Old customs survive at Minehead, in a half-hearted way, and not perhaps from any natural spontaneous joyousness, but because there is something to be made out of them. This does not, however, apply to the burning of the ashen faggot on the domestic hearth on Christmas Eve, and but partially to the “worslers”—_i.e._ “wassailers”—who every January 17th visit neighbouring orchards, and with song and dance invoke a good crop of apples in the forthcoming season. But weddings at the old parish church still form an excuse for levying tribute, and those who have attended generally discover their return barred until they have rendered the wherewithal for drinks round. Chief among the town celebrations is that of the Hobby Horse, surviving from a remote antiquity. It takes place annually, on the first three days of May, and assumes the shape of a gaudily caparisoned What-is-It, escorted by fishermen and fisher-lads, playing on drum and concertina, with an obbligato of money-box rattling. We have styled the Hobby Horse as above for the sufficient reason that it is not only utterly unlike anything equine, but with an equal conclusiveness unlike anything else on earth; being just a draped framework, hung with gaily coloured ribbons, from the midst of which rises a something intended for a capped head. The human mechanism that actuates this affair may be guessed at from the great boots that ever and again are to be seen protruding from it. [Illustration: ROOD-LOFT TURRET, MINEHEAD.] This is a survival of more simple times, and seems a little out of the picture in the sophisticated streets of modern Minehead. Rural customs, outside the radius of the town, wear a more natural appearance.