the close o f the seventeenth century. It was a sort of amusement which the inhabitants
celebrated at Christmas or New Year’s Day. On these occasions a person danced through
the principal streets carrying between his legs the figure o f a horse composed o f thin
boards. In his hand he bore a bow and arrow, which last entered a hole in the bow, and
stopping on a shoulder, it made a sort o f snapping noise as he drew it to and fro, keeping
11 kept up at Nccdwood Forest, Staffordshire. From a photo by A. Edwards, Uttoxcter.
time with the music. Five or six other individuals danced along with this person, each
carrying on his shoulder a reindeer’s head, three o f them painted white and three red,
with the arms o f the chief families who had at different times been proprietors o f the
manor painted on the palms o f them.”
Mr. Edwards informs me that the heads and horns in the photograph are the original
ones, and are kept in the church, being the property o f the vicar for the time being.
In former times a potful o f cakes and ale was an appanage o f the dance, and contributions
for the church repairs and the poor were levied on all spectators.