britishfolktraditions

Crowds gathered to mark the coming of summer with a traditional Celtic fire festival held at Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire....

One of the UK’s oldest surviving festivals has taken place in Cornwall....

Bonfires, blazing torches, body-painted dancers, drummers, jugglers, musicians, fire-eaters, ancient Celtic rituals and a spectacular backdrop....

A village has been taken over by popular sci-fi figures replicated in scarecrow form, including E.T. and the Daleks from Doctor Who....

Knutsford May Day festivities usually take place on the first Saturday of May each year and are the highlight of the town’s annual events....

The church has what is believed to be the oldest written reference to morris dancing in Sussex....

I thought I’d posted about this before but it’s now come up a couple of times on here:...

A Leicestershire man who has been running an ancient bottle kicking event for 50 years said it “never ceases to amaze” him....

They include:...

From The Derbyshire Telegraph:...

Apple wassailing was traditionally held in cider-making communities, so you’re more likely to find wassails in the West Country, or in the Welsh border counties. That said, it appears to be a popular tradition that increasing numbers are returning to, and – like many great traditions – is spreading across England at quite...

Up Helly Aa is a tradition that originated in the 1880s. Since then the festival has been an annual occurrence in the Shetland calendar. The festival is cancelled by exception, the following dates record when and why:...

Just too late for this one this year.

We’ve previously mentioned Doc Rowe and his impressive archive of records and here’s an.earlier article looking at a few of.the weirdest customs he’s catalogued:...

Oasby is a small village just outside what was once voted the most boring town in England, Grantham…however Baboon Night or more correctly Baboon Tossing Night is far from being dull and lightens, quite literally, a rather cold and dull Friday in November....

While living in Southampton and working at a local newspaper, photographer Rachel Adams, to her delight, discovered a new generation of Morris dancers performing at pubs, events and festivals. The fresh choreographed figures jumping up and down to music, clad in costumes covered in bells, and waving handkerchiefs and bashing...

Fans of British folklore are championing a campaign to safeguard a unique archive cataloguing traditions from Britain and Ireland. The collection – of more than 20,000 books, 4,000 tape cassettes and 3,500 hours of reel-to-reel audio – has been amassed by one man. David “Doc” Rowe is a 79-year-old folklorist who has...

A peal of clashing bells echoes across the hills. Hundreds of rooks roosting in the cemetery trees splutter into the darkness. At 7.45pm on 5 November, St Michael’s church bells ring out in discord across the village of Shebbear, in rural west Devon overlooking the Dartmoor hills. On Bonfire Night here, there aren’t...

Police ask that only local people attend although the population of the town doubles anyway, however, there is a live stream and, while no longer live (I’ll try and do better next year), you can still watch the stream....

Lovers of old customs lament the disappearance of the old customs associated with All Hallows’ Eve, but it is forgotten that two of the chief pieces of ritual, the lighting of fires and the eating of cakes, have been transferred from October 31 to the 5th of November....

The annual ceremony of the Cutty Wren was revived by Old Glory Molly Dancers and Musicians, together with folklorist Pete Jennings, on St. Stephen’s day (26th December), 1994. The village of Middleton, in East Suffolk, is believed to be one of the last places in England where the ritual of the hunting of the Cutty Wren...