Animal Guising and the Kentish Hooden Horse
Wed 8th Feb 2023 to Sat 17th Jun 2023 - All Day
Exhibitions
Animal Guising and the Kentish Hooden Horse
The Hooden Horse can be seen snapping its teeth and causing havoc at many folk festivals, but where did it come from and how does it relate to other animal disguises around the UK?
This exhibition unites Maidstone Museum’s two old Hooden Horses with their early surviving cousins; Morris Dancing revival horses; Northern skull horses; the Old Tup; Mari Lwyd; Obby Osses; and stag disguises. It explores the Christmas house-calling custom of Hoodening and its reinvention as Autohoodening, a new kind of folk performance about the precarity of contemporary seasonal working.
Come and experience the Hooden Horse brought to life around the town and museum on event days during the exhibition.
FREE entry
