Have You Seen My Hobby Horse? - Anna Hallett

For hundreds of years hobby horses, Jack in the greens, mummery, morris dancing, straw men and other similar characters brought life and colour to civic processions in towns and cities across the country, particularly in the West Country and Cornwall.

Mrs Hallet will tell us that hobby horse festivals coincided with the arrival of Maytime spring where the obby oss - a costume worn by a single person and bearing only the vaguest of resemblances to a horse - danced through the town and performed various rituals. …