Nanny Rutt - Assessment of The Story

Assessment of The Story

The date of origin of the story is obscure but it was current in the 1920s and is likely to be earlier. Parents used to use it to warn their children against wandering in the wood. In this respect, Nanny Rutt was a form of the Bogeyman. It is probably not coincidental that le rut is a French word derived from the Latin rugitus meaning 'sexual drive'. The word occurs too, in English but is there used for male non-human mammals, especially of the deer group and goats. The males are said to be 'in rut' while female mammals are 'on heat'. The French word applies to either sex and may include people. Rodin included it among the sins scattered on a version of his 'Gates of Hell'. Nanny Rutt's first name is perhaps a little less explicit.Goats are sometimes used as a byword for male sexuality but a nanny goat is a female one. The word 'Nanny' is also used both as a colloquial term for a grandmother, and can also mean childminder.

It may be possible to suggest an explanation for the story of the disappearance. Perhaps at some date a girl took her developing sexuality into Math wood, met someone who complemented it and was soon taken off to a home for un-married mothers never to return to Northorpe. An explanation was required for the other young people and at a time of reticence about sexuality, Nanny Rutt was invented. If this happened when the use of the French language in England was remembered, the story is medieval. Nanny Rutt could also be based on a real woman who once lived in the woods.