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It's Wakes Monday!

8/9/2013

4 Comments

 
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Today is Wakes Monday. Celebrated in parts of England, mostly the north, and much fallen into disuse now. However, it is still the date of a famous annual fixture in the calendar of traditions - the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance. This is a sort of morris dance performed by six men carrying reindeer antlers accompanied by several other mumming characters and musicians. No one is sure how old the dance is, but the reindeer antlers they use have been carbon dated to around 1050AD. It is unclear as to whether the dance is this old, or indeed it could be even older, some believe that these are actually replacement antlers. (Did they wear the first set out??) Another theory is that the hobby horse (one of the mumming characters involved) predates the horn dance element, which might have been added later. Yet another possibility is that the dance is a relic of some kind of shamanic rite which might stretch back into pre-history. I like that theory, but that doesn't make it true...
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Meanwhile, I have just started reading a recently released book called Elen of the Ways, by Elen Sentier. So far I'm enjoying it. The quality of writing is high, and if the content is as good as I expect, look for a review of it on this blog in due course. Elen of the Ways is a female deer deity. In a typical display of synchronicity, I heard of her for the first time a couple of weeks ago, when someone referred me to a piece by historian Caroline Wise, also entitled Elen of the Ways, which references the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance. [Update: Caroline Wise published a book Finding Elen in 2015.]
 
Here's a nice documentary piece on the dance from BBC 4.
I also wanted to share a video of Thaxted Morris performing a possibly more traditional version of the dance. They dance to the old 19th century tune, which I think is very lovely. Although this tune was in use at Abbots Bromley for nearly a century, it is not as old as the dance, which has traditionally been done to "popular dance tunes of the day".
Finally, here is a link to a third video, not as well photographed as the first two, but rather evocative for being danced in a forest! This is Lord Conyers Morris Men. Like the Thaxted dancers, they appear to be carrying fallow deer antlers. Embedding is disabled on this one, so just click the link.

Happy  Wakes Monday!
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4 Comments
Kris Holmes
9/9/2013 06:06:48 am

Lovely! So good to know that this tradition carries on through generations.

Reply
Kris Hughes
9/9/2013 06:26:04 am

This has always fascinated me. I'm glad you enjoyed it, too.

Reply
Ed Watson link
14/9/2013 10:10:59 pm

Hi Kris,
Abbots Bromley is only about 15 miles from where I live, but I've never actually witnessed the Horn Dance. Men dancing in horned headgear seems to be a through-back from a very ancient cult which is immediately suggestive of Shamamism. I like the theory too and it might just be true.
Not only was the red deer a major food source and antlers used as picks in the construction of ancient monuments but there appears to have been a red deer cult stemming back to at least the Neolithic in Northern Eurasia. It always strikes me as very convenient that the ancient people who constructed these monuments, such as Stonehenge, left antler picks in the bottom of the trench or under a megalith, providing a dating source for the construction of the monument. Perhaps it was more than that, after all why discard your tools?
At Stonehenge we find the Aubrey Hole nearest the centre of the north-east entrance, AH55, was honoured with a deposit of two antlers, perhaps stressing the axis of the monument. Another, AH21, close to the southern entrance was found to also contain antlers.
Furthermore, between the sarsen circle and the ditch at Stonehenge are two irregular, concentric rings (or a spiral) of pits known as the Y and Z Holes. Discovered by William Hawley in 1923 these enigmatic pits are the last known structural activity at Stonehenge, dated to around 1,600 BC.
A jumbled stack of five broken stag antlers; two picks and three entire antlers were found in the bottom of Y Hole 30; significantly, again adjacent the monument axis. Radiocarbon dating has revealed the antlers are much older than other artefacts deposited in the same series of pits suggesting they had been curated elsewhere prior to deposition.
Rather than simply discarded tools, these antlers appear to be evidence of structured deposition; a ritual performed, perhaps, by a prehistoric Shaman?
The ancient tales of Lleu Law Gyffes, from the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, and The Frenzy of Suibne appear to provide evidence of the survival of North European Shamanisn into the Celtic peoples of Britain and Ireland.
The selective deposition of antlers at ancient monuments, significantly at Stonehenge the axis marks the mid-winter solstice, suggests survival from a similar, much older ritual practice. I suspect the Abbot's Bromley Horn Dance, originally performed on the mid-winter solstice, has its roots in the same cult.
Best wishes,
Ed

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Kris Hughes
15/9/2013 12:30:54 pm

Thanks for taking the time to leave such a detailed and interesting comment, Ed! I'm afraid that I've never been much of a Stonehenge scholar, so much of the above was news to me.

I do find the possibility of a Shamanic (or something similar) connection to many mumming traditions to be intriguing!
Best to you, also!
Kris

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