Each year the inhabitants of Ock Street in Abingdon elect their own mayor on the Saturday nearest to 19 June, which is St Edmund of Abingdon Day. The candidates for the post are usually Morris-dancers, or ex-dancers, although this is not an essential qualification, and the electorate are the people living in Ock Street; normally as many as three hundred participate in the voting. The ballot box is placed outside one of the pubs in the street, and the votes are counted at 4 p.m. After the result has been announced publicly the new mayor is invested with the regalia of office, a Morris-dance is performed in his honour, and he is chaired down the street and back. His regalia consists of sash, sword, collecting box, cup and the Ock Street horns which are always carried at the head of the procession. These horns date back to the eighteenth century. It was then the tradition to roast a black ox in the 'bury' or market place, and the people who gathered there engaged in some form of dancing. On one occasion an argument arose as to who should have the horns from the ox, which, it was decided, should be settled by a fight between the men from Ock Street and those from the Vineyards, i.e. the west end of town versus the east. A line was drawn near the Vineyards and another outside the Cock and Tree in Ock Street. Starting from the market place those that drove the others over the line were declared the winners. The Ock Street men were victorious and through one of them, a Mr Hemmings, the horns have been handed down to the Morris-dancers.