Old Ball is a folk custom that existed in the Forest of Rossendale in Lancashire, north-western England during the nineteenth century.
The Lancashire Old Ball custom differs from other animal head traditions in Britain by being associated with Easter; most of the others were instead carried out at Christmas time.
[3] 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.
[4] In South Wales, the Mari Lwyd tradition featured troupes of men with a hobby horse knocking at doors over the Christmas period.
[6] Although the origins of these 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.