rded with aversion, such as Judas Iscariot, Luther (in Catholic
Tyrol), and, apparently, Guy Fawkes in England. At Ludlow in Shropshire,
it is interesting to note, if any well-known local man had aroused the
enmity of the populace his effigy was substituted for, or added to, that
of Guy Fawkes. Bonfire Day at Ludlow is marked by a torchlight procession
and a huge conflagration.{49} At Hampstead the Guy Fawkes fire and
procession are still in great force. The thing has become a regular
carnival, and on a foggy November night the procession along the steep
curving Heath Street, with the glare of the torches lighting up the faces
of dense crowds, is a strangely picturesque spectacle.[90]

ANIMAL MASKS.

On All Souls' Day in Cheshire there began to be carried about a curious
construction called "Old Hob," a horse's head enveloped in a sheet; it
was taken from door to door, and accompanied by the singing of begging
rhymes.{50} Old Hob, who continued to appear until Christmas, is an
English parallel to the German _Schimmel_ or white horse. We have here to
do with one of those strange animal forms which are apparently relics of
sacrificial customs. They come on various days in the winter festival
season, and also at other times, and may as well be considered at this
point. In some cases they are definitely imitations of animals, and may
have replaced real sacrificial beasts taken about in procession, in
others they are simply men wearing the head, horn, hide, or tail of a
beast, like the worshippers at many |200| a heathen sacrifice to-day.
(Of the _rationale_ of masking something has already been said in Chapter
VI.)

The mingling of Roman and non-Roman customs makes it very hard to
separate the different elements in the winter festivals. In regard
particularly to animal masks it is difficult to pronounce in favour of
one racial origin rather than another; we may, however, infer with some
probability that when a custom is attached not to Christmas or the
January Kalends but to one of the November or early December feasts, it
is not of Roman origin. For, as the centuries have passed, Christmas and
the Kalends--the Roman festivals ecclesiastical and secular--have
increasingly tended to supplant the old northern festal times, and a
transference of, for instance, a Teutonic custom from Martinmas to
Christmas or January 1, is far more conceivable than the attraction of a
Roman practice to one of the earlier and waning festival