15th November
Lying Contests
Source: Times and Star website
On this day at Temple Sowerby in Cumbria, a Lying Contest was held each year in which the most proficient fibber was awarded a whetstone as first prize. The Bishop of Carlisle one day visited the town on the day of the contest and gave an impromtu sermon on the evils of knowingly telling untruths, finishing by claiming he never told lies himself. The townspeople immediately presented the bishop with the whetstone first prize. The tradition has survived as the annual World’s Biggest Liar Contest held in Wasdale, in the Lake District. The competition takes place in the Bridge Inn with as many as 200 entrants who attempt to impress judges with their credible-but-almost-certainly-untrue tall tales. There is only one winner and lawyers, journalists, salesmen, estate agents and politicians are expressly forbidden being allowed to enter: I can’t think why.
The contest is said to have been inspired by Wordsworth and the Lakeland Poets who believed the people of Wasdale to be the most effortlessly untruthful folk in the British Isles.
