Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/417

 Rh shoulders perform a country dance. Another dancer, the Hobby Horse, wears a wooden horse's head and caparison, a boy carries a crossbow and arrow with which he makes a snapping noise in time to the music. A woman carrying a curious old wooden ladle for money and a clown make up the party. The articles used in the dance are kept in the church-tower in the custody of the vicar of the parish. Dr. Plot, in 1686, mentions this custom, which seems then to have been in temporary abeyance, doubtless owing to the Civil Wars. The dance, according to his account, took place in the Christmas holidays, and the stags' horns were painted with the arms of the landowners. Some traces of the paint still remain. "To the Hobby Horse Dance," he says, "there also belonged a pot, which was kept by Turnes, by 4 or 5 of the cheif of the Town, whom they call'd Reeves, who provided cakes and ale to put in this pot," after the manner apparently of "sops in wine." It was then, I suppose, shared as a "loving-cup" among the spectators. Every well-disposed householder contributed "pence apiece" for himself and his family; and with the levy thus made, together with the contributions of "forraigners that come to see it," was defrayed, first, the cost of the cakes and ale, then the expense of the repairs of the church and the support of the poor. Tradition says that when the money collected was used for these public purposes, the dance was performed in the churchyard on Sunday after service. Now, of course, the dancers have the proceeds for themselves.

Dr. Plot distinctly says that the horns are "Raindeer" horns; and recent visitors have corroborated this. If this be really the case, there seem no limits to our conjectures upon the age and origin of the custom; and at any rate