Hobby horse (toy)
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A hobby horse is a child's toy horse. Children play at riding a horse made of a straight stick with a head, and perhaps reins, attached to one end. The bottom end of the stick sometimes had a small wh
William Wallace Denslow's illustrations for a variant of Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross, from a 1901 edition of Mother Goose.
In The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, the characters' hobby-horses, or particular obsessions, are discussed in detail. Here, Uncle Toby's obsession with the military leads him and Trim - who gets caught up in Toby's enthusiasm - to begin acting out military actions. Illustration by George Cruikshank.
A stick horse in the parisian manuscript Horae ad usum Parisiense, circa 1480.
Woodcut illustration from Dryander, Der Arzney gemeiner Inhalt, 1542
"Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross" is an English language nursery rhyme connected with the English town Banbury in Oxfordshire. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 21143.
Hobby horse (toy)
…The bottom end of the stick sometimes had a small wheel or wheels attached. This toy was also sometimes known as a cock horse (as in the nursery rhyme Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross) or stick horse. Hobby horses feature in the worship of Rajasthani folk deity Baba Ramdevji, a reference to a story about his childhood; wooden toy…
The statue of the "fine lady" at Banbury Cross
The old lady on her white horse, according to Denslow