Cornish Folk Traditions – The Oss Tales
English | Size: 757.69 MB
Category: Northern European Paganism

Padstow, a town on the north coast of Cornwall, celebrates May Day with a unique custom: two hobby horses, or osses dance through the town streets, accompanied by drums and accordians. All Padstownians participate in this exciting event, which has now become a tourist attraction, drawing over 30,000 visitors the first of May to this fishing town of 3000. Folklorists Alan Lomax and Peter Kennedy visited Padstow in 1951, producing a film called Oss Oss Wee Oss (1953). In 2004, filmmaker John Bishop and folklorist Sabina Magliocco (with Jaynie Ali Aydin and Noah Bishop) returned to Padstow to see how the custom was faring fifty years later.
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