An ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present - Doreen Valiente 2018

Dorset Ooser

This is the name given to a very curious horned mask, with a still more curious history attached to it. It is certainly connected with the Old Religion, and that from a long way back.

The particular mask known by this name to students of folklore was first written about in Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries, in 1891. Fortunately, it was not only described but photographed; because, like the head of Atho, it has since disappeared in mysterious circumstances. Margaret Murray reproduced this photograph in her famous book The God of the Witches, as an example of the long-surviving customs connected with the worship of the Horned God.

The mask was hollow, and made of painted wood. It was trimmed with hair, and bearded, and also provided with a fine pair of bull’s horns. Its peculiarly vivid expression, lively and fear-inspiring, made it a splendid example of folk-art in itself, apart from its strange and secret associations.

The lower jaw was movable, and worked by pulling a string; and a very remarkable feature of this mask was that in the centre of the forehead it bore a rounded boss, exactly in the place which the Eastern yogis and lamas call ’the Third Eye’, regarding it as the seat of psychic powers.

At the time when it first came to be noticed by writers on folk-lore, the Dorset Ooser was in the possession of the Cave family, of Holt Farm, Melbury Osmond, in Dorset. They knew that its traditional name among local people was the Ooser; but do not seem to have been too sure of its real significance, except that it was associated with village revels.

Further research has shown that it was formerly worn at the Christmas festivities, by a man dressed in animal skins. He was known in Dorset as ’the Christmas Bull’, the ’Ooser’, or ’Wooser’; and a similar figure used to accompany the Christmas Wassailers at Kingscote, in Gloucestershire.

This is interesting; because a very old book of Church ordinances, called the Liber Poenitentialis of Theodore, who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 668 to 690 A.D. sternly castigated those heathenish people who kept up this very custom; “Whoever at the Kalends of January goes about as a stag or a bull; that is, making himself into a wild animal and dressing in the skin of a herd animal, and putting on the heads of beasts; those who in such wise transform themselves into the appearance of a wild animal, penance for three years because this is devilish.” (“The Kalends of January” is the beginning of the month, which was within the old Twelve Days of Christmas during which the festivities were kept up.)

In Dorset Up-Along and Down-Along, a collection of Dorset folklore collected by members of the Women’s Institutes and published in 1951, it was stated that the appearance of the Wooser was a recognised Christmas custom “up to forty years ago”; that is, to about the turn of the century at least. So the particular mask belonging to the Cave family must have been only one of a number. Evidently the people of Dorset down the centuries cared little for the Archbishop’s wrath or penances, but retained their pagan customs just the same. Perhaps they cared more about keeping the luck of the Old Gods than they did for the threats of the Archbishop and his successors.

As late as 1911, a Dorsetshire newspaper carried a report of a man being charged with frightening some girls by chasing them when he was “dressed in a bullock’s skin and wearing an ooser”.

This word ’ooser’ as the dialect term for a horned mask, has intrigued philologists. It is pronounced ooss-er, with a short ’s’ sound; not ooze-er, as it might appear to those not of Dorset. This may derive from a medieval Latin word osor, as a synonym for the Devil, as F. T. Elworthy suggested in his book Horns of Honour (John Murray, London, 1900). However, the writer would like to advance another suggestion: namely, that ’Ooser’ comes from the Old English Os, meaning a god. This word survives in such names as ’Oswald’, meaning ’God-power’; ’Osmund’, meaning ’God-protection’, and so on. It is notable that the village where the Caves lived is called Melbury Osmond.

The circumstances in which the Dorset Ooser disappeared are as follows. Its owner, Dr. Edward Cave, left Holt Farm for Crewkerne, in Somerset, and took the mask with the rest of his goods. In 1897 he moved his residence again, from Crewkerne to Bath. This time, the mask was left behind at Crewkerne, stored with some other property in a loft, in the care of the family coachman. When Dr. Cave enquired for the Ooser, it could not be found. A groom admitted that he was responsible for letting it go. He said that a man from “up Chinnock way”, had called one day and asked to buy it; and the groom, thinking it of no particular value, had sold it to him.

When one recollects that this horned mask had been in the possession of the Cave family for ’time out of mind’, the groom’s story sounds rather thin; though of course possible. At any rate, all enquiries for the mysterious stranger from “up Chinnock way” proved fruitless. Neither he nor the mask was ever seen again.

Perhaps someone didn’t like the Dorset Ooser being taken out of Dorset? There may have been some idea that its removal was taking away luck or protection. It is possible also that a coven of witches saw a chance to obtain possession of something which would have been of great significance to them. To date, the mystery remains unsolved.