page_title: 'Obby 'Oss festival
section_title: Modern developments
hierarchical_section_title: 'Obby 'Oss festival / History / Modern developments
caption_attribution_description: English: May Day in Padstow The annual 'obby 'oss celebrations
context_page_description: The 'Obby 'Oss festival is a folk custom that takes place each May Day in Padstow, a coastal town in North Cornwall. It involves two separate processions making their way around the town, each containing an eponymous hobby horse known as the 'Obby 'Oss.
  The festival starts at midnight on May Eve when townspeople gather outside the Golden Lion Inn to sing the "Night Song." By morning, the town has been dressed with greenery and flowers placed around the maypole. The excitement begins with the appearance of one of the 'Obby 'Osses. Male dancers cavort through the town dressed as one of two 'Obby 'Osses, the "Old" and the "Blue Ribbon" 'Obby 'Osses; as the name suggests, they are stylised kinds of horses. Prodded on by acolytes known as "Teasers," each wears a mask and black frame-hung cape under which they try to catch young maidens as they pass through the town. Throughout the day, the two parades, led by the "MC" in his top hat and decorated stick, followed by a band of accordions and drums, then the 'Oss and the Teaser, with a host of people, the "Mayers" - all singing the "Morning Song." – pass along the streets of the town.
context_section_description: By the 1990s, the 'Obby 'Oss festival was a major attraction that drew large numbers of visitors to Padstow. By that point, Hutton referred to it as "one of the most famous and most dramatic folk customs of modern Britain", adding that it constituted "a tremendous reaffirmation of communal pride and solidarity in this small and normally quiet settlement".
  The festival was not held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
caption: Crowds of tourists observing the Padstow 'Obby 'Oss custom in 2006
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