page_title: 'Obby 'Oss festival
section_title: Similar hobby horses elsewhere
hierarchical_section_title: 'Obby 'Oss festival / Similar hobby horses elsewhere
caption_attribution_description: English: By Tim Kevan, free license
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: (See also: Hobby horse)
  'Obby 'Oss traditions also exist in nearby Barnstaple and Combe Martin.
  Minehead in Somerset also has two large hobby horses, the Sailors' Horse and the Town Horse. Although more pointed or boat-shaped than the Padstow 'Osses, they are similar in that the dancer within the costume wears a tall, conical hat with a grotesque mask over their face; the horse framework is suspended from the dancer's shoulders and a long skirt hangs down to partly hide their body; the animal's heads are small and wooden with snapping jaws. They also capture bystanders.
  There is documentary evidence of an 'Oss at Penzance in the late 19th century, made with a caped stick and skull, which has formed the basis of the Penglaz 'Obby 'Oss that appears during the Golowan festival and the Montol Festival, both modern revivals; the skull 'oss is strikingly similar to the Mari Lwyd in Wales associated with the pre-Christian deity Rhiannon, known as Epona the horse goddess in continental Celtic cultures, passing into festive folklore as 'the Old Grey Mare' in neighbouring parts of Britain e.g. Dartmoor (Widecombe Fair), Dorset (The Grey Mare and her Colts), as well as the Soultide mummers' horses of Cheshire.
  Similar Corpus Christi (May–June) folk tradition exists in Galicia in Spain and Portugal where St George fights a dragon in the manner of the Cornish Mummers Plays. Tinsel-cloaked street entertainers dress similarly to the Welsh Mari Llywd but the snapping animal skull might be a goat or fox rather than horse and depicts the Coco or the Peluda.
  The Tarasque procession from southern France has direct pre-Roman Celtic antecedents and a terrifying ancient Celtic sculpture at the Musée lapidaire d'Avignon depicts the monster hoarding severed human heads (French Wikipedia with images).
  There are some similarities between this festival and the Lajkonik hobby-horse festival in Kraków, Poland. In particular the idea that young women may be captured or struck with a stick to bring them "luck" or fertility suggests a pagan, or at least medieval origin. Lajkonik is 700 years old.
  Rather more recent is the Banbury Hobby-Horse festival, which started in 2000, and features ritual animals from all parts of the British Isles, some old, some more modern.
caption: The Minehead Hobby Horse in 2008
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