Hook Eagle Morris Dancers have been in demand to appear at various wassails this year. After the torch-lit triumph of Hartley Wintney (12th January), we were out in the cold and dark the following week for Butser Ancient Farm’s wassail (19th January). The creative team at the Farm had taken on board a lot of lessons from last year’s event. There were a lot more lanterns for visitors to carry and much more time was spent inside the recreated ancient buildings, which was a blessing on a sub-zero night. We danced on an earthen floor in the smoke-filled Bronze Age roundhouse, and the crowd was also entertained by two sets of Mummers, doing their own individualised male and female versions of the traditional story of St George, a dragon, a doctor and various other hangers-on. There was also a very good storyteller who kept everyone rapt with a morality tale about being good to your family members. We then went on to dance in one of the wooden floored Saxon huts, with a hall-filling joining-in dance that included two new recruits.
The following weekend (28th January), our wassail was a much more traditional one, outside in a newly planted orchard in Shamley Green, near Guildford. This had been organised by the wonderful Vanessa, who used to run the For Earth’s Sake shop nearby and is now restoring an old barn. It was a beautiful, sunny and crisp afternoon, and we danced for a good number of visitors and did the traditional blessing of a selected apple sapling. It rather took us back to 20 years ago when Hartley Wintney’s wassail started with what then seemed like a collection of twigs and is now a fine orchard of sturdy trees.
All this being out and about over the Christmas and New Year period has meant that we are continuing to pick up new recruits who are coming along to our practice sessions — Friday nights at the Elizabeth Hall in Hook. As I recall from the long-ago days when I was a newbie, learning to dance with others who are also just starting reduces the fears and adds to the spirit of the side. If they can keep coming to practices until the end of April, and assemble some dancing kit (hat, jacket, bells and boots), then they may well be able to join in one or two dances once the season kicks off in earnest on St George’s Day (23rd April) in Odiham.
Jonathan Buisson (aka “Ninja”)
Foreman of Dance, Hook Eagle Morris Dancers
