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Hoodening, also spelled hodening and oodening, is a folk custom found in Kent, a county in South East England. The tradition entails the use of a wooden hobby horse known as a hooden horse that is mounted on a pole and carried by a person hidden under a sackcloth. Originally, the tradition was restricted to the area of East Kent, although in the twentieth century it spread into neighbouring West Kent. It represents a regional variation of a "hooded animal" tradition that appears in various forms throughout Britain and Ireland.
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The Winster Guisers are a group who perform a traditional mummers play in and around the village of Winster, Derbyshire, UK, during the Christmas season. Their performance is based on a photograph taken c. 1870 outside Winster Hall showing an unidentified set of performers about whom little is known for certain. The Winster Guisers' play is not local to the area, but is a revival of a Cheshire play, chosen because it features a hobby horse similar to the one in the centre of the old photograph. A "guiser" is someone in disguise, though in the Winster area the term was widely used for the teams of Christmas mummers.
Old Tup, sometimes termed the Derby Tup or the Derby Ram, is a folk custom found in an area of the East Midlands of England. Geographically, the custom was found on the borders of Derbyshire and Yorkshire and stretched into part of Nottinghamshire. The tradition entails the use of a hobby horse with a goat's head that is mounted on a pole and carried by an individual hidden under a sackcloth. It represents a regional variation of a "hooded animal" tradition that appears in various forms throughout the British Isles. In geographical location and style it displays strong similarities with the Old Horse custom, but in the latter the hobby horse was presented as a horse rather than a ram.
Old Ball is a folk custom that existed in the Forest of Rossendale in Lancashire, north-western England during the nineteenth century. The tradition entailed the use of a hobby horse that is mounted on a pole and carried by an individual hidden under a sackcloth. It represents a regional variation of a "hooded animal" tradition that appears in various forms throughout the UK.
Old Horse was a folk custom found in an area of north-eastern England. Geographically, the custom was found in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, and part of Yorkshire. The tradition entails the use of a hobby horse that is mounted on a pole and carried by an individual hidden under a sackcloth. It represents a regional variation of a "hooded animal" tradition that appears in various forms throughout the British Isles.
Láir Bhán is a hobby horse that was part of a folk custom found in parts of Ireland, particularly in the area of County Kerry, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The Wooing Play was a form of performance found in the folk culture of parts of east-central England.
Alex Helm (1920-1970) was an award-winning British Folklorist, described as "one of the most important figures in the study of calendar custom and [folk] dance in post-war England".
References
Footnotes
- 1 2 3 4 Cawte 1978, p. 147.
- ↑ Hole 1995, p. 65.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Cawte 1978, p. 144.
- 1 2 Hutton 1996, p. 87.
- ↑ Cawte 1978, p. 142.
- ↑ Cawte 1978, pp. 142, 144.
- ↑ Hutton 1996, p. 94.
Bibliography
- Cawte, E. C. (1978). Ritual Animal Disguise: A Historical and Geographical Study of Animal Disguise in the British Isles. Cambridge and Totowa: D.S. Brewer Ltd. and Rowman and Littlefield for the Folklore Society. ISBN 978-0-8599-1028-6.
- Hole, Christina (1995) [1976]. A Dictionary of British Folk Customs. Oxford: Helicon. ISBN 978-1-8598-6129-5.
- Hutton, Ronald (1996). The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain . Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-1982-0570-8.