Though cancelled this year due to the pandemic, customarily the eleventh century ritual folk dance—whose current iteration involves characters adorned with reindeer antlers, Maid Marian (Robin Hood’s love interest), a Village Idiot and a hobby horse is held on the day after Wakes Sunday, the first one falling after 4 September—traditionally an end of summer funfair introduced by Gregory the Great to transfer devotions from pagan idols to patron saints and preserved as a summer holiday through the Industrial Revolution as an homage to trade guilds. Academic research into the history of Staffordshire believe that the dance itself was a form of enchantment—sympathetic magic to ensure a good hunting season. The headdress used generation after generation has been radio-carbon dated back almost a millennium old where reindeer could last be found on the British Isles. An alternate kit of regular red deer antlers are used for when the troupe goes on tour.