Talk:Abbots Bromley Horn Dance/GA1

GA Review
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Nominator: 20:36, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: UndercoverClassicist (talk · contribs) 12:53, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

What an interesting article and what a strange topic! Comments below. UndercoverClassicist T·C 12:53, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Content

 * : presumably they portray or play the role of these characters -- unless the village has to go looking for a bona fide fool each year?
 * In my experience of English villages, a bona fide youth is probably more of a challenge to find than a bona fide fool! But point taken, and text adjusted.
 * : I think this would be marginally better if the commaed-off sentence were moved to the end (it's the dancing that begins at the church, not Wakes Monday).
 * Agreed and changed.
 * Any chance of a map to show where this place is? Not sure of your views on infoboxes, but Template:Infobox recurring event might be of value here?
 * Hmm, I will have a fiddle with the template and see if I can work something out. I generally try to avoid undefined and maps because they are scary and technical!
 * : compound modifier, so a hobby-horse performance
 * Hyphenated both uses of "hobby-horse performance"
 * : as the perambulatory clause is pretty long, I'd stick a comma after 1226 for readability, but personal taste.
 * Yes, probably this is a slight readability improvement, so I've adopted it
 * "Prehistoric" doesn't usually have a hyphen. I'd suggest being a little more specific here: Starr Carr is Mesolithic (c. 10,000 BP), while the "Sorcerer" is 3,000 years older: put mildly, that would be a truly remarkable survival if it were true.
 * Indeed my spellchecker complains about pre-historic; changed to the more usual "prehistoric". As for the connection, "truly remarkable if it were true" is a nice diplomatic way of describing my own opinion! The sources on Abbots Bromley are pretty vague on the dates of the Starr Carr frontlets and the Sorceror; the best I can do based on them is "mesolithic" and "paleolithic" respectively. I'll do some digging and add a note.
 * For the frontlets (giving a date of the 11th millennium BP), see here, p. 37; on the Sorcerer, here, p. 213 (giving 13,000 BCE). UndercoverClassicist T·C 06:48, 11 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Similarly, we might do well to say that both Shakespeare and Munday are Elizabethan (that is, c. 1600).
 * Added "from the end of the sixteenth century"
 * We've got two Robin Hood characters in the article (Maid Marian and Friar Tuck), but no mention of him or the connection. Is there anything to talk about here?
 * No connection between Munday's Friar Tuck and Maid Marian: the addition of a crossdressing man is (according to Hutton, though without explanation) a 19th century addition; her identification as Maid Marian may be (as far as I know first suggested by Alford) a late-Victorian change. I have a vague feeling that someone has suggested that the Maid Marian identification might have been suggested by the presence of the boy with the bow and arrow being interpreted as a Robin Hood figure, though working out where that comes from will have to wait until I'm more awake.
 * : similarly, suggest putting rough dates on this.
 * : North is usually capitalised here.
 * I think I previously capitalised this, and then uncapitalised it as not being a proper noun: unlike East Midlands which is an official region, "north" is being used descriptively here. I don't feel strongly about it though, so if you think it ought to be capitalised I'm not going to die on that hill.
 * Can see the argument for either. UndercoverClassicist T·C 06:48, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * : this is a different matter from the compound modifier above: it's perfectly legitimate to say that hobby-horse always has a hyphen, but we should be consistent if so. Similarly on bow-and-arrow.
 * I've used the unhyphenated versions of both more often, so I've standardised on those but without particular conviction as to which form is correct.
 * : at the risk of sounding repetitive -- dates?
 * : I don't think New Year really needs a date, but Twelfth Night probably does.
 * : not sure about the comma here. Perhaps clearer as "the dancers use the hobby horse's jaw and the bow-and-arrow as percussion instruments?
 * Yes, I think this is better.
 * : are those ones still used today? They look in remarkably good nick in the photographs, if so.
 * I can't find a source explicitly mentioning any more recent replacement, though Buckland 2001 implies that at least some of the costumes have been. Reading between the lines, I think more recently individual costumes/pieces have been replaced as and when needed, whereas in 1904 and 1951 there were collective community efforts to replace all of them as a set.
 * That sounds reasonable. UndercoverClassicist T·C 06:48, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * : we can use the source to give slightly more detail -- that these arms were there in the C17th but gone by the 1980s. We could even name the families, if you want.
 * Added that they were there in the seventeenth century. Inclined not to say that they were gone by the 1980s, if only because they were probably gone long before that and there is no reason that date is significant other than than Buckland finally explicitly says they're no longer there: Sharp in 1911 mentions that the horns are painted but makes no mention of the arms, and I can see no trace of them in the early photographs (though admittedly the quality is not always what it might be!)
 * Also very reasonable. UndercoverClassicist T·C 06:48, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Paget wasn't the Turkish ambassador; he was the English ambassador to the Ottoman Empire (which I would name as such rather than the modern "Turkey", though English people in the C17th would call it the latter)
 * Changed.
 * In the Simons reference, space after c. and endash for page range.
 * Added the space after the c. The formatting of the pages was deliberate: it's not a range
 * Why does the Burne external link get a page number, when no other sources do? If keeping, should spell out: 382–385. Would also suggest using a citation template (with none to ensure consistency of formatting with other similar sources.
 * No idea; I wouldn't have put it there. Changed (and wrapped in cite journal
 * : capitalise Video. I would also spell out BFI.
 * Done both


 * Thanks for your comments – replied to most inline, but really must get some sleep so will pick up the others later! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:49, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Most welcome: I think I've replied to all those that need it. Looking forward to the next batch. UndercoverClassicist T·C 06:48, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Images

 * Alt text should be added for accessibility.
 * File:Horn Dance, Blithfield Reservoir - 2006-09-11.jpg: checks out.
 * File:Abbots Bromley original hobby horse.jpg: checks out.
 * File:Abbots Bromley Horn Dance c1900 Stone.jpg: as a formality, needs a US PD tag.
 * File:A selection of antlers for the famed 'Horn Dance' - geograph.org.uk - 5067370.jpg: checks out.
 * File:Abbots Bromley Horn Dance - 2006-09-11.jpg: checks out.

Sourcing
Spot checks to follow once the above is sorted. UndercoverClassicist T·C 12:53, 8 July 2024 (UTC)


 * I notice no page numbers for journal articles: of course, you can use whatever referencing system you like for GA, but it does make the references harder to follow up for, as far as I can see, no visible benefit.
 * I'd link authors where possible in the bibliography.


 * Note 1: checks out. Text is very close to the source, but I don't see that there's too many different ways of saying this.
 * Note 2: checks out (I've added the page number).
 * Note 3: checks out.
 * Note 5: checks out; not the greatest source (popular rather than scholarly), but perfectly fine for GA and I can believe it's the best available.
 * Note 6 and 7: check out when combined: I don't know whether Hutton's comment about the pagan-survival hypothesis being a (flawed) orthodoxy is worth including?
 * Note 11a: checks, again unavoidably quite close to the original phrasing.
 * Note 13: checks
 * Note 17: both check.
 * Note 29a: checks.

Happy here. A couple of things in the review that could do with a reply, though none are massively serious. We should be good to go once that's sorted. UndercoverClassicist T·C 16:11, 21 July 2024 (UTC)