Folklore: The Dorset Ooser - what happened to it?

Subject: Folklore: The Dorset Ooser - what happened to it?
From: The Shambles
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 03:10 AM

The Dorset Ooser

Subject: RE: Folklore: The Dorset Ooser - what happened to it?
From: Blowzabella
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 05:30 AM

Fascinating link, Shambles - thanks. Unable to offer any suggestions, but a very interesting read.

Subject: RE: Folklore: The Dorset Ooser - what happened to it?
From: GUEST,Gadaffi
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 10:24 AM

I have no idea where the original might be, but the Wessex Morris Men have a copy. Dorchester Museum have a short monograph on the subject, but that brings us no nearer its current location - if any.

Subject: RE: Folklore: The Dorset Ooser - what happened to
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 11:25 AM

This comment on this Dorset Museum page seems to suggest that it is there, or at the very least, a facsimili of the Ooser is there:

>>The Dorset County Museum houses many rare and intriguing objects from the world's finest Thomas Hardy collection and in July 1997 opened new galleries about Hardy and the writers of Dorset. On display are paintings (R.G.Eves' 1923 Portrait of Hardy), personal belongings -- and original manuscripts of Hardy's great works. Here you can also step inside Thomas Hardy's study; come face to face to the eerie Ooser; follow the Dorset riddler trail; try computer interactives' hear poetry and meet Hardy's fellow writers: William Barnes the Dorset poet, the Powys brothers, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Jane Austen.<<

Click HERE for the full page

Subject: RE: Folklore: The Dorset Ooser - what happened to
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 11:34 AM

Aha!.. It IS a replica that is on display at the above mentioned musem. For a photo of it:

CLICK HERE

Subject: RE: Folklore: The Dorset Ooser - what happened to it?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 12:06 PM

Many people have tried to find out and many people have failed, myself included. I have somewhere in the house a pamphlet on this very subject which is of the opinion that it was destroyed sometime in the 1920s or 1930s (I can't remember), by accident, because it wasn't known what it was.

Personally, I think it was destroyed because it WAS known what it was!

Some think that every Dorset village had an Ooser, and some have linked the Ooser with the Christmas Bull - a person dressed as a horned creature who would visit at Christmas/New Year demanding food and drink from all it met (much like mummers used to, but without the moralist play); some think he was the effigy of a pagan priest officiating at fertility rituals. Its most common 'use' was that of frightening children and taunting unfaithful spouses and in skimmity ridding.

There was one at Melbury Osmond, but that was reputed to be the last and that is the one that I'm sure was destroyed in the early part of the 20th Century.

I'll have a hunt round for the pamphlet and get back to you.

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: The Dorset Ooser - what happened to
From: Dave'sWife
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 12:11 PM

A helpful little bit on info for folks not sure what the heck an Ooser or Wooser is:

WOODWOSE (definition from THE ENCYLOPEDIA OF THE CELTS)

The Wild Man of the Wood, sometimes also called Wooser or Ooser. In medieval times they were thought to inhabit the wild woods which then covered the land. They make frequent appearances in many forms of artwork from medieval times onwards, and were often used in masques to portray rustic or primitive folk. They were naked, clothed only in their hair. See: GREEN KNIGHT, and WILD HERDSMAN, and JACK IN THE GREEN. # 100 - 454
The reference is on THIS page

Subject: RE: Folklore: The Dorset Ooser - what happened to it?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 12:41 PM

For the Dorset Ooser, the folklorist John Udal wrote about it - it's in the pamphlet I can't find.....

The Melbury Osmond Ooser had a hinged jaw and a pair of bullocks horns, with a 'third eye' clearly seen between the eyebrows. There is another example of this third eye in a carving on the church at Loders, Bridport. This is another horned face, with a very clear 'third eye' (from 'Sacred Dorset on the path of the Dragon', by Peter Knight).

I've obviously put this pamphlet in a very safe place because it's not in any of the three most likely places. I'll keep looking.

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: The Dorset Ooser - what happened to it?
From: Tradsinger
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 01:26 PM

I would be interested to know of any names associated with the Ooser tradition as some of my ancestors came from Melbury Osmond. Any info?

Gwilym

Subject: RE: Folklore: The Dorset Ooser - what happened to it?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 14 Apr 05 - 03:05 PM

Ok, so the Udal paragraph wasn't in the pamphlet which I have now found, intriguingly in a box marked 'mother'. It's probably still worth looking at his works, he was a pretty good folklorist.

The link (now that I've got it to open properly) basically expands on the pamphlet I have which I can now see is the original of the 'three pages of text' mentioned, which until now has been the most written upon the subject.

The pamphlet is by H S L Dewar FRAI and was published in 1962 with a second edition in 1968 (which is the copy I have).

I would suggest that the chain that Daniel Quinn doesn't know the purpose of, is the chain that worked the jaw. If the thing is as heavy as the descriptions would have us believe, then string would not have been sufficient to pull the jaw up.


Gwilym, the names are Cave (there was still a gentleman of that surname alive in Dorchester until at least 1998) and Swaffield - a name that was fairly common across Dorset, lots of them in Abbotsbury, a village also owned by the Earl of Ilchester, and Portesham in the 1880s. PM me some surnames and I'll look in my records to see if we're related!

LTS