The English Ale 2015 – and how to make Dobbin more social and worldly

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.

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…

 

Hot for Joe

Britannia

 

Lancashire Witches

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first article in the Cauldron

So I published an article in The Cauldron - an old pagan magazine that has been running quarterly since 1976. I've been convinced by friends to make a post about it - since I've been busy studying this year, I've not had as much time to devote to this blog, why not add something like this?

The issue it was published in was #153 Summer 2014 - coming out in August. I sent it in March/April and was told by Mike Howard that it would come out in August. The thing about the Cauldron is that its so successful that 3 issues are organised ahead of time. That's a sign of a good magazine. The writers may be mostly amateurs, but at least it's still running!

So anyway, my article was 'Pan in Fiction', which I have published on this blog before in this summarised version.

A favourite topic of mine, even since I read Ronald Hutton's 'Triumph of the Moon' (the 'Finding a God' Chapter) where I got the inspiration for the article, and purchasing 'The Blessing of Pan' novel by Lord Dunsany. I analysed the themes and genres of Pan's role in the short stories of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and gave a summary of each tale. 

My friend Andy Roberts, co-author of 'Twilight of the Celtic Gods' congratulated me on it, as he got his issue in Britain before I got mine, reminding me, as I had forgotten all about it...

This may not mean much to some, but having your first article published in something so widely distributed (all over the world) is something to be impressed with yourself about. Badly written, or enjoyed, it was fun to write - even though some Cauldron editors changed it a bit! (it even had missing punctuation!)

We always remember our first published piece.

http://www.the-cauldron.org.uk/

ANCIENT GODS: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

In this day and age, pagans often find they constantly have to prove or report that their Gods are not dead, that they exist on a personal, dimensional, and accessible level, and even then, they will eventually if not immediately, be less concerned whether or not anyone else believes them and their statement.

The other statement usually made by the monotheistic religions that seem to dislike the idea of other religions and other gods, will often report that the Old Gods are dead, never existed, or are simply not worth revering because they are evil and simply results of devil worship.

Upon researching the web for information about the subject of whether the Old Ones are alive or dead, I came across Hannah M G Shapero's article that answers every single question I have ever asked in regards to the belief and existence of the Old Gods. This small post is actually to promote people to read Hannah's article, where you can believe, disbelieve, or take what you want from it.

'You can worship anything – Zeus, Apollo, Thor, Isis, Elvis, but is what you are worshipping real? Is it still there? Proving God’s existence is impossible, and proving a lesser god’s existence equally impossible – but can a god die? Can something that was once worshipped disappear into oblivion? Popular legends and stories tell of ethereal beings, such as the fairy “Tinkerbell,” whose very existence depends on the belief of human beings. When people cease to believe in these sweet spirits, they disappear into non-existence, like bubbles. Are the gods the same way? If no one believes in them, as I said earlier in this essay, do gods die? If not, then what lives on?'

It is my belief that the Gods lie dormant until they are awakened. A simple, yet dreamy belief, and also harmless - what seems to worry monotheistic worshippers, positively delights those in more of an open, discovery-based spiritual life, where anything is possible. An Old God, awakened from dormancy, and revered in harmless ceremony is a pagan's right.


'To me, this is the best answer to where the old gods have gone. They are not theatrical spirits, who are only present when there’s an audience to believe in them. Nor are they necessarily Divine Beings with the all-encompassing status of the monotheists’ One True God. They are imaginal beings, who live in this middle world. And the Imaginal World is not a dreamworld dependent on the whims of one person; it is a shared multicultural universe, springing and flowering from the ground of millions of human beings and their minds and their creativity. Once the image, the poem, the character, the myth, the mathematical theorem, the story, the song, the magic, has been created, and has been set down in writing or in a computer file or in any other medium that can be communicated, it has left the confines of one person and entered the Imaginal – or the cultural world.'

Here is Hannah's article, for your full perusal - you may argue her points, or just allow it to be.