Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing in on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters. In time, the winter holidays have arrived once more. It's a time for festive foods by the fire, a time for the giving of gifts, and of course, a time for parading through the streets with the head
of a dead horse. I speak of the hooden horse or hoden, a tradition from Kent in southeast England that dates back to at least the eighteen hundreds, but with likely roots to much older pre Christian traditions. I first read about this practice in the seven Enchanted World volume The Book of Christmas, which features a beautiful illus ration by visual artist Matt Mhor that depicts a ghostly humanoid
horse stamping and prancing down a misty street. The book describes the Christmas Eve tradition in which a man in a sheet or horse blanket brandishes a wooden horsehead or an actual horse skull and proceeds down the street. Children might cower inside their homes at the Hodan's approach, but the braver kids might run out and try to mount the horse. Adults would come out and watch, or perhaps throw suites or money before the creature or into its
mouth for good luck. Jeff and Frandol explore the tradition in depth in their excellent two thousand and nine book Folklore of Kent. They mentioned that the name Hooden might be a reference to the hooded or disguised aspect of the creature, but with possible connections to wooden horses, twelfth century Germanic chieftains, or even the Germanic god Woden. In this respect, many crime the clers have pointed out a likely connection to much older traditions of animal sacrifice involving
the horse. Many of the accounts the author's share in this book involved a wooden puppet head for the horse, articulated to snap it onlookers and gobble of their offerings, well except for the beer, of course, speaking of offerings of beer. The practice of the hooden horse is reminiscent of various wahsale traditions and even of Christmas caroling, though the procession seems to have involved no songs or set words, just as the hoden horse's origins are lost to the
fog of history. The practice might well have vanished into the fog of modernity if it were not for the work of Percy Maleem in the late nineteenth century. He investigated, photographed and chronicle of the surviving hooden horse traditions, and together with surviving hooden horse heads of wood, the work has helped to inform the practices twenty century revival. And so this Christmas Eve, listen for the sound of prancing hoofs in the street and the snapping of wooden jaws.
The Hoodeners might be coming with their strange horse, their grooms, their drivers, their wagon ears and jockeys, their musicians and Molly's all in attendance. Bring forth your suits, your coins, your beer, for the hooden Horse has come to you. Merry Christmas. Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster Fact each week. As always, you can email us at contact It's Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of I Heart Radio.
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