- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Whit-horn, primitive oboe.
- Long description
- The horn is made from a piece of spirally twisted willow bark into a cone. It is held in shape with thorn pins. [SM 13/03/2008]
- Geographical reference
- England Oxfordshire Ducklington near Witney
- Cultural groups
- English
- Date / Period
- Date made: Probably 1895
- Date collected
- 1895
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1895
- Materials and processes
- Material Willow Wood Plant, Material Bark Wood Plant, Material Plant Thorn, Process Split, Process Pegged, Process Twisted
- Dimensions
- Length 260 mm excluding reed, Length: max 285 mm, Diameter 70 mm bell
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1895.21.1 Other numbers: 130.G.9
- Research and responses
For the donor's own account of 'whit horns', see 'A Primitive Musical Instrument', by Henry Balfour, in The Reliquary and Illustrated Archaeologist, new series, Vol. II (October 1896), pp. 221-4 (copy in RDF for 1903.130.22). This may be one of two examples, obtained from Mr T. J. Carter, illustrated in figure 1 on page 222. [JC 23 6 2006]
For further information about tradition see http://www.icknieldwaymorrismen.org.uk/tradition_ducklington.html: The village of Ducklington supported an elaborate Whit-Monday ceremony known as the 'Peeling Horn Ceremony', in which the young men of the village made horns which were used as part of the Whit Hunt in Wychwood Forest. They joined residents from other villages (Hailey, Witney, Leafield and Crawley), who were allowed to hunt, kill and retain a stag during Whitsuntide. At 3 a.m. on Whit-Monday the young men of the village cut withies from which they removed the bark. This was rolled up into three funnel shaped horns by pinning the bark with thorns (e.g. blackthorn). A double reed of willow was fitted into the narrow end, which enabled the horn to make a loud hooting sound. The village was roused by this sound at 4 a.m. and all participated in erecting a pre-assembled maypole, which in total measured some 40-ft. The maypole was decorated with 'laycocks and golden chains'. Once assembled the Morris was danced around it; this was thought to be associated with worship of the vegetable world. [AP 29/06/2006]
Examined in July 2007 by Adam Drake-Brockman a dancer with the Ducklington Morris Men who noted that the outer bark of the willow tree is on the outside of the horn. One piece of bark has been used to make the horn and the patterning shows that this has been stripped from the tree by spiraling off a horizontal length (rather than a vertical strip). The reed is made from a hollowed out section of branch, which has been flattened at one end and probably creates a tooting noise similar in sound to a toy plastic party horn. [ZM 20/07/2007]
The maker of this Whit horn may have been John Fisher, of Ducklington. Thomas James Carter obtained this whit horn in 1895 from Ducklington. In the Manning archive at the Bodleian Library M.S.Top.Oxon d.192 page 192 A letter from Thomas James Carter to Percy Manning dated c. 1892 “As you will see in the Ducklington papers an account of the Peeling Horn I was told Old Mr Fisher that he could make me one or some of these Horns if I want them will you kindly say if you would like one as he is the only one left that make them.” Manning writes about the Whit Hunt in Percy Manning, 'Some Oxfordshire Seasonal Festivals: With Notes on Morris-Dancing in Oxfordshire', Folklore, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Dec., 1897), pp. 307-324 “This ceremony was discontinued some fifty years ago. My informants are John Fisher, aged 80, and John Bennet, aged 87, labourers of Ducklington. Fisher made me three “Peeling Horns” in March, 1895.” Fisher may have been commissioned to make more Whit Horns for Carter. [MJD (Verve) 27/05/2015]
- Associated publications
- Illustrated in black and white as Figure 1 on page 118 of '"Captain Kennedy's Mandolin", and Other English Musical Instruments at the University of Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum', by Alice Little, in Journal of Museum Ethnography, no. 23 (2010), pp. 117-28. Also discussed at length, along with the other whit-horns in the PRM, on pages 118-120. (Copy in RDF: Researchers: Little, Alice.) [JC 20 12 2012] Illustrated in black and white on page 43 of Willow, by Alison Syme (London: Reaktion Books, 2014). Caption (same page): 'Whit-horn from Witney, Oxfordshire, c. 1890s.' Syme writes (page 42): 'Willow is renowned as a musical tree. Wind and string instruments have been created from willow for at least a millennium, though they have not always produced sounds as euphonious as the wind whispering through the tree's leaves. A case in point is the English "whit-horn". Until the mid-nineteenth century, a number of villages in Oxfordshire celebrated the "Whit-Hunt" on Whit Monday (Whitsun or Pentecost is the seventh Sunday after Easter), when the inhabitants were allowed to kill and eat a stag. The hunt was announced by the blowing of whit-horns or "peeling-horns", funnel-shaped instruments made of a long,spiralling strip of willow bark pinned together with thorns and fitted with a willow bark reed at the narrow end. Similar bark horns played a part in Whitsun celebrations in France and Croatia, where they were blown at the head of processions, and in Swizerland. Henry Balfour, the first curator of Oxford University's Pitt Rivers Museum, collected several specimens of the English whit-horn and described them as less "instruments of music" than of "noise". [JC 17 8 2014]
Search terms: Music, Hunting, Musical Instrument, Hunting accessory, Double Reed