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Láir Bhán is a hobby horse that was part of a folk custom found in parts of Ireland, particularly in the area of County Kerry, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The Irish term "Láir Bhán" translates as "White Mare". This meaning is identical, and the pronunciation similar, to the Manx hobby horse custom known as the Laare Vane. It also has similarities to the Welsh Mari Lwyd, a hobby horse found in southern Wales, which has been translated as "Grey Mare".

Most records of the tradition come from County Kerry. There are various reported instances in which the Láir Bhán accompanied the Wren Boys during their Christmastime activities.

An example of a Láir Bhán is in the collection of the National Museum of Ireland.

Although the origins of the hooded animal traditions in the British Isles are not known with any certainty, the lack of any late medieval references to such practices may indicate that they emerged from the documented elite fashion for hobby horses in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In this, the hooded animal traditions may be comparable to England's Morris dance tradition, which became a "nation-wide craze" in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries before evolving into "a set of sharply delineated regional traditions".

References

Footnotes

1. Cawte 1978, p. 153.
2. Peate 1963, p. 95; Cawte 1978, p. 156.
3. Peate 1963, p. 95.
4. ^ Cawte 1978, p. 155.
5. Hutton 1996, pp. 93–94.
6. Hutton 1996, p. 94.

Bibliography

• Cawte, E. C. (1978). Ritual Animal Disguise: A Historical and Geographical Study of Animal Disguise in the British Isles. Cambridge and Totowa: D.S. Brewer Ltd. and Rowman and Littlefield for the Folklore Society. ISBN 978-0859910286.
• Hutton, Ronald (1996). The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198205708.
• Peate, Iorwerth C. (1963). "Mari Lwyd - Láir Bhán". Folk Life. 1 (1): 95–96. doi:10.1179/043087763798255123.

• Irish folklore
• Folk plays
• Ritual animal disguise