'Obby 'Oss festival

Male dancers cavort through the town dressed as one of two 'Obby 'Osses, the "Old" and the "Blue Ribbon" or "Methodist" 'Obby 'Osses; as the name suggests, they are stylised depictions of horses.

Prodded on by assistants 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"[clarification needed] 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"[2] – pass along the streets of the town.

Finally, late in the evening, the two 'osses meet, at the maypole, before returning to their respective stables where the crowd sings of the 'Obby 'Oss death, until its resurrection the following May Eve.

There is extensive documentary evidence of British community May Day celebrations in the 16th century and earlier,[4] although the earliest mention of the 'Obby 'Oss at Padstow dates from 1803.

An earlier hobby horse is mentioned in the Cornish language drama Beunans Meriasek, a life of the Camborne saint, where it is associated with a troupe, or "companions.

[6] This idea of the custom as a pre-Christian one percolated into the Padstow community, for when the historian Ronald Hutton visited the town in 1985 he found locals describing it to him as an ancient pagan fertility rite.

[3] In the 1950s Alan Lomax, then in London and working for the BBC, and his collaborator Peter Kennedy of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, decided to document the unique May Eve and May Day Festivals at Padstow, they selected George Pickow to be their cameraman.

[3] By that point, Hutton referred to it as "one of the most famous and most dramatic folk customs of modern Britain",[3] adding that it constituted "a tremendous reaffirmation of communal pride and solidarity in this small and normally quiet settlement".

[3] The folklorist Doc Rowe, who has attended and documented the custom every year since 1963, goes further – describing 'Obby 'Oss Day as "a united proclamation – almost a 'clenched fist' in the face of time and outside influences... [it] can be seen as a communal pace-maker and, on Mayday, it recharges the community and the good fellowship of the people of Padstow.

[12] The coroner concluded that "I find as fact that the 'Oss struck Laura and it is far more likely than not that this caused the injuries identified at post-mortem that led directly to her death."

Accompanied by drums and accordions and led by acolytes known as "Teasers", each 'oss is adorned by a gruesome mask and black, oilskin cape on a circular frame under which they try to catch young maidens as they pass through the town.

Each 'oss has a "stable" (in the case of the Old 'Oss, the Golden Lion Inn and the Blue Ribbon 'Oss, the institute, from which they emerge at the start of the day's proceedings and retire at the end.

The young women of Padstow might if they would, For summer is acome unto day, They might have made a garland with the white rose and the red, In the merry morning of May.

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.

[14] 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.

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.