As Tennyson observed, "In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love."
In Norwich, an old man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of dressing up in bells and clogs and skipping gaily through the streets.
To tell the truth, one should never mock Morris Dancers. A group of hard-drinking men armed with bloody great sticks and swords can look after themselves quite nicely, thank you.
That's why they make them wear bells; so you can hear them coming and get the hell out of their way.
Just as well, considering that traditionally they would chase the local maidens off into the woods and celebrate spring as it should be celebrated; a pleasant combination of flowering and deflowering.
So, let's celebrate the coming of spring the English way:
"Excuse me, madame; we notice you have a young daughter …"
Young men should also be very, very afraid.
Phil pointed this lot out to me:"Hey, look! They're dressed as Agrajag!"
This, by the way, is what English people do with their spare time.
I'm so glad I don't have any spare time.
"Don't mess with me, sonny; these clogs can crack your shins wide open."A question for my Colonial bolgpals:
In what weird way does your local community herald the coming of spring?
18 comments:
Hey careful with those generalisations; i don't do anything remotely like that in my spare time I'm a professional morris dancer! No i'm kidding. No it's not my scene at all but, like you, will always stop to photo and appreciate their dedication.
Personally i love, in the spring, all the summer fetes which start to spring up..in...er spring. From now onwards, really. The stalls, the pony rides, the children whizzing around the may-pole, the home-made cakes, the bric-a-brac, the books oh the books, i love it all. Sometimes they wheel out a local celeb to open them too. Here where i live it's usually Liz Hurley or Kate Winslett and the like in the Cotswold villages. Lots of celebs come to Gloucestershire to live, thinking they'll get a private, sleepy country life. Largely they do bu t we on the local rag know where they all live! Liz is particularly good, doing more than the usual turning up to say a few words and buying a cake to give to the staff oh no she stays for the whole thing, participating. She hasn't gone down so well at Sudeley though, where she had her wedding. She promised a gift of new pew cushions or some such, and hasn't come up with the goods. Oops. Ah well. I'm waiting for the first fete of the year with excitement, yes excitement and that's what i look forward to in Spring along with the flowers....sigh....
Eww! The first celebs of spring; what a horrible thought, Lynn.
And the maypole!
Yoinks!
All those pretty young girls dancing round it … er … you DO know about maypoles, do you not, Lynn?
We certainly are a pervy country when you head off into folk traditions.
We don't! How sad. This is the coolest thing ever, Dive! I especially love the blue and white striped skirts matched with the bright red stockings. I want those.
A sexy combination; especially with clogs.
here in savannah, we celebrate ...everything the same way...with a cocktail, sugar! ;-)
Crikey, Dive , old son.
The first bud of Printemps was six months ago, down-under, ici.
I am quite sure that we would have celebrated it in the usual Aussie style.
We would have all gone to the pub on a Friday night, bought a cuppla tickets in the chook raffle, had a yarn with Graham, (he's the local Salvation Army Chap who calls at each pub and sells the Salvo "War Cry").
Whoever thinks of it first would invite everyone round for a BBQ. Impromptu.
No worries, mate, who'd like a beer or a small drop of the doings. (That's a red, perhaps a Cabernet Sauvignon or a Merlot, Je ne sais pas !)
Tonight, its snags and beef fillet steak, medium-rare.
Young Hercule at the local butcher has got some ripper stuff from a bloke from Strathalbyn,,,just wrap y' lips 'round this little number, mate !!
Grab a chair and plonk y'self round the chiminea. It gets a bit cool about midnight. But a few cleansing ales and a feed will straighten out anyone.
Sometimes we could get invaded by Morris Dancers, but it ain't happened yet.
Maybe if we nail some bottle caps to some tomato stakes, we could scare them away.
Who cares, so long as them girls in clogs keep their distance.
Crikey, they gotta be Dutch? Nah! Have another drink.
It's your shout, mate. Crikey, who's driving, - I drove last week.
To answer your last question, one clear answer: no-one quites does it like the English! Nothing eccentric about the French I'm afraid (or is there, that I don't see?).
We had a spring 'carnaval'in Avignon for years (a street parade with floats and costumes) but the Mayor cut the funding for that 10 or 12 years ago.
She claimed that the local association were happy to pocket the money but not doing their share in decorating the floats. Indeed some of the floats were very roughly put together, you could tell that little time and/or effort had gone into them. The local organisations were obviously using the funding for other pursuits... so much for traditions. That wouldn't happen in your place would it?
Forgot to tell you how much I enjoyed your post!!!
And thanks to Benno for his delightful account of spring celebrations downunder. Crikey he's good at this!
Nathalie, je suis le plus humble pour entendre que vous dites ceci.
Er... no Dive i don't know about maypoles except for little girls and boys holding onto ribbons and skipping prettily around them in May. Er... i sense you are about to dash my innocence in one fell swoop but hey go on anyway. What's the story then?
Well, I guess in my small town in NW Arkansas, we celebrate Spring with our annual Dogwood festival.
Right now the Dogwood trees are in bloom. If I can remember to take my camera on my next walk I'll catch them in action. They are very pretty in white and pink. For some reason our festival always comes a week or two later than the blooms which is a shame but I guess the planners want to make sure it'll be warm enough. It almost always rains though. 'THE GREAT DOGWOOD CURSE' I'll call it for drama in an otherwise dull narrative. I'm in a surly mood today. ;)
They block off downtown(a few houses from mine) and set up tents everywhere with crafty kitschy goods for sale. I go strictly for the people gawking and the kettle corn. Mmmm-it's almost time.
I seem to arrange my schedule to allow plenty of time for popcorn these days. Well, you've got to get your fiber somewhere I s'pose.
Savannah: Sounds like you've got the best idea!
Monsieur: That sounds a far better way to celebrate than dressing up in clogs and flowers and skipping in public.
Having said that, I quite like Morris; there's always plenty of ale sloshing around and people hitting one another over the head with pigs' bladders on sticks.
Nathalie: Thank you so much. It's a shame about your carnival; it sounded fun.
Lynn: You know very well that it is nothing but a symbolic penis, erected (ahem) to celebrate the renewal of life in spring each year and in the hope of a fecund harvest.
It is also a fertility symbol of another kind; the maidens dancing around it were very often no longer maidens by the end of the day. Various European traditions used it as a pairing off/marriage ceremony.
All the joy has been taken out of Mayday nowadays, dammit!
Shan: Oooh! I love dogwood. I have no idea what kettle corn is, though. Robyn and I have been slowly compiling an English/American dictionary, so when I find out what it is I'll add it to our already huge list.
I think Dionysus started it!
That old bugger's got a lot to answer for.
Goodness i swear i did not know that! I can remember dancing around the maypole and nothing untoward happened to me by the end of the day. It was just all prettiness, sweetness and light. Honestly!
Well, i am educated here today.
Ah, you were born in the wrong age, Lynn.
Crinolines and a comprehensive maypole ravishing would suit you so well. Hee hee.
Hee hee hee. The very same "good ol' boys" who reacted to Obama's comment on Americans clinging to the Bible and their guns by screaming scripture on TV and waving their rifles.
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