Music, Morris Dance Festival, New Connections
This morning I woke up in my new accomodation called The Snug which is right on the road about a ten minute walk from the center of Southwell. I opted to go straight to town for breakfast instead of eating here to get the most out of the day, meeting people, absorbing new sights, history. The back of this tiny apartment has a little garden with an old brick wall and shrub and ivy and a large tree behind it which was full of various birdsong. Using my Merlin App I identified a few as magpies, collared doves and a coal tit. I set off with knapsack full of the usual painting supplies and walked to the Saracens Head Arch and decided to go into the hotel restaurant. I learned immediately that I was in a hotel from the 1600’s and that Charles the First had stood on his horse in that archway before being arrested and beheaded the next day at Whitehall. Apparently the Beatles spent some nights here, too.
I ordered the English Breakfast minus what makes it an English Breakfast - no tomatoes, no sausage and no bacon or beans - and was amused that a few minutes later a waiter came out with a plate for table number 6 with just the items I had requested to be left out. It turns out a man near the window had ordered JUST those. Tomato allergies are the worst and tomatoes seem to be one of the main vegetables they use here in salads. I gave it a try a couple of days ago and regretted it for a day later.
As I was eating, I enjoyed listening to the various strains of conversation around me, and was intrigued and amused by the singsongy waiter who looked as if he had been working for about seventy years at the hotel. He hummed parts of a song to himself as he went back into the kitchen and out again and was cheerfully making small talk with everyone. He was mainly bald with whispy strands of white hair and strangely, a monocle which was attached by a chain to his vest. He must have had hundreds of stories to tell. When he came over to clear my plate he asked if I was American or Canadian and about politics in the U.S. and I then asked him about whether he was happy that Labour won and he rolled his eyes and said that the Labour Party had destroyed the grammar school system and were going after the private school system too. A new twist. Nothing is ever clearcut!
I left the hotel to go back to the Snug and change before going back there for the Morris Dance Festival which was connected to the Southwell Music Festival. I knew it would be a feast for the senses with ten different groups from different regions and small dogs everywhere. I am so disappointed to have missed the front of the parade where apparently there was a poodle in a carriage being pushed as the head of the parade and looking regal and as if finally getting the attention deserved (as described by one of the Morris Dancers who were part of a women and non-binary dance group named “Whip the Cat - Rapper and Clog”. The back of their sweatshirts read “Everybody Wants to be a Cat” which of course, I related to.
On my way back to the Snug, I passed several fanciful door knockers and a cascading silver weeping birch tree that created a tunnel of silvery leaves over the wall and sidewalk. It felt like a very special tree and so I looked it up and this is what I found:
The Silver Birch is one of the most sacred trees in Celtic Mythology, symbolising new beginnings and protection. This association derives from ancient times, before the written word, when the sacred Silver Birch was associated with the Celtic goddess Brigid. Traditionally, the tree was used to make May poles and start the fires to celebrate Beltane, the festival of new beginnings. The festival consisted of dances, to ensure healthy and abundant crops, which were all performed around the maypole of Birch.
The Silver Birch was also a highly protective influence, especially on Midsummer's Eve when boughs were hung over doors to guard and bring good luck. In Herefordshire on May day, trees were often decorated with red and white rags then propped against stable doors to ward off evil.
When I arrived back at the Saracens Head Gate, all the morris dancers and musicians were lined up in their groups ready to process down the Kings Street. It was a zoo because it coincided with the market happening also on the square next to the street with fish, cakes, breads, watercolor cards, scarves, etc. There were many people like me with their cameras and iphones at the ready. As soon as the music started I could feel joy come over me as I saw the playfulness of all the outfits and the zest and comaraderie between the musicians and dancers. Adding a few dachshunds trundling along the sidewalk and I was in bliss! There is a lot of video and several photos that should tell much of what happened, but in between all the dancing I ended up talking with some of the dancers about the history of their group and others and about why they were dressed the way they were and how often they practiced. Below is a 1.5 minute sound file with one of the dancers from the Flash group explaining the border dancers outfits and why they painted their faces gray. (originally black with coal).
Then after watching the dancers for about an hour I ventured over to the market to check out the watercolor art stand with hedgehogs, foxes, hares, all sorts of birds and other animals on little bags, mugs, coasters, cards, etc. I overheard a woman in front of me talking to the man behind the table about the book The Lost Words with illustrations by the incredible Jackie Morris and poems by Robert MacFarlane. One of my treasured books and two of my favorite artist/writers. I chimed in on how fantastic the book was and then the woman (Sarah) and I started gushing about Jackie Morris and all the books we had read of hers and also about Karine Polwart and the music Spell Songs that was inspired by their second book. I had found someone as excited as I was about this musician and the Spell Song project. Then her friend Ann appeared and we talked about walking groups because Sarah had told me to check out this bookstore called Seven ables in Dulverton with an owner with the most amazing name, Davina Jelley. Their website is https://www.sevenfables.co.uk/ and they specialize in displaying Jackie Morris’ artwork and also offer walking tours with featured writers through the local landscape. Exmoor will definitely be my next spot to visit!
Ann, me and Sarah (all fans of Jackie Morris’ work and songwriter Karine Polwart
The most memorable morris group was definitely the Witchmen which had mainly women playing drums and accordion with heavy set men with grey painted on their faces and hats with pheasant feathers sticking up wielding large sticks and peppering their rustic “dancing” with loud grunts and whoops. Their leader stood on the sidelines looking like a witchy Gandalf, a Gandalf who had maybe already been to the pub for a few pints. That they were wearing dark glasses made it all the more eerie. I learned from another group that they used to paint their faces with coal so that when they were asking for money on the streets they wouldn’t be recognized and lose their jobs. As you heard in the sound recording above, they often painted their faces so they wouldn’t be recognized by their bosses who might see them begging for money, but also because as many were ploughmen, if someone didn’t put money in their jug they might plough through their property and not be recognized for the retribution. Now that blackface is obviously a terrible thing to do, they used grey paint instead. They have bright yellow socks with bells attached to their shoes, dark gloves, dark glasses and skulls on their scarves. Since writing this, I met one of the dancers back at the fields for the festival in the afternoon and asked them more about the story behind their dance and outfits. He told me that they danced in the Borders style, meaning they were from the border of England and Wales, a rougher region? According to him, painting their faces was typical for many morris groups and was a way to hide the individual in service of the whole dance so that people would focus on the dance patterns and not each person. I think it was probably a mixture of both stories for why they painted their faces. He said they were like family now and had been dancing together since 1986. See below.
Then the other group I enjoyed watching was Flash Company which had a mixture of men and women and one girl wearing strips of yellow and black with little yellow accents that seemed totally random and whimsical. One guy had a yellow duck stuck to his label. I thought they might have been inspired by bees with the yellow and black stripes but instead I learned that the yellow ribbons was referring to a song about a prostitute who said tie a yellow ribbon around your neck in remembrance of me. They stood out, not only with their yellow and black outfits but that they had an electric bassist, a flutist and guitarist as well as an accordion player. From the Flash website:
Flash Company are a mixed side from Otley, West Yorkshire, formed in 2000. They perform many self-penned Border, Molly and Appalachian dances in their distinctive black and yellow tatters to more modern tunes, including blues and jazz. Flash Company were formed in the year 2000 from musicians and dancers from all walks of life. Many had danced traditional Morris for many years and wanted to update the tradition to bring it to a new audience in a manner that people could relate to. In order to do this, we have taken some ‘traditional’ dances and also written several of our own but perform them to more modern music, such as blues, jazz and rock and roll.
After hanging out watching the different groups dance for a couple of hours, I had a piece of dense chocolate cake and some tea at an outside table just as it began to rain, so I ended up abandoning half the cake and heading to the music festival by car which was about a ten minute drive from Southwell. I won’t miss driving in the UK. The stress of driving on roads that regularly don’t allow for two cars to easily pass one another and often have cars parked in one of the lanes making it an obstacle course, is stress one doesn’t need, right? But for drivers in the UK they have no choice unless they refuse to drive and so are used to the anxiety of not knowing what car might speed around the curve and who will pull over for whom.
DACHSHUND PHOTO BREAK
My last afternoon and evening at the folk festival was beautiful in every way — heartfelt connections and conversations, gorgeous music by groups you can see below in the photos, a gorgeous light and sunset,culminating in the best show of the festival with Rhiannon Giddens and her band playing a mix of bluegrass, cajun, gospel, funk, simple acoustic. To see a strong and confident woman, so brilliant with words and various instruments and having so much fun throwing her entire body into jamming with other astounding musicians was something to sustain me for awhile. I might even try to see her again in Deerfield on July 31. The crowd was full under the tent, despite the frigid weather. Some people had wool hats and fingerless gloves. I was glad for the one sweater I had packed and may cotton hat and scarf. Below a clip of Rhiannon Giddens at the start of her two hour set.
I also had fun talking with two people doing fundraising all day every day of the festival for Medecins Sans Frontieres, standing in the hot sun and giving very eloquent explanations of the lifesaving work of MSF. Every day I would stop and banter with them, especially Eli, and finally on the last day they asked me to pull up my chair and talk for awhile. Eli is also a painter and we talked about art in addition to just general conversation. I also learned a lot about the 3d prosthetics that MSF is developing and now allowing to have some mobility. Below is a note Eli wrote to me and a picture I took of them working along with views near the parking and snaps of the festival brochure.
An amazing coincidence was that the man and his daughter whom I had sat opposite from at the Evensong on Thursday came with his wife and daughter (who had been in the choir) and sat right in front of me for one of the shows. I asked him a bit more about how often the choir sings at the Minster and if there were ever anymore people attending on average (not really). He laughed and said the church of England has plenty of money. He was very appreciative that the choir school for his daughter and soon his youngest was free and that they were paid some money for singing. He also told me the boy choristers sang every other day from the girl sopranos. Below is a photo of him with his daughter.
I’m about the board the plane at Heathrow and want to write much more, so I’ll come back here and add more when I land but had a wonderful time with family friends in London on my last night and this morning they showed me the fox that sleeps in their neighbor’s yard. A perfect ending with them and a perfect image to fit my mood, as I am totally exhausted but thrilled to have made this three week journey. And the car had no scratches!
