Posted by Ed Kiser on February 17, 2005 at 17:36:55 from 205.188.116.6 user Kisered.
In Reply to: Pull devil, pull baker posted by Pam Adams on February 16, 2005 at 22:57:55:
A year or so ago, I had raised essentially the same question as to where this expression came from, and from the several answers posted at that time, I found this:
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"Pull devil, pull baker"
"Regatta Day", at any waterside town or village in the East of England.
It's a nautical Tug Of War, with a twist.
Two rowing boats are tied together with a rope, stern to stern, at a distance of thirty feet or so. Usually two people row and two others stand in the stern of the boat. One boat contains "bakers", dressed in white. The other boat contains "devils", dressed in black.
At the start, each boat tries to tow the other backwards over the line. The Bakers are armed with paper bags full of flour, with which they bombard the Devils, hoping to put them off their stroke. The Devils are similarly supplied with bags of soot.
Winners and losers invariably dive overboard at the end.
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In my typed version of these texts, I made the above a "footnote", even though it was not in the original book. Glad I did, for it made finding it now after all this time very easy, just scanned for "Baker" and it showed me the reference in the book, and in the footnote just below it.
Guess that proves that my typed versions are NOT exact copies of the book, as it does have this little addition. But it sure helped here.
What is missing from my notes is the author of the above quote. Somebody sent it to me via the Forum, and I just saved it. So our mutual thanks really should go to that unknown contributor.
Ed Kiser, South Florida