h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Hooden Horse - A87760957
Author: MMF - Keeper of Mustelids, with added P.M.A. - With added Anorak! - U236774

This entry is for May's 'Hobbies' CREATE challenge, and is loosely attributed to 'Hobby Horses'.
I apologise for it's disjointed appearance, but there was little information available, except my own experiences, and I found it difficult to make it cohesive.
Please be kind in your criticism.



MMF

You've written "it's" four times in this when you meant "its".

Haven't time to read this at the moment, as it is 01:18 and I need to go to bed, but I'll try and look at it tomorrow.

Thanks Gnomon. Written in a bit of a hurry as the definitive book arrived late. Sleep well.

MMF.

Hope all corrected.

MMF

This is interesting stuff, Fiddler.

You say "It has been traced back to 690" but later you say the earliest mention of it is 1859. How can it be traced back a further 1200 years if there is no mention of it in recorded history?

Near the end, the section "And today?", you have this sentence:

"The Hooden Horse originally, would just have been a block of wood crudely carved into a horse-head shape, supported on a wooden handle of some description, and draped with a plain hop sack."

Since you've already explained in great detail what the hooden horse is, can you please remove this sentence?

You mention Morris sides a few times without explaining what the phrase means. Can you please put a footnote, or a link to an h2g2 entry on it?

You still have "it's" in two places. Use the Find function in your browser to find them. I believe it is Command F.

Another question. Is this a Christmas tradition? You mention carols and wassailing, both of which are associated with Christmas. But you don't seem to say anywhere that this was a Christmas tradition.

Gnomon, sorted, I hope. And

Looks like I may need to write an entry on Morris Sides, although the background of the tradition is still obscure.

MMF

Good article.
I love country traditions and feel that the more information about them the better!

Again I wasn't entirely sure whether this was an exclusively Christmas tradition or, more like Morris etc, was it not exclusive to just one season, so Christmas but also summer/harvest time too, as the August folk festival is mentioned.

Minor spelling things:
peole should be people.
little-known Island – should presumably be island. (Unless, of course, the Isle of Thanet is also known by the name the Island in the same way that the Isle of Wight's other name is 'the Island'.)

Just thought I'd mention that the Jutes weren't either Anglo or Saxon, they were Jutes. Jutes came from Jutland (and settled in Kent, the Meon valley in Hampshire and on the Isle of Wight, although the Saxons under King Saint Cædwalla massacred the Jutes of Hampshire and especially the Isle of Wight in the 680s in a largely forgotten ethnic cleansing campaign that resulted in his being beatified by the Pope), Angles came from Angeln, settling in Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia and Saxons came from Saxony, settling in Wessex, Sussex, Essex and Middlesex.

<BB<

I'm bumping this up the queue in PR a little. It's a short yet interesting Entry which deserves a few more compliments please - I'd like to see this moving forward into the Guide unless we have further serious queries?


Lanzababy

I would query the historical information, and 'first' mention of hooding, then hoodening, is mentioned as far back as 1736, and later in 1807 in the May edition of 'European Magazine'.

The Groom (Waggoner, or even Driver) would lead the horse around, and would often whip him. Other characters in the Hoodening might include a Jockey and also Mollie (a man in drag).

There are EG style corrections to be made, but these would not be too much work for a sub in my eyes.

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!

I would suggest the sub works with the author closely, and also the information is chekced in regards to my earlier post.

It will be a nice addition to the folklore section of the guide though, well done.