40 GUISING AND MUMMING IN DERBYSHIRE. 



foreheed." I have never seen " an image of a white horse " 

 in Yorkshire myself. At Little Hucklow one of the guisers 

 came to the door and said, " Please will you see Ball?"^ 



It seems as if the old horse, or white horse, were intended 

 to personify the aged and dying year. The year, Uke a worn- 

 out horse, has become old and decrepit, and just as it ends 

 the old horse dies. But he rises again with the new year. 

 Ihe time at which the ceremony is performed, and its repeti- 

 tion from one house to another, indicate that it was a piece 

 of magic intended to bring welfare to the people in the coming 

 year. 



" The savage," says Mr. Frazer, " infers that he can produce 

 any desired effect by merely imitating it."^ Ancient races, 

 who were ignorant of natural laws, and who could not be sure 

 that the setting sun would ever rise again, could not be certain 

 that a new year would follow the old year. 



The folk-lore of this neighbourhood has a good deal to say 

 about white horses, and they were supposed to bring luck. 

 Thus, " if you seS a white horse, spit on your little finger, 

 and you will be lucky all day."3 In the same way a representa- 

 tion of a w^hite horse, when used for the purposes of magic or 

 witchcraft, might be regarded as bringing luck to the new year. 

 It is reasonable to conjecture that the figures of horses made 

 by laying bare the chalk on the Berkshire hills, as in the Vale 

 of the White Horse, were magical devices for attracting the 

 sun. If the sun is dazzling white or bright (Lat. candidus), 

 and if his chariot is drawn by white horses, then if you pre- 

 tend that a white horse dies, and rises again just as the old 

 year is passing into the new, you effect, by a magical act, 

 the continuance of sunlight in the new year. Such, we may 

 conjecture, was the barbarous reasoning which induced men 

 to perform this ceremonial. 



The ancient Germans maintained white horses (candidi equi) 



1 As regards the performance at Easter, we must remember that in the 

 twelfth century the Anglican Church began the year on the 25th of March. 



2 Golden Bough, 2nd ed., vol. i., p. g. 



3 Addy's Household Tales, Etc., p. 102. 



