And so to Eynsham

On the May Bank Holiday we made our customary pilgrimage across Port Meadow, up and over Wytham Woods, across Swinford Bridge, to Eynsham, to see the local Morris dancers bring in the May. After so much rain, Wytham Woods was an almost fluorescent green, the last of the bluebells looking bedraggled and sorry for themselves in the mud.

Though we were quite dry and found a rare pool of sunshine to sit in, our picnic in the woods (and the music of one solitary cuckoo) was interrupted by ominous claps of thunder. When we emerged through Swinford Gate the sky had gone quite black. Forked lightning skewered the horizon and a strange vortex of cloud whirled about our heads as if it were the end of days. Counting the gap between lightning flashes and thunder we worked out that the storm was still a few miles away and but for a few drips it passed us by. Nevertheless, its ferocity earned it a mention in the press.

A storm is probably not the best time to investigate a hollow tree, but Taranis had other things on his mind and we were safe.

Eynsham Morris seemed genuinely pleased to see us. It's a strange thing, but their annual home gig goes almost unnoticed. Only fifteen or so locals assembled to see them. Barely anyone from the Oxford Folk scene was there. And yet, buoyed up by the recent influx of young blood, or perhaps driven by the crackling electricity of the storm, they danced as if their lives depended on it, thumping the ground with their boots and thwacking their sticks together so hard that sparks flew.

Eynsham are the real deal. It's a special thing that they do. Next year, why not come and see for yourselves? Up the May!

Nomitron

I helped Nomi out today by taking some publicity photos for her. I was using an iPhone with the Hipstamatic app, and while I appreciate it's hard not to get stunning shots with this nifty bit of software, we were both pretty pleased with the results.

I particularly like this sequence.

Circulus

I supported Circulus at a recent gig in Oxford, down at the Port Mahon pub, ably organised by Dave Todd. I played for about thirty minutes, half solo and half with Mr Jim Penny whipping up a storm on his Anglo-Concertina. Here's a few videos of the night for your delight and delectation - you can hear another version of Astrolabe here.

Dartmoor

Over the bank holiday weekend we made a stealth-trip to Dartmoor, stealth because we really ought to have been visiting friends and family, but, well, we were rather in need of some time away from everything and everyone. The hard drives wanted de-fragging. Next time, I promise.

We managed to fit in three long walks, all around Lustleigh.

I don't think I am happier than with a map, a thermos of tea, my walking boots on, and several easy miles under the legs.

Everywhere you go, great boulders of granite jut up out of the ground. Some are covered in ivy or moss. All are coated in lichen. Granite is my favourite kind of rock. According to the hymn by Reginald Heber, 'the heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone', but why wouldn't you? It makes perfect sense to me. I feel the urge to touch them, to show respect, to make offerings. Some feel quite numinous, almost alive.

In Lustleigh it was May Day. There was Morris Dancing, a Maypole and a May Queen, who processed around the village accompanied by the local town band.

It's tempting to read the day as some latent and half-remembered piece of sinister Wicker Man voodoo but it's nothing of the sort. A bit daggy at the edges, it's so wonderfully English.

On our way home we were hailed by a friendly stranger, Suzi, who recognised me from Telling the Bees. You know when you're on the right path when you pass unnoticed and ignored in the city but get flagged down in the middle of Dartmoor, and by a maker of shamanic drums at that. A fine meeting indeed.

One last walk took us to Bowerman's Nose and Hound Tor, where Nomi, more keen-eyed than me, spotted an adder sunning itself by the path. Neither of us had seen one before. Shortly afterwards we heard our first cuckoo of the spring tootling in a copse.

Three days on Dartmoor had finally worn off, and the cares of the city were quite gone. The hard drives were working again.

May Morning 2012

And so, yes, May Morning was wet. Thankfully the ferocious storm that woke the city at one am, and which left even the most hardened rationalist quaking in their beds, passed as quickly as it came. There was, instead, a persistent but bearable mizzle, but even so the weather was off-putting enough to reduce last year's crowds of 18,000 to an impoverished 4,000 (photos and video by Nomi).

Nevertheless, the Whirly Band were out as usual, sheltering from the rain in the atrium of the Clarendon building, and though both band and crowd were understandably a little bit lacking in energy, we got there in the end.

I remember thinking at one point, rather disappointedly, that it was all going to be a bit of a damp squib, that it wasn't going to work. Then I looked up and saw that, by dint of the way the rain had accidentally stained the stone, the statue of Sir Thomas Bodley on the New Bodleian Library appeared to have grown horns, or hare's ears, or more probably asses ears.

And at that moment the magic struck. Suddenly we were bouncing, the music was playing us. In response, the crowd started dancing, splashing through the puddles with arms linked in celebration. The weather couldn't stop us.

Halfway through our set someone approached us asking for a hat to pass round. 'We don't want your money!' I shouted back! I didn't mean to sound ungrateful but that's not why we do it. Later, when it was all over, a woman came up to me and grabbed me by the arm. 'I love what you all do' she said. 'It makes my day. It's truly wonderful.' That's why. We do it because we don't have any choice.

Beltane

So here we are again, Beltane, the eve of May, one of my favourite times of year, and I'm gearing up to take the Whirly Band and the Bosky Man out onto the streets of Oxford first thing tomorrow morning (I've just written my latest Spiral Earth column about May Morning).

It's been a funny old spring. Midsummer weather in March followed by a month long deluge. April showers are one thing but the weather of late has been of a different order. Great galleon clouds hoving in and blasting us with thunder, hail and stair rods. The wind has spun round in so many directions that even weather cocks are giddy and green at the gills. No, I fear that this is all yet further intimation of a climate irredeemably buggered.

Of course, weird weather aside, one of the great myths about Beltane is that it was a fertility festival and that people went out into the woods and fields to, ahem, encourage the crops to grow. I've got a chapter coming out in the forthcoming book, Pop Pagans, in which I explain why the fertility myth is one that contemporary Paganism would do well to be rid of, but for now, here's what Ronald Hutton has to say on the matter of people frolicking in the fields, in his Stations of the Sun.

 

It took until the late twentieth century, and the patient labours of demographic historians, to reveal that there was in fact no rise in the numbers of pregnancies at this season [May], in or out of marriage. The boom in conceptions came later in the summer. In practice early modern people seem to have found the night of the 30 April generally too chilly, and the woods generally too damp.

Whatever else our ancestors were, they weren't stupid. Nevertheless, come rain or shine, we'll be out on the streets tomorrow, celebrating the (eventual) overthrow of winter by summer, giving nature her full dues at this time of growth, hope, and expansion, and generally stirring up the spirit of revellion. I hope to see you there but whatever you do, may it be large. Up the May!

Wod at the Ashmolean Museum

As part of last weekend's Folk Weekend Oxford, Wod were booked to play an acoustic, Sunday morning set at the Ashmolean museum.

Playing acoustic is always better than through a PA but the acoustics and the setting of the museum were simply fantastic. We sat in front of an ancient, one-legged statue of a Greek fisherman, but there were equally extraordinary statues from Antiquity all around. Given his famous antipathy towards bagpipes, I'm not sure what the statue of Apollo would have made of it, but I hope he felt as moved as we did.

We all got rather lost in the music, as is the Wod way, but when we finished, we looked up and saw that people were listening and applauding all the way up the stairwell. Others just wandered by or sat on the floor and listened awhile. It was a great privilege to have been there.

Have a listen here (thanks to Nomi for photos and video).