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A hobby horse (or hobby-horse) is a child's toy horse, particularly popular during the days before cars. Children played at riding a wooden hobby horse made of a straight stick with a small horse's head (of wood or stuffed fabric), and perhaps reins, attached to one end. 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 horses are popular offerings at his temple at Ramdevra. They also figured in the public rites of the Romanian Călușari.〔O. Buhociu, ''Le folklore roumain de printemps'', 1957, p. 250〕 Image:Steckenpferd 1542.jpg|Woodcut illustration from Dryander, ''Der Arzney gemeiner Inhalt'', 1542 Image:Pieter Bruegel d. Ä. 059.jpg|Detail from ''Children's games'' by Pieter Breugel the Elder, 1560 Image:DiegoSpanien.jpg|''Portrait of the infant Don Diego'' by Coello, 1577 Image:Hobby-Horse.jpg|Child with a hobby horse Image:Mexican paper mache horses 02.jpg|Mexican papier-mâché hobby horses == Other meanings == A hobby horse is not always a riding-stick like the child's toy; larger hobby horses feature in some traditional seasonal customs (such as Mummers Plays and the Morris dance in England). They vary in size from a costume for one person to large frameworks carried by nine people. From "hobby horse" (see Etymology, below) came the expression "to ride one's hobby-horse", meaning "to follow a favourite pastime", and in turn, the modern sense of the term ''hobby''.〔"hobby," The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. OED Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2010-06-26. ()〕 The term is also connected to the ''draisine'', a forerunner of the bicycle, invented by Baron Karl von Drais. In 1818, a London coach-maker named Denis Johnson began producing an improved version, which was popularly known as the "hobby-horse".〔David V. Herlihy, ''Bicycle'', Yale University Press, 2004; pp. 31-38.〕 The artistic movement, Dada, is possibly named after a French child's word for hobby-horse.〔Marc Dachy, Dada & les dadaïsmes, Paris, Gallimard, "Folio Essais", n° 257, 1994.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hobby horse (toy)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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