Mr. Reg Mellor, the “king of ferret legging,” paced across his tiny Yorkshire miner’s cottage as he explained the rules of the English sport that he has come to dominate rather late in life. “Ay lad,” said the 72-year-old champion, “no jockstraps allowed. No underpants—nothin’ whatever. And it’s no good with tight trousers, mind ye. Little bah-stards have to be able to move around inside there from ankle to ankle.”

Some 11 years ago I first heard of the strange pastime called ferret legging, and for a decade since then I have sought a publication possessed of sufficient intelligence and vision to allow me to travel to northern England in search of the fabled players of the game.

Basically, the contest involves the tying of a competitor’s trousers at the ankles and the subsequent insertion into those trousers of a couple of peculiarly vicious fur-coated, footlong carnivores called ferrets. The brave contestant’s belt is then pulled tight, and he proceeds to stand there in front of the judges as long as he can, while animals with claws like hypodermic needles and teeth like number 16 carpet tacks try their damnedest to get out.

From a dark and obscure past, the sport has made an astonishing comeback in the past 15 years. When I first heard about ferret legging, the world record stood at 40 painful seconds of “keepin’ ’em down,” as they say in ferret-legging circles. A few years later the dreaded one-minute mark was finally surpassed. The current record—implausible as it may seem—now stands at an awesome 5 hours and 26 minutes, a mark reached last year by the gaudily tattooed 72-year-old little Yorkshireman with the waxed military mustache who now stood two feet away from me in the middle of the room, apparently undoing his trousers.

“The ferrets must have a full mouth o’ teeth,” Reg Mellor said as he fiddled with his belt.“No filing of the teeth; no clipping. No dope for you or the ferrets. You must be sober, and the ferrets must be hungry—though any ferret’ll eat yer eyes out even if he isn’t hungry.”
    -The King of the Ferret Leggers (Donald Katz, Feb 2, 1983, Outside)

Not much analysis needed here. Just want to point out that, one of the best essays Outside magazine ever ran is freely available online. The author, Donald R. Katz, was a magazine writer and editor in the 70s’s & 80’s who changed careers after writing a revered study of the post-war period though the lens of a friend’s family, Home Fires. Improbably enough, today he is best known as the Founder and CEO of Audible and a major advocate for reviving Newark, NJ. But you owe it to yourself to let him introduce you to Reg Mellor, the least envied king.

(Reviewed:21-Aug-24)

Grade: (A+) Orrin C. Judd

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Donald Katz Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: Don Katz
    -AUTHOR SITE: donald-katz.com
    -TWITTER: @don_katz
    -PUBLISHER PAGE: Donald Katz (Peguim Random House)
    -ENTRY: Katz, Donald R. (Encyclopedia.com)
    -ENTRY: Don Katz (NYU Distinguished Alumni)
    -WIKIPEDIA: Home Fires (Katz book)
    -INDEX: Donald Katz (Outside)
    -INDEX: Donald R. Katz (Rolling Stone)
    -INDEX: Don Katz (Muck Rack)
    -ESSAY: Dispatch From the Valley of the Fallen: Franco's Legacy: A scared right, an exhilarated left, a rookie for a king (Donald R. Katz, January 29, 1976, Rolling Stone)
    -ESSAY: The King of the Ferret Leggers (Donald Katz, Feb 2, 1983, Outside)
    -ESSAY: My Life with the Horror: There’s nothing funny about motion sickness. Really. I mean it. (Don Katz, Sep 1, 1987, Outside)
    -ESSAY: Reasons for Getting Rich (Donald R. Katz, 3/01/1986, Esquire)
    -ESSAY: No. 17: We like to watch. (Donald Katz, 10/01/1993, Esquire)
    -ESSAY: Counting on a Cure (Donald R. Katz, 11/01/1987, Esquire)
    -ESSAY: When Parents Can’t Provide (Donald R. Katz, 10/01/1986, Esquire)
    -ESSAY: Bill Mauldin: Drawing Fire: The cartoonist's 35-year fight for truth (Donald R. Katz, November 4, 1976, Rolling Stone)
    -ESSAY: 1976 Presidential Election: Draft Dodger and the Democrats: Fritz Elaw's unconventional campaign for the Vice-Presidency (Donald R. Katz, August 26, 1976, Rolling Stone)
    -ESSAY: Monaco: The Prince and the Paupers: Why you'll never break the bank in Monte Carlo (Donald R. Katz, March 10, 1977, Rolling Stone)
    -ESSAY: Italian Youth Movement Turns to Violence for Cultural Change: Italy's 'Metropolitan Indians' signal the first rebellion of 'Irregulars' in modern times (Donald R. Katz, November 17, 1977, Rolling Stone)
    -ESSAY: Jane Fonda Is a Hard Act to Follow: With husband Tom Hayden, the actress is trying to move past the 'Hanoi Jane' tag (Donald R. Katz, March 9, 1978, Rolling Stone)
    -ESSAY: Ethiopia After the Revolution: Vultures Return to the Land of Sheba: The fate of Ethiopia's most promising generation in the brutal aftermath of its revolution (Donald R. Katz, September 21, 1978, Rolling Stone)
    -ESSAY: Jack LaLanne Is Still an Animal (Donald Katz, May 2, 2004, Outside)
    -ESSAY: SEARS STRIKES BACK : Inside the Retail Giant's Struggle to Regain Its Position--and Profits--in the Los Angeles Market It Once Dominated Completely (Donald R. Katz, Sept. 27, 1987, LA Times)
    -PROFILE: Behind the Scenes of the Funniest Story Outside Ever Published: After a remarkable 20-year stretch as a journalist, Don Katz switched hats and created one of the most successful tech and media startups of all time. Here he talks about how a love of words fueled his ambitions in both professional pursuits. (Lisa Chase, 8/14/24, Outside)
    -INTERVIEW: Interview with Donald Katz, CEO & Founder of Audible.com ( Uzoamaka Maduka, The American Reader)
    -PROFILE: Now Hear This: Montclair Internet entrepreneur Don Katz has made the spoken word Audible. (Neil Amdur, December 19, 2007, NJ Monthly)
    -PROFILE: The Spoken Word With Audible Founder & CEO Donald Katz (Taylor Smith, Princeton Magazine)
    -PROFILE: Tired of Trolls, a Feisty Chief Fights Back (Joe Nocera, Sept. 16, 2006, NY Times)
    -ESSAY: Can You Hear Me Now? Audible CEO Donald Katz Re-issues His Seminal Book ‘Home Fires’: I didn’t understand much of what I read at first, but I kept reading. And re-reading. Home Fires became my favorite book, one of those seminal pieces of literature that shaped my identity and made me want to be a writer. (Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke, 11/20/14, NY Observer)
    -ESSAY: Two Decades Later, Don Katz's 'Home Fires' is Available as an Audiobook (Alexandra Alter, May 27, 2014, Wall Street Journal)
    -ARCHIVES: Katz, Donald R. (Internet Archive)
    -VIDEO ARCHIVES: “don katz” (YouTube)
    -REVIEW: of The Valley of the Fallen by Donald Katz (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of Valley of the Fallen (Publishers Weekly)
    -REVIEW: of Home Fires: An Intimate Portrait of One Middle-Class Family in Postwar America by Donald Katz (Rachel Abrams, Commentary)
    -REVIEW: of Home Fires (Judith Viorst, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Home Fires (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of Home Fires (Publishers Weekly)
    -REVIEW: of Home Fires (Jonathan Alter, Medium)
    -REVIEW: of Home Fires (Linden-Ward, Blanche.? The Journal of American History)
    -REVIEW: of Just Do it by Donald Katz (Kirkus)

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