The Morris Federation

May people are no doubt aware of the famous May Morning celebrations in Oxford where Town, Gown & Morris Dancers mingle in a wonderful disorganised throng which captures the essence of the perfect misty summers dawn. Crowds throng to Magdalen Bridge and a choir sings it age old litany to summer from the top of Magdalen College Tower. 

Fewer I am sure have heard anything of the alternative event which has for the last 9 years now played itself out at Botley on the western edge of this fine city.

Following the experience of increasing organisational control by “hired in” Security men at the City event and wishing to capture the spirit of an earlier and simpler village celebration, the founders of this event have purposely kept it small to engender a more personal relationship with the begining of Summer for those attanding. Depending on whether 1st May falls within the week or at the weekend, attendances have ranged between 20 and 50 people.

The tradition of climbing a hill to greet the first rays of the sun at dawn is maintained and the gathering is set also within a beautiful clearing in a wood on the hill. Arriving before 05:00 we are gauranteed of this experience and also of the most beautiful dawn chorous as the woodland birds come awake.

 Those attending are free to contribute songs, stories, and poetic readings to awaken the voice and dances are shared to enliven the body.  A Beltane Fire light by the stoic few who have been up all night is jumped to re-energise friendships, a may staff is decorated with flowers and a strangely random ribbon dance is performed to weave magic of the day in to a tail recording the day for posterity which is then added also to the staff.

As time has gone on the contributions to this day, brought by the variety of people attending, continues to produce deep emotion in those there. So much so that the favoured place to stand for some is in the path of the smoke from the fire so that some excuse for the watering eyes is available.

I would encourage all who feel the excitement of the early summer to find and join in with one of the many local celebrations (often organised by a local Morris side) The sense of community which is missing in so much of our lives nowadays can be found in bucketfuls at such events.

For interest in this event see contact details on Armaleggan Border Morris MySpace page

I’m not sure whether this counts as an appropriate use of the new MFB but for those of you who made the trek to Rochester over the weekend here are some photos of the sides dancing on the Saturday in the High Street.
http://www.photoboxgallery.com/richtradition
If anyone wants a hard copy you can order it direct via the link. Permission is granted if you want to use it for publicity for the side featured in the photo, (a photo credit would be appreciated).  If you want to use it for any other purpose, please contact me

Pete Thomas
Richtradition

May Day Dawn Awakening often involves hills, bracing weather, suitably-charge coffee in flasks and of course the Morris!   Rampant Rooster are no exception (www.rampantroostermorris.co.uk)  and for many years we  have greeted the dawn in our local town of Dorking, Surrey by dancing on the top of Box Hill – famous for bikers, zig-zags and the Look Out viewpoint for miles around.

 As usual we met at 5 a.m. and, despite the dark and early morning, welcomed other Morris sides from slightly further afield :  Spring Grove, Marlings and Ewell St Mary (who brought a ready-made audience of intrepid ramblers to come and watch before rambling off).

 After the traditional processional danced from the car park to the Look Out we took turn about to dance as dawn awakened and the sun shone.   Although a bit parky, it was fair and sunny this year.   We have danced in horizontal rain and lowering cloud, so this year was a great delight to see the sun actually come up.   It was a great introduction for our nine new people who have now been `blooded’ into a Morris May morning.

 After the obligatory annual group photo at the viewpoint, with the panorama of Dorking spread out below us, at 6.45 we trundled down the hill to be warmly welcomed by John and Naomi at the Black Horse with steaming hot beverages (beer  for the more hardy of us) and a great English fry up.   Our publican hosts are staunch supporters of the tradition – rare in these parts – and also provided breakfast for another local side Buckland Shag who had greeted the dawn in their traditional way around their village pond.

 Rampant Rooster also took part in the May celebrations at Rochester Sweeps on Saturday 3^rd May – again, a tradition we have supported for years – and enjoyed a great day’s dancing in warm and sunny weather

Mayday is where it all begins for me.

I joined the Priston Jubilee Morris last December for a ‘taster session’ and haven’t been kicked out yet, so I agreed to join them all at dawn on the top of a blustery local hill just outside of Bath. I’m not sure how I managed to get out of bed some time around 4am, but an hour later I was with the gang, gathering in readiness to climb the short but steep incline to One Tree Hill.

I was glad I’d heeded the advice of the veteran members and worn my thermals and come equipped with wooly hat and mittens, as the breeze on the hilltop was quite bracing. My hands almost froze to my viola during the first two dances, but a quick trip to Idbury Hill soon warmed me up again.

Dancing in walking boots is not the easiest or most dignified of performances, especially amongst potholes and cow-pats that try to twist your ankle at every opportunity. However, trying not to take my opposite’s eye out with a waver being blown quite briskly in his direction was something else I hadn’t come prepared for either, but somehow I muddled through.

The whole event went by in a flash and after a quick tot on top of the hill to marvel in the dawn, we returned to the Ring O’ Bells pub in Priston, where Ben the landlord had kindly managed to join in the early shenanigans by cooking us a hearty breakfast. This was very much appreciated and thoroughly enjoyed by all.

However, the dawn wasn’t to be forgotten quite so quickly. Between the dancing there had been lots of posing on the hill, as we were joined by a local photographer (Matt Cardy), who most of us thought was documenting the event for the local papers. How shocked was I later at work, when I was finally ‘outed’ by a colleague who spotted me, my hat and my viola on the BBC web site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/7377173.stm

And then my legs became famous on the Guardian web site in their ’24 Hours in Pictures’ which they state as “A selection of the best images from around the world”. Not bad publicity for a small village in the Westcountry: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2008/may/01/1?picture=333859837

But how had Matt got his images so far and wide in such a short space of time? Well, he’d uploaded 18 of his best images from our performance onto Getty Images, and the rest is web site history:
http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?contractUrl=1&language=en-US&family=editorial&p=One%20Tree%20Hill%20morris&src=standard

Not to be outdone, the local web site for Priston also featured a long-distance shot of us on top of One Tree Hill, with the village church displaying the exact time of our dawn display: http://www.priston.org.uk/morris_sunrise_2008.html

As a first day out dancing, it couldn’t have been a better warm-up for the weekend ahead, where lots more posing and gesturing from myself along with the rest of the Priston side is to follow across the May bank holiday at Bath Spring Flower Show (Sat 3rd), Folly Farm Open Day (Sun 4th) and Priston May Day (Mon 5th).

For me, it seems, the Mayday dawn has become symbolic of more than just the beginning of Spring…

Cogs & Wheels Ladies Morris, based in Sticklepath Devon, celebrated May Day by dancing as the sun rose on Dartmoor. We danced around Nine Maidens & were warmed by the rising sun. Then back down into Sticklepath for a processional & more dancing around the Devonshire Inn, before finishing off with a hearty Devon breakfast.

What more can you ask for a May Day morning?

MALDON GREEN JACKETS 20TH ANNIVERSARY YEAR CELEBRATIONS. (1st May, 08 Thurs)

I’ve been a member of Maldon GreenJackets for one whole year, I looked forward to meeting everyone at 5a.m. on the Maldon Promenade park. I have never seen so many morris dancers from one side so keen to start the new season. We had three sets up to dance at once, and to top it all the sun came out right on cue! We also had some wonderful company in the form of Chelmsford Morris, who managed to put us to shame in arriving earlier.

After a hard mornings dancing with vigour and enthusiasm, we finally retired to our local hotel “The Blue Boar”, we were served with a mighty good full English breakfast and were treated to some traditional may day folk songs sung to us by Geof Harris and Sophie Watson. Then we all hooklegged our way to work jolly quick, before we fell asleep.

A good time was had by all.

All welcome to come to the Maldon Morris Festival the weekend of July 12th & 13th, camping available. Contact Sylvie Bullen-Bell 01621 859614 email bullenbell@btinternet.com