Fallow Deer Horns 
169 
the close of the seventeenth century. It was a sort of amusement which the inhabitants 
celebrated at Christmas or New Year’s Day. On these occasions a person danced through 
the principal streets carrying between his legs the figure of a horse composed of thin 
boards. In his hand he bore a bow and arrow, which last entered a hole in the bow, and 
stopping on a shoulder, it made a sort of snapping noise as he drew it to and fro, keeping 
THE HORN DANCE 
A mediaeval custom still kept up at Needwood Forest, Staffordshire. From a photo by A. Edwards, Uttoxeter. 
time with the music. Five or six other individuals danced along with this person, each 
carrying on his shoulder a reindeer’s head, three of them painted white and three red, 
with the arms of the chief families who had at different times been proprietors of the 
manor painted on the palms of them.” 
Mr. Edwards informs me that the heads and horns in the photograph are the original 
ones, and are kept in the church, being the property of the vicar for the time being. 
In former times a potful of cakes and ale was an appanage of the dance, and contributions 
for the church repairs and the poor were levied on all spectators. 
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