"Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things."

Flora Lewis

Tuesday, 25 February 2014 17:07

Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling Festival

prepared by 2nd year student, Viktoria Gnatenko

festival (n) - an occasion when there are performances of many films, plays, pieces of music etc, usually happening in the same place every year

  

The Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake is an annual event held on the Spring Bank Holiday at Cooper's Hill, near Gloucester in England.

From the top of the hill a 9 lb round of Double Gloucester cheese is rolled, and competitors race down the hill after it. The first person over the finish line at the bottom of the hill wins the cheese. In theory, competitors are aiming to catch the cheese, however it has around one second head start and can reach speeds up to 70 mph (112 km/h), enough to knock over and injure a spectator.

 It is thought that bundles of burning brushwood were rolled down the hill to represent the birth of the New Year after winter. Connected with this belief is the traditional scattering of buns, biscuits and sweets at the top of the hill by the Master of Ceremonies. This is said to be a fertility rite to encourage the fruits of harvest.

Since the fifteenth century the cheese has been rolled down the hill, and people have competed to catch it.

During the Second World War rationing was introduced, preventing the use of a cheese in the event. Consequently, from 1941 to 1954 a wooden "cheese" was used instead with a piece of cheese in a hollow space in the centre of the wooden replica.

Though many magazines claim the Cooper’s Hill Cheese Rolling to be one of the stupidest festivals in the world more and more people come to see and participate in this strange competition.

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