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Antler confusion

"The horns are six sets of reindeer antlers, three white and three black. In 1976 a small splinter was radiocarbon-dated to around 1065. Since there were no reindeer in England at that date the horns must have been imported from Scandinavia.[4]"

s?

"The horns currently in use were brought from Constantinople (Istanbul') by Lord Paget, who was British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, in the 18th century, but there may have been horns in use long before."

Okay. So are the horns/antlers from Scandinavia or Turkey? Are they from the 11th century or the 18th? Or are there two sets of antlers? Or something else?

'But there may have been horns in use long before.'

Not sure what that means. It's a horn dance dating back to at least 1686, so presumably in the 17th century they weren't using the antlers obtained in the 18th century... Keefaz ( talk) 18:29, 11 September 2023 (UTC) reply

The claim about the eighteenth century origin of the horns is apparently sourced to a newspaper article from the 1930s; the scientific analysis of the horns seems to have been published in 1980, and any sources predating that have been superseded are of little relevance for establishing the origin of the horns. (And at any rate a newspaper article is not an ideal source for this sort of claim.) Hutton's book published by OUP makes no mention of this story, but does quote a souce from 1686 which clearly mentions the use of reindeer horns in the dance; if there was evidence that new horns had been acquired in the eighteenth century when the dance was revived he would surely have mentioned it. There seems to me to be every reason to be suspicious of the Constantinople theory and I am therefore going to remove it Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 21:38, 3 January 2024 (UTC) reply

Notes for reception/legacy

Without better secondary sourcing probably none of this is currently due for inclusion in the article, but in case more turns up:

Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 23:59, 14 February 2024 (UTC) reply

GA Review

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Abbots Bromley Horn Dance/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Caeciliusinhorto ( talk · contribs) 20:36, 1 June 2024 (UTC) reply

Reviewer: UndercoverClassicist ( talk · contribs) 12:53, 8 July 2024 (UTC) reply


What an interesting article and what a strange topic! Comments below. UndercoverClassicist T· C 12:53, 8 July 2024 (UTC) reply

Content

  • Six of the dancers carry reindeer horns; the remaining four are a hobby horse, Maid Marian, a fool, and a youth with a bow and arrow: presumably they portray or play the role of these characters -- unless the village has to go looking for a bona fide fool each year?
    • In my experience of English villages, a bona fide youth is probably more of a challenge to find than a bona fide fool! But point taken, and text adjusted.
  • On Wakes Monday, beginning early in the morning at the parish church where the horns are stored, the performers dance around the parish all day.: I think this would be marginally better if the commaed-off sentence were moved to the end (it's the dancing that begins at the church, not Wakes Monday).
    • Agreed and changed.
  • Any chance of a map to show where this place is? Not sure of your views on infoboxes, but Template:Infobox recurring event might be of value here?
    • Hmm, I will have a fiddle with the template and see if I can work something out. I generally try to avoid {{tl:Coord}} and maps because they are scary and technical!
  • a hobby horse performance: compound modifier, so a hobby-horse performance
    • Hyphenated both uses of "hobby-horse performance"
  • Though many sources claim that the dance was first performed at the St Bartholomew's Day fair in 1226 there is no evidence for this supposition: as the perambulatory clause is pretty long, I'd stick a comma after 1226 for readability, but personal taste.
    • Yes, probably this is a slight readability improvement, so I've adopted it
  • "Prehistoric" doesn't usually have a hyphen. I'd suggest being a little more specific here: Starr Carr is Mesolithic (c. 10,000 BP), while the "Sorcerer" is 3,000 years older: put mildly, that would be a truly remarkable survival if it were true.
    • Indeed my spellchecker complains about pre-historic; changed to the more usual "prehistoric". As for the connection, "truly remarkable if it were true" is a nice diplomatic way of describing my own opinion! The sources on Abbots Bromley are pretty vague on the dates of the Starr Carr frontlets and the Sorceror; the best I can do based on them is "mesolithic" and "paleolithic" respectively. I'll do some digging and add a note.
  • Similarly, we might do well to say that both Shakespeare and Munday are Elizabethan (that is, c. 1600).
    • Added "from the end of the sixteenth century"
  • We've got two Robin Hood characters in the article (Maid Marian and Friar Tuck), but no mention of him or the connection. Is there anything to talk about here?
    • No connection between Munday's Friar Tuck and Maid Marian: the addition of a crossdressing man is (according to Hutton, though without explanation) a 19th century addition; her identification as Maid Marian may be (as far as I know first suggested by Alford) a late-Victorian change. I have a vague feeling that someone has suggested that the Maid Marian identification might have been suggested by the presence of the boy with the bow and arrow being interpreted as a Robin Hood figure, though working out where that comes from will have to wait until I'm more awake.
  • In the early modern period: similarly, suggest putting rough dates on this.
  • in the north Midlands: North is usually capitalised here.
    • I think I previously capitalised this, and then uncapitalised it as not being a proper noun: unlike East Midlands which is an official region, "north" is being used descriptively here. I don't feel strongly about it though, so if you think it ought to be capitalised I'm not going to die on that hill.
  • the use of hobby-horses to raise money: this is a different matter from the compound modifier above: it's perfectly legitimate to say that hobby-horse always has a hyphen, but we should be consistent if so. Similarly on bow-and-arrow.
    • I've used the unhyphenated versions of both more often, so I've standardised on those but without particular conviction as to which form is correct.
  • The horn dance apparently stopped being performed around the time of the English Civil War,: at the risk of sounding repetitive -- dates?
  • on New Year and Twelfth Night: I don't think New Year really needs a date, but Twelfth Night probably does.
  • The jaw of the hobby horse, and the bow and arrow: not sure about the comma here. Perhaps clearer as "the dancers use the hobby horse's jaw and the bow-and-arrow as percussion instruments?
    • Yes, I think this is better.
  • these costumes were replaced in 1904 and again in 1951: are those ones still used today? They look in remarkably good nick in the photographs, if so.
    • I can't find a source explicitly mentioning any more recent replacement, though Buckland 2001 implies that at least some of the costumes have been. Reading between the lines, I think more recently individual costumes/pieces have been replaced as and when needed, whereas in 1904 and 1951 there were collective community efforts to replace all of them as a set.
  • They once had the coats of arms of important local families painted on them, but these are no longer visible: we can use the source to give slightly more detail -- that these arms were there in the C17th but gone by the 1980s. We could even name the families, if you want.
    • Added that they were there in the seventeenth century. Inclined not to say that they were gone by the 1980s, if only because they were probably gone long before that and there is no reason that date is significant other than than Buckland finally explicitly says they're no longer there: Sharp in 1911 mentions that the horns are painted but makes no mention of the arms, and I can see no trace of them in the early photographs (though admittedly the quality is not always what it might be!)
  • Paget wasn't the Turkish ambassador; he was the English ambassador to the Ottoman Empire (which I would name as such rather than the modern "Turkey", though English people in the C17th would call it the latter)
    • Changed.
  • In the Simons reference, space after c. and endash for page range.
    • Added the space after the c. The formatting of the pages was deliberate: it's not a range
  • Why does the Burne external link get a page number, when no other sources do? If keeping, should spell out: 382–385. Would also suggest using a citation template (with |ref=none to ensure consistency of formatting with other similar sources.
    • No idea; I wouldn't have put it there. Changed (and wrapped in {{ cite journal}}
  • video of Abbots Bromley Horn Dance on Central News, 12 September 1983. BFI.: capitalise Video. I would also spell out BFI.
    • Done both

Images

Sourcing

Spot checks to follow once the above is sorted. UndercoverClassicist T· C 12:53, 8 July 2024 (UTC) reply

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