As some of my readers (I doubt some of you are regulars,
just surfers) may know from my previous post, my hobby horse Dobbin has now
attended a few folk festivals and morris dancing events. He’s been to Lavandula
Harvest Festival twice, Newstead Music Festival twice, probably others I cannot
think of from the top of my head, and in April he went to the National Folk
Festival in Canberra, where he was seen riding a unicycle. Now he’s been to
South Australia to the Adelaide Hills. And with luck he will come with me to
Tasmania in a couple of months.
Firstly, I’m here to talk about going to The English Ale, an
event run in the Adelaide Hills in Mylor, a small place South West of the
famous township of Hahndorf.
Run by South Australian pagans and the band Spiral Dance,
the Ale runs for one day every May, usually in the middle of the month. I don’t
know much about how the festival has evolved over the years, because this
English Ale was my first one and all I want to do here, is talk about what I
saw and experienced.
Weeks before the event, I spoke to one of the organisers
Adrienne from Spiral Dance, someone I’ve known for about 15 years now, and
asked her if I could bring my hobby horse Dobbin to walk in the procession that
precedes the Wicker Man burning and ritual. She said yes, that he would be very
welcome. I also decided to bring my homemade horse mask – the ‘Nightmare’ or ‘Kelpie’
(water horse) – to represent Winter. I would wear the Kelpie mask while riding the
colourful Dobbin, who represented Summer. As Winter is on its way, the Kelpie
has control of the summery Tourney Horse. I thought this highly appropriate.
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| Me riding Dobbin with a horse mask. |
My travelling companions and I arrived before 11am and while
they put up tents, I attended the Druids of Oz talks – two about sacred temples
and one about plants of Australia that are similar to European ones. I missed
one of the sacred temples talks, but made it to the second one – very
interesting talks.
After that I went and had lunch and got ready to do some
morris dancing. I had decided to wear, not my Red Raven morris side kit, but my
Thieving Magpie morris kit – my UK side. Since there were no other Red Raven’s
there, I thought going as a Magpie was better. Kind of exciting wearing my UK
tatters in Australia!!!
This was when I got to finally meet the South Australian
sides – Adelaide Morris Men, Hedgemonkey, Lancashire Witches, and Hot for Joe -
and even a Melbourne side I know well – the Britannia Morris men – had come
along. Rob, Jacka and George were there, so they let me dance Bampton’s ‘Chook
Chasing’ with them, just so I get a chance to dance something!
I got a ticket for the concert that night, then chilled out
by the tent, rugging up a bit before getting ready to gather by the oval to
begin the procession.
Three items: Black tatter dress, Kelpie horse head, hobby
horse.
With help from my friends I dressed up and was ready to go!
The procession went around the oval, while the oval itself was covered in people
watching and taking pictures. We were accompanied by musicians and melodian
players, morris dancing and lit the way by fiery torches…
In the parade were a few giants – ‘Petal’ was one of them, there
was a devil, two Jacks-In-The-Green, morris dancers, people in tatters carrying
torches and 3 of us as hobby horses. I did not see much else because I was in
the parade and had limited visibility as the Kelpie mask has a veil that hides
my face. I’ve not ridden Dobbin for years because the made the hole small
enough to fit a thinner rider, but have now made it larger for other riders
like me, so it was quite a pleasure to ride him for the first time in years, if
not ever!
The procession went slowly enough around the oval for all
the people to see, before the procession turned off into a small field to
surround the patient Wicker Man.
The ritual was conducted, the Wicker Man set alight, and
everyone held hands to spiral around the burning man and I rode around between
the bonfire and the line of people. Eventually the bonfire burned down and I
went to the campsite to get changed and have some dinner.
Towards 10pm we went up to the town hall and got ourselves a
drink (Jacka bought me a cider!) and we warmed up inside, before going into the
hall to watch the bands. When Spiral Dance started I often danced with Cathy
and Gabby and we had a grand time letting loose on the dance floor before
packing up the chairs in the hall, and heading back to camp. After sitting by
the campfire, noticing how cold it was getting, and going to bed at 3am, I
found it hard to sleep because of the cold. I did sleep at some point, but boy,
it was a cold night and hurt my throat to breathe the cold, damp air! I woke
early to say goodbye to Frances and her partner, who were camping next to us,
and then tried to sleep again. The sun on the tent made it begin to warm up
just as I was ready to get up. The sun itself was wonderfully warm during the
day, but the nights bitter. We sat around and relaxed, but I wandered down
Mylor’s main road to find Gabby’s B+B and visit her and two other good Victorian
friends of mine who just happened to pop in to visit her. We had a good gossip
and laugh.
On my return to the campsite, we had decided to pack up and
return to Cathy’s place in Adelaide, so did just that, had a great pasta
bolognaise for tea and played a long round of Cards against Humanity before
crashing.
On the Monday we went to Hahndorf, where I bought some
awesome souvenirs and had a buffet lunch at one of the pubs. Then we hit the
road to Victoria before 3pm.
Had a great time in South Australia, where I have not been
since about 1987, catching up with old friends, meeting new ones, and ones I
have worked on projects with that I was yet to meet, and attend a pretty
brilliant event that I will attend again and again, probably with Dobbin. It’s
good to see him out and about socialising and getting around in all sort of
pagan and morris dancing events these days.
The English Ale is definitely worth attending if you can…
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| Hot for Joe |
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| Britannia |
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| Lancashire Witches |
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