Winster Guisers
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Winster Guisers
The Winster Guisers are a group who perform a traditional mummers play in and around the village of Winster, Derbyshire, UK, during the Christmas season. Their performance is based on a photograph taken c. 1870 outside Winster Hall showing an unidentified set of performers about whom little is known for certain.Cawte, EC, ''Ritual Animal Disguise'', p122, London, DS Brewer for the Folklore Society (1978) The Winster Guisers' play is not local to the area, but is a revival (dating from 1980)Winster Guisers; Winster village website
Accessed 24 Nov 2011
of a play, chosen because it features a hobby ...
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Mummers Play
Mummers' plays are folk plays performed by troupes of amateur actors, traditionally all male, known as mummers or guisers (also by local names such as ''rhymers'', ''pace-eggers'', ''soulers'', ''tipteerers'', ''wrenboys'', and ''galoshins''). Historically, mummers' plays consisted of informal groups of costumed community members that visited from house to house on various holidays. Today the term refers especially to a play in which a number of characters are called on stage, two of whom engage in a combat, the loser being revived by a doctor character. This play is sometimes found associated with a sword dance though both also exist in Britain independently. Mumming spread from the British Isles to a number of former British colonies. It is sometimes performed in the street but more usually during visits to houses and pubs. It is generally performed seasonally or annually, often at Christmas, Easter or on Plough Monday, more rarely on Halloween or All Souls' Day, and often wit ...
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Rocking Horse
__NOTOC__ A rocking horse is a child's toy, usually shaped like a horse and mounted on rockers similar to a rocking chair. There are two sorts, the one where the horse part sits rigidly attached to a pair of curved rockers that are in contact with the ground, and a second sort, where the horse hangs on a rigid frame by iron straps the horse moves only relative to the frame, which does not move. Predecessors of the rocking horse may be seen in the rocking cradle, the tilting seats used during the Middle Ages for jousting practice as well as the wheeled hobby horse. The toy in its current form did not appear before the 17th century,Toy Horses
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Ritual Animal Disguise
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, but not defined, by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance. Rituals are a feature of all known human societies. They include not only the worship rites and sacraments of organized religions and cults, but also rites of passage, atonement and purification rites, oaths of allegiance, dedication ceremonies, coronations and presidential inaugurations, marriages, funerals and more. Even common actions like hand-shaking and saying "hello" may be termed as ''rituals''. The field of ritual studies has seen a number of conflicting definitions of the term. One given by Kyriakidis is that a ritual is an outsider's or " etic" category for a set activity (or set of actions) that, to the outsider, ...
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Antrobus Soul Cakers
Antrobus may refer to: *Antrobus (surname) *Antrobus, Cheshire, a village in Cheshire, England *Antrobus baronets The Antrobus Baronetcy, of Antrobus in the County Palatine of Chester, is a title in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 22 May 1815 for Edmund Antrobus, of Antrobus Hall, Antrobus, Cheshire, a Fellow of the Royal Society, ...
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Bladder Fiddle
The bladder fiddle was a folk instrument used throughout Europe and in the Americas. The instrument was originally a simple large stringed fiddle (a musical bow) made with a long stick, one or more thick gut strings, and a pig's-bladder resonator. It was bowed with either a notched stick or a horsehair bow. Changes in the instrument have produced two distinct variations. Besides the bowed instrument which has been preserved in the 21st century in Lithuania (and possibly Estonia and Flanders), a percussion instrument is used widely internationally, including Europe, North America and Australia. Evolution from fiddle to drum set The instrument was originally a fiddle. It used a flexible stick, a musical bow, as the instrument's body and neck. The resonator, at first an inflated animal bladder, was held between the stick and the bowstring. Versions in Poland, Lithuania and the Netherlands had as many as three strings, but pictures of the Flanders fiddle and the ''Nocturnal Serenad ...
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Rough Music
Charivari (, , , alternatively spelled shivaree or chivaree and also called a skimmington) was a European and North American folk custom in which a mock parade was staged through a community accompanied by a discordant mock serenade. Since the crowd aimed to make as much noise as possible by beating on pots and pans or anything that came to hand these parades are often referred to as rough music. Parades were of three types. In the first, and generally most violent form, a wrongdoer or wrongdoers might be dragged from their home or place of work and paraded by force through a community. In the process they were subject to the derision of the crowd, they might be pelted and frequently a victim or victims were dunked at the end of the proceedings. A safer form involved a neighbour of the wrongdoer impersonating the victim whilst being carried through the streets. The impersonator was obviously not themselves punished and often cried out or sang ribald verses mocking the wrongdoer. I ...
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Top Hat
A top hat (also called a high hat, a cylinder hat, or, informally, a topper) is a tall, flat-crowned hat for men traditionally associated with formal wear in Western dress codes, meaning white tie, morning dress, or frock coat. Traditionally made of black silk or sometimes grey, the top hat emerged in Western fashion by the end of the 18th century. Although it declined by the time of the counterculture of the 1960s, it remains a formal fashion accessory. A collapsible variant of a top hat, developed in the 19th century, is known as an opera hat. Perhaps inspired by the Early Modern era capotain, higher crowned dark felt hats with wide brims emerged as a country leisurewear fashion along with the Age of Revolution around the 1770s. Around the 1780s, the justaucorps was replaced by the previously casual frocks and dress coats. At the same time, the tricorne and bicorne hats were replaced by what became known as the top hat. By the 1790s, the directoire style dress coat with top ...
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Servant
A domestic worker or domestic servant is a person who works within the scope of a residence. The term "domestic service" applies to the equivalent occupational category. In traditional English contexts, such a person was said to be "in service". Domestic workers perform a variety of household services for an individual, from providing cleaning and household maintenance, or cooking, laundry and ironing, or care for children and elderly dependents, and other household errands. Some domestic workers live within their employer's household. In some cases, the contribution and skill of servants whose work encompassed complex management tasks in large households have been highly valued. However, for the most part, domestic work tends to be demanding and is commonly considered to be undervalued, despite often being necessary. Although legislation protecting domestic workers is in place in many countries, it is often not extensively enforced. In many jurisdictions, domestic work is p ...
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Smoking Cap
Smoking caps, also known as lounging caps, were Victorian headwear worn by men while smoking to stop their hair from smelling of tobacco smoke. They were soft caps, shaped like a squat cylinder or close fitting like a knit cap, and usually heavily embroidered with a tassel on top. They were originally worn for warmth, but continued with their new use after improvements in Victorian heating. They were popular in the period 1840-1880, and usually used by gentlemen in the privacy of their homes. The need for smoking caps, and smoking wear generally, arose from the social more of not smoking in front of women, and not smelling of smoke when one returned to their presence. They were often a gift from women, who made them themselves to give to male partners. They were often worn with a smoking jacket, but while the jacket was more or less ''de rigueur'', the cap was optional. Neither was worn by everyone, as smoking was not as popular as it became in the twentieth century,Christo ...
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Besom Broom
A besom () is a broom, a household implement used for sweeping. The term is now mostly reserved for a traditional broom constructed from a bundle of twigs tied to a stout pole. The twigs used could be broom (i.e. ''Genista'', from which comes the modern name "broom" for the tool), heather or similar. The song " Buy Broom Buzzems" from Northern England refers to both types of twig. From the phrase ''broom besom'' the more common ''broom'' comes. In Scotland, besoms are still occasionally to be found at the edge of forests where they are stacked for use in early response to an outbreak of fire. Description As a result of its construction around a central pole, the brush of the besom is rounded instead of flat. The bristles can be made of many materials including, but not limited to straw, herbs, or twigs. Traditionally the handle is of hazel wood and the head is of birch twigs. Modern construction uses bindings of wire and string (instead of the traditional split withy) and the ...
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Hobby Horse
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. They are particularly associated with May Day celebrations, mummers' plays and the Morris dance in England. Etymology The word ''hobby'' is glossed by the OED as "a small or middle-sized horse; an ambling or pacing horse; a pony." The word is attested in English from the 14th century, as Middle English ''hobyn''. Old French had ''hobin'' or ''haubby'', whence Modern French ''aubin'' and Italian ''ubino''. But the Old French term is apparently adopted from English rather than vice versa. OED connects it to "the by-name ''Hobin'', ''Hobby''", a variant of ''Robin''" (compare the abbreviation ''Hob'' for ''Robert''). This appears to have been a name customarily given to a cart-horse, as attested by White Kennett in his ''Parochial Antiquities '' (1695), who stated that "Our ploughm ...
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Llewellynn Jewitt
Llewellynn Frederick William Jewitt (or Llewellyn) (24 November 1816 – 5 June 1886) was a British illustrator, engraver, natural scientist and author of ''The Ceramic Art of Great Britain'' (1878). His output was prodigious and covered a large range of interests. Biography Jewitt was born at Kimberworth, Rotherham, the seventeenth and final child of artist, author and schoolmaster Arthur Jewitt and his wife Martha. His education, largely from his father, who was master at Kimberworth Endowed School, started in Duffield, Derbyshire where his family moved in 1818. On Christmas Day of 1838 he married Elizabeth Sage, daughter of Isaac Sage of Derby, hurriedly returning to London the same day so as not to fall behind in his work. From 1839 to 1845 he was employed by the engraver Frederick William Fairholt, to illustrate the works of Charles Knight, and contribute to the ''Pictorial Times'', the '' Saturday Magazine'', the ''Illustrated London News'' and ''Punch''. He worked ...
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