Hoodening

Although this practice is extinct, in the present the hooden horse is incorporated into various Kentish mummers plays and Morris dances that take place at different times of the year.

Although deemed extinct at the time of the First World War, the custom was revived in an altered form during the mid-twentieth century, when the use of the hooden horse was incorporated into some modern Kentish folk traditions.

Surviving sources testify to the fact that while there was some variation in the hoodening tradition as it was practised by various people in different parts of East Kent, it was nevertheless "on the whole remarkably uniform".

Once inside, the horse pranced and gnashed its jaw, while the Jockey attempted to mount it, and the Mollie swept the floor with a broom while chasing any girls present.

[10] Features common to these customs were the use of a hobby horse, the performance at Christmas time, a song or spoken statement requesting payment, and the use of a team who included a man dressed in women's clothing.

[12] In an area along the border between Derbyshire and Yorkshire, the Old Tup tradition featured groups knocking on doors around Christmas carrying a hobby horse that had a goat's head.

[15] Although the origins of these "hooded animal" traditions are not known with any certainty, the lack of any late medieval references to such practices may suggest that they emerged from the documented elite fashion for hobby horses in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

[22] In his History of Kent the antiquarian Alfred John Dunkin suggested that Hodening was a corruption of Hobening, and that it was ultimately derived from the Gothic hopp, meaning horse.

[27] This idea was challenged by Burne, who noted that in his legends, Robin Hood was always depicted as an archer rather than a horse-rider, thus questioning how he had come to be associated with the hooden horse.

[29] In 1807 an anonymous observer suggested that the term hoden was linked to the Anglo-Saxon god Woden, and that the tradition might be "a relic of a festival to commemorate our Saxon ancestors landing in Thanet".

[33] Maylam noted that he was initially attracted to the idea that the term hodening had derived from Woden—an Old English name that he thought a more likely origin than the Old Norse Odin—but that upon investigating this possibility found "no sufficient evidence" for it.

[37] Believing it likely that the hoodening tradition "substantially pre-dates" its earliest textual appearances,[38] the folklorist Geoff Doel suggested the possibility that it had originated as a Midwinter rite to re-energise the vegetation.

[40] However, the white horse did not become commonly associated with Kent until the beginning of the eighteenth century, and James Lloyd regards any suggestion of an ancient connection with hoodening as "wishful thinking and in defiance of all historical evidence".

[41] The oldest known textual reference to hoodening comes from the Alphabet of Kenticisms, a manuscript authored by Samuel Pegge, an antiquary who served as the vicar of Godmersham in Kent from 1731 to 1751.

[42] After Pegge died, the manuscript was obtained by the palaeographer Sir Frederic Madden, and after his death it was purchased by the English Dialect Society, who published it in 1876.

[43] In this manuscript Pegge noted simply that "Hoodening (huod.ing) is a country masquerade at Christmas times", comparing it to mumming and the Winster Guisers of Derbyshire.

[30] The letter, written anonymously, described an encounter with the hoodeners on a visit to the Kentish coastal town of Ramsgate in Thanet:[30] I found they begin the festivities of Christmas by a curious procession: a party of young people procure the head of a dead horse, which is affixed to a pole about four feet in length; a string is affixed to the lower jaw; a horse-cloth is also attached to the whole, under which one of the parts gets, and by frequently pulling the string, keeps up a loud snapping noise, and is accompanied by the rest of the party, grotesquely habited, with hand-bells; they thus proceed from house to house, ringing their bells, and singing carols and songs; they are commonly gratified with beer and cake, or perhaps with money.

[46] Many years after the event, the Kentish antiquarian J. Meadows Cooper related that while sitting in a pub on the outskirts of Margate on Boxing Day 1855 he had encountered a party carrying a hooden horse that entered the building.

[46] Another local resident, Mrs. Edward Tomlin, later related that as a child she had lived at a house named Updown, near Margate, and that she remembered the hooden horse visiting them at Christmas time during the 1850s and up until 1865.

[49] He found another based at Lower Hardres that had been active from at least the 1850s under the leadership of Henry Brazier; it was subsequently taken over by his son John, until the tradition ended locally in 1892.

[55] He said the hoodening company typically consisted of a "Jockey" who placed himself on the back of the person carrying the horse, and that it was the "sport" that bystanders attempted to throw him off, resulting in violence.

[55] He was of the opinion that the custom had been restricted to the Isle of Thanet, noting that locals informed him that it had been carried out in Ramsgate, St. Lawrence, Minster, St. Nicholas, Acol, Monkton, and Birchington.

Mr. Maylam has all the humour and sympathy and unfeigned enjoyment of his informants' society and doings that go to the making of a genuine [folklore] collector, and adds to them the skill in weighing and marshalling evidence that belongs to his legal training; and he has left no point untouched that could serve to throw light on his subject."

[67] The fourth hooden horse that Maylam encountered was owned by the men who worked at George Goodson's farm in Fenland, Word, near Sandwich.

[69] Writing an introductory article for the second publication, Doel, a specialist in Kentish folklore, praised Maylam's book as a "classic study" which was "impressive for its separation of fact from speculation as to the origins and significance of the custom.

A special service was held in the Charing Church, in which the Morris Men danced in the chancel and through the aisle, while the vicar put a bridle on the horse itself.

[79] This venture led to the groups establishing a new folk custom, "hop hoodening", which was derived in part from an older hop-picking ceremony found in the Weald area.

Their new custom involved the different groups joining together on a tour around the villages of East Kent, beginning at Canterbury Cathedral and going through Ramsgate, Cliftonville, and Herne Bay before ending in a barn dance at Wickhambreaux.

[80] In June 1961 Field and his wife established the first Folkestone International Folklore Festival as a biannual celebration of folk customs; it continued for 28 years.

[72] An annual conference of hoodeners was also established; initially meeting at the Marsh Gate Inn near Herne Bay, it subsequently moved to Simple Simon's in Canterbury.