Stranger things
Country Life UK|November 01, 2023
Burning barrels, hare-pie scrambles, bottle kicking and horn dances: no one does eccentric quite like the English. Harry Pearson explores our weird, wonderful and sometimes distinctly dangerous folk festivals
Harry Pearson
Stranger things

A BURLY, bearded man rumbles through the winding streets of the little Devon town. His face is streaked with soot and sweat. On his shoulders, an 18-gallon sherry cask soaked with tar crackles, spits and flares. 'Uppard! Uppard!' the man bellows as the crowd parts and he gallops on. Comet trails of orange and yellow sparks follow him, swirling up into the night sky like a murmuration of hellish starlings. It is November 5 in Ottery St Mary, an annual day of flames and explosions that dates back to at least the early 17th century. 'The smell of the tar and the heat of the flames gives you a real adrenaline rush,' says Andy Wade, president of the Ottery St Mary Carnival committee. 'It's a feeling you can't explain.'

Some historians and folklorists trace the festival in Ottery back to pagan fire festivals, the fumigation of plague-ridden streets or the beacons lit in 1588 to warn of the approach of the Spanish Armada. Mr Wade-who has close to six decades of experience of the tar barrels behind him-believes it all goes back to Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot. "There were a number of towns in Devon where they rolled burning barrels through the streets on November 5, Mr Wade explains, 'but it was only in Ottery that people decided to pick them up and carry them.'

The Ottery St Mary Tar Barrels is one of dozens of genuine folkloric celebrations woven into the English calendar. It occupies a place alongside the Hallaton Hare Pie Scramble and Bottle Kicking in Leicestershire, West Witton's Burning the Bartle in North Yorkshire and the Horn Dance at Abbots Bromley in Staffordshire as an annual reminder of a time when the English countryside was a stranger, wilder, rowdier and less governable place.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 01, 2023 من Country Life UK.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 01, 2023 من Country Life UK.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

المزيد من القصص من COUNTRY LIFE UK مشاهدة الكل
Tales as old as time
Country Life UK

Tales as old as time

By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth

time-read
2 mins  |
November 13, 2024
Do the active farmer test
Country Life UK

Do the active farmer test

Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair

time-read
3 mins  |
November 13, 2024
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Country Life UK

Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin

Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts

time-read
2 mins  |
November 13, 2024
SOS: save our wild salmon
Country Life UK

SOS: save our wild salmon

Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish

time-read
3 mins  |
November 13, 2024
Into the deep
Country Life UK

Into the deep

Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel

time-read
4 mins  |
November 13, 2024
It's alive!
Country Life UK

It's alive!

Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters

time-read
4 mins  |
November 13, 2024
There's orange gold in them thar fields
Country Life UK

There's orange gold in them thar fields

A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd

time-read
3 mins  |
November 13, 2024
True blues
Country Life UK

True blues

I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.

time-read
3 mins  |
November 13, 2024
Oh so hip
Country Life UK

Oh so hip

Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland

time-read
4 mins  |
November 13, 2024
A best kept secret
Country Life UK

A best kept secret

Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning

time-read
3 mins  |
November 13, 2024