Láir Bhán
Láir Bhán is a folk custom found in parts of Ireland, particularly in the area of County Kerry.
The Irish term "Láir Bhán" translates as "White Mare".[1]
Most records of the tradition come from County Kerry.[2]
An example of a Láir Bhán is in the collection of the National Museum of Ireland.[2]
Although the origins of the hooded animal traditions in the British Isles are not known with any certainty, the lack of any late medieval references to such practices may suggest that they emerged from the documented elite fashion for hobby horses in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.[3] In this, the hooded animal traditions may be comparable to England's Morris dance tradition, which became a "nation-wide craze" in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries before evolving into "a set of sharply delineated regional traditions".[4]
References
Footnotes
- ^ Cawte 1978, p. 153.
- ^ a b Cawte 1978, p. 155.
- ^ Hutton 1996, pp. 93–94.
- ^ Hutton 1996, p. 94.
Bibliography
- Cawte, E. C. (1978). Ritual Animal Disguise: A Historical and Geographical Study of Animal Disguise in the British Isles. Cambridge and Totowa: D.S. Brewer Ltd. and Rowman and Littlefield for the Folklore Society. ISBN 978-0859910286.
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- Hutton, Ronald (1996). The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198205708.
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- Peate, Iorwerth C. (1963). "Mari Lwyd - Láir Bhán". Folk Life. 1 (1): 95–96. doi:10.1179/043087763798255123.
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