The Ceffyl Pren

 

This an illustration I have not seen before -- somebody published it on Facebook.  "Ceffyl Pren" means "wooden horse" -- but I had always assumed that the wooden horse was a mobile one, most often a stepladder or something similar, maybe with a wooden horse's head on the front, which would be used for parading the offending person through the streets.  He or she would be strapped to the contraption, often facing backwards, and subjected to abuse and ridicule by the offended townspeople.

But here, in a very old illustration that looks rather like something from the early 1700's or even late 1600's, we see a fixed installation (looks very precarious!) on top of which the offenders (in this case an adulterous couple, probably) were stranded and subjected to ridicule.  The man even has weights tied to his feet to stop him from clambering down........  The structure looks a bit similar to the "vaulting horse" we used to use in the school gym, except for the horse's head projecting out at the front.  Where was this?  More research needed........

There is now quite a big literature on "shaming rituals" going back not the early 1700's.  here is one extract:

The "skimmington ritual"  Hardy describes in his tale from the West Country is a tradition that goes back a long way in rural society. Punctuated by loud, raucous noise, villagers would parade objects identifying those whose behavior was found to be offensive, in a procession designed to humiliate them.

While Lucetta’s shame was due to having an intimate relationship with a married man, many cases showed the skimmington employed to police “domestic” relations; particularly spousal beatings.

The ritual was also called “skimmity riding.” Skimmity is thought to come from the term describing a cheesemaking ladle employed (apart from skimming cheese) by a wife to beat her husband. A husband’s weakness was frowned upon, whether he was being scolded or cuckholded. So, too, was frequent wife-beating, and those riding would beat one another with ladles and spoons in the most “ludicrous processions,” stopping at the offender’s house to make their point.

In Wales the procedure(!) was called the Ceffyl Pren, or wooden horse. The miscreant was paraded around, tied to a wooden frame. Scottish accounts name it “riding the stang,” a plainly uncomfortable means of conveyance for the shamed, particularly when that person was a man.