The Hoodeners

@hoodening.org.uk

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Centuries of traditional folk drama with the Hooden Horse of East Kent; still never knowingly over-rehearsed.

The Red Horse is defunct, lying dead on the floor, surrounded by onlookers
A Mari Lwyd, some posters, and a hooden horse
Two Sandwich hooden horses looking over little Invicta
Packed performance at Time and Tide tap room
Hooden horses, folk beasts, and numerous animals (including humans bearing noise-makers) on the Sandwich Wassail Walk 2026
James Frost, wearing a cap and waistcoat decorated with many badges, standing in Maidstone Museum near the hooden horse 'Black Beauty', during the hoodening and animal guising exhibition.
A poster showing a monochrome sketch of a hooden horse, with the winter 2025/26 performances of The Whitstable Hoodeners: Herne/Herne Bay (Fri 5 Dec The Bouncing Barrel, Fri 19 Dec Good's Brewery), Whitstable (Mon 22 Dec The Fountain, The Old Neptune, Mon 29 Dec Whitstable Folk Club), and Faversham (Wed 7 Jan). Start times vary 19:00 to 20.30.
An AI winter scene with two couples dancing and clapping, while a large hooden horse looks on, balanced on a hedge.
A hooden horse's head, made of yew (painted black) with a snapping jaw (painted teeth), leather ears, small bells, limpet eyes with badger eyelashes, and two horse brasses on the nose.
QR code (with Dobbin at the centre), directing people to this year's fundraising site: https://www.justgiving.com/page/hoodening2025
An awful AI impression of a hooden horse, mari lwyd, Krampus and morris dancer / accordion player all rolled into one. The horse has an entire body (including four pivoting legs) made of wood, there's even a weird furry fifth leg in the middle, Krampus looks like a white-bearded but hornèd St Nick...
A crowd in the garden of the Bell Inn on a cold and frosty moonlit night, singing along with the howling song before the re-enactment group fire their muskets to scare off evil spirits from the apple trees.
A map of the River Stour between Sandwich Medieval Centre and the Channel, with a hooden horse face and the text "Rogue Hooden Horse alert! Margarita was last seen swimming down the Stour towards the Channel on the evening of 4 January 2025".
A succession of mast beasts and humans rambling through the East Kent countryside.
The 'Old Horse' (a black-headed mast horse wearing a blanket with coloured stripes) cavorting around the square while huntsmen sing, before he dies.
Plain text followed by a Mari Lwyd illustration. The text reads: Mari Lwyd, Horse of Frost, Star-horse, and White Horse of the Sea, is carried to us. The Dead return. Those Exiles carry her, they who seem holy and have put on corruption, they who seem corrupt and have put on holiness. They strain against the door. They strain towards the fire which fosters and warms the Living. The Living, who have cast them out, from their own fear, from their own fear of themselves, into the outer loneliness of death, rejected them, and cast them out for ever: The Living cringe and warm themselves at the fire, shrinking from that loneliness, that singleness of heart. The Living are defended by the rich warmth of the flames which keeps that loneliness out. Terrified, they hear the Dead tapping at the panes; then they rise up, armed with the warmth of firelight, and the condition of scorn. It is New Year’s Night. Midnight is burning like a taper. In an hour, in less than an hour, it will be blown out. It is the moment of conscience. The living moment. The dead moment. Listen.
Seven players of the Boyden Gate Mummers performing their annual folk play outside the Boyden Gate Inn in Marshside/Chislet, East Kent on Boxing Day 2024: the Dragon, Jack Finney the Fool, Father Christmas, the Doctor, the Saracen Knight, Maid Marian and St George.
A picture of a young woman carrying a hot bowl - wassail or punch? It seems to be indoors, with mistletoe hanging from an (electric?) light. The young girl accompanying her looks to be carrying a shepherdess's crook adorned with greenery, and the young boy carries a long-handled spoon, and has a dog on a lead. The drawing is by G.H. Edwards - probably George Henry Edwards (1859-1918) - but is mis-credited to John Gilbert at https://b-womeninamericanhistory18.blogspot.com/2018/12/christmas-wassailing-as-social-protest.html
A photo of the hoodeners from 1979: wagoner, Moll, boy, musician, horse and farm worker
The Hoodeners with a rare appearance of *three* hooden horses (quite a few years back)
An image of so-called 'Diesel Clappers' from the Museum of Roadside Magic. (c) Libby Bove Arts. Chapeau, Libby - too convincing by half!
Poster with the Hoodeners' 2024 performances - also shown in hyperlinked text format at https://hoodening.org.uk/hoodening-schedule.html
A profile view of one of the six original hooden horses of East Kent (and one of only two still 'alive', i.e. performing each year). This one is variously known as "Satan" or "Black Beauty".