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We're going on a bear hunt!
Well, in the pub tonight everyone was talking about their day - some had been lazing around, some had been to work, some had been shopping...
On a mailing list the other day I posed the question "How long will it take me to drive Oxford->Peterborough?", hoping that we'd be able to work out a reasonable answer between us.
In explanation, I said I was driving to a Staw Bear festival. Once we'd established that I really did mean bear, not beer, and that I'd actually meant straw, not staw, there came the obvious question:
A what?
Having never been before, I was a bit unsure.of the answer to that one. Someone else suggested that perhaps a straw bear was "like a wicker man, but smaller and cuddlier". Which pretty much turned out to be correct. Well, except for the cuddly part - straw is actually pretty damn spiky.
So, I turn up at Whittlesey at 10 in the morning to meet my rapper team, and head into a large hall full of folk dancers doing what folk dancers do early on Saturday mornings at festivals. Notably, drinking coffee, eating bacon sandwiches, putting makeup on, wondering where <insert-name-of-person-here> is, and looking a bit bewildered. And at one end of the hall, some hapless bloke is being tied into heavy, near-rigid bundles of straw. So was a smallish child, though he looked remarkably cheerful about the prospect. The results were not particularly ursine, looking more like small, mobile haystacks.
There was milling about - there is always milling about - then someone led the straw "bear" out on a length of rope. Around thirty or so teams of different kinds of dancers followed on, and the procession wound through the streets to the market place. Despite Whittlesey being a small place, there were really quite a lot of people lining the streets to watch the goings-on. I can only assume that not a lot goes on in the Fens in January :)
The rest of the day was pretty laid back, with a written itinerary for us to follow of where we were dancing when. A pretty normal day, really, if you except occasionally running into a bloody great man made of straw.
As much as a I managed to glean about Why can be found here. The bears aren't burnt until tomorrow, so sadly I won't be able to report on that.
One of the nice things today was seeing a bunch of unfamiliar dance teams, or teams I don't see often.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fluffymark, Gog Magog were there, although they were looking a little diminished in both numbers and energy. There was also a deeply bizarre team dresed entirely in black and white, with Kiss-style make up and wigs, and the wholly remarkable name of Pig Dyke Molly. And they had a suzaphone, which puts them instantly in my good books.
Best of all, Orion were there. Orion Sword are based in Boston, Mass., and have done a wonderful job of taking a traditional dance style and making it very much their own. And even in a warm pub, full of jaded sword dancers, the whisper "Orion are here, they're dancing Take Five" was enough to get most of us out into the very cold car park to watch. Yup, as in the Dave Brubeck number. And if you've never stood in the cold, behind a saxophonist wellying out Take Five, watching seven American women dancing with long wooden swords, you simply haven't lived.
So yes, relating this in the pub tonight I got a few funny looks. Pointing out that similar things happen near Edinburgh (The Burry Man) and Hastings (The Jack in the Green) and in places all over England didn't help much... because in most people's worlds, they don't happen. But I live in my world, and I like it here.
Oh, and the great Whittlesey/Whittlesea debate. I noticed that WhittleseA festival takes place in WhittleseY - a bad bodge in the festival publicity, or a genuine reason ? I was curious, and so, finding myself standing next to someone I presume to be the mayor of Whittlesey (if she wasn't, she had well odd taste in gold jewellry), I demanded to have it explained.
Apparently Whittlesea was originally Washland, an island in the middle of what was basically sea. Then in the 17th century the Dutch bodded along and drained it. Around the beginning of the 20th century, someone went "Hang on! We haven't been an island for ages!", and decided to change the name to Whittlesey as it was "more commercial" (eh?)
Unfortunately, it was done in a typical half-arsed way, and both names still get used. All maps and roadsigns seem to say Whittlesey, but the festival has kept the old spelling - and so, bizarrely, has the railway station.
On a mailing list the other day I posed the question "How long will it take me to drive Oxford->Peterborough?", hoping that we'd be able to work out a reasonable answer between us.
In explanation, I said I was driving to a Staw Bear festival. Once we'd established that I really did mean bear, not beer, and that I'd actually meant straw, not staw, there came the obvious question:
A what?
Having never been before, I was a bit unsure.of the answer to that one. Someone else suggested that perhaps a straw bear was "like a wicker man, but smaller and cuddlier". Which pretty much turned out to be correct. Well, except for the cuddly part - straw is actually pretty damn spiky.
So, I turn up at Whittlesey at 10 in the morning to meet my rapper team, and head into a large hall full of folk dancers doing what folk dancers do early on Saturday mornings at festivals. Notably, drinking coffee, eating bacon sandwiches, putting makeup on, wondering where <insert-name-of-person-here> is, and looking a bit bewildered. And at one end of the hall, some hapless bloke is being tied into heavy, near-rigid bundles of straw. So was a smallish child, though he looked remarkably cheerful about the prospect. The results were not particularly ursine, looking more like small, mobile haystacks.
There was milling about - there is always milling about - then someone led the straw "bear" out on a length of rope. Around thirty or so teams of different kinds of dancers followed on, and the procession wound through the streets to the market place. Despite Whittlesey being a small place, there were really quite a lot of people lining the streets to watch the goings-on. I can only assume that not a lot goes on in the Fens in January :)
The rest of the day was pretty laid back, with a written itinerary for us to follow of where we were dancing when. A pretty normal day, really, if you except occasionally running into a bloody great man made of straw.
As much as a I managed to glean about Why can be found here. The bears aren't burnt until tomorrow, so sadly I won't be able to report on that.
One of the nice things today was seeing a bunch of unfamiliar dance teams, or teams I don't see often.
fluffymark, Gog Magog were there, although they were looking a little diminished in both numbers and energy. There was also a deeply bizarre team dresed entirely in black and white, with Kiss-style make up and wigs, and the wholly remarkable name of Pig Dyke Molly. And they had a suzaphone, which puts them instantly in my good books.Best of all, Orion were there. Orion Sword are based in Boston, Mass., and have done a wonderful job of taking a traditional dance style and making it very much their own. And even in a warm pub, full of jaded sword dancers, the whisper "Orion are here, they're dancing Take Five" was enough to get most of us out into the very cold car park to watch. Yup, as in the Dave Brubeck number. And if you've never stood in the cold, behind a saxophonist wellying out Take Five, watching seven American women dancing with long wooden swords, you simply haven't lived.
So yes, relating this in the pub tonight I got a few funny looks. Pointing out that similar things happen near Edinburgh (The Burry Man) and Hastings (The Jack in the Green) and in places all over England didn't help much... because in most people's worlds, they don't happen. But I live in my world, and I like it here.
Oh, and the great Whittlesey/Whittlesea debate. I noticed that WhittleseA festival takes place in WhittleseY - a bad bodge in the festival publicity, or a genuine reason ? I was curious, and so, finding myself standing next to someone I presume to be the mayor of Whittlesey (if she wasn't, she had well odd taste in gold jewellry), I demanded to have it explained.
Apparently Whittlesea was originally Washland, an island in the middle of what was basically sea. Then in the 17th century the Dutch bodded along and drained it. Around the beginning of the 20th century, someone went "Hang on! We haven't been an island for ages!", and decided to change the name to Whittlesey as it was "more commercial" (eh?)
Unfortunately, it was done in a typical half-arsed way, and both names still get used. All maps and roadsigns seem to say Whittlesey, but the festival has kept the old spelling - and so, bizarrely, has the railway station.
no subject
Yeah, I was looking at http://pages.ebay.co.uk/Whittlesey.html just the other day. They had 3 up for grabs.
no subject
Evoking visions of the thing just pitching forward onto its nose and lying there as it transpires (shock !) straw bears cannot walk.
no subject
I just hope they remember to take the person out before they set fire to it ;-)
no subject
your probably the best person to ask, but my mum and I were wondering what on earth a Waltham is.
A Waltham as in Waltham Abbey, Waltham Cross, Bishop Waltham, etc...