabi)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferret-legging/189857/4 "2003-07-21T06:56:07Z")
Why do I get the feeling that this thread will eventually degenerate into yet another discussion on the relative merits of eating steak and kidney pie, as always seems to happen when a US doper asks a question about British habits/customs? ---
**Author:** ![One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/838e76/32.png) [@One\_And\_Only\_Wanderers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/One_And_Only_Wanderers)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferret-legging/189857/5 "2003-07-21T07:37:19Z")
Speaking as a Northerner (A Yorkshireman) I would say that this is a dying custom. Some people also dance around wearing bells and waving their hankie in the air (morris dancing) but it isn’t as common as in days of yore. I personally have never witnessed either type of activity in my 27 years, and have never once been tempted to allow a ferret near my family jewels ---
**Author:** ![trabi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecae2f/32.png) [@trabi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trabi)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferret-legging/189857/6 "2003-07-21T08:05:14Z")
You may be closer to the truth than you know - Morris dancing is supposed to be based on a ritual fertility dance, possibly to counter the genital damage caused by ferrets? Could the decline of the former be linked to the latter? I used to work with a Yorkeshireman who claimed to have attended ferret legging contests. I have also seen Morris dancers several times, although mostly in the fens, where all sorts of strange things go on… ---
**Author:** ![trabi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecae2f/32.png) [@trabi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trabi)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferret-legging/189857/7 "2003-07-21T08:06:17Z")
Sorry, Yorkshireman. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferret-legging/189857/8 "2003-07-21T10:32:01Z")
Morris dancing I have personally witnessed on many occasions. Ferret legging I have not. But I see no reason to doubt its existence. Steak and kidney pie, done properly, is most palatable. That is all. ---
**Author:** ![Shrinking\_Violet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@Shrinking\_Violet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shrinking_Violet)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferret-legging/189857/9 "2003-07-21T11:00:58Z")
Agree with all Steve says … with the addition that I have seen ferret-legging many times on TV. Julie ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferret-legging/189857/10 "2003-07-21T13:08:12Z")
Yes, it exists. This [page](http://weaselwords.com/pages/art028.asp), which has everything you could surely ever want to know about the history of ferrets, says this about it. > [@](#): > > **This is a silly English pub sport that has been around for centuries, but fortunately is no longer common. The contestant must ties his trousers legs securely around the ankles, then places two ferrets, who have full sets of teeth, down his pants and finally tie the waist of his trousers securely closed. If a ferret bites, it can only be dislodged from the outside of the pants. The object is to be the person that keeps the ferrets in his pants the longest. In 1983 a 72-year old Yorkshire man [presumably Reg Mellor] withstood the ferrets for 5 hours and 26 minutes.** ---
**Author:** ![settlement](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@settlement](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/settlement)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferret-legging/189857/11 "2003-07-21T14:56:27Z")
Thank you, all, however nothing authoritative yet. Still seems like smoke and mirrors. Reg Mellor is too fascinating to not have been invited to appear on David Letterman. ---
**Author:** ![settlement](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@settlement](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/settlement)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferret-legging/189857/12 "2003-07-21T15:16:43Z")
APB, I take that back. The commercial web site you refer to does have a bibliography. I suppose I should check out The Complete Book of Ferrets… I did want it to be true… ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferret-legging/189857/13 "2003-07-21T19:32:30Z")
Some scepticism seems entirely justifiable. This is clearly a minor urban legend in the sense that it’s a good story transmitted credulously, displaying mutations as it does so and usually with some sort of moral drawn from it. In some cases (the Christian websites) this moral is explicit, in others it’s the more implicit one of “ain’t some people wierd”/“it takes all sorts”. Furthermore, there’s the rich British comic tradition (well, _Last of the Summer Wine_) of jokes about Yorkshiremen with ferrets down their trousers, so one can’t take everything at face value. Goggling “ferret legging” throws up a large array of mentions. But it has to be worrying that, with the possible exception of **APB** ’s link, to be discussed below, **all** of these ultimately derive from the same source: an old article by the journalist Donald Katz. The fullest text of this appears to be [this copy](http://bitsy.sub-atomic.com/~moses/keepers/keepers/Ferret_Legging). Now, whatever else, many of the details are such to at least raise a Doperish eyebrow: > [@](#): > > In England the amazing rise of ferret-legging pales before the new popularity of keeping ferrets as pets, a trend replete with numerous tragic consequences. A baby was killed and eaten in 1978, and several children have been mauled by ferrets every year since then. > [@](#): > > “Why,” Reg roared again, “I had ‘em hangin’ from me tool for hours an’ hours an’ hours! Two at a time – one on each side. I been swelled up as big as that!” Reg pointed to a five-pound can of instant coffee. > [@](#): > > Mellor is a proud man. Last year he retired from professional ferret-legging in disgust after attempting to break a magic six-hour mark – the four-minute-mile of ferret-legging. After five hours of having them down, Mellor found that almost all of the 2,500 spectators had gone home. Then workmen came and began to dismantle the stage, despite his protestations that he was on his way to a new record. “I’m not packing it in because I am too old or because I can’t take the bites anymore,” Reg told reporters after the event, "I am just too disillusioned. Some copies suggest it may have appeared in Harper’s in 1992. It may have, but it seems to predate that. Katz himself - and by all appearances he’s a respectable journalist - has offered [a few comments](http://www.palmdigitalmedia.com/excerpt.cgi/0679647023) on the writing of the article and it’s subsequent popularity. An existance prior to widespread email and web access would place it before 1992. Furthermore, there’s the internal evidence of the references towards the end to the Falklands conflict of 1982. These make most sense as topical remarks. Even with the fuller version of the article and Katz’s comments, there really aren’t many first-hand details about “ferret legging” in them. In particular, he never saw a ferret being used competatively. One would like an independent citation. Is **APB** ’s National Ferret Welfare Society an independent source? The impressive detail they include is dating the great triumph to 1983; none of the other web versions seem to realise that the article dates back to this period. On the other hand, it’s worrying that Reg is 72, both at the time of his victory and when Katz meets him a year later, but that’s obviously inconclusive. However, some other ferret fanciers are dubious about ferrets being put down trousers at all: > [@](#): > > They are a few designs for ferret carrying boxes. These are used to carry the ferrets around safely, in the olden days when the ferret was the tool of poachers either catching for money or to feed the family they couldn’t advertise the fact they were after the rabbits so they had pockets sewn into their trousers for the ferrets. Sadly out of this came the famous and overused “ferret down the trousers” gag. It really wouldn’t surprise me if Yorkshiremen do regularly store their ferrets in their trousers. The question has to be whether they have ever done so other than in the presence of foreign journalists and southern TV crews. And competitively, at that. [Incidentally, one envisages the smash Britflick on the subject, using the bastard combination formula of _The Full Monty_, _Bend it like Beckham_ and _Kes_. Plucky Northern lass tries to break into the male dominated world of “legging”. The scene where she discovers her brutally murdered pet ferret will be particularly moving.] ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2003, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferret-legging/189857/14 "2003-07-21T23:12:24Z")
It was also mentioned in a Gen13 comic written by Adam Warren. Grunge wins by cheating and turning his tonker to steel. I love Adam Warren. ---
**Author:** ![settlement](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@settlement](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/settlement)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2003, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferret-legging/189857/15 "2003-07-22T04:40:05Z")
Thank you for the validation, bonzer. There is just bloody little out there about ferret legging . The Katz (PalmDigital) link was useful, though Katz also says nothing conclusive, outside of the use of the word “true” in the title of his collection. Were there ever ferrets hanging from Reg Mellor’s tool? I am haunted by this question.