Haxey Hood: The best photographs as hundreds of villagers pile in and compete in the medieval game

Haxey Hood sees crowds from the villages of Haxey and Westwoodside compete in a 14th century game by piling in to push a leather tube, known as a hood, back to their favourite local pub.

It takes place in fields in the Isle of Axholme, between Doncaster and Scunthorpe, on the twelfth day of Christmas (January 6) each year.

Teams from all four pubs on the route were involved this year, after The Duke William in Haxey re-opened under new management in November.

Stories suggest the game dates back to 1359, when Lady de Mowbray, a local landowner's wife who was riding between Westwoodside and Haxey, lost her silk riding hood in a gale.

Thirteen farmhands rushed to retrieve it from a nearby field, but the man who caught it was too shy to present it to her, and gave it to one of the others instead.

Lady de Mowbray told the man who handed it back that he had acted like a lord, while the man who had found it was a fool for his reticence.

She then donated 13 acres of land on condition that the chase would be re-enacted every year by the men of the village.

The overseer is called the Lord of the Hood, and there are other 'referees' called boggins as well as the Fool, who leads the procession between the pubs and has the right to kiss any woman he encounters along the way. He then makes a welcome speech and a fire is lit behind him - a custom known as 'smoking the Fool'.

His traditional chant translates as 'house against house, town against town, if a man meets a man, knock him down but don’t hurt him.'

The game is won when the hood arrives at the front step of the victorious pub and is given to the landlord, who retains possession of it for the year.