The London Traveler

Greenwich will be celebrating May Day with a special Fayre on Monday, May 5th. The grounds of the Old Royal Naval College will host morris dancing, a stiltwalking Green Man, and numerous other activities. And if you’re a carnivore there’s a hog roast, which should be tasty.

(Actually, as an occasional medieval re-enactor, I end up eating quite a lot of hog roast. For some reason, wherever you reenact, there is going to be either a ham, or a hog roast. There’s never any beef, never any lamb, and rarely chicken… as for vegetables, it appears the medieval mind probably found them either blasphemous or heretical!)

Morris Dancing is not a London tradition at all, but it’s a fine English tradition and well worth seeing – even though most English people like to take the piss out of it in a big way!

In fact, most Morris originally comes from the Cotswolds (the two fine chaps in the photo are Cotswold dancers, with their baldrics and white shirts) or from the Welsh Border counties. (There’s also Molly Dancing from Cambridgeshire, though you don’t see that so often.) Nowadays there are Morris dancers all over England (and even in Canada and the States), their traditions ranging from classic Cotswold to Biker Border and even punk style pagan Morris.

The Green Man is also an English May Day tradition – though if you want to see him in his rawest and most traditional aspect you’ll need to head for Hastings where the Jack in the Green rampages through the town – accompanied by, you guessed it, more Morris dancers.  There’s a biker rally on the same day (May 5th Bank Holiday) for those on two wheels; and strangely enough, the bikers and the Morris dancers seem to get along together really well.

Perhaps both bikers and Morris men are used to everyone else thinking they’re mad; that must be the common denominator!

Photo credit: David Friel on Flickr

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