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137-443: The Dorset Ooser ( / ˈ oʊ s ər / ) is a wooden head that featured in the 19th-century folk culture of Melbury Osmond , a village in the southwestern English county of Dorset . The head was hollow, thus perhaps serving as a mask , and included a humanoid face with horns, a beard, and a hinged jaw which allowed the mouth to open and close. Although sometimes used to scare people during practical jokes, its main recorded purpose

274-473: A mummer . Hutton instead proposed that Osser possibly derived from Wooset , a term used in the dialect around Wiltshire to refer to a pole upon which a horse's skull with deer's horns was affixed. This Wooset was recorded as having been paraded by youths in the Marlborough district until the 1830s, where it was used to mock neighbours whose partners were suspected of marital infidelity, the horns being

411-463: A street culture outside the purview of adults. This is also ideal where it needs to be collected; as Iona and Peter Opie demonstrated in their pioneering book Children's Games in Street and Playground . Here the social group of children is studied on its own terms, not as a derivative of adult social groups. It is shown that the culture of children is quite distinctive; it is generally unnoticed by

548-451: A Grade I listed building, remains in use for worship. The renowned jockey Sir Gordon Richards is buried in the new cemetery on Marlborough Common, the second of two such cemeteries to be opened after the two old churchyards stopped being used for burials. Local TV services are provided by BBC West and ITV West Country , via the Mendip transmitter and a local relay. Radio stations for

685-432: A binary: one individual or group who actively transmits information in some form to another individual or group. Each of these is a defined role in the folklore process. The tradition-bearer is the individual who actively passes along the knowledge of an artifact; this can be either a mother singing a lullaby to her baby, or an Irish dance troupe performing at a local festival. They are named individuals, usually well known in

822-527: A case of a group of Christmas Wassailers at Kingscote , Gloucestershire , a man was "dressed in a sack, his head in a real bull's face, head and horns complete". Another case highlighted by Dewar was taken from an account provided by G. W. Greening of Dorchester, in which a member of the Bradstock Mummers was dressed as Beelzebub . Given these similarities, Dewar ultimately suggested that the Ooser

959-408: A child's birthday party, including verbal lore ( Happy Birthday song ), material lore (presents and a birthday cake), special games ( Musical chairs ) and individual customs (making a wish as you blow out the candles). Each of these is a folklore artifact in its own right, potentially worthy of investigation and cultural analysis. Together they combine to build the custom of a birthday party celebration,

1096-489: A community. Many objects of material folklore are challenging to classify, difficult to archive, and unwieldy to store. The assigned task of museums is to preserve and make use of these bulky artifacts of material culture. To this end, the concept of the living museum has developed, beginning in Scandinavia at the end of the 19th century. These open-air museums not only display the artifacts, but also teach visitors how

1233-659: A compound of folk and lore , was coined in 1846 by the Englishman William Thoms , who contrived the term as a replacement for the contemporary terminology of "popular antiquities" or "popular literature". The second half of the word, lore , comes from Old English lār 'instruction'. It is the knowledge and traditions of a particular group frequently passed along by word of mouth. The concept of folk has varied over time. When Thoms first created this term, folk applied only to rural, frequently poor, and illiterate peasants. A more modern definition of folk

1370-505: A local post office to be constructed in its place. In Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries , Charles Herbert Mayo noted that "no recollection of its ever being made use of is retained", although thought that "it may plausibly be conjectured" that the Ooser was used in "village revels, and at similar times of rustic entertainment". The following year, the curator of the Dorset County Museum , Henry Joseph Moule , published

1507-714: A long way back". The Gardnerian Wiccan Melissa Seims suggested that the iconography of the Ooser was an influence on the design of the Head of Atho, a statue of the Wiccan Horned God created by Raymond Howard in mid-20th century England. Wiccans in the Minnesota area of the United States make use of a head with stag antlers that they term the Minnesota Ooser. Representing the religion's Horned God, it

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1644-539: A note in the same journal relating that their childhood nurse, who was from the village of Cerne Abbas , had talked about the head, and had referred to it as the "Wurser". Moule added that it was "surely" used in Mummers' plays performed at Christmas time. Dewar, after subsequent research, reported the recollections of K. G. Knight—a member of the Melbury Estate staff—that inhabitants of Melbury Osmond associated

1781-552: A parish council known as the Marlborough Town Council, which has 16 councillors. For elections to Wiltshire Council, the civil parish is covered by two electoral divisions, again named Marlborough East and Marlborough West, which each elect one member. They include large areas outside the town, the West division extending beyond Avebury . Prior to 2009, Marlborough was administered by Wiltshire County Council at

1918-516: A problem to be solved, but as a tremendous opportunity. In the diversity of American folklife, we find a marketplace teeming with the exchange of traditional forms and cultural ideas, a rich resource for Americans". This diversity is celebrated annually at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and many other folklife fests around the country. There are numerous other definitions. According to William Bascom major article on

2055-605: A scripted combination of multiple artifacts which have meaning within their social group. Folklorists divide customs into several different categories. A custom can be a seasonal celebration , such as Thanksgiving or New Year's . It can be a life cycle celebration for an individual, such as baptism, birthday or wedding. A custom can also mark a community festival or event; examples of this are Carnival in Cologne or Mardi Gras in New Orleans . This category also includes

2192-509: A shift in purpose and meaning. There are many reasons for continuing to handmake objects for use, for example these skills may be needed to repair manufactured items, or a unique design might be required which is not (or cannot be) found in the stores. Many crafts are considered as simple home maintenance, such as cooking, sewing and carpentry. For many people, handicrafts have also become an enjoyable and satisfying hobby. Handmade objects are often regarded as prestigious, where extra time and thought

2329-426: A small sampling of objects and skills that are included in studies of material culture. Customary culture is remembered enactment, i.e. re-enactment. It is the patterns of expected behavior within a group, the "traditional and expected way of doing things" A custom can be a single gesture , such as thumbs down or a handshake . It can also be a complex interaction of multiple folk customs and artifacts as seen in

2466-450: A social event during the winter months, or the gifting of a quilt to signify the importance of the event. Each of these—the traditional pattern chosen, the social event, and the gifting—occur within the broader context of the community. Even so, when considering context, the structure and characteristics of performance can be recognized, including an audience, a framing event, and the use of decorative figures and symbols, all of which go beyond

2603-498: A surviving pre-Christian fertility religion—claiming that the mask was a cult item that reflected continuing worship of the cult's Horned God . Murray's hypothesis is now discredited. The historians Jeffrey B. Russell and Brooks Alexander have stated that "today, scholars are agreed that Murray was more than just wrong [regarding the existence of the witch-cult] – she was completely and embarrassingly wrong on nearly all of her basic premises". The Ooser's pre-Christian origin theory

2740-400: A swell in popular interest in folk traditions, these community celebrations are becoming more numerous throughout the western world. While ostensibly parading the diversity of their community, economic groups have discovered that these folk parades and festivals are good for business. All shades of people are out on the streets, eating, drinking and spending. This attracts support not only from

2877-517: A traditional sign of cuckoldry . Similar traditions have been recorded in Wiltshire and Somerset, where they can be traced back to at least the early 17th century. The first public mention of the Dorset Ooser was in an 1891 edition of Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries , where it was the subject of an article by the journal's editor, Charles Herbert Mayo . The head was, at the time, in

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3014-572: A whole, even as it continues to be a point of discussion within the field itself. The term folkloristics , along with the alternative name folklore studies , became widely used in the 1950s to distinguish the academic study of traditional culture from the folklore artifacts themselves. When the American Folklife Preservation Act (Public Law 94-201) was passed by the U.S. Congress in January 1976, to coincide with

3151-492: Is "not idle speculation… Decades of fieldwork have demonstrated conclusively that these groups do have their own folklore." In this modern understanding, folklore is a function of shared identity within any social group. This folklore can include jokes, sayings, and expected behavior in multiple variants, always transmitted in an informal manner. For the most part, it will be learned by observation, imitation, repetition, or correction by other group members. This informal knowledge

3288-745: Is a market town and civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire on the Old Bath Road , the old main road from London to Bath . The town is on the River Kennet , 24 miles (39 km) north of Salisbury and 10 miles (16 km) southeast of Swindon . The earliest sign of human habitation is the Marlborough Mound , a 62-foot-high (19 m) prehistoric tumulus in the grounds of Marlborough College . Recent radiocarbon dating has found it to date from about 2400 BC. It

3425-457: Is a distinct branch of folklore that deals with activities passed on by children to other children, away from the influence or supervision of an adult. Children's folklore contains artifacts from all the standard folklore genres of verbal, material, and customary lore; it is however the child-to-child conduit that distinguishes these artifacts. For childhood is a social group where children teach, learn and share their own traditions, flourishing in

3562-678: Is a social group that includes two or more people with common traits who express their shared identity through distinctive traditions. "Folk is a flexible concept which can refer to a nation as in American folklore or to a single family. " This expanded social definition of folk supports a broader view of the material, i.e., the lore, considered to be folklore artifacts . These now include all "things people make with words (verbal lore), things they make with their hands (material lore), and things they make with their actions (customary lore)". Folklore are no longer considered to be limited to that which

3699-400: Is also transmitted within a group, remains a practical hygiene and health issue and does not rise to the level of a group-defining tradition. Tradition is initially remembered behavior; once it loses its practical purpose, there is no reason for further transmission unless it has been imbued with meaning beyond the initial practicality of the action. This meaning is at the core of folkloristics,

3836-485: Is as close as folklorists can come to observing the transmission and social function of this folk knowledge before the spread of literacy during the 19th century. As we have seen with the other genres, the original collections of children's lore and games in the 19th century was driven by a fear that the culture of childhood would die out. Early folklorists, among them Alice Gomme in Britain and William Wells Newell in

3973-465: Is at the heart of the Church of England Marlborough deanery in the diocese of Salisbury in the province of Canterbury . The rural dean has responsibility for the benefices of Marlborough , Ridgeway , Upper Kennet and Whitton which in total comprise 16 parishes. Of the town's two Church of England parish churches , St Peter's has been made redundant and converted into an arts centre. St Mary's ,

4110-404: Is enmeshed in a multitude of differing identities and their concomitant social groups. The first group that each of us is born into is the family, and each family has its own unique family folklore . As a child grows into an individual, its identities also increase to include age, language, ethnicity, occupation, etc. Each of these cohorts has its own folklore, and as one folklorist points out, this

4247-541: Is found in an issue of the Journal of American Folklore , published in 1975, which is dedicated exclusively to articles on women's folklore, with approaches that had not come from a man's perspective. Other groups that were highlighted as part of this broadened understanding of the folk group were non-traditional families , occupational groups, and families that pursued the production of folk items over multiple generations. Folklorist Richard Dorson explained in 1976 that

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4384-451: Is found in hex signs on Pennsylvania Dutch barns, tin man sculptures made by metalworkers, front yard Christmas displays, decorated school lockers, carved gun stocks, and tattoos. "Words such as naive, self-taught, and individualistic are used to describe these objects, and the exceptional rather than the representative creation is featured." This is in contrast to the understanding of folklore artifacts that are nurtured and passed along within

4521-559: Is intended to organize and categorize the folklore artifacts; they provide common vocabulary and consistent labeling for folklorists to communicate with each other. That said, each artifact is unique; in fact, one of the characteristics of all folklore artifacts is their variation within genres and types. This is in direct contrast to manufactured goods, where the goal in production is to create identical products, and any variations are considered mistakes. It is, however, just this required variation that makes identification and classification of

4658-525: Is kept on an altar and brought out for use in Sabbat rituals. The Ooser has been used in modern anti-urbanisation demonstrations as a symbolic guardian of the countryside. Folk culture Each one of these, either singly or in combination, is considered a folklore artifact or traditional cultural expression . Just as essential as the form, folklore also encompasses the transmission of these artifacts from one region to another or from one generation to

4795-525: Is not just any conversation, but words and phrases conforming to a traditional configuration recognized by both the speaker and the audience. For narrative types , by definition, they have a consistent structure and follow an existing model in their narrative form. As just one simple example, in English, the phrase "An elephant walks into a bar…" instantaneously flags the following text as a joke . It might be one you have already heard, but it might be one that

4932-465: Is of similar age to the larger Silbury Hill about 5 miles (8.0 km) west of the town. Legend has it that the Mound is the burial site of Merlin and that the name of the town comes from Merlin's Barrow . More plausibly, the town's name possibly derives from the medieval term for chalky ground "marl"—thus, "town on chalk". However more recent research, from geographer John Everett-Heath , identifies

5069-411: Is old or obsolete. These folk artifacts continue to be passed along informally, as a rule anonymously, and always in multiple variants. The folk group is not individualistic; it is community-based and nurtures its lore in community. "As new groups emerge, new folklore is created… surfers, motorcyclists, computer programmers ". In direct contrast to high culture , where any single work of a named artist

5206-486: Is open to the public for guided tours on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from April to October. The house was built following the Great Fire of 1653. It was the property of a silk merchant and, rarely for a house of this type in a town centre, retains its original room pattern. Notable are the wall paintings recently uncovered, which are undergoing conservation. One room painted in a striped pattern, copying silk hangings,

5343-534: Is perhaps unique in Great Britain. Marlborough is within the county of Wiltshire , and the administrative district of the same name. For local government purposes, it is administered by the Wiltshire Council unitary authority. Since the local boundary review of 2020, the parish has two wards – Marlborough East and Marlborough West. Marlborough and Manton collectively form a civil parish with

5480-434: Is protected by copyright law , folklore is a function of shared identity within a common social group. Having identified folk artifacts, the professional folklorist strives to understand the significance of these beliefs, customs, and objects for the group, since these cultural units would not be passed along unless they had some continued relevance within the group. That meaning can, however, shift and morph; for example,

5617-578: Is spent in their creation and their uniqueness is valued. For the folklorist, these hand-crafted objects embody multifaceted relationships in the lives of the craftspeople and the users, a concept that has been lost with mass-produced items that have no connection to an individual craftsperson. Many traditional crafts, such as ironworking and glass-making, have been elevated to the fine or applied arts and taught in art schools; or they have been repurposed as folk art , characterized as objects whose decorative form supersedes their utilitarian needs. Folk art

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5754-403: Is still transmitted orally and, indeed, continues to be generated in new forms and variants at an alarming rate. Below is listed a small sampling of types and examples of verbal lore. The genre of material culture includes all artifacts that can be touched, held, lived in, or eaten. They are tangible objects with a physical or mental presence, either intended for permanent use or to be used at

5891-669: Is the complex balance of continuity over change in both their design and their decoration. In Europe, prior to the Industrial Revolution , everything was made by hand. While some folklorists of the 19th century wanted to secure the oral traditions of the rural folk before the populace became literate, other folklorists sought to identify hand-crafted objects before their production processes were lost to industrial manufacturing. Just as verbal lore continues to be actively created and transmitted in today's culture, so these handicrafts can still be found all around us, with possibly

6028-532: Is unclear if the head itself was the Ooser, or whether it instead was designed as a depiction of an entity called the Ooser. Dewar suggested the possibility that it might have been connected to the term Wurse , used for the Devil in Layamon 's Brut , or to the 17th-century Italian term Oser , again used for the Devil. Alternately, he suggested that it might be a derivative of Guisard or Guiser , two old terms for

6165-469: Is used by the Wessex Morris Men as part of their seasonal festivities. In 2005, a journalist from The Guardian reported on a dawn ceremony performed by the troupe on May Day atop Giant Hill near Cerne Abbas. The ceremony involved one member carrying the Dorset Ooser replica atop his head, with other Morris men dancing around him; after the rite they proceeded, still dancing, to a local pub,

6302-540: Is used in discussions of material lore. Both formulations offer different perspectives on the same folkloric understanding, specifically that folklore artifacts need to remain embedded in their cultural environment if we are to gain insight into their meaning for the community. The concept of cultural (folklore) performance is shared with ethnography and anthropology among other social sciences. The cultural anthropologist Victor Turner identified four universal characteristics of cultural performance: playfulness, framing ,

6439-428: Is used to confirm and reinforce the identity of the group. It can be used both internally within the group to express their common identity, for example in an initiation ceremony for new members. It can also be used externally to differentiate the group from outsiders, like a folk dance demonstration at a community festival. Significant to folklorists here is that there are two opposing but equally valid ways to use this in

6576-573: Is well connected by road with the A4 from Hungerford to Calne , A346 from Tidworth to Swindon and A345 from Salisbury meeting there. The long-distance National Trail, the Wessex Ridgeway , runs from Marlborough to Lyme Regis in Dorset . Marlborough is twinned with: Marlborough has an oceanic climate somewhat influenced by its inland position and at 407 feet (124 m) elevation

6713-779: The Bicentennial Celebration , folkloristics in the United States came of age. "…[Folklife] means the traditional expressive culture shared within the various groups in the United States: familial, ethnic, occupational, religious, regional; expressive culture includes a wide range of creative and symbolic forms such as custom, belief, technical skill, language, literature, art, architecture, music, play, dance, drama, ritual, pageantry, handicraft; these expressions are mainly learned orally, by imitation, or in performance, and are generally maintained without benefit of formal instruction or institutional direction." Added to

6850-619: The Halloween celebration of the 21st century is not the All Hallows' Eve of the Middle Ages and even gives rise to its own set of urban legends independent of the historical celebration; the cleansing rituals of Orthodox Judaism were originally good public health in a land with little water, but now these customs signify for some people identification as an Orthodox Jew. By comparison, a common action such as tooth brushing , which

6987-616: The Historic–Geographic Method , a methodology that dominated folkloristics in the first half of the 20th century. When William Thoms first published his appeal to document the verbal lore of the rural populations, it was believed these folk artifacts would die out as the population became literate. Over the past two centuries, this belief has proven to be wrong; folklorists continue to collect verbal lore in both written and spoken form from all social groups. Some variants might have been captured in published collections, but much of it

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7124-527: The Horned God in the modern Pagan religion of Wicca in both the United Kingdom and United States. A wooden head, the Dorset Ooser had been cut from a single block of timber, with the exception of the lower jaw, which was movable and connected to the rest of the mask by leather hinges. The lower jaw could be moved by pulling on a string which passed through a hole in the upper jaw to connect to

7261-566: The Smithsonian Folklife Festival celebrated each summer on the Mall in Washington, DC. A fourth category includes customs related to folk beliefs . Walking under a ladder is just one of many symbols considered unlucky . Occupational groups tend to have a rich history of customs related to their life and work, so the traditions of sailors or lumberjacks . The area of ecclesiastical folklore , which includes modes of worship not sanctioned by

7398-568: The Statute of Marlborough was passed (this gave rights and privileges to small land owners and limited the right of the King to take possession of land). This law states that no-one shall seize his neighbour's goods for alleged wrong without permission of the Court. Apart from Charters, it is the oldest statute in English law which has not yet been repealed. A Jewish community lived in the town from

7535-622: The "big mop" and "little mop" fairs. In 2014 these were set for 3–4 and 17–18 October. From 1986 a music festival was held in the town for a number of days in June or July. In 1997 this became the Marlborough International Jazz Festival, which ceased after 2016. The parish church of St Mary is Grade I listed building . St George's church in Preshute, adjoining Manton dates from the 12th century and

7672-531: The 1230s, near Silver Street (now Silverless Street) and established a synagogue. In January 1275, Eleanor of Provence expelled Jews from all of the towns within her dower lands, and the Jews of Marlborough relocated to Devizes . The castle fell into disrepair by the end of the 14th century but remained Crown property. Edward VI then passed it to the Seymour family , his mother's relatives. In 1498 Thomas Wolsey

7809-583: The 2009–10 South West Division Dorset & Wilts 1 North league, winning all 22 games to secure promotion to the Southern Counties South league. In 2018, the first XV has competed in South West 1 East and in 2023, they were Regional 2 South East champions, winning promotion to tier 5 for the first time. The club has a second XV senior team as well as many junior players. Marlborough Town F.C. play their home games at Elcot Lane, to

7946-500: The American Folklore Society brought the behavioral approach into open debate among folklorists. In 1972 Richard Dorson called out the "young Turks" for their movement toward a behavioral approach to folklore. This approach "shifted the conceptualization of folklore as an extractable item or 'text' to an emphasis on folklore as a kind of human behavior and communication. Conceptualizing folklore as behavior redefined

8083-688: The Conqueror assumed control of the Marlborough area and set about building a wooden motte-and-bailey castle , sited on the prehistoric mound. This was completed in around 1100. Stone was used to strengthen the castle in around 1175. The first written record of Marlborough dates from the Domesday Book in 1086. William also established a mint in Marlborough, which coined the William I and the early William II silver pennies. The coins display

8220-469: The County Armoury, and 244 houses to the ground. This event attracted more than local attention; the parish register of Wotton-under-Edge , in the west of Gloucestershire , records on 9 August 1653 that 18 pounds 17 shillings and six and a half pence had been collected in the parish for the relief of the distressed inhabitants of Marlborough. During the rebuilding of the town after the Great Fire,

8357-561: The History and Folklore Section of the American Folklore Society and concerned with the connections of folklore with history, as well as the history of folklore studies. Lacking context, folklore artifacts would be uninspiring objects without any life of their own. It is only through performance that the artifacts come alive as an active and meaningful component of a social group; the intergroup communication arises in

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8494-568: The Ooser was a depiction of the Devil , an idea supported by Dewar, who believed that, as the Devil, its imagery was "intended to inspire terror in the minds of the foolish and the wicked". Conversely, others have suggested that it is a depiction of a pre-Christian god. In her 1931 book The God of the Witches , Margaret Murray connected the Ooser to her version of the witch-cult hypothesis —the idea that those tried as alleged witches were adherents of

8631-492: The Ooser went missing around 1897. Since then, various folklorists and historians have debated the origins of the head, which has possible connections to the horned costumes sometimes worn by participants in English Mummers plays . The folklorists Frederick Thomas Elworthy and H. S. L. Dewar believed that the head was a representation of the Devil and thus was designed to intimidate people into behaving according to

8768-588: The Red Lion. In summer 2006, the Wessex Morris Men took the replica to Melbury Osmond for the first time, where they performed a dance in a local street. Murray's interpretation of the Ooser was embraced by Doreen Valiente , an earlier practitioner of the modern Pagan religion of Wicca , who stated that the mask "is certainly connected with the Old Religion [i.e. the witch-cult], and that from

8905-537: The Second World War, folklorists began to articulate a more holistic approach toward their subject matter. In tandem with the growing sophistication in the social sciences , attention was no longer limited to the isolated artifact, but extended to include the artifact embedded in an active cultural environment. One early proponent was Alan Dundes with his essay "Texture, Text and Context", first published 1964. A public presentation in 1967 by Dan Ben-Amos at

9042-603: The United States, felt a need to capture the unstructured and unsupervised street life and activities of children before it was lost. This fear proved to be unfounded. In a comparison of any modern school playground during recess and the painting of "Children's Games" by Pieter Breugel the Elder we can see that the activity level is similar, and many of the games from the 1560 painting are recognizable and comparable to modern variations still played today. These same artifacts of childlore, in innumerable variations, also continue to serve

9179-604: The area are BBC Radio Wiltshire on 104.9 FM and Heart West on 96.5 FM. The local newspaper for the area is the Gazette and Herald . Although once served by two railway lines (the Great Western Railway and the Midland and South Western Junction Railway ) the town no longer has any direct rail access. The nearest stations are Pewsey (6.7 miles), Bedwyn (6.9 miles), and Swindon (12.7 miles). Marlborough

9316-413: The artifacts and turn them into something else; so Old McDonald's farm is transformed from animal noises to the scatological version of animal poop. This childlore is characterized by "its lack of dependence on literary and fixed form. Children…operate among themselves in a world of informal and oral communication, unimpeded by the necessity of maintaining and transmitting information by written means". This

9453-423: The business community, but also from federal and state organizations for these local street parties. Paradoxically, in parading diversity within the community, these events have come to authenticate true community, where business interests ally with the varied (folk) social groups to promote the interests of the community as a whole. This is just a small sampling of types and examples of customary lore. Childlore

9590-579: The celebrations were a street play by the Marlborough Players titled Wheels of Time, and a visit from the Prince of Wales . The Marlborough mop fair was originally a market where local goods could be sold or bartered. It later developed into a hiring fair for agricultural workers seeking employment, but now has become a travelling funfair . It takes place over two weekends in October, as

9727-407: The coachman for Cave's replacement, a doctor by the name of Webber. Lawrence said that Cave left the head in his house in the village, where it was hung up in a loft and began to fall apart; Lawrence recalled wearing it to frighten people during a parade around 1900, at which time the hair was falling out. He said that the house was later pulled down, with the head probably still inside it, in order for

9864-615: The community as knowledgeable in their traditional lore. They are not the anonymous "folk", the nameless mass without of history or individuality. The audience of this performance is the other half in the transmission process; they listen, watch, and remember. Few of them will become active tradition-bearers; many more will be passive tradition-bearers who maintain a memory of this specific traditional artifact, in both its presentation and its content. Marlborough, Wiltshire Marlborough ( / ˈ m ɔː l b ər ə / MAWL -bər-ə , / ˈ m ɑːr l -/ MARL - )

10001-457: The complexity of the interpretation, the birthday party for a seven-year-old will not be identical to the birthday party for that same child as a six-year-old, even though they follow the same model. For each artifact embodies a single variant of a performance in a given time and space. The task of the folklorist becomes to identify within this surfeit of variables the constants and the expressed meaning that shimmer through all variations: honoring of

10138-472: The continent is a single example of an ethnic group parading their separateness (differential behavior ), and encouraging Americans of all stripes to show alliance to this colorful ethnic group. These festivals and parades, with a target audience of people who do not belong to the social group, intersect with the interests and mission of public folklorists , who are engaged in the documentation, preservation, and presentation of traditional forms of folklife. With

10275-593: The county level and the Kennet District Council. Marlborough was part of the Devizes constituency until 2024, when it was placed in the new East Wiltshire constituency ; it has been represented in the House of Commons since 2019 by Danny Kruger , a Conservative . Its representative has been a Conservative since 1924. Marlborough College , an independent boarding school, is on the west side of

10412-609: The custom, either as performer or audience, signifies acknowledgment of that social group. Some customary behavior is intended to be performed and understood only within the group itself, so the handkerchief code sometimes used in the gay community or the initiation rituals of the Freemasons. Other customs are designed specifically to represent a social group to outsiders, those who do not belong to this group. The St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York and in other communities across

10549-456: The defining features a challenge. While this classification is essential for the subject area of folkloristics, it remains just labeling and adds little to an understanding of the traditional development and meaning of the artifacts themselves. Necessary as they are, genre classifications are misleading in their oversimplification of the subject area. Folklore artifacts are never self-contained, they do not stand in isolation but are particulars in

10686-527: The developmental function of this childlore, the artifacts themselves have been in play for centuries. Below is listed just a small sampling of types and examples of childlore and games. A case has been made for considering folk history as a distinct sub-category of folklore, an idea that has received attention from such folklorists as Richard Dorson. This field of study is represented in The Folklore Historian , an annual journal sponsored by

10823-781: The discovery in St Margaret's Mead of the Marlborough Bucket, an Iron Age burial bucket made of fir wood with three iron hoops, a top bar and two handles; it also sports bronze bands decorated with human heads and mythical animals, and is now on display at the Wiltshire Museum in Devizes . Roman remains and the large Mildenhall Hoard of coins have been found two miles to the east of Marlborough, at Mildenhall (Cunetio). A later Saxon settlement grew up around The Green and two early river crossings were made at Isbury Lane and Stonebridge Lane. In 1067 William

10960-659: The east of the town, and are members of the Wiltshire League . There is a youth football club, Marlborough Youth FC, with over 350 players that play in the North Wiltshire Youth Football League. There is a cricket team whose 1st X1 compete in the WEPL Wiltshire Premier Division. Marlborough Hockey Club play at Marlborough College. A parkrun takes place on Marlborough Common every Saturday. The town

11097-410: The established church tends to be so large and complex that it is usually treated as a specialized area of folk customs; it requires considerable expertise in standard church ritual in order to adequately interpret folk customs and beliefs that originated in official church practice. Customary folklore is always a performance, be it a single gesture or a complex of scripted customs, and participating in

11234-434: The extensive array of other legislation designed to protect the natural and cultural heritage of the United States, this law also marks a shift in national awareness. It gives voice to a growing understanding that cultural diversity is a national strength and a resource worthy of protection. Paradoxically, it is a unifying feature, not something that separates the citizens of a country. "We no longer view cultural difference as

11371-496: The first classification system for folktales in 1910. This was later expanded into the Aarne–Thompson classification system by Stith Thompson and remains the standard classification system for European folktales and other types of oral literature. As the number of classified oral artifacts grew, similarities were noted in items that had been collected from very different geographic regions, ethnic groups, and epochs, giving rise to

11508-411: The generations and subject to the same forces of conservative tradition and individual variation" that are found in all folk artifacts. Folklorists are interested in the physical form, the method of manufacture or construction, the pattern of use, as well as the procurement of the raw materials. The meaning to those who both make and use these objects is important. Of primary significance in these studies

11645-399: The head with a folk custom known as "Skimity Riding" or "Rough Music". In this custom, someone accused of "husband-beating, scolding, sexual unfaithfulness or irregularity, and cuckoldry" was made to ride on a donkey or horse, facing the direction of the animal's tail, while the assembled crowd made much noise by beating frying pans, kettles, bulls' horns, and bones. In Melbury Osmond, the Ooser

11782-489: The head, he was informed that it had been "disposed of", with some suggestion that it had found its way to the United States. In 1935, a folklore collector named S. A. Ramsden undertook enquiries into the fate of the head at the prompting of the Egyptologist and folklorist Margaret Murray . His enquiries led him to meet with Cave's coachman, Lawrence, who – after Cave left Crewkerne – had subsequently served as

11919-666: The high street was widened and is often claimed to be the widest in England though the actual widest is in Stockton-on-Tees . This wide street allows ample space for the local market. Fire swept through the town again in 1679 and 1690. This time, an Act of Parliament was passed "to prohibit the covering of houses and other buildings with thatch in the Town of Marlborough". In 1804 the Marlborough White Horse

12056-534: The imagery of the Devil, and thus of the Ooser, was originally drawn from the pre-Christian gods of "phallic or fertility worship". In 1975 the local Morris dancer John Byfleet made a replica of the original Ooser, which he carved from a log using a penknife. This replica is on display at the Dorset Museum in Dorchester. It is taken from the museum twice a year, on May Day and St. George's Day , when it

12193-404: The individual within the circle of family and friends, gifting to express their value and worth to the group, and of course, the festival food and drink as signifiers of the event. The formal definition of verbal lore is words, both written and oral, that are "spoken, sung, voiced forms of traditional utterance that show repetitive patterns." Crucial here are the repetitive patterns. Verbal lore

12330-537: The inhabitants a chance to prepare defences and to recruit troops. They mustered about seven hundred poorly armed men. At this point, the town issued a reply to Digby: "The King's Majesty, providing he were attended in Royal and not in war like wise, should be as welcome to that town as ever was Prince to People; but as to delivering up the good Town of Marlborough to such a traitor as Lord Digby ... they would sooner die". After some early skirmishes, Royalist troops infiltrated

12467-417: The items were used, with actors reenacting the everyday lives of people from all segments of society, relying heavily on the material artifacts of a pre-industrial society. Many locations even duplicate the processing of the objects, thus creating new objects of an earlier historic time period. Living museums are now found throughout the world as part of a thriving heritage industry . This list represents just

12604-431: The job of folklorists..." Folklore became a verb, an action, something that people do, not just something that they have. It is in the performance and the active context that folklore artifacts get transmitted in informal, direct communication, either verbally or in demonstration. Performance includes all the different modes and manners in which this transmission occurs. Transmission is a communicative process requiring

12741-408: The language of a folklore performance. Material culture requires some moulding to turn it into a performance. Should we consider the performance of the creation of the artifact, as in a quilting party, or the performance of the recipients who use the quilt to cover their marriage bed? Here the language of context works better to describe the quilting of patterns copied from the grandmother, quilting as

12878-463: The local community's moral system. Conversely, the folklorist Margaret Murray suggested that it represented a pre-Christian god of fertility whose worship survived in Dorset into the modern period, although more recent scholarship has been highly sceptical of this interpretation. The etymology of Ooser is also disputed, with various possibilities available. In 1975 a replica of the original Ooser

13015-410: The lower. The mask also contained locks of hair on either side of its head, a beard on its chin, and a pair of bullock's horns. Between the Ooser's eyes was a rounded boss, the meaning of which is unknown. The Ooser was hollow, allowing someone to place their own head within it, potentially permitting it to be worn as a mask whilst being supported on the shoulders; however, there were no holes allowing for

13152-478: The most part self-explanatory, these categories include physical objects ( material folklore ), common sayings, expressions, stories and songs ( verbal folklore ), and beliefs and ways of doing things ( customary folklore ). There is also a fourth major subgenre defined for children's folklore and games ( childlore ), as the collection and interpretation of this fertile topic is particular to school yards and neighborhood streets. Each of these genres and their subtypes

13289-405: The name of the town as Maerlebi or Maerleber. He also established the neighbouring Savernake Forest as a favourite royal hunting ground and Marlborough castle became a Royal residence. Henry I observed Easter here in 1110. Henry II stayed at Marlborough castle in talks with the King of Scotland . His son, Richard I ("Coeur de Lion") gave the castle to his brother John , in 1186. King John

13426-411: The necessary beat to complex physical rhythms and movements, be it hand-clapping, jump roping, or ball bouncing. Furthermore, many physical games are used to develop strength, coordination and endurance of the players. For some team games, negotiations about the rules can run on longer than the game itself as social skills are rehearsed. Even as we are just now uncovering the neuroscience that undergirds

13563-460: The next meal. Most of these folklore artifacts are single objects that have been created by hand for a specific purpose; however, folk artifacts can also be mass-produced, such as dreidels or Christmas decorations. These items continue to be considered folklore because of their long (pre-industrial) history and their customary use. All of these material objects "existed prior to and continue alongside mechanized industry. … [They are] transmitted across

13700-435: The next. Folklore is not something one can typically gain from a formal school curriculum or study in the fine arts . Instead, these traditions are passed along informally from one individual to another, either through verbal instruction or demonstration. The academic study of folklore is called folklore studies or folkloristics, and it can be explored at the undergraduate, graduate, and Ph.D. levels. The word folklore ,

13837-447: The obstinacy and malice of the inhabitants, in the situation of it very unfit for a garrison... this place the King saw would prove quickly an ill neighbour to him, not only as it was in the heart of a rich County, and so would straighten him, and even infest his quarters." The King sent Lord Digby who left Oxford to take the town at the head of four hundred horse on 24 November 1642. When he arrived, he chose to parley first, thus giving

13974-441: The original Anglo-Saxon place name as Merleberge , with a derivation from either the personal name of Mærle combined with beorg (hill), or meargealla beorg : hill where gentian grows. On John Speed 's map of Wiltshire (1611), the town's name is recorded as Marlinges boroe . The town's motto is Ubi nunc sapientis ossa Merlini ("Where now are the bones of wise Merlin"). Further evidence of human occupation comes from

14111-547: The past that continued to exist within the lower strata of society. The " Kinder- und Hausmärchen " of the Brothers Grimm (first published 1812) is the best known but by no means only collection of verbal folklore of the European peasantry of that time. This interest in stories, sayings, and songs continued throughout the 19th century and aligned the fledgling discipline of folkloristics with literature and mythology. By

14248-531: The performance and this is where transmission of these cultural elements takes place. American folklorist Roger D. Abrahams has described it thus: "Folklore is folklore only when performed. As organized entities of performance, items of folklore have a sense of control inherent in them, a power that can be capitalized upon and enhanced through effective performance." Without transmission, these items are not folklore, they are just individual quirky tales and objects. This understanding in folkloristics only occurred in

14385-559: The period of romantic nationalism in Europe. A particular figure in this development was Johann Gottfried von Herder , whose writings in the 1770s presented oral traditions as organic processes grounded in the locale. After the German states were invaded by Napoleonic France , Herder's approach was adopted by many of his fellow Germans, who systematized the recorded folk traditions and used them in their process of nation building . This process

14522-479: The possession of Thomas Cave of Holt Farm in Melbury Osmond ; the editor noted that it had been owned by Cave's family from "time out of mind". Cave had stated that it had formerly been kept in an "old malt-house" in the village, "where it was an object of terror to children who ventured to intrude upon the premises". Mayo noted that it was "possibly the only example now in existence, or at any rate from one of

14659-408: The rural poor as folk. The common feature in this expanded definition of folk was their identification as the underclass of society. Moving forward into the 20th century, in tandem with new thinking in the social sciences , folklorists also revised and expanded their concept of the folk group. By the 1960s, it was understood that social groups , i.e., folk groups, were all around us; each individual

14796-420: The same function of learning and practicing skills needed for growth. So bouncing and swinging rhythms and rhymes encourage development of balance and coordination in infants and children. Verbal rhymes like Peter Piper picked... serve to increase both the oral and aural acuity of children. Songs and chants, accessing a different part of the brain, are used to memorize series ( Alphabet song ). They also provide

14933-410: The second half of the 20th century, when the two terms " folklore performance " and "text and context" dominated discussions among folklorists. These terms are not contradictory or even mutually exclusive. As borrowings from other fields of study, one or the other linguistic formulation is more appropriate to any given discussion. Performance is frequently tied to verbal and customary lore, whereas context

15070-521: The self-representation of a community. Different genres are frequently combined with each other to mark an event. So a birthday celebration might include a song or formulaic way of greeting the birthday child (verbal), presentation of a cake and wrapped presents (material), as well as customs to honor the individual, such as sitting at the head of the table and blowing out the candles with a wish. There might also be special games played at birthday parties, which are not generally played at other times. Adding to

15207-444: The sophisticated world of adults, and quite as little affected by it. Of particular interest to folklorists here is the mode of transmission of these artifacts; this lore circulates exclusively within an informal pre-literate children's network or folk group. It does not include artifacts taught to children by adults. However children can take the taught and teach it further to other children, turning it into childlore. Or they can take

15344-403: The speaker has just thought up within the current context. Another example is the child's song Old MacDonald Had a Farm , where each performance is distinctive in the animals named, their order, and their sounds. Songs such as this are used to express cultural values (farms are important, farmers are old and weather-beaten) and teach children about different domesticated animals. Verbal folklore

15481-412: The study of a group: you can start with an identified group in order to explore its folklore, or you can identify folklore items and use them to identify the social group. Beginning in the 1960s, a further expansion of the concept of folk began to unfold through the study of folklore. Individual researchers identified folk groups that had previously been overlooked and ignored. One notable example of this

15618-405: The study of folklore is "concerned with the study of traditional culture, or the unofficial culture" that is the folk culture, "as opposed to the elite culture, not for the sake of proving a thesis but to learn about the mass of [humanity] overlooked by the conventional disciplines." Individual folklore artifacts are commonly classified as one of three types: material, verbal or customary lore. For

15755-470: The study of folklore. With the increasing theoretical sophistication of the social sciences , it has become evident that folklore is a naturally occurring and necessary component of any social group; it is indeed all around us. Folklore does not have to be old or antiquated; it continues to be created and transmitted, and in any group, it is used to differentiate between "us" and "them." Folklore began to distinguish itself as an autonomous discipline during

15892-420: The topic, there are "four functions to folklore": The folk of the 19th century, the social group identified in the original term "folklore" , was characterized by being rural, illiterate, and poor. They were the peasants living in the countryside, in contrast to the urban populace of the cities. Only toward the end of the century did the urban proletariat (on the coattails of Marxist theory) become included with

16029-478: The totality of their customs and beliefs as folklore. This distinction aligned American folkloristics with cultural anthropology and ethnology , using the same techniques of data collection in their field research. This divided alliance of folkloristics between the humanities in Europe and the social sciences in America offers a wealth of theoretical vantage points and research tools to the field of folkloristics as

16166-472: The town down its small alleyways. The town was captured and looted and many buildings were set ablaze. One hundred and twenty prisoners were marched in chains to Oxford. The town was later abandoned by the King and took no further part in the war. On 28 April 1653 the Great Fire of Marlborough started in a tanner's yard and spread quickly, eventually after four hours burning the Guildhall, St Mary's Church ,

16303-482: The town. The town's local authority secondary school, St John's Academy had been considered an above average school and sixth form college by Ofsted , and in the June 2014 report it was considered outstanding. It was formed when the former Marlborough Grammar School and secondary modern school were amalgamated. There is also a primary school, St Mary's. Marlborough is home to Marlborough Rugby Club , who completed their most successful season in recent history in

16440-464: The turn of the 20th century, the number and sophistication of folklore studies and folklorists had grown both in Europe and North America. Whereas European folklorists remained focused on the oral folklore of the homogenous peasant populations in their regions, the American folklorists, led by Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict , chose to consider Native American cultures in their research, and included

16577-432: The use of symbolic language, and employing the subjunctive mood . In viewing the performance, the audience leaves the daily reality to move into a mode of make-believe, or "what if?" It is self-evident that this fits well with all types of verbal lore, where reality has no place among the symbols, fantasies, and nonsense of traditional tales, proverbs, and jokes. Customs and the lore of children and games also fit easily into

16714-688: The utility of the object. Before the Second World War , folk artifacts had been understood and collected as cultural shards of an earlier time. They were considered individual vestigial artifacts, with little or no function in the contemporary culture. Given this understanding, the goal of the folklorist was to capture and document them before they disappeared. They were collected with no supporting data, bound in books, archived and classified more or less successfully. The Historic–Geographic Method worked to isolate and track these collected artifacts, mostly verbal lore, across space and time. Following

16851-551: The very few which may still survive in the County", adding that Cave was "willing to dispose of this mask to a lover of objects of antiquarian interest". At some point before 1897, another member of the family, the doctor Edward Cave, left Holt Farm and moved to Crewkerne in Somerset , taking the Ooser with him. In 1897, he relocated to Bath , leaving the Ooser with his family coachman; when Edward Cave subsequently tried to recover

16988-470: The villagers' claims that the Ooser was brought to the door of a tallet in order to scare the local children, and that it was also used to scare adults on some occasions. Knight came across the claim that it was once used to frighten a stable hand, who jumped through a window to escape it, and in doing so "so injured himself that his life was despaired of". Dewar further drew comparisons with the horned masks sometimes worn during Mummers' plays. He noted that in

17125-421: The wearer to see while wearing it in this way. The historian Ronald Hutton described the Ooser as "a terrifying horned mask with human face, staring eyes, beard, and gnashing teeth". Similarly, the folklorist H. S. L. Dewar stated that "the expression of the eyes [conveyed] a really agonized spirit of hatred, terror, and despair". The term "Ooser" was pronounced with a short, quick s by villagers as Osser . It

17262-466: Was "likely enough an off-shoot from the 14th century and later Mummers' plays". The antiquary Frederick Thomas Elworthy expressed the view that the Dorset Ooser was "the probable head" of a hobby horse . The folklorist E. C. Cawte, in his in-depth study of the hobby horse tradition in English folk culture, stated that although both entailed dressing up in an animalistic costume, the Ooser had no clear connection with this tradition. Elworthy suggested that

17399-453: Was as part of a local variant of the charivari custom known as " skimity riding " or "rough music", in which it was used to humiliate those who were deemed to have behaved in an immoral manner. The Dorset Ooser was first brought to public attention in 1891, at which time it was under the ownership of the Cave family of Melbury Osmond's Holt Farm. After travelling with Edward Cave to Somerset ,

17536-489: Was brought out into the crowd at such an occasion. Similar forms of "mob-punishment" were recorded in parts of neighbouring Devon , where the act was termed "Skimmety Riding", "Skimmington", and "Skivetton". As he deemed it too heavy to be carried or worn by an individual, the historian of folklore Peter Robson later suggested that the Ooser might originally have been mounted in a carnival procession. "In my childhood [the Ooser]

17673-492: Was cut on a downland slope southwest of the town, by boys from Mr Greasley's Academy in the High Street. In 1901 and 1934 the boundaries of the borough were extended to include the hamlet of Preshute (which was separated from Preshute civil parish) and the village of Manton , both to the west of the town. Marlborough Town Hall was completed in 1902. In 2004 Marlborough celebrated 800 years of its Town Charter. Among

17810-467: Was doing service – at Christmas mummings, surely it was. Our Cerne Abbas nurse was quite up in all relating to the "Wurser", as I should spell it phonetically. I did not know of the horns, indeed in our embryo Latinity we thought the word an attempt at Ursa, if I remember rightly. What crowds of odd bits I could note if, alas, I did but "remember rightly" all nurse's folk-lore and folk-speeches." — H. J. Moule, Dorchester, 1892. Dewar also recorded

17947-453: Was echoed in the Reader's Digest encyclopaedia of British folklore, Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain , where it was described as "the idol of a former god of fertility". A gold embossed image of the Ooser was included on the front of the black clothbound encyclopaedia. Although not believing that the Ooser was a specific depiction of a surviving pre-Christian deity, Dewar suggested that

18084-437: Was enthusiastically embraced by smaller nations, like Finland, Estonia, and Hungary, which were seeking political independence from their dominant neighbors. Folklore, as a field of study, further developed among 19th-century European scholars, who were contrasting tradition with the newly developing modernity . Its focus was the oral folklore of the rural peasant populations, which were considered as residues and survivals of

18221-688: Was married here and spent time in Marlborough, where he established a Treasury . In 1204 King John granted Charter to the Borough which permitted an annual eight-day fair, commencing on 14 August, the vigil of the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady (15 August), in which "all might enjoy the liberties and quittances customary in the fair at Winchester ". He also established that weekly markets may be held on Wednesdays and Saturdays. These continue to this day. Henry III held Parliament here, in 1267, when

18358-611: Was ordained priest in (the now redundant) St Peter's church. He later rose to become a cardinal and Lord Chancellor . In 1642 Marlborough's peace was shattered by the English Civil War . The Seymours held the Castle for the King but the town was for Parliament . With his headquarters in nearby Oxford , King Charles had to deal with Marlborough. "A Town the most notoriously disaffected of all that Country, otherwise, saving

18495-529: Was produced by John Byfleet, which has since been on display at the Dorset Museum in Dorchester . This mask retains a place in Dorset folk culture, being removed from the museum for use in local Morris dancing processions held by the Wessex Morris Men on both St. George's Day and May Day . The design of the Ooser has also inspired the production of copies which have been used as representations of

18632-476: Was substantially restored in 1854 by T.H. Wyatt . It is Grade II* listed. The Church of St Peter and St Paul at the west end of the High Street is Grade II* listed. It dates from the 15th century and was partly rebuilt by T.H. Wyatt in 1862–3. Cardinal Wolsey was ordained priest here in 1498. On the north side of the high street is the Merchant's House, which is currently under restoration but part of which

18769-513: Was the original folklore , the artifacts defined by William Thoms as older, oral cultural traditions of the rural populace. In his 1846 published call for help in documenting antiquities, Thoms was echoing scholars from across the European continent to collect artifacts of verbal lore. By the beginning of the 20th century, these collections had grown to include artifacts from around the world and across several centuries. A system to organize and categorize them became necessary. Antti Aarne published

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