Wooing Play

Last updated

The Wooing Play was a form of performance found in the folk culture of parts of east-central England.

Contents

The wooing play was performed in a large area of the East Midlands, mostly in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire but with some recorded presence in Leicestershire and Rutland. [1]

Many accounts of the wooing play describe its performers as being farm labourers. [2] Ethel H. Rudkin however stated that they were exclusively horsemen, [3] something that the folklorist E. C. Cawte believed was also true of Leicestershire and the adjacent parts of Lincolnshire, an area further south than where Rudkin had conducted her research. [2]

Hobby horse

The use of a hobby horse as part of the wooing play performance was found in a geographically restricted area around the mouth of the River Trent. [1] The use of the hobby horse in the play is not known in Nottinghamshire, although the area in which the wooing play was performed bordered the region in which two Christmas hobby horse traditions, those of Old Tup and Old Horse, were performed. [1]

When used in the wooing play, the hobby horse was always recorded as being called a "hobby horse", rather than by other names as elsewhere in British Isles. [1] Descriptions indicate that it consisted of a large farm sieve which was hung from a man's shoulders, with a wooden horse's head fastened at the front and a tail at the back. A cloth over the man's shoulders was then used to cover the sieve. [1] The tail was sometimes a real horse's tail and was often barbed with hooks or tin-tacks to dissuade people from pulling on it; E. H. Rudkin observed girls who tried to pull a hair from the tail to gain luck and getting scratched as a result. [1] The folklorist E. C. Cawte compared its design to the tourney horse used in the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, but noted that here there was "even less attempt to produce the illusion of a horse and rider." [1]

At East Butterwick, the rider is recorded as being decorated with horses' brasses. [4] When the hobby horse appeared in the play, it did not take a central role in the action, but entered to recite a few lines, having no evident connection with any of the other characters. [3]

Little is known about the history of the wooing play hobby horse. [3] The oldest possible account came from East Butterwick, where a man recalled it being one of the characters as having been part of the performance circa 1830. [3] The earliest direct observation comes from 1880, produced by Anderson. [3] The hobby horse from Barrow upon Humber was revived for the 1951 Festival of Britain. [3] Cawte noted that this particular performance may have been elaborated for the occasion. [3]

Related Research Articles

Midlands Place in * England, * United Kingdom

The Midlands is the central part of England and a cultural area that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. The Midlands region is bordered by Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. Two of the nine official regions of England are the West Midlands and East Midlands. Birmingham, in the West Midlands, is the second-largest city and metropolitan area in the United Kingdom.

Hoodening Folk custom from Kent, England

Hoodening, also spelled hodening and oodening, is a folk custom found in Kent, a county in south-eastern 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 an individual 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 the British Isles.

Border Morris is a collection of individual local dances from villages along the English side of the Wales–England border in the counties of Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire. They are part of the Morris dance tradition.

Byards Leap Hamlet in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England

Byard's Leap is a hamlet in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated approximately 3 miles (5 km) west from Cranwell, and is part of the civil parish of Cranwell, Brauncewell and Byard's Leap. The hamlet is associated with various legends.

Golowan Festival Midsummer celebrations festival in Cornwall, UK

Golowan is the Cornish language word for the Midsummer celebrations in Cornwall, UK; widespread prior to the late 19th century and most popular in the Penwith area and in particular Penzance and Newlyn. The celebrations were centred on the lighting of bonfires and fireworks and the performance of associated rituals. The midsummer bonfire ceremonies were revived at St Ives in 1929 by the Old Cornwall Society and since then spread to other societies across Cornwall, as far as Kit Hill near Callington. Since 1991 the Golowan festival in Penzance has revived many of these ancient customs and has grown to become a major arts and culture festival; its central event 'Mazey Day' now attracts tens of thousands of people to the Penzance area in late June.

Tiddy Mun was a legendary bog spirit in Lincolnshire, England, who was believed to have the ability to control the waters and mists of The Fens of South Lincolnshire and The Carrs of North Lincolnshire.

Mari Lwyd South Wales folk custom

The Mari Lwyd is a wassailing folk custom found in South Wales. The tradition entails the use of an eponymous hobby horse which is made from a horse's skull 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 throughout Great Britain.

Obby Oss festival

The 'Obby 'Oss festival is a folk custom that takes place each May Day in Padstow, a coastal town in North Cornwall. It involves two separate processions making their way around the town, each containing an eponymous hobby horse known as the 'Obby 'Oss.

Minehead Hobby Horse

In the coastal town of Minehead, located in the southwest English county of Somerset, there is a folk custom on May Day entailing the parading of a brightly decorated hobby horse around the locality.

Dorset Ooser Wooden head from Melbury Osmond folklore

The Dorset Ooser is a wooden head that featured in the 19th-century folk culture of Melbury Osmond, a village in the southwestern English county of Dorset. The head was hollow, thus perhaps serving as a mask, and included a humanoid face with horns, a beard, and a hinged jaw which allowed the mouth to open and close. Although sometimes used to scare people during practical jokes, its main recorded purpose was as part of a local variant of the charivari custom known as "skimity riding" or "rough music", in which it was used to humiliate those who were deemed to have behaved in an immoral manner.

Fulstow Human settlement in England

Fulstow is a marsh village and civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated 6 miles (10 km) north of Louth and 8 miles (13 km) south of Grimsby.

Hobby horse Costumed character

The term 'hobby horse' is used, principally by folklorists, to refer to the costumed characters that feature in some traditional seasonal customs, processions and similar observances around the world. They are particularly associated with May Day celebrations, mummers' plays and the Morris dance in England.

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.

Maurice Willmore Barley was an English historian and archaeologist, specialising in medieval settlements and historic buildings.

Old Tup

Old Tup, sometimes termed the Derby Tup or the Derby Ram, is a folk custom found in an area of north-eastern 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 goat.

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 British Isles.

Old Horse

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. In geographical location and style it displays strong similarities with the Old Tup custom, but in the latter the hobby horses was presented as a goat rather than a horse.

The Broad was a folk custom found in the Cotswolds, an area of south-central England, during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The tradition entails the use of a hobby horse with a bull'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.

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.

Mummers play Seasonal folk play

Mummers' plays are folk plays performed by troupes of amateur actors, traditionally all male, known as mummers or guisers. It refers particularly to a play in which a number of characters are called on stage, two of whom engage in a combat, the loser being revived by a doctor character. This play is sometimes found associated with a sword dance though both also exist in Britain independently.

References

Footnotes

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.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.