Hobby horse
Encyclopedia
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 Play
s and the Morris dance
in England
.
have been categorised as follows:
Not all hobby horses fit into these categories, even within the UK. The famous May Day horses at Padstow and Minehead are large constructions, suspended at shoulder level, with only the performer's head emerging; they wear tall, pointed hats and their faces are masked. The Padstow horses have circular frames, with fairly small, snapping-jawed heads on long, straight necks; the Minehead horses are more boat-shaped, with pointed ends and, since about 1880, have had no heads, though they have long, trailing tails, about 2.2m (7ft) long.
In the South of France
, and elsewhere, large hobby horses (and other animals) are carried by multiple performers; their hollow frameworks are constructed in various ways; in Indonesia, flat silhouettes of horses are suspended between the dancers' legs (see individual entries, below).
The most famous traditional British hobby horses are probably those of the May Day
'Obby 'Oss festival
in Padstow
, Cornwall
. They are made from a circular framework, tightly covered with shiny black material, carried on the shoulders of a dancer whose face is hidden by a grotesque mask attached to a tall, pointed hat. A skirt (made from the same material) hangs down from the edge of the frame to around knee-height. There is a small, wooden, horse's head with snapping jaws, attached to a long, straight neck, with a long mane, which sticks out from the front of the frame. On the opposite side there is a small tail of horsehair.
There are two rival horses and their fiercely loyal bands of supporters at Padstow: the Old 'Oss is decorated with white and red, and its supporters wear red scarves to show their allegiance; the Blue Ribbon 'Oss (or "Peace 'Oss") is decorated with white and blue and its supporters follow suit http://home.freeuk.net/bribbonobbyoss/. A "Teaser" waving a padded club dances in front of each 'Oss, accompanied, as they dance through the narrow streets, by a lively band of melodeons, accordions
and drums playing Padstow's traditional May Song. The 'Osses sometimes capture young women beneath the skirt of the hobby horse; often they emerge smeared with black.
Children sometimes make "Colt" 'Osses and hold their own May Day parades.
At Minehead
in Somerset
there are three rival hobby horses, the Original Sailor's Horse, the Traditional Sailor's Horse and the Town Horse. They appear on May Eve
(called "Show Night"), on May Day morning (when they salute the sunrise at a crossroads on the ouskirts of town), 2 May and 3 May (when a ceremony called "The Bootie" takes place in the evening at part of town called Cher) http://www.cajunmusic.co.uk/hh/uk/minehead/index.htm. Each horse is made of a boat-shaped wooden frame, pointed and built up at each end, which is carried on the dancer's shoulders. As at Padstow, his face is hidden by a mask attached to a tall, pointed hat. The top surface of the horse is covered with ribbons and strips of fabric. A long fabric skirt, painted with rows of multicoloured roundels, hangs down to the ground all round. A long tail is attached to the back of the frame. Each horse is accompanied by a small group of musicians and attendants. The Town Horse is accompanied by "Gullivers", dressed similarly to the horse but without the large frame; as at Padstow, smaller, children's horses have sometimes been constructed http://www.minehead-online.co.uk/hobbyhorse.htm. The horses' visits are (or were) believed to bring good luck
.
In the past there was also a similar hobby horse based at the nearby village of Dunster
, which would sometimes visit Minehead http://www.england-in-particular.info/horse/h-obby1.html. The Minehead horse has also visited Dunster Castle on May Day.
in Devon a custom called "The Hunting of the Earl of Rone" took place on Ascension Day until 1837, when it was banned. It was revived in 1974 and now takes place over the four days of Spring Bank Holiday
. A fool and a hobby horse, accompanied by grenadiers, search the village for the Earl, who is finally captured, mounted onto a (real) donkey and paraded through the village. He is frequently shot at by the soldiers, falls from his mount, and is revived by the hobby horse and the fool, and returned to his mount. Finally, on reaching the beach, the Earl is executed and thrown into the sea. http://www.earl-of-rone.org.uk/
, London, directly below a Maypole
and surrounded by what appear to be morris dance
rs (accession no. C.248-1976) http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O8054/window/.
A painting from c.1620, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum
, Cambridge, shows Morris dancers by the Thames at Richmond; their party includes a hobby horse.http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/opacdirect/1388.html#1
Some historical English Morris dance
"sides" (teams) had hobby horses associated with them, but the popularity of such animals with morris sides today probably dates from the early years of the morris revival, when Ilmington
Morris created a tourney horse, ridden by Sam Bennett for many years. Some modern revival sides have extended their animal repertoire in various imaginative and appropriate ways, e.g. Pig Dyke Molly molly dance
rs, who wear black and white costumes and makeup, have a hobby zebra
.
A hobby horse takes part in the ancient Abbots Bromley Horn Dance
. The old original horse (see gallery, above) has been replaced by a more realistic carving in recent years.
A custom which took place at, or in the lead-up to, Christmas in eastern Kent, involving a group of ploughmen or other farmworkers leading a Hooden Horse
(a horse's head made of wood, set on a short pole, with snapping jaws (sometimes set with nails for teeth) operated by a person hidden under a piece of sacking or a stable-blanket to represent the animal's body). The custom, described as "only just extinct" by folklorist Violet Alford in 1952, has since been revived in various places.
A New Year
custom from the Isle of Man
, involving a white-painted wooden horse's head with red-painted snapping jaws, with a white sheet attached. Draped in the sheet, a man would carry the head, racing unexpectedly into the room and chase any girls present out of the house, followed by the rest of the company. When the Laare Vane (white mare) caught a girl she would take his place under the sheet to carry the horse back into the house, sitting away from the others while a kind of sword-dance
was performed with sticks by six male dancers to the tune "Mylecharane's March" played on the fiddle. As the climax of the dance the fiddler would enter the circle of dancers and be imprisoned by their intertwined sticks; the dancers then, with wild cries, "cut off his head" and he fell to the ground. The "dead" fiddler was then blindfolded and led to the Laare Vane, and knelt with his head in her lap. Another person would question the fiddler about events in the coming year (particularly who would become Valentine
s) and his replies were believed to be true predictions.
A similar creature, the Mari Lwyd
("Grey Mare" in English), also made from a horse's skull, with a white sheet attached, took part in New Year
house-visiting, luck-bringing rituals in south-east Wales. Gaining access to the house was a challenge; the Mari Lwyd party and those in the house took turns to improvise verses of a song. If the household failed to come up with a final verse the Mari was allowed to enter; if not, it was turned away. The custom has been revived in recent years.
In parts of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and around Sheffield there existed, into the early 20th century (and until 1970 at Dore
) a Christmas and New Year custom of going from house to house performing a short play or dramatised song called The Old Horse, T'Owd 'Oss or Poor Old Horse. The horse was of the "mast" type, constructed in a similar way to the Wild Horse of the Soul-cakers and the hooden horses of Kent. The earliest record is from 1840, at Ashford-in-the-Water
, Derbyshire.
An outlier of this type of performance occurred at Richmond, Yorkshire into the mid 20th century; at Christmas, three men dressed in hunting pink led a horse "made from the stuffed skin of a horse's head on a pole" and the man who played it hidden under a horse-blanket. The men sang the Poor Old Horse song and the horse snapped its jaws at the end of each verse. The custom as now performed in Richmond Market Place around midday on Christmas Eve involves the horse's "death and resurrection" (he crouches down and then rises up when a hunting horn is blown).
The name of this creature from Cornwall
translates as "grey head". It was a "hooden" or "mast" type of horse, either carved from wood or made from a horse's skull, like the Welsh Mari Lwyd, and accompanied the Christmas Guisers. Its body was a horse's hide or horse cloth. Sometimes it was led or ridden by Old Penglaze, a man with a blackened face who carried a staff. The animal has been revived in Penzance
in recent years as Penglaz the Penzance 'Obby 'Oss and now appears on "Mazey Eve" and 23 June (St John's Eve) as part of a modern Midsummer
festival, instead of around midwinter.
In Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire and some other parts of the East Midlands of England, mummers' plays were performed, on or around Plough Monday
in early January, by teams known variously as Plough Stots, Plough Jags, Plough Jacks, Plough Bullocks or Plough Witches. In North Lincolnshire, large teams of elaborately costumed mummers, often having some of the characters duplicated, paraded through the village streets, sometimes splitting up into smaller groups to enter houses and perform extracts from their traditional play. Photographs of teams from Scunthorpe
, Burton-upon-Stather and elsewhere showed double gangs with two hobby horses. They were of the tourney type, made by hanging the wooden frame of a large sieve, with a small wooden horse's head and horsehair tail attached, around the performer's waist, However, in an unusual variation, the "rider" was then disguised by wearing a horse-cloth which covered his head and body to the knees, so that he appeared to be a horse riding a horse.
The Salisbury Giant, a 12ft-tall (3.5m) figure sometimes said to represent Saint Christopher
, is a processional figure unique in Britain. The current figure's wooden frame was rebuilt c.1850 although it is probable that he existed in the 1400s. It rarely appears nowadays, being kept in the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum
, along with its companion Hob-Nob, a tourney-type hobby horse, a mischievous character which used to clear the way for the Giant in the processions that were held by the Tailor's Guild
on Midsummer's Eve. Hob-Nob's rider's face and body were disguised with a substantial veil. The first clear mention of the hobby horse is in 1572 (along with a "mayde Marrians
Coate") in the records of the Tailors' Guild (who, in 1873, finally sold both hobby-horse and Giant to the Museum). The processions, which also involved morris dance
rs until around 1911, continued sporadically on various occasions into the mid 20th century.
Some regional variants of the mummers play, performed around All Souls' Day in Cheshire
, included a non-speaking character called the "Wild Horse", made from a horse's skull mounted on a short pole. The horse was played by a man, hidden under a cloth attached to the pole, who bent forward to rest the pole on the ground. He could usually snap the horse's jaws loudly to frighten onlookers.
A possibly unique custom involving three hobby horses is known only from a photograph taken at Winster
Hall, Derbyshire, in about 1870. (The picture appears to have been taken in winter, as the climbing plants on the wall are leafless.) Eight or nine performers are involved; all (bar one?) have facial disguise.
The performers are grouped around a mast horse (possibly 'Snap Dragon'; see below) with a shiny black head made from a painted skull set on a short pole. Behind it are two men in threatening postures, one is waving a long stick like the handle of a brush or rake, the other probably a besom broom
(blurred).
Two more men wearing military-looking jackets, buttoned to the neck, and white trousers stand astride small hobbyhorses of an apparently unique design: a cylindrical body, "about three inches diameter and two feet long", held between the rider's legs (supported at the front by a cord or narrow strap around the rider's neck), with a flat, curved wooden neck and a small, stylised head with snapping jaws (apart from their mouths, the horses look almost like simple rocking horse
s with the legs removed). The horsemen are masked in light-coloured cloth.
Another character wears a rather voluminous, tattered, long, dark dress; busily brushing the ground with a besom broom, "she" is reminiscent of the character Besom Bet who appears in some mummers plays
. The last two characters are playing rough music
on bladder fiddles.
The performance may have been arranged by Llewellynn Jewitt
, who lived at the hall between 1868 and 1880. In 1931, Stanley Evans ("Folk Dancing in Derbyshire", Derbyshire Countryside, vol 1, no 2, April 1931, p29) suggested the performers may have been performing a mumming play. Cawte dismissed this suggestion: "if so it is a most unusual one, there is no sign of the combatants, the pair of horses is of an unusual design, and the mast horse seems to be the centre of attention."
In his field notes, made in 1908, folklorist Cecil Sharp
referred to a hobby horse "without a curtain" being connected with the morris dance
at Winster; he also mentions a "Snap Dragon" made from "a real horse's head" (skull?) dug up for the purpose, but does not say whether it was associated with the morris. It seems he did not see them himself and his account published in 1924, long after his visit to Winster, is confusing. In 1966, Winster morris dancers stated that there had never been a hobby horse associated with their morris, but that there had been a separate horse ceremony involving a skull that was reburied each year.
In notes published after his death, Llewellynn Jewitt noted how, in 1867, a dozen or so groups of traditional performers (several groups of guisers, the Wensley mummers, 'The Hobby Horse' and the 'Snap Dragon') called at Winster Hall in just four days between Christmas and New Year. He noted that, on 27 December, "In the evening the Winster 'Snap Dragon' and 'Hobby Horse' conjoined came to us — ten men, one as Snap Dragon, two with Hobby Horses, two devils, etc., etc. We had them in the kitchen and gave them money." The photograph may well show one such "conjoined" team.
Originally created in the same way as a mast horse or hooden horse, the Derby Tup (ram) represented a male sheep. It took part in a dramatised version of the Derby Ram folksong, which was performed in northern Derbyshire
and around Sheffield
during the Christmas season by teams of boys. It is "killed" by a butcher and its "blood" is collected in a large bowl. In some versions it is brought back to life by a quack doctor, like a character in the Mummers play
.
and Spain
has a strong dance tradition
. Several dances are linked to seasonal festivals. The zamaltzain, a hobby horse of the "tourney" type, with a small wooden head and a short, lacy skirt, takes part in some dances and processions in Zuberoa (La Soule
, the easternmost part of the Basque country) in places such as Maule
, Urdiñarbe
, Barkoxe
, Altza, Altzürükü
and Atarratze
. The "rider" wears elaborate costume and a koha, a tall, beribboned hat, which always has a mirror on the front. "Zamaltzain" means muleteer or mule-keeper. The dance in which he takes part is danced by two teams, one dressed in red, the other in black, and is said by some scholars (such as Eugène Goyhénèche of the University of Pau) to represent an attack on a village by the men of another.
A more rustic-looking horse of similar basic construction is part of the celebrations of the Carnaval de Lantz
, Spain. Called the zaldiko, it forms an essential part of the carnival procession, together with the ziripot, a strange character in an enormous straw-stuffed costume.
Dressed in red trimmed with yellow, six tourney horses (xaldiko or zaldiko) take part in the Comparsa de gigantes y cabezudos in Pamplona
(Iruña) in Navarre
(Nafarra). More realistic than the other Basque examples, they replicate the whole upper part of a horse's body from head to tail, with a skirt attached below. Each "rider" wears a pointed cap with a tassel and used to wield an inflated bladder on a stick; now, like the tricorned big-heads called Kilikis who parade with them, they carry a phallic verga made of foam-rubber which they use to belabour the onlookers.
The finale to the Shrovetide processions in the town of Hlinsko
, in the Czech Republic
, and six nearby villages (including Hamry
, Blatno
, Studnice
and Vortová
), in the Hlinecko region of eastern Bohemia
, is a ritual called "Killing the Mare.
Accompanied by a brass band
, men and boys wearing colourful costumes representing traditional characters spend a whole day going from door to door, visiting every household in their community (except those known to be in mourning
). Details differ slightly from place to place, but there are usually two or three hobby-horses (of the tourney type). Other characters include the Straw Men, dressed in costumes made of rice-straw, with blacked faces, and tall, pointed straw hats; they embrace women and roll with them on the ground, which is said to confer fertility. Housewives gather straw from the Straw Men's skirts as a good luck charm, taking it home to feed their geese and chickens.
With the "Little Wife" (a man dressed as a woman) and the "dotted man", four dancers representing Turks
perform a ritual dance in front of each house, to ensure wealth for the family and a good harvest. They must lift their legs as high as possible to ensure tall crops of flax
. They wave handkerchieves, as in the English morris dance
but originally wielded sabre
s instead.
At the end of the day the men perform a ritual called "Killing the Mare". One of the group's hobby horse
s, is judged and then "killed" for its alleged sins. It is then "brought back to life
" (with alcohol) and a dance ensues, involving the onlookers. This custom has survived despite being banned in the 18th and 19th centuries by the Catholic Church and in the 20th by the Socialist
government. It has now been recognised by UNESCO
as an element of mankind's Intangible Cultural Heritage
.
area of southwest France, which is a stronghold for "totem
" animals, with many towns and villages having their own particular creature; most appear at carnival
time and/or their local patronal festivals, saint's days and other festivities.
At Pézenas
there is a huge creature called Le Poulain or Lo Polin (Occitan for "the colt"), carried by nine men and led by another, accompanied by a band of musicians. The Poulain has a realistically carved wooden head, with a snapping jaws and an extending neck that can reach up to first-floor windows; money or other offerings put into its mouth tumble down inside its neck. Its semi-cylindrical body is covered with a dark blue cloth, now decorated with stars and the coat of arms
of Pézenas. Below the frame it has a tricolor skirt.
The Poulain carries two effigies on its back, one male, one female, called Estieinou and Estieinette (or Estieineta). Although the first written reference to the Poulain is from 1615, the creature is supposed to commemorate a visit to the town in 1226 by Louis VIII
, during which the king's favourite mare fell ill. She had to be left behind in Pézenas while Louis continued with the Albigensian Crusade
. On his return he was astonished to find that not only was his mare now fully recovered, but she had also given birth to a fine colt, which was duly presented to him, adorned with ribbons. In return he decreed that the town should construct a wooden colt to be used to celebrate all its public festivities (this legend was first recorded in 1701).
Its early appearances were on the public feast days of Saint Blaise
(3 February), Saint John the Baptist
(24 June) and the Feast of the Assumption
(15 Aug). As a symbol of power, it also appeared at times when the town's prévôt distributed bread to the poor (the last such was in 1911), as well as visits by royalty or other dignitaries. The Poulain was burned in 1789, during the French Revolution
, because of its royal associations, but was revived in 1803. Since then it has appeared at Mardi Gras
and other festive occasions. Its framework, once a weighty construction of chestnut, has been made of aluminium since 1989.
Originally the Poulain had no riders; Estieinou and Estieinette (sometimes spelled Estiénon and Estiéneta in the French manner) are meant to recall another royal occasion when Louis XIII
visited the town in 1622; the Maréchal de Bassompierre, following the King, was crossing the river Peyne on horseback. He saw a peasant-woman having difficulty making the crossing on foot and gallantly offered her a seat on his horse. Their merry arrival in the town caused great amusement and so the two effigies were made to remember the event.
There have been smaller, junior Poulains in Pézenas, made by or for children; the Pézenas fadas also have a full-sized version of their own. There have also been similar creatures or imitations elsewhere, some of which still continue. There is a very lively Poulain at Saint-Thibéry
and others are (or have been) known at Adissan
, Alignan-du-Vent
, Florensac
, Montblanc
and Vias
(where it is linked to a local legend of a medieval famine and is known as lo Pouli de la Fabo – the colt of the bean). They have also been recorded at Agde
, Caux
, Montagnac
, Castelnau
, Valros
and Nizas
, all in the Languedoc
. An outlier in the Ariège
, at St Pierre de Soulan
, was instigated by a former inhabitant of Pézenas.
Hobby horses of the tourney type, with a frame suspended around the dancer's waist, can also appear at various festivities in the Languedoc. An illustration of the chivalet dance, and its traditional tune, and an old photograph of an animal of this type, are on show in the folk museum at Agde. It is particularly associated with Florensac, where it is called le chevalet, and is considered the town's totem.
The Chevalet of Cournonterral
in the Hérault died out around 1980 but was revived in March 2011 as part of the annual carnival.
The Donkey or Ass of Bessan is another of the Languedoc's "totem" animals. Much smaller than the Poulain, it is made from a frame covered in cloth and decorated with crepe paper flowers and painted motifs. Under its skirt it is carried by four men, led by another who dresses in white, with a tricolor sash, and cracks a whip. The Âne dances from side to side and backwards and forwards to traditional tunes played nowadays on various instruments, although until the 1970s it was only the traditional hautbois (a type of oboe) and drums. Sometimes the beast bucks its hindquarters into the air, supported only by the leader and the first dancer, who twirls around; the other three stand ready to catch the frame as it descends. The Âne is brought out to open the feast of St Laurent, appearing first at 5pm on the Saturday closest to the saint's day, accompanied by firecrackers and bells, then again on the Sunday morning when it goes to a Mass
to be blessed, before its final dance.
There is also an Âne at Gignac
.
Le Cheval-Bayard de Clermont-l'Hérault was revived in 1988, after more than a century and a half. The town's original cheval-bayard was burned in 1815; known as the Bayard (baiard in Occitan), meaning a bay horse, its origins have been traced back to the 9th century.
Perhaps the best-known is the Chameau (Camel) of Béziers
, which dates from 1613, two years earlier than the Poulain of Pézenas. There is a large and impressive Boeuf (Bull) at Mèze
, with a huge mouth; it is said to date back to at least 1229. Lo Picart, at Saint-Jean-de-Fos
, is a ferocious ram; it has existed since at least 1683. Montagnac
has a goat. Sometimes the choice of animal is based on a play on words: Loupian
has, unsurprisingly, a wolf (Loup). (One of the most recent, and possibly the most bizarre, "totems" is Le Porquet of Pinet
, a caterpillar, created in the early 1970s.)
Several "frisky horses", tourney hobby horses, accompany the traditional group Les Tambourinaires de Sant-Sumian, from Brignoles
, a folklore revival group founded in 1942. Their performances are faithfully based on authentic traditions, such as the Chivau Frusc cited by author Frederic Mistral
at Aix-en-Provence and folklorist Violet Alford, principally at Brignoles but also "all over southern Provence".
Various creatures used to appear in the Odenwald
around Christmas, including straw bears
and bock figures. The bock (the name can be translated as "goat", "buck", "ram" or "stag") was made in a similar way to a mast horse, but using a long, two- or three-pronged hayfork that formed form its horns, covered in a white sheet, partly stuffed to form a head with a face painted onto it; these were sometimes held up outside windows to frighten the householder. Sometimes two people stood under the sheet to form a longer-bodied creature. Weihnachtsesels (Christmas donkeys) were made in a similar way, usually with two people bending over under a darker coloured blanket, rather like a pantomime
horse.
The schimmelreiter was a more elaborate construction, made from two (or more) large sieves or riddles fastened in an upright position in front of and behind the "rider" at chest level. The front sieve had a stuffed fabric head and neck attached. The whole was covered with a sheet with a small hole in the centre to allow just the rider's head to show.
The teams of Irish mummers known as Wrenboys
who perform on Saint Stephen's Day (26 December) in pubs and private houses have been known to include a white hobby horse (Láir Bhán – c.f. Laare Vane, above) of the tourney type, and this has survived into the present century, at Dunquin
in County Kerry
for example. At Ballycotton, in Co. Cork, a Láir bhán led a procession of horn-blowing youths at Halloween
who collected money "in the name of Muck Olla" (a legendary giant boar).
The city of Krakow
has a hobby-horse called the Lajkonik
which traditionally appears on the first Thursday after the religious feast of Corpus Christi
and parades through the streets, collecting money, accompanied by musicians and costumed followers, some in traditional Polish costume, others in oriental dress, who carry horsetail insignia. The colourful costume of the Lajkonik represents a bearded Tatar
warrior, who carries a golden mace and is mounted on a white horse. To be touched by the mace is said to bring good luck. The custom is said to have been carried on for 700 years, and various stories are told to explain its origins. The hobby horse has become an unofficial symbol of Krakow, and versions often appear as tourist attraction in the Market Square.
There are many festivals in the Catalonia
region of north-east Spain which involve processions with giant
s and outsize animals; some also involve hobby horses (of the "tourney" type, but with a more-or-less realistic head and body, nowadays often constructed from fibreglass).
Larger figures of mule
s are also found in several places, carried by two performers whose legs are visible beneath a skirt hanging from the animal's hollow body. (In addition, dragon
s of various sorts are also popular, as are bulls, eagles and lions; many have fireworks
attached to them, or set off around them. A comprehensive list can be found on this page of the Catalan Viquipèdia
.)
The Santa Tecla Festival
takes place at Tarragona
from 15–24 September and includes the saint's
day, 23 September. A number of animals, real and mythical, are impersonated in the parades that form a major part of the festivities. Among them is a larger-than-life Mulassa (mule) carried by two dancers who are hidden under its skirts, apart from their legs.
The other creatures that take part are the àliga (eagle), bou (bull), cucafera (coco
, a mythical monster), drac de Sant Roc (dragon of Saint Roch), lleó (lion), and víbria (a female wyvern
with prominent breasts). Several of these have fireworks attached to their extremities, or are showered with sparks by their attendants, and are a spectacular sight.
Kuda Kepang (woven bamboo horses, also known as Kuda Lumping or Jaran Kepang) originate in the state of Johor
and performances are often given at weddings by Malayan men of Java
nese origin in Singapore
and elsewhere. Led by a Danyang, a typical troupe today comprises 9 horsemen, 2 medicine men, 5 gamelan
musicians and 9–15 'guardians'.
Modern performances re-enact the stories of the nine Muslim evangelists who waged battles to bring Islam to Java, but nowadays they are often kept brief and intended simply for entertainment; they may even be performed by women. The gamelan percussion orchestra is made up of 2 drums, a hanging gong, two knobbed gongs on a wooden frame, and 5 tubular bamboo chimes called angklung.
Details of the fuller, more elaborate performances, however, include states of shamanistic trance
-like possession, and the custom may have originally been a form of totem
ic worship.
Photographs from the early 20th century, in the collection of Amsterdam's Tropenmuseum
(Museum of the Tropics), show another ritual dance, the Reog Ponogoro
, involving a huge tiger mask and costume (Singa Barong), accompanied by Jatil riding woven bamboo hobby horses who perform the Jaran Kepang dance.
, hobby horses of the "mast" type were sometimes used by the mummers or 'janneys' who went mummering
around the Christmas season; they also took a Christmas bull, made in a similar manner, on their house-to-house visits. The mischievous horse was not intended to be malevolent, but its appearance and antics often frightened those it visited or encountered. Mummering was dying out but has enjoyed a recent revival, and the first Mummers Festival (held in St John's in December 2009) even had workshops on making hobby horses.
hobyn. Old French
had hobin or haubby, whence Modern French aubin and Italian ubino. But the Old French term is apparently adopted from English rather than vice versa. OED connects it to "the by-name Hobin, Hobby", a variant of Robin" (compare the abbreviation Hob for Robert). This appears to have been a name customarily given to a cart-horse, as attested by White Kennett
in his Parochial Antiquities (1695), who stated that "Our ploughmen to some one of their cart-horses generally give the name of Hobin, the very word which Phil. Comines
uses, Hist. VI. vii." Another familiar form of the same Christian name, Dobbin has also become a generic name for a cart-horse.
Samuel Johnson
, Dictionary of the English Language, 1755, glosses "A strong, active horse, of a middle size, said to have been originally from Ireland; an ambling nag."
Hoblers or Hovellers were men who kept a light nag that they may give instant information of threatened invasion. (Old French, hober, to move up and down; our hobby, q.v.) In mediæval times their duties were to reconnoitre, to carry intelligence, to harass stragglers, to act as spies, to intercept convoys, and to pursue fugitives. Henry Spelman
(d. 1641) derived the word from "hobby".
The Border horses, called hobblers or hobbies, were small and active, and trained to cross the most difficult and boggy country, "and to get over where our footmen could scarce dare to follow." - George MacDonald Fraser
, The Steel Bonnets, The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers.
From the term "hobby horse" came the expression "to ride one's hobby-horse", meaning "to follow a favourite pastime", and in turn, the modern sense of the term hobby
.
The term is also connected to the draisine
, a forerunner of the bicycle
, invented by Baron Karl von Drais
. In 1818, a London coach-maker named Denis Johnson began producing an improved version, which was popularly known as the "hobby-horse".
The artistic movement, Dada
, is possibly named after a French child's word for hobby horse.
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
, 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
May Day
May Day on May 1 is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday; it is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures....
celebrations, Mummers Play
Mummers Play
Mummers Plays are seasonal folk plays performed by troupes of actors known as mummers or guisers , originally from England , but later in other parts of the world...
s and the Morris dance
Morris dance
Morris dance is a form of English folk dance usually accompanied by music. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers. Implements such as sticks, swords, handkerchiefs and bells may also be wielded by the dancers...
in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
Types of hobby horse
Hobby horses may be constructed in several different ways. The types most frequently found in the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
have been categorised as follows:
- Tourney horses are meant to look like a person riding a small horse that is wearing a long cloth coat or caparisonCaparisonA caparison is a covering, or cloth, laid over a horse or other animal, especially a pack animal, or horse of state. In modern times, it is used mainly for decoration in parades and for historical reenactments. A similar term is horse-trapper....
(as seen in medieval illustrations of joustingJoustingJousting is a martial game or hastilude between two knights mounted on horses and using lances, often as part of a tournament.Jousting emerged in the High Middle Ages based on the military use of the lance by heavy cavalry. The first camels tournament was staged in 1066, but jousting itself did not...
knights). A circular or oval frame is suspended around their waist, or chest, with a skirt draped over it hanging down to the ground. The frame has a carved wooden head, often with snapping jaws (operated by pulling a string) attached to it at one end, and a tail at the other. The "rider" may wear a cape or other flowing costume to help cover the frame. In the most elaborate versions, fake legs, meant to be those of the rider, hang down the sides of the skirt, though this seems to be a fairly recent development. - Sieve horses are a simpler version of the tourney horse. Known only in LincolnshireLincolnshireLincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...
, they are made from a farm sieveSieveA sieve, or sifter, separates wanted elements from unwanted material using a woven screen such as a mesh or net. However, in cooking, especially with flour, a sifter is used to aerate the substance, among other things. A strainer is a type of sieve typically used to separate a solid from a liquid...
frame, with head and tail attached, suspended from the performer's shoulders. The performer wears a horse blanket (the kind that includes a headpiece with holes for the eyes and ears) that covers them and the sieve. - Mast horses are meant to represent the horse (or other animal) itself. They have a head made of wood, or sometimes an actual horse's skull is used; it usually has hinged jaws that can be made to snap. The head is attached to a stick about 1m (3ft) long. The person acting the creature is covered by a cloth attached to the back of its head; he (or, rarely, she) bends over forwards or crouches, holding the head in front of their own and resting the other end of the stick on the ground. A tail may be attached to the back of the cloth. When the cloth is long enough, such as the sheet used by the Welsh Mari Lwyd, the performer can also stand up, lifting the head in front of their face or above their head.
Not all hobby horses fit into these categories, even within the UK. The famous May Day horses at Padstow and Minehead are large constructions, suspended at shoulder level, with only the performer's head emerging; they wear tall, pointed hats and their faces are masked. The Padstow horses have circular frames, with fairly small, snapping-jawed heads on long, straight necks; the Minehead horses are more boat-shaped, with pointed ends and, since about 1880, have had no heads, though they have long, trailing tails, about 2.2m (7ft) long.
In the South of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, and elsewhere, large hobby horses (and other animals) are carried by multiple performers; their hollow frameworks are constructed in various ways; in Indonesia, flat silhouettes of horses are suspended between the dancers' legs (see individual entries, below).
Padstow
May Day
May Day on May 1 is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday; it is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures....
'Obby 'Oss festival
'Obby 'Oss festival
Padstow, in Cornwall, UK is internationally famous for its traditional Obby 'Oss day . Held annually on May Day , which in Cornwall, largely dates back to the Celtic Beltane, the day celebrates the coming of Summer....
in Padstow
Padstow
Padstow is a town, civil parish and fishing port on the north coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The town is situated on the west bank of the River Camel estuary approximately five miles northwest of Wadebridge, ten miles northwest of Bodmin and ten miles northeast of Newquay...
, Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
. They are made from a circular framework, tightly covered with shiny black material, carried on the shoulders of a dancer whose face is hidden by a grotesque mask attached to a tall, pointed hat. A skirt (made from the same material) hangs down from the edge of the frame to around knee-height. There is a small, wooden, horse's head with snapping jaws, attached to a long, straight neck, with a long mane, which sticks out from the front of the frame. On the opposite side there is a small tail of horsehair.
There are two rival horses and their fiercely loyal bands of supporters at Padstow: the Old 'Oss is decorated with white and red, and its supporters wear red scarves to show their allegiance; the Blue Ribbon 'Oss (or "Peace 'Oss") is decorated with white and blue and its supporters follow suit http://home.freeuk.net/bribbonobbyoss/. A "Teaser" waving a padded club dances in front of each 'Oss, accompanied, as they dance through the narrow streets, by a lively band of melodeons, accordions
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
and drums playing Padstow's traditional May Song. The 'Osses sometimes capture young women beneath the skirt of the hobby horse; often they emerge smeared with black.
Children sometimes make "Colt" 'Osses and hold their own May Day parades.
Minehead
Minehead
Minehead is a coastal town and civil parish in Somerset, England. It lies on the south bank of the Bristol Channel, north-west of the county town of Taunton, from the border with the county of Devon and in proximity of the Exmoor National Park...
in Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
there are three rival hobby horses, the Original Sailor's Horse, the Traditional Sailor's Horse and the Town Horse. They appear on May Eve
Walpurgis Night
Walpurgis Night is a traditional spring festival on 30 April or 1 May in large parts of Central and Northern Europe. It is often celebrated with dancing and with bonfires. It is exactly six months from All Hallows' Eve.-Name:...
(called "Show Night"), on May Day morning (when they salute the sunrise at a crossroads on the ouskirts of town), 2 May and 3 May (when a ceremony called "The Bootie" takes place in the evening at part of town called Cher) http://www.cajunmusic.co.uk/hh/uk/minehead/index.htm. Each horse is made of a boat-shaped wooden frame, pointed and built up at each end, which is carried on the dancer's shoulders. As at Padstow, his face is hidden by a mask attached to a tall, pointed hat. The top surface of the horse is covered with ribbons and strips of fabric. A long fabric skirt, painted with rows of multicoloured roundels, hangs down to the ground all round. A long tail is attached to the back of the frame. Each horse is accompanied by a small group of musicians and attendants. The Town Horse is accompanied by "Gullivers", dressed similarly to the horse but without the large frame; as at Padstow, smaller, children's horses have sometimes been constructed http://www.minehead-online.co.uk/hobbyhorse.htm. The horses' visits are (or were) believed to bring good luck
Luck
Luck or fortuity is good fortune which occurs beyond one's control, without regard to one's will, intention, or desired result. There are at least two senses people usually mean when they use the term, the prescriptive sense and the descriptive sense...
.
In the past there was also a similar hobby horse based at the nearby village of Dunster
Dunster
Dunster is a village and civil parish in west Somerset, England, situated on the Bristol Channel coast south-southeast of Minehead and northwest of Taunton. The village has a population of 862 .The village has numerous restaurants and three pubs...
, which would sometimes visit Minehead http://www.england-in-particular.info/horse/h-obby1.html. The Minehead horse has also visited Dunster Castle on May Day.
Hunting the Earl of Rone
At Combe MartinCombe Martin
Combe Martin is a village and civil parish on the North Devon coast about east of Ilfracombe. It is a small seaside resort with a sheltered cove on the edge of the Exmoor National Park...
in Devon a custom called "The Hunting of the Earl of Rone" took place on Ascension Day until 1837, when it was banned. It was revived in 1974 and now takes place over the four days of Spring Bank Holiday
Bank Holiday
A bank holiday is a public holiday in the United Kingdom or a colloquialism for public holiday in Ireland. There is no automatic right to time off on these days, although the majority of the population is granted time off work or extra pay for working on these days, depending on their contract...
. A fool and a hobby horse, accompanied by grenadiers, search the village for the Earl, who is finally captured, mounted onto a (real) donkey and paraded through the village. He is frequently shot at by the soldiers, falls from his mount, and is revived by the hobby horse and the fool, and returned to his mount. Finally, on reaching the beach, the Earl is executed and thrown into the sea. http://www.earl-of-rone.org.uk/
Morris and other ritual dance
A hobby horse is depicted in a stained glass window, dating from between 1550–1621, from Betley Hall, Staffordshire, now in the Victoria and Albert MuseumVictoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
, London, directly below a Maypole
Maypole
A maypole is a tall wooden pole erected as a part of various European folk festivals, particularly on May Day, or Pentecost although in some countries it is instead erected at Midsummer...
and surrounded by what appear to be morris dance
Morris dance
Morris dance is a form of English folk dance usually accompanied by music. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers. Implements such as sticks, swords, handkerchiefs and bells may also be wielded by the dancers...
rs (accession no. C.248-1976) http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O8054/window/.
A painting from c.1620, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum
Fitzwilliam Museum
The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge, located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge, England. It receives around 300,000 visitors annually. Admission is free....
, Cambridge, shows Morris dancers by the Thames at Richmond; their party includes a hobby horse.http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/opacdirect/1388.html#1
Some historical English Morris dance
Morris dance
Morris dance is a form of English folk dance usually accompanied by music. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers. Implements such as sticks, swords, handkerchiefs and bells may also be wielded by the dancers...
"sides" (teams) had hobby horses associated with them, but the popularity of such animals with morris sides today probably dates from the early years of the morris revival, when Ilmington
Ilmington
Ilmington is a village and civil parish about north-west of Shipston-on-Stour and south of Stratford-on-Avon in the Cotswolds in Warwickshire, England. Ilmington is the highest village in Warwickshire and is at the foot of the Ilmington Downs, which is the highest point in Warwickshire...
Morris created a tourney horse, ridden by Sam Bennett for many years. Some modern revival sides have extended their animal repertoire in various imaginative and appropriate ways, e.g. Pig Dyke Molly molly dance
Molly dance
Molly dancing is a form of English Morris dance, traditionally done by out of work ploughboys in midwinter in the 19th century.-History:Molly dancing has been recorded in many parts of the English Midlands and East Anglia. It died out finally in the 1930s, the last dancers seen dancing in Little...
rs, who wear black and white costumes and makeup, have a hobby zebra
Zebra
Zebras are several species of African equids united by their distinctive black and white stripes. Their stripes come in different patterns unique to each individual. They are generally social animals that live in small harems to large herds...
.
A hobby horse takes part in the ancient Abbots Bromley Horn Dance
Abbots Bromley Horn Dance
The Abbots Bromley Horn Dance is an English folk dance involving reindeer antlers and a hobby horse that takes place each year in Abbots Bromley, a small village in Staffordshire, England.-Origins:...
. The old original horse (see gallery, above) has been replaced by a more realistic carving in recent years.
Hodening or Hoodening
A custom which took place at, or in the lead-up to, Christmas in eastern Kent, involving a group of ploughmen or other farmworkers leading a Hooden Horse
Hoodening
Hoodening, also called Hodening, is an East Kent, England tradition vaguely related to Mumming and the Morris dance, and dating back at least to the mid-18th century. Related traditions also exist in Wales and Lancashire...
(a horse's head made of wood, set on a short pole, with snapping jaws (sometimes set with nails for teeth) operated by a person hidden under a piece of sacking or a stable-blanket to represent the animal's body). The custom, described as "only just extinct" by folklorist Violet Alford in 1952, has since been revived in various places.
Laare Vane
A New Year
New Year
The New Year is the day that marks the time of the beginning of a new calendar year, and is the day on which the year count of the specific calendar used is incremented. For many cultures, the event is celebrated in some manner....
custom from the Isle of Man
Isle of Man
The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
, involving a white-painted wooden horse's head with red-painted snapping jaws, with a white sheet attached. Draped in the sheet, a man would carry the head, racing unexpectedly into the room and chase any girls present out of the house, followed by the rest of the company. When the Laare Vane (white mare) caught a girl she would take his place under the sheet to carry the horse back into the house, sitting away from the others while a kind of sword-dance
Long Sword dance
right|YorkshireThe Long Sword dance is a hilt-and-point sword dance recorded mainly in Yorkshire, England. It is related to the rapper sword dance of Northumbria, but the character is fundamentally different as it uses rigid metal or wooden swords, rather than the flexible spring steel rappers used...
was performed with sticks by six male dancers to the tune "Mylecharane's March" played on the fiddle. As the climax of the dance the fiddler would enter the circle of dancers and be imprisoned by their intertwined sticks; the dancers then, with wild cries, "cut off his head" and he fell to the ground. The "dead" fiddler was then blindfolded and led to the Laare Vane, and knelt with his head in her lap. Another person would question the fiddler about events in the coming year (particularly who would become Valentine
Valentine's Day
Saint Valentine's Day, commonly shortened to Valentine's Day, is an annual commemoration held on February 14 celebrating love and affection between intimate companions. The day is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine, and was established by Pope Gelasius I in 496...
s) and his replies were believed to be true predictions.
Mari Lwyd
A similar creature, the Mari Lwyd
Mari Lwyd
The Mari Lwyd , also Y Fari Lwyd, is a Welsh midwinter tradition, possibly to celebrate New Year , although it formerly took place over a period stretching from Christmas to late January...
("Grey Mare" in English), also made from a horse's skull, with a white sheet attached, took part in New Year
New Year
The New Year is the day that marks the time of the beginning of a new calendar year, and is the day on which the year count of the specific calendar used is incremented. For many cultures, the event is celebrated in some manner....
house-visiting, luck-bringing rituals in south-east Wales. Gaining access to the house was a challenge; the Mari Lwyd party and those in the house took turns to improvise verses of a song. If the household failed to come up with a final verse the Mari was allowed to enter; if not, it was turned away. The custom has been revived in recent years.
Old Horse, 'Owd 'Oss or Poor Old Hoss
In parts of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and around Sheffield there existed, into the early 20th century (and until 1970 at Dore
Dore
Dore is a village in South Yorkshire, England. The village lies on a hill above the River Sheaf, and until 1934 was part of Derbyshire, but it is now a suburb of Sheffield. It is served by Dore and Totley railway station on the Hope Valley Line...
) a Christmas and New Year custom of going from house to house performing a short play or dramatised song called The Old Horse, T'Owd 'Oss or Poor Old Horse. The horse was of the "mast" type, constructed in a similar way to the Wild Horse of the Soul-cakers and the hooden horses of Kent. The earliest record is from 1840, at Ashford-in-the-Water
Ashford-in-the-Water
Ashford-in-the-Water is a village in the Derbyshire Peak District, England, and on the River Wye. It is known for the quarrying of Ashford Black Marble , and for the Maiden's Garlands made to mark the deaths of virgins in the village until 1801. Some of these are preserved in the parish church...
, Derbyshire.
An outlier of this type of performance occurred at Richmond, Yorkshire into the mid 20th century; at Christmas, three men dressed in hunting pink led a horse "made from the stuffed skin of a horse's head on a pole" and the man who played it hidden under a horse-blanket. The men sang the Poor Old Horse song and the horse snapped its jaws at the end of each verse. The custom as now performed in Richmond Market Place around midday on Christmas Eve involves the horse's "death and resurrection" (he crouches down and then rises up when a hunting horn is blown).
Penglas or Penglaz
The name of this creature from Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
translates as "grey head". It was a "hooden" or "mast" type of horse, either carved from wood or made from a horse's skull, like the Welsh Mari Lwyd, and accompanied the Christmas Guisers. Its body was a horse's hide or horse cloth. Sometimes it was led or ridden by Old Penglaze, a man with a blackened face who carried a staff. The animal has been revived in Penzance
Penzance
Penzance is a town, civil parish, and port in Cornwall, England, in the United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is approximately 75 miles west of Plymouth and 300 miles west-southwest of London...
in recent years as Penglaz the Penzance 'Obby 'Oss and now appears on "Mazey Eve" and 23 June (St John's Eve) as part of a modern Midsummer
Midsummer
Midsummer may simply refer to the period of time centered upon the summer solstice, but more often refers to specific European celebrations that accompany the actual solstice, or that take place on a day between June 21 and June 24, and the preceding evening. The exact dates vary between different...
festival, instead of around midwinter.
Plough Monday mummers
In Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire and some other parts of the East Midlands of England, mummers' plays were performed, on or around Plough Monday
Plough Monday
Plough Monday is the traditional start of the English agricultural year. While local practices may vary, Plough Monday is generally the first Monday after Twelfth Day , 6 January. References to Plough Monday date back to the late 15th century...
in early January, by teams known variously as Plough Stots, Plough Jags, Plough Jacks, Plough Bullocks or Plough Witches. In North Lincolnshire, large teams of elaborately costumed mummers, often having some of the characters duplicated, paraded through the village streets, sometimes splitting up into smaller groups to enter houses and perform extracts from their traditional play. Photographs of teams from Scunthorpe
Scunthorpe
Scunthorpe is a town within North Lincolnshire, England. It is the administrative centre of the North Lincolnshire unitary authority, and had an estimated total resident population of 72,514 in 2010. A predominantly industrial town, Scunthorpe, the United Kingdom's largest steel processing centre,...
, Burton-upon-Stather and elsewhere showed double gangs with two hobby horses. They were of the tourney type, made by hanging the wooden frame of a large sieve, with a small wooden horse's head and horsehair tail attached, around the performer's waist, However, in an unusual variation, the "rider" was then disguised by wearing a horse-cloth which covered his head and body to the knees, so that he appeared to be a horse riding a horse.
Salisbury Giant and Hob-Nob
The Salisbury Giant, a 12ft-tall (3.5m) figure sometimes said to represent Saint Christopher
Saint Christopher
.Saint Christopher is a saint venerated by Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, listed as a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd century Roman Emperor Decius or alternatively under the Roman Emperor Maximinus II Dacian...
, is a processional figure unique in Britain. The current figure's wooden frame was rebuilt c.1850 although it is probable that he existed in the 1400s. It rarely appears nowadays, being kept in the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum
Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum
Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, commonly known as Salisbury Museum is a museum in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. It houses one of the best collections relating to Stonehenge and local archaeology....
, along with its companion Hob-Nob, a tourney-type hobby horse, a mischievous character which used to clear the way for the Giant in the processions that were held by the Tailor's Guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
on Midsummer's Eve. Hob-Nob's rider's face and body were disguised with a substantial veil. The first clear mention of the hobby horse is in 1572 (along with a "mayde Marrians
Maid Marian
Maid Marian is the wife of the legendary English outlaw Robin Hood. Stemming from another, older tradition, she became associated with Robin Hood only in the 16th century.-History:The earliest medieval Robin Hood stories gave him no female companion...
Coate") in the records of the Tailors' Guild (who, in 1873, finally sold both hobby-horse and Giant to the Museum). The processions, which also involved morris dance
Morris dance
Morris dance is a form of English folk dance usually accompanied by music. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers. Implements such as sticks, swords, handkerchiefs and bells may also be wielded by the dancers...
rs until around 1911, continued sporadically on various occasions into the mid 20th century.
Soul-caking or Souling
Some regional variants of the mummers play, performed around All Souls' Day in Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...
, included a non-speaking character called the "Wild Horse", made from a horse's skull mounted on a short pole. The horse was played by a man, hidden under a cloth attached to the pole, who bent forward to rest the pole on the ground. He could usually snap the horse's jaws loudly to frighten onlookers.
Winster Hobby Horses
A possibly unique custom involving three hobby horses is known only from a photograph taken at Winster
Winster
Winster is a former lead-mining village in the Derbyshire Dales about from Matlock and from Bakewell at an altitude of approx . The village, which lies within the Peak District National Park, has a large number of listed buildings, including the Market House open daily as a National Trust...
Hall, Derbyshire, in about 1870. (The picture appears to have been taken in winter, as the climbing plants on the wall are leafless.) Eight or nine performers are involved; all (bar one?) have facial disguise.
The performers are grouped around a mast horse (possibly 'Snap Dragon'; see below) with a shiny black head made from a painted skull set on a short pole. Behind it are two men in threatening postures, one is waving a long stick like the handle of a brush or rake, the other probably a besom broom
Besom broom
A besom broom is a traditionally constructed broom made of a bundle of twigs tied to a stouter pole. They are still made today and sold at gardening stores as an outdoor broom.- Construction :...
(blurred).
Two more men wearing military-looking jackets, buttoned to the neck, and white trousers stand astride small hobbyhorses of an apparently unique design: a cylindrical body, "about three inches diameter and two feet long", held between the rider's legs (supported at the front by a cord or narrow strap around the rider's neck), with a flat, curved wooden neck and a small, stylised head with snapping jaws (apart from their mouths, the horses look almost like simple rocking horse
Rocking horse
A rocking horse is a child's toy, usually shaped like a horse and mounted on rockers similar to a rocking chair.Predecessors of the rocking horse may be seen in the rocking cradle, the tilting seats used during the Middle Ages for jousting practice as well as the wheeled hobby horse...
s with the legs removed). The horsemen are masked in light-coloured cloth.
Another character wears a rather voluminous, tattered, long, dark dress; busily brushing the ground with a besom broom, "she" is reminiscent of the character Besom Bet who appears in some mummers plays
Mummers Play
Mummers Plays are seasonal folk plays performed by troupes of actors known as mummers or guisers , originally from England , but later in other parts of the world...
. The last two characters are playing rough music
Rough music
Rough music, also known as ran-tan or ran-tanning, is an English folk custom, a practice in which a humiliating and loud public punishment is inflicted upon one or more people who have violated the standards of the rest of the community...
on bladder fiddles.
The performance may have been arranged by Llewellynn Jewitt
Llewellyn Jewitt
Llewellynn Frederick William Jewitt was a noted illustrator, engraver, natural scientist and author of The Ceramic Art of Great Britain...
, who lived at the hall between 1868 and 1880. In 1931, Stanley Evans ("Folk Dancing in Derbyshire", Derbyshire Countryside, vol 1, no 2, April 1931, p29) suggested the performers may have been performing a mumming play. Cawte dismissed this suggestion: "if so it is a most unusual one, there is no sign of the combatants, the pair of horses is of an unusual design, and the mast horse seems to be the centre of attention."
In his field notes, made in 1908, folklorist Cecil Sharp
Cecil Sharp
Cecil James Sharp was the founding father of the folklore revival in England in the early 20th century, and many of England's traditional dances and music owe their continuing existence to his work in recording and publishing them.-Early life:Sharp was born in Camberwell, London, the eldest son of...
referred to a hobby horse "without a curtain" being connected with the morris dance
Morris dance
Morris dance is a form of English folk dance usually accompanied by music. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers. Implements such as sticks, swords, handkerchiefs and bells may also be wielded by the dancers...
at Winster; he also mentions a "Snap Dragon" made from "a real horse's head" (skull?) dug up for the purpose, but does not say whether it was associated with the morris. It seems he did not see them himself and his account published in 1924, long after his visit to Winster, is confusing. In 1966, Winster morris dancers stated that there had never been a hobby horse associated with their morris, but that there had been a separate horse ceremony involving a skull that was reburied each year.
In notes published after his death, Llewellynn Jewitt noted how, in 1867, a dozen or so groups of traditional performers (several groups of guisers, the Wensley mummers, 'The Hobby Horse' and the 'Snap Dragon') called at Winster Hall in just four days between Christmas and New Year. He noted that, on 27 December, "In the evening the Winster 'Snap Dragon' and 'Hobby Horse' conjoined came to us — ten men, one as Snap Dragon, two with Hobby Horses, two devils, etc., etc. We had them in the kitchen and gave them money." The photograph may well show one such "conjoined" team.
Derby Tup
Originally created in the same way as a mast horse or hooden horse, the Derby Tup (ram) represented a male sheep. It took part in a dramatised version of the Derby Ram folksong, which was performed in northern Derbyshire
Derbyshire
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...
and around Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
during the Christmas season by teams of boys. It is "killed" by a butcher and its "blood" is collected in a large bowl. In some versions it is brought back to life by a quack doctor, like a character in the Mummers play
Mummers Play
Mummers Plays are seasonal folk plays performed by troupes of actors known as mummers or guisers , originally from England , but later in other parts of the world...
.
Basque country
The Basque country on the borders of FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
has a strong dance tradition
Basque dance
Basque dance is the folk dance by Basque people of Basque Country , -History:From one part of the Basque country to another the music, steps and costumes change, but the collective reveals the Basques’ deep love of dance. There are approximately 400 distinct Basque folk dances, each with its own...
. Several dances are linked to seasonal festivals. The zamaltzain, a hobby horse of the "tourney" type, with a small wooden head and a short, lacy skirt, takes part in some dances and processions in Zuberoa (La Soule
Soule
Soule is a former viscounty and French province and part of the present day Pyrénées-Atlantiques département...
, the easternmost part of the Basque country) in places such as Maule
Mauléon-Licharre
Mauléon-Licharre or simply Mauléon is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France.It is the capital of the Soule historical French and Basque province.It is also home to the canvas shoe, the espadrille....
, Urdiñarbe
Ordiarp
Ordiarp is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France.It is located in the former province of Soule.-External links:*...
, Barkoxe
Barcus
Barcus is a commune of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France.It is located in the former province of Soule.-External links:*...
, Altza, Altzürükü
Aussurucq
Aussurucq is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France. It is located in the former province of Soule.The village features a dynamic scene related especially to Basque culture...
and Atarratze
Tardets-Sorholus
Tardets-Sorholus is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France.It is located in the former province of Soule.-External links:*...
. The "rider" wears elaborate costume and a koha, a tall, beribboned hat, which always has a mirror on the front. "Zamaltzain" means muleteer or mule-keeper. The dance in which he takes part is danced by two teams, one dressed in red, the other in black, and is said by some scholars (such as Eugène Goyhénèche of the University of Pau) to represent an attack on a village by the men of another.
Carnaval de Lantz, Spain
A more rustic-looking horse of similar basic construction is part of the celebrations of the Carnaval de Lantz
Lantz
Lantz is a town and municipality located in the province and autonomous community of Navarre, in the North of Spain.-External links:*...
, Spain. Called the zaldiko, it forms an essential part of the carnival procession, together with the ziripot, a strange character in an enormous straw-stuffed costume.
Parade of Giants and Big-heads, Pamplona, Spain
Dressed in red trimmed with yellow, six tourney horses (xaldiko or zaldiko) take part in the Comparsa de gigantes y cabezudos in Pamplona
Pamplona
Pamplona is the historial capital city of Navarre, in Spain, and of the former kingdom of Navarre.The city is famous worldwide for the San Fermín festival, from July 6 to 14, in which the running of the bulls is one of the main attractions...
(Iruña) in Navarre
Navarre
Navarre , officially the Chartered Community of Navarre is an autonomous community in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Country, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and Aquitaine in France...
(Nafarra). More realistic than the other Basque examples, they replicate the whole upper part of a horse's body from head to tail, with a skirt attached below. Each "rider" wears a pointed cap with a tassel and used to wield an inflated bladder on a stick; now, like the tricorned big-heads called Kilikis who parade with them, they carry a phallic verga made of foam-rubber which they use to belabour the onlookers.
Killing the Mare, Shrovetide
The finale to the Shrovetide processions in the town of Hlinsko
Hlinsko
Hlinsko is a town in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic.Hlinsko's history can be traced back to the 11th century for the first written document. Hlinsko stands on the banks of the Chrudimka river, at the foot of the mountains of the Bohemian-Moravian Uplands...
, in the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
, and six nearby villages (including Hamry
Hamry (Chrudim District)
Hamry is a small village in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic. It has around 250 inhabitants.-External links:*...
, Blatno
Blatno
Blatno is a settlement in the Brežice Municipality in eastern Slovenia. The area was traditionally part of Styria. It is now included in the Spodnjeposavska statistical region....
, Studnice
Studnice (Chrudim District)
Studnice is a village in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic. It has around 450 inhabitants.Hamlets Košinov and Zalíbené are administrative parts of Studnice.-External links:*...
and Vortová
Vortová
Vortová is a small village in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic. It has around 250 inhabitants.Hamlet Lhoty is administrative part of Vortová.-External links:*...
), in the Hlinecko region of eastern Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
, is a ritual called "Killing the Mare.
Accompanied by a brass band
Brass band
A brass band is a musical ensemble generally consisting entirely of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles that include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands , but are usually more correctly termed military bands, concert...
, men and boys wearing colourful costumes representing traditional characters spend a whole day going from door to door, visiting every household in their community (except those known to be in mourning
Mourning
Mourning is, in the simplest sense, synonymous with grief over the death of someone. The word is also used to describe a cultural complex of behaviours in which the bereaved participate or are expected to participate...
). Details differ slightly from place to place, but there are usually two or three hobby-horses (of the tourney type). Other characters include the Straw Men, dressed in costumes made of rice-straw, with blacked faces, and tall, pointed straw hats; they embrace women and roll with them on the ground, which is said to confer fertility. Housewives gather straw from the Straw Men's skirts as a good luck charm, taking it home to feed their geese and chickens.
With the "Little Wife" (a man dressed as a woman) and the "dotted man", four dancers representing Turks
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
perform a ritual dance in front of each house, to ensure wealth for the family and a good harvest. They must lift their legs as high as possible to ensure tall crops of flax
Flax
Flax is a member of the genus Linum in the family Linaceae. It is native to the region extending from the eastern Mediterranean to India and was probably first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent...
. They wave handkerchieves, as in the English morris dance
Morris dance
Morris dance is a form of English folk dance usually accompanied by music. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers. Implements such as sticks, swords, handkerchiefs and bells may also be wielded by the dancers...
but originally wielded sabre
Sabre
The sabre or saber is a kind of backsword that usually has a curved, single-edged blade and a rather large hand guard, covering the knuckles of the hand as well as the thumb and forefinger...
s instead.
At the end of the day the men perform a ritual called "Killing the Mare". One of the group's hobby horse
Hobby horse
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...
s, is judged and then "killed" for its alleged sins. It is then "brought back to life
Resurrection
Resurrection refers to the literal coming back to life of the biologically dead. It is used both with respect to particular individuals or the belief in a General Resurrection of the dead at the end of the world. The General Resurrection is featured prominently in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim...
" (with alcohol) and a dance ensues, involving the onlookers. This custom has survived despite being banned in the 18th and 19th centuries by the Catholic Church and in the 20th by the Socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
government. It has now been recognised by UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
as an element of mankind's Intangible Cultural Heritage
Intangible Cultural Heritage
The concept of intangible cultural heritage emerged in the 1990s, as a counterpart to the World Heritage that focuses mainly on tangible aspects of culture...
.
France
Several hobby-horse customs exist in the LanguedocLanguedoc
Languedoc is a former province of France, now continued in the modern-day régions of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées in the south of France, and whose capital city was Toulouse, now in Midi-Pyrénées. It had an area of approximately 42,700 km² .-Geographical Extent:The traditional...
area of southwest France, which is a stronghold for "totem
Totem
A totem is a stipulated ancestor of a group of people, such as a family, clan, group, lineage, or tribe.Totems support larger groups than the individual person. In kinship and descent, if the apical ancestor of a clan is nonhuman, it is called a totem...
" animals, with many towns and villages having their own particular creature; most appear at carnival
Carnival
Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...
time and/or their local patronal festivals, saint's days and other festivities.
Le Poulain de Pézenas
At Pézenas
Pézenas
Pézenas is a commune in the Hérault département in Languedoc-Roussillon, southern France. At the 1999 census, its population was 7443.-Name:...
there is a huge creature called Le Poulain or Lo Polin (Occitan for "the colt"), carried by nine men and led by another, accompanied by a band of musicians. The Poulain has a realistically carved wooden head, with a snapping jaws and an extending neck that can reach up to first-floor windows; money or other offerings put into its mouth tumble down inside its neck. Its semi-cylindrical body is covered with a dark blue cloth, now decorated with stars and the coat of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
of Pézenas. Below the frame it has a tricolor skirt.
The Poulain carries two effigies on its back, one male, one female, called Estieinou and Estieinette (or Estieineta). Although the first written reference to the Poulain is from 1615, the creature is supposed to commemorate a visit to the town in 1226 by Louis VIII
Louis VIII of France
Louis VIII the Lion reigned as King of France from 1223 to 1226. He was a member of the House of Capet. Louis VIII was born in Paris, France, the son of Philip II Augustus and Isabelle of Hainaut. He was also Count of Artois, inheriting the county from his mother, from 1190–1226...
, during which the king's favourite mare fell ill. She had to be left behind in Pézenas while Louis continued with the Albigensian Crusade
Albigensian Crusade
The Albigensian Crusade or Cathar Crusade was a 20-year military campaign initiated by the Catholic Church to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc...
. On his return he was astonished to find that not only was his mare now fully recovered, but she had also given birth to a fine colt, which was duly presented to him, adorned with ribbons. In return he decreed that the town should construct a wooden colt to be used to celebrate all its public festivities (this legend was first recorded in 1701).
Its early appearances were on the public feast days of Saint Blaise
Saint Blaise
Saint Blaise was a physician, and bishop of Sebastea . According to his Acta Sanctorum, he was martyred by being beaten, attacked with iron carding combs, and beheaded...
(3 February), Saint John the Baptist
John the Baptist
John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
(24 June) and the Feast of the Assumption
Assumption of Mary
According to the belief of Christians of the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and parts of the Anglican Communion and Continuing Anglicanism, the Assumption of Mary was the bodily taking up of the Virgin Mary into Heaven at the end of her life...
(15 Aug). As a symbol of power, it also appeared at times when the town's prévôt distributed bread to the poor (the last such was in 1911), as well as visits by royalty or other dignitaries. The Poulain was burned in 1789, during the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, because of its royal associations, but was revived in 1803. Since then it has appeared at Mardi Gras
Mardi Gras
The terms "Mardi Gras" , "Mardi Gras season", and "Carnival season", in English, refer to events of the Carnival celebrations, beginning on or after Epiphany and culminating on the day before Ash Wednesday...
and other festive occasions. Its framework, once a weighty construction of chestnut, has been made of aluminium since 1989.
Originally the Poulain had no riders; Estieinou and Estieinette (sometimes spelled Estiénon and Estiéneta in the French manner) are meant to recall another royal occasion when Louis XIII
Louis XIII of France
Louis XIII was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1610 to 1643.Louis was only eight years old when he succeeded his father. His mother, Marie de Medici, acted as regent during Louis' minority...
visited the town in 1622; the Maréchal de Bassompierre, following the King, was crossing the river Peyne on horseback. He saw a peasant-woman having difficulty making the crossing on foot and gallantly offered her a seat on his horse. Their merry arrival in the town caused great amusement and so the two effigies were made to remember the event.
There have been smaller, junior Poulains in Pézenas, made by or for children; the Pézenas fadas also have a full-sized version of their own. There have also been similar creatures or imitations elsewhere, some of which still continue. There is a very lively Poulain at Saint-Thibéry
Saint-Thibéry
Saint-Thibéry is a commune in the Hérault department in Languedoc-Roussillon in southern France.-See also:* Roman Bridge* Via Domitia* Communes of the Hérault department-References:*...
and others are (or have been) known at Adissan
Adissan
Adissan is a commune in the Hérault department in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in southern France.-Population:-References:*...
, Alignan-du-Vent
Alignan-du-Vent
Alignan-du-Vent is a commune in the Hérault department in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in southern France.-Population:-References:*...
, Florensac
Florensac
Florensac is a commune in the Hérault department in southern France....
, Montblanc
Montblanc, Hérault
Montblanc is a commune in the Hérault department in Languedoc-Roussillon in southern France.-See also:*Communes of the Hérault department...
and Vias
Vias, Hérault
Vias is a commune in the Hérault department in Languedoc-Roussillon southern France.It is a popular holiday destination with many camp and caravan sites...
(where it is linked to a local legend of a medieval famine and is known as lo Pouli de la Fabo – the colt of the bean). They have also been recorded at Agde
Agde
Agde is a commune in the Hérault department in southern France. It is the Mediterranean port of the Canal du Midi.-Location:Agde is located on the river Hérault, 4 km from the Mediterranean Sea, and 750 km from Paris...
, Caux
Caux, Hérault
Caux is a commune in the Hérault department in southern France.-See also:*Communes of the Hérault department...
, Montagnac
Montagnac, Hérault
Montagnac is a commune in the Hérault department in Languedoc-Roussillon in southern France. Its inhabitants are called Montagnacois.-History:*The Saint-Martin Chapel was mentioned in 847....
, Castelnau
Castelnau
-France:Castelnau or Castelnaud is part of the name of several communes in the south of France:* Castelnau-Barbarens, in the Gers département* Castelnau-Chalosse, in the Landes département...
, Valros
Valros
Valros is a commune in the Hérault department in Languedoc-Roussillon southern France....
and Nizas
Nizas, Hérault
Nizas is a commune in the Hérault department in Languedoc-Roussillon in southern France. It lies near the Pézenas. The inhabitants of the village of Nizas are called Nizaçois.-History:...
, all in the Languedoc
Languedoc
Languedoc is a former province of France, now continued in the modern-day régions of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées in the south of France, and whose capital city was Toulouse, now in Midi-Pyrénées. It had an area of approximately 42,700 km² .-Geographical Extent:The traditional...
. An outlier in the Ariège
Ariège
Ariège is a department in southwestern France named after the Ariège River.- History :Ariège is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from the counties of Foix and Couserans....
, at St Pierre de Soulan
Soulan
Soulan is a commune in the Ariège department in southwestern France.-Population:Inhabitants of Soulan are called Soulanais....
, was instigated by a former inhabitant of Pézenas.
Lou chivalet or le chevalet
Hobby horses of the tourney type, with a frame suspended around the dancer's waist, can also appear at various festivities in the Languedoc. An illustration of the chivalet dance, and its traditional tune, and an old photograph of an animal of this type, are on show in the folk museum at Agde. It is particularly associated with Florensac, where it is called le chevalet, and is considered the town's totem.
The Chevalet of Cournonterral
Cournonterral
Cournonterral is a commune in the Hérault department in southern France. Residents are known as Cournonterralais.-Festival:The town is famous for an annual festival known as Pailhasses. The festival has taken place in Cournonterral every Ash Wednesday since 1346...
in the Hérault died out around 1980 but was revived in March 2011 as part of the annual carnival.
L'âne de Bessan
The Donkey or Ass of Bessan is another of the Languedoc's "totem" animals. Much smaller than the Poulain, it is made from a frame covered in cloth and decorated with crepe paper flowers and painted motifs. Under its skirt it is carried by four men, led by another who dresses in white, with a tricolor sash, and cracks a whip. The Âne dances from side to side and backwards and forwards to traditional tunes played nowadays on various instruments, although until the 1970s it was only the traditional hautbois (a type of oboe) and drums. Sometimes the beast bucks its hindquarters into the air, supported only by the leader and the first dancer, who twirls around; the other three stand ready to catch the frame as it descends. The Âne is brought out to open the feast of St Laurent, appearing first at 5pm on the Saturday closest to the saint's day, accompanied by firecrackers and bells, then again on the Sunday morning when it goes to a Mass
Mass
Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...
to be blessed, before its final dance.
There is also an Âne at Gignac
Gignac, Hérault
Gignac is a commune in the Hérault département in Languedoc-Roussillon in southern France.Its inhabitants are called "Gignacois".-Sites:* Gignac Bridge over the Hérault River, completed 1810.* Church of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce...
.
Le Cheval-Bayard de Clermont-l'Hérault was revived in 1988, after more than a century and a half. The town's original cheval-bayard was burned in 1815; known as the Bayard (baiard in Occitan), meaning a bay horse, its origins have been traced back to the 9th century.
Other "totem" animals of the Hérault
Perhaps the best-known is the Chameau (Camel) of Béziers
Béziers
Béziers is a town in Languedoc in southern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the Hérault department. Béziers hosts the famous Feria de Béziers, centred around bullfighting, every August. A million visitors are attracted to the five-day event...
, which dates from 1613, two years earlier than the Poulain of Pézenas. There is a large and impressive Boeuf (Bull) at Mèze
Mèze
Mèze is a commune in the Hérault department in southern France.Its inhabitants are called Mézois.-Geography:...
, with a huge mouth; it is said to date back to at least 1229. Lo Picart, at Saint-Jean-de-Fos
Saint-Jean-de-Fos
Saint-Jean-de-Fos is a commune in the Hérault department in Languedoc-Roussillon in southern France.-References:*...
, is a ferocious ram; it has existed since at least 1683. Montagnac
Montagnac, Hérault
Montagnac is a commune in the Hérault department in Languedoc-Roussillon in southern France. Its inhabitants are called Montagnacois.-History:*The Saint-Martin Chapel was mentioned in 847....
has a goat. Sometimes the choice of animal is based on a play on words: Loupian
Loupian
Loupian is a commune in the Hérault département in southern France.-References:*...
has, unsurprisingly, a wolf (Loup). (One of the most recent, and possibly the most bizarre, "totems" is Le Porquet of Pinet
Pinet, Hérault
Pinet is a commune in the Hérault department in Languedoc-Roussillon in southern France.-References:* Based on the French Wikipedia....
, a caterpillar, created in the early 1970s.)
Provence, Lei Chivaux Frus
Several "frisky horses", tourney hobby horses, accompany the traditional group Les Tambourinaires de Sant-Sumian, from Brignoles
Brignoles
Brignoles is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.It was the summer residence of the counts of Provence...
, a folklore revival group founded in 1942. Their performances are faithfully based on authentic traditions, such as the Chivau Frusc cited by author Frederic Mistral
Frédéric Mistral
Frédéric Mistral was a French writer and lexicographer of the Occitan language. Mistral won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1904 and was a founding member of Félibrige and a member of l'Académie de Marseille...
at Aix-en-Provence and folklorist Violet Alford, principally at Brignoles but also "all over southern Provence".
Odenwald: Christmas Bock, Esel and Schimmelreiter
Various creatures used to appear in the Odenwald
Odenwald
The Odenwald is a low mountain range in Hesse, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg in Germany.- Location :The Odenwald lies between the Upper Rhine Rift Valley with the Bergstraße and the Hessisches Ried in the west, the Main and the Bauland in the east, the Hanau-Seligenstadt Basin – a subbasin of...
around Christmas, including straw bears
Straw bear (German traditional character)
A straw bear is a traditional character that appears in carnival processions or as a separate seasonal custom in parts of Germany, mainly at Shrovetide but sometimes at Candlemas or Christmas Eve....
and bock figures. The bock (the name can be translated as "goat", "buck", "ram" or "stag") was made in a similar way to a mast horse, but using a long, two- or three-pronged hayfork that formed form its horns, covered in a white sheet, partly stuffed to form a head with a face painted onto it; these were sometimes held up outside windows to frighten the householder. Sometimes two people stood under the sheet to form a longer-bodied creature. Weihnachtsesels (Christmas donkeys) were made in a similar way, usually with two people bending over under a darker coloured blanket, rather like a pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
horse.
The schimmelreiter was a more elaborate construction, made from two (or more) large sieves or riddles fastened in an upright position in front of and behind the "rider" at chest level. The front sieve had a stuffed fabric head and neck attached. The whole was covered with a sheet with a small hole in the centre to allow just the rider's head to show.
Láir Bhán
The teams of Irish mummers known as Wrenboys
Wren Day
Wren day also known as Wren's day, Hunt the Wren Day or The Hunting of the Wrens celebrated on 26 December, St. Stephen's Day, in the Isle of Man, Ireland, Wales and Newfoundland. The tradition consists of "hunting" a fake wren, and putting it on top of a decorated pole...
who perform on Saint Stephen's Day (26 December) in pubs and private houses have been known to include a white hobby horse (Láir Bhán – c.f. Laare Vane, above) of the tourney type, and this has survived into the present century, at Dunquin
Dunquin
Dún Chaoin , meaning "Caon's stronghold", is a Gaeltacht village in west County Kerry, Ireland. Dunquin lies at the Western tip of the Dingle Peninsula, overlooking the Blasket Islands. At 10°27'16"W, it is the most westerly settlement of Ireland...
in County Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...
for example. At Ballycotton, in Co. Cork, a Láir bhán led a procession of horn-blowing youths at Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
who collected money "in the name of Muck Olla" (a legendary giant boar).
Poland
Lajkonik
The city of Krakow
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
has a hobby-horse called the Lajkonik
Lajkonik
The Lajkonik is one of the unofficial symbols of the city of Kraków, Poland. It is represented as a bearded man resembling a Tatar in a characteristic pointed hat, dressed in Mongol attire, with a wooden horse around his waist...
which traditionally appears on the first Thursday after the religious feast of Corpus Christi
Corpus Christi (feast)
Corpus Christi is a Latin Rite solemnity, now designated the solemnity of The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ . It is also celebrated in some Anglican, Lutheran and Old Catholic Churches. Like Trinity Sunday and the Solemnity of Christ the King, it does not commemorate a particular event in...
and parades through the streets, collecting money, accompanied by musicians and costumed followers, some in traditional Polish costume, others in oriental dress, who carry horsetail insignia. The colourful costume of the Lajkonik represents a bearded Tatar
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...
warrior, who carries a golden mace and is mounted on a white horse. To be touched by the mace is said to bring good luck. The custom is said to have been carried on for 700 years, and various stories are told to explain its origins. The hobby horse has become an unofficial symbol of Krakow, and versions often appear as tourist attraction in the Market Square.
Spain
Catalonia
There are many festivals in the Catalonia
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
region of north-east Spain which involve processions with giant
Gigantes y cabezudos
Many Spanish festivals include costumed figures known as gigantes y cabezudos, roughly, “Giants and Big-Heads”, or, in Catalan, gegants i capgrossos...
s and outsize animals; some also involve hobby horses (of the "tourney" type, but with a more-or-less realistic head and body, nowadays often constructed from fibreglass).
Larger figures of mule
Mule
A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. Horses and donkeys are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes. Of the two F1 hybrids between these two species, a mule is easier to obtain than a hinny...
s are also found in several places, carried by two performers whose legs are visible beneath a skirt hanging from the animal's hollow body. (In addition, dragon
Dragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
s of various sorts are also popular, as are bulls, eagles and lions; many have fireworks
Fireworks
Fireworks are a class of explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. The most common use of a firework is as part of a fireworks display. A fireworks event is a display of the effects produced by firework devices...
attached to them, or set off around them. A comprehensive list can be found on this page of the Catalan Viquipèdia
Catalan Wikipedia
The Catalan Wikipedia is the Catalan language edition of Wikipedia. Founded on 16 March 2001 and reaching 200,000 articles by September 2009, it contains about articles, with active users as of . It was created just a few minutes after the first non-English Wikipedia, the German version...
.)
Fiesta de Santa Tecla, Tarragona
The Santa Tecla Festival
Santa Tecla Festival
The Santa Tecla Festival is a festival held in Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain.Plunging into the festivities of Santa Tecla of Tarragona unavoidably involves becoming impregnated with fragrances that link the present times with history, with heritage legacy...
takes place at Tarragona
Tarragona
Tarragona is a city located in the south of Catalonia on the north-east of Spain, by the Mediterranean. It is the capital of the Spanish province of the same name and the capital of the Catalan comarca Tarragonès. In the medieval and modern times it was the capital of the Vegueria of Tarragona...
from 15–24 September and includes the saint's
Thecla
Thecla was a saint of the early Christian Church, and a reported follower of Paul the Apostle. The only known record of her comes from the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla, probably composed in the 2nd century.-Biography:...
day, 23 September. A number of animals, real and mythical, are impersonated in the parades that form a major part of the festivities. Among them is a larger-than-life Mulassa (mule) carried by two dancers who are hidden under its skirts, apart from their legs.
The other creatures that take part are the àliga (eagle), bou (bull), cucafera (coco
Cuco
The Coco is a mythical ghost-monster; equivalent to the boogeyman, found in many Hispanic and Lusophone countries. He can also be considered a Hispanic version of a bugbear, as it is a commonly used figure of speech representing an irrational or exaggerated fear...
, a mythical monster), drac de Sant Roc (dragon of Saint Roch), lleó (lion), and víbria (a female wyvern
Wyvern
A wyvern or wivern is a legendary winged reptilian creature with a dragon's head, two legs , and a barbed tail. The wyvern is found in heraldry. There exists a purely sea-dwelling variant, termed the Sea-Wyvern which has a fish tail in place of a barbed dragon's tail...
with prominent breasts). Several of these have fireworks attached to their extremities, or are showered with sparks by their attendants, and are a spectacular sight.
Parade of Giants and Big-heads, Pamplona
- See: Basque country (above)
Kuda Kepang, Kuda Lumping or Jaran Kepang
Kuda Kepang (woven bamboo horses, also known as Kuda Lumping or Jaran Kepang) originate in the state of Johor
Johor
Johor is a Malaysian state, located in the southern portion of Peninsular Malaysia. It is one of the most developed states in Malaysia. The state capital city and royal city of Johor is Johor Bahru, formerly known as Tanjung Puteri...
and performances are often given at weddings by Malayan men of Java
Java
Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...
nese origin in Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
and elsewhere. Led by a Danyang, a typical troupe today comprises 9 horsemen, 2 medicine men, 5 gamelan
Gamelan
A gamelan is a musical ensemble from Indonesia, typically from the islands of Bali or Java, featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings. Vocalists may also be included....
musicians and 9–15 'guardians'.
Modern performances re-enact the stories of the nine Muslim evangelists who waged battles to bring Islam to Java, but nowadays they are often kept brief and intended simply for entertainment; they may even be performed by women. The gamelan percussion orchestra is made up of 2 drums, a hanging gong, two knobbed gongs on a wooden frame, and 5 tubular bamboo chimes called angklung.
Details of the fuller, more elaborate performances, however, include states of shamanistic trance
Trance
Trance denotes a variety of processes, ecstasy, techniques, modalities and states of mind, awareness and consciousness. Trance states may occur involuntarily and unbidden.The term trance may be associated with meditation, magic, flow, and prayer...
-like possession, and the custom may have originally been a form of totem
Totem
A totem is a stipulated ancestor of a group of people, such as a family, clan, group, lineage, or tribe.Totems support larger groups than the individual person. In kinship and descent, if the apical ancestor of a clan is nonhuman, it is called a totem...
ic worship.
Photographs from the early 20th century, in the collection of Amsterdam's Tropenmuseum
Tropenmuseum
The Tropenmuseum is an anthropological museum located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and established in 1864.One of the largest museums in Amsterdam, the museum accommodates eight permanent exhibitions and an ongoing series of temporary exhibitions, including both modern and traditional visual...
(Museum of the Tropics), show another ritual dance, the Reog Ponogoro
Reog
Reog is a traditional Indonesian dance form.There are many types of Reogs in Indonesia, but the most notable ones are Reog Ponorogo and Reog Sunda . Although both share a similar name, there is no connection nor similar theme among these traditions...
, involving a huge tiger mask and costume (Singa Barong), accompanied by Jatil riding woven bamboo hobby horses who perform the Jaran Kepang dance.
Newfoundland & Labrador, Mummering
In Newfoundland and LabradorLabrador
Labrador is the distinct, northerly region of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It comprises the mainland portion of the province, separated from the island of Newfoundland by the Strait of Belle Isle...
, hobby horses of the "mast" type were sometimes used by the mummers or 'janneys' who went mummering
Mummering
Mummering is a Christmastime house-visiting tradition in Newfoundland and Labrador. Also known as mumming or janneying, it typically involves a group of friends or family who dress in disguise and visit homes within their community or neighbouring communities during the twelve days of Christmas...
around the Christmas season; they also took a Christmas bull, made in a similar manner, on their house-to-house visits. The mischievous horse was not intended to be malevolent, but its appearance and antics often frightened those it visited or encountered. Mummering was dying out but has enjoyed a recent revival, and the first Mummers Festival (held in St John's in December 2009) even had workshops on making hobby horses.
Etymology
The word hobby is glossed by the OED as "a small or middle-sized horse; an ambling or pacing horse; a pony." The word is attested in English from the 14th century, as Middle EnglishMiddle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
hobyn. Old French
Old French
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...
had hobin or haubby, whence Modern French aubin and Italian ubino. But the Old French term is apparently adopted from English rather than vice versa. OED connects it to "the by-name Hobin, Hobby", a variant of Robin" (compare the abbreviation Hob for Robert). This appears to have been a name customarily given to a cart-horse, as attested by White Kennett
White Kennett
White Kennett was an English bishop and antiquarian.-Life:He was born at Dover. He was educated at Westminster School and at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where, while an undergraduate, he published several translations of Latin works, including Erasmus' In Praise of Folly.Kennett was vicar of...
in his Parochial Antiquities (1695), who stated that "Our ploughmen to some one of their cart-horses generally give the name of Hobin, the very word which Phil. Comines
Philippe de Commines
Philippe de Commines was a writer and diplomat in the courts of Burgundy and France. He has been called "the first truly modern writer" and "the first critical and philosophical historian since classical times"...
uses, Hist. VI. vii." Another familiar form of the same Christian name, Dobbin has also become a generic name for a cart-horse.
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
, Dictionary of the English Language, 1755, glosses "A strong, active horse, of a middle size, said to have been originally from Ireland; an ambling nag."
Hoblers or Hovellers were men who kept a light nag that they may give instant information of threatened invasion. (Old French, hober, to move up and down; our hobby, q.v.) In mediæval times their duties were to reconnoitre, to carry intelligence, to harass stragglers, to act as spies, to intercept convoys, and to pursue fugitives. Henry Spelman
Henry Spelman
Sir Henry Spelman was an English antiquary, noted for his detailed collections of medieval records, in particular of church councils.-Life:...
(d. 1641) derived the word from "hobby".
The Border horses, called hobblers or hobbies, were small and active, and trained to cross the most difficult and boggy country, "and to get over where our footmen could scarce dare to follow." - George MacDonald Fraser
George MacDonald Fraser
George MacDonald Fraser, OBE was an English-born author of Scottish descent, who wrote both historical novels and non-fiction books, as well as several screenplays.-Early life and military career:...
, The Steel Bonnets, The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers.
Other meanings
Hobby
A hobby is a regular activity or interest that is undertaken for pleasure, typically done during one's leisure time.- Etymology :A hobby horse is a wooden or wickerwork toy made to be ridden just like a real horse...
.
The term is also connected to the draisine
Draisine
A draisine primarily refers to a light auxiliary rail vehicle, driven by service personnel, equipped to transport crew and material necessary for the maintenance of railway infrastructure....
, a forerunner of the bicycle
Bicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
, invented by Baron Karl von Drais
Karl Drais
Karl Drais was a German inventor and invented the Laufmaschine , also later called the velocipede, draisine or "draisienne" , also nicknamed the dandy horse. This incorporated the two-wheeler principle that is basic to the bicycle and motorcycle and was the beginning of mechanized personal...
. In 1818, a London coach-maker named Denis Johnson began producing an improved version, which was popularly known as the "hobby-horse".
The artistic movement, Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
, is possibly named after a French child's word for hobby horse.
See also
- Hobby horse (toy)Hobby horse (toy)A hobby horse is a child's toy horse, particularly popular during the days before cars. Children played at riding a wooden hobby horse made of a straight stick with a small horse's head , and perhaps reins, attached to one end. The bottom end of the stick sometimes had a small wheel or wheels...
- Hooden horseHoodeningHoodening, also called Hodening, is an East Kent, England tradition vaguely related to Mumming and the Morris dance, and dating back at least to the mid-18th century. Related traditions also exist in Wales and Lancashire...
- Dorset OoserDorset OoserThe Dorset Ooser is the name of a horned mask that has been a part of folklore in the town of Dorchester, in the county of Dorset in southern England, for several centuries...
- an unrelated but similar custom