Paging Gwilym: I completely understand the point you are making. This is an interesting challenge, and I'll attempt to prove the antiquity of the Obby Oss. Frankly, I doubt that I will succeed for all the reasons stated previously. For myself, I'm confident that it's a Pre-Christian celebration, because it's clearly a fertility rite with sexual connotations, something severely suppressed by Puritanical Christians, who decried even the Helston Furry Dance as, "A sort of barbarous carnival..even the "genteel" residents allow themselves to be infected with the general madness." For myself, I state, Long Live Such Barbarous Carnivals!!!

Oss oss wee oss!!