Talk:Hobby horse

Etymology section should be first

To someone raised in a culture with no concept of a hobby horse, this article is very confusing. Such a person comes to this article just wanting to know exactly what a hobby horse is and where the phrase comes from. They have to scroll down through endless tangential, almost-trivial tidbits of information about hobby horse traditions in various countries and cultures before actually coming to the exact meaning of the phrase and where it comes from. A simple introduction section needs to be added, or at least the etymology section should be moved to the beginning. The article does not read like it was written by a scholar or an encyclopedist, but rather by someone for whom the topic hobby horse is...well, a hobby horse (i.e., too long and too many trivial asides).

Redirect and merge tag

Removed talk page redirect.

I'm removing the merge tag because no reason was given for it, and no discussion has taken place. --The Transhumanist 08:53, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Article needs more disambiguation or merging

The article Hobby horse deals with both the child's toy and the Morris dance or May day versions mentioned on the Hobby horse disambiguation page, as well as other uses. Either the two articles need merging into a single article or Hobby horse needs separating out into different articles, with the disambiguation page being vastly improved by the addition of the other uses material. Otherwise the disambiguation page is redundant and this article becomes a mess. -- Cameron Dewe 08:57, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I've separated the toy off onto a page of its own, Hobby horse (toy).SiGarb | (Talk) 18:49, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

May_Day_hobby_horses

The May_Day_hobby_horses portion of this article seems to need a separate article. Also, contributions by LambOfDog seems to be a subtle attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia. -- Cameron Dewe 09:10, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Inadmissible evidence!

I have removed the remark in parentheses, and the three paragraphs below, added by LambOfDog on 11th and 12th July. This is lovely eyewitness stuff, but unfortunately it has to have been published elsewhere before it can be admitted into Wikipedia. So sorry, my lover!

(The Dunster horse, alive in the 1970's is, alas, now dead. Its carcass is on public display in the West Somerset Rural Museum at The Old School, Allerford).

It is all very gentrified today. Not at all like it should be. In times gone by, the Dunster horse would arrive at the buttercross at the top of Dunster village on the road to Ellicombe on May 1st, in the early evening. It was accompanied by a drummer and accordianist. The horse would dance down to the village, followed by local children. A feature of the horse was a long tail made from thin rope, with knots in it. As the horse turned, the tail would fly around at great speed. It was very dangerous. The game was for the kids to get as close as possible to it without getting hit. But when the horse was being stalked it danced all the more vigourously, making the kids run away. A strongly held belief amongst the children was that the other end of the tail was tied around the man's neck, so if the tail was caught hold of and pulled, then the horse could be killed. This was something everyone seemed too frightened to try. Any young woman coming towards the horse was stopped by the horse and not allowed to proceed until she had bowed/curtsied/smiled... to it.

The first pub reached was the Foresters Arms and the 'horse party' would go in for a swift pint. A few minutes later, the hobby horse is dancing again and it dances to the next pub, the Stag's Head. After a second beer, the next place on the itinerary was Dunster Castle. The horse was greeted by the Luttrell family. After the Castle, the horse went into Dunster High street where the performance moved up a gear, fuelled by beer. The dancing was at its most frenetic. At the end of the High Street is the Luttrell Arms and this is where the performance ended. Drinks were enjoyed by all and then the hobby horse was packed up and went back to whereever it came from.

The most striking thing about this annual event in Dunster, was that tourists or visitors were never present. Very few, if any, local adults were present either. This was an event for the local kids and it was fantastic. Sadly, it can never happen again. Now we'd need to buy tickets and have to suffer accompanying dancers. Anyway a horse with a knotted tail would never get a safety license. We indeed live in sad times. I can't bloody believe it! Not like times of yore, I nearly weep. And so I must say goodnight my lovers :-(

SiGarb | Talk 22:33, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

"Former Times"?

Re: "Just as children today imitate adults driving cars, so, in former times, children played at riding a wooden hobby-horse made of a straight stick with a small horse's head (of wood or stuffed fabric), and perhaps reins, attached to one end."

I don't know if hobby horses are still common and beloved of children in 2010, but I can testify that they were fairly ubiquitous as recently as the 1960's, seventy-some years after the automobile was invented. I'm going to take the liberty of removing "so, in former times", bearing in mind the opening sentence, "A hobby horse (or hobby-horse) is a child's toy horse, particularly popular during the days before cars." I think "particularly popular during the days before cars" is quite enough. TheScotch (talk) 07:08, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

the article is really good and well organized how ever it could us some links--Sha22357 (talk) 19:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Intro needs rewrite

I came to this page after reading a reference to "hobby horse" and not understanding. Unfortunately, the introduction of the article hardly helped to clarify: "The term hobby horse is used, principally by folklorists, to refer to the costumed characters that feature in some traditional seasonal customs, processions and similar observances around the world." The constumed characters? Which ones? Some traditional seasonal customs, etc.?" Which ones?! Where around the world!? The article itself is very informative, but the introduction verges on cryptic—and is certainly unhelpful. --Duriancupcakes (talk) 06:04, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

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