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Everyone grab your fiddle for Beltane/May Day celebration?
There's Morris dancing tunes & fiddling tunes passed down in John Playford's tunebooks!
Beltane Border Morris - Firedance, today!
The Cherry Tree March and the Mayday Rant by Andrew Burns - performed by Camus.
...for winding down the day:
May Day - The Fitzgeralds.
A few tunes to try:
The Mayday - Hornpipe
The First of May - Jig, from piper tradition
The First of May - more, take your pick.
The Flowers In May - Hornpipe
Jack O' (of, on, in) The Green - Slip Jig, or Three-Two
Jack's Alive - Jig
Jack's (is Yet) Alive - Reel
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always associated May Day with other things. like parades with tanks and stuff. interesting you found other things associated with it and a quick search barely reveals what it was... im sure it goes back further than the former.. but i think kinda weird.
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May Day Waltz - Matt & Tom Turino.
Young May Moon (Jig) - Deb Chalmers. Quite a bit of info & notation on The Session.
I believe the Hawthorn tree was traditionally decorated for Beltane!
The Hawthorn Tree of Cawdor - beautiful when played slow like this (Duncan Lean)!
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ABitRusty said
always associated May Day with other things. like parades with tanks and stuff. interesting you found other things associated with it and a quick search barely reveals what it was... im sure it goes back further than the former.. but i think kinda weird.
Sorry, got carried away adding stuff & missed you (I still have a couple more tunes)!
Yeah me too, I didn't know anything about Beltane, or any of the pagan celebration until finding Irish (and other) traditions along with the fiddle tunes!
Growing up, I'd seen images in old books - girls dancing around the 'May Pole' (maybe fairy tales, or poems), didn't know why or what for. Didn't really know anything about 'the Green Man', except I'd seen some relief carvings on tiles.
Wow... Jethro Tull's 'Songs From The Woods' Album (1977) all MAKE SENSE TO ME NOW! 🤣
Jack-in-the-Green - Jethro Tull! 'Songs From The Woods' Album PLAYLIST (including the title song & 'Beltane'). Stepping back into my favorite decade of music! Geez, I have to get back to playing with my amp.
I didn't realize (until today) that the medieval-sounding Flemish tune, 'The Bear Dance' is also known as 'Planting The Maypole'.
Oooooh... what about - The Wickerman? Humor in fantastical horror... or just plain disturbing?
Maypole Song
The Maypole Dance No.2 - Bela Bartok (44 Duos for 2 Violins). Duet arranged for Violas & played by Szczepan Pytel.
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That was brilliant Emily, I have never seen them do this one. I saw them at the middlewhich boat festival a couple years back, but they didnt do this one.
I had completely forgotten it was Beltane. I love all the old pagan stuff, that goes on in bits of the country, I especially like that they have girls dancing, the morris rings wouldnt allow women in at all until recently, the big four seasonal festivals, were Beltane, Samhain, lunasad and imbolc, thousands of years old. Thats a great vid of people enjoying themselves,
By the way I have a carved green man in my garden hanging in a tree it watches over the plants and makes them grow.
Cant beat a sunny day
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Andrew
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Or, if you preferred him in the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,: -
If you're American and you want to watch The Wickerman, you should probably make sure you search for the Director's Cut.
Andrew
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And did you know Barbara Rafferty was in The Wickerman before she was in Rab C Nesbitt and Hamish Macbeth?
Andrew
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Gordon, the first image was like me at glasters
Cant beat a sunny day
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but without the mud. I suspect this is more what the pair of you wouuld have looked like at glasto: -
Andrew
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😉
Cant beat a sunny day
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@Gordon Shumway , @stringy -
I didn't see mud this year at Glastonbury for Beltane (in the videos that weren't all pavement).
I did see both the 1973 and 2006 version of 'The Wicker Man' films (really sorry I sat thru the 2016 version with Nicolas Cage). Christopher Lee did go on to say he never thought of it as a horror film, which I think is interesting.
Anyway, it was kinda cool to go back & listen to The Wicker Man soundtrack. I listen so differently now, compared to 'BV' (before violin/viola). There's counterpoint AND polyrhythm - used at the same time in 'Chop Chop'!
Chop Chop - with Oranges and Lemons, but I'm not quite sure what tune the fiddle is playing over it! I probably would've thought it all weird when I saw the film (back in the 80's). 🤔... still think it's weird, but now I'm intrigued.
...interested in playing any new Beltane-related tune on the fiddle?
Kinda makes me want to revisit Northern England/Scottish Border tunes!
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Emily, think you got the wrong end of the stick, gordon was talking about glastonbury festival, its an , in joke in the uk thats it nearly always knee deep in mud. The vid with the morris men was on the cumbrian borders, I think, in any case it was on the scot border somewhere. Beltane isnt really celebrated in the uk anymore, just the odd little festival type thing you posted, the travellers usually make a big thing over it, or used to do, (not gypsy travellers)
The tune oranges and lemons reflects the areas of the churches in the tune, like shoreditch for instance was a poor part of the town, old bailey is the court.
The candle to light you to bed and chopper to chop off your head refers to executions at the tower
Cant beat a sunny day
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In-jokes are designed to befuddle.
The Wickerman is set on a non-existent fertile island off the Scottish coast. But the SW of Scotland, where the movie was shot, has, evidently, approximately the climate depicted, due to the gulf stream.
There were two versions of the 1973 movie - the cinema release and the director's cut. If Emily has only seen the cinema relase, she needs to do a little research, and the money would be well-spent on Amazon.
Why would I want to see a Nick Cage remake?
He was OK when he was still working solely for the Coen brothers, but then his face became ubiquitous ad nauseam.
Glasto is the world's most expensive mud-fight (people steal tents there in order to sell them to people who have had their tents stolen!). I've never been. I've had die-hard friends who went every year, but they all gave up after a decade of it.
Andrew
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Believe it or not Gordon I went 18 times, we did actually get a couple of sunny years, first time I went Black Uhuru were on they played 96 degrees in the shade and it was actually 104 in front of the main stage, but there is no denying it is usually pretty bad. One year me and a mate and my missus stood in front of the second stage with the rain sleeting down, 19 of us went that year but only us 3 went out to watch the shire horses because i liked mark and lard (remember them) they had a band and were on sort of comedy, anyway we had wellies on and seriously the water was near the top of my boots, and an empty beer can actually floated past us, I remember saying to my mate we could do this for nothing in a field near our house.
Cant beat a sunny day
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Anyone recognize the fiddle tune played counterpoint to 'Oranges and Lemons' in 'Chop Chop'?
The first videos for Beltane I came across for this year were of the sunrise ceremonies on Glastonbury Tor and around Glastonbury! I've been attracted to Glastonbury because of King Arthur lore & great ruins.
The Beltane Border Morris (OP Fire dance video) danced in Haytor. This sunrise video of their 'Cross Tree' wasn't available to view right away.
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Emily was the first video you posted glastonbury, I thought it was the scots border, it doesnt look like glasonbury tor, there is no road going over the tor, and the land for miles around is flat, it was originally marsh land, or am I misunderstanding.
The actual glastonbury festival is about 15 miles from Glastonbury at shepton mallet, its a gigantic festival, usually has about 280,000 people there, its on farmland so you can imagine how it churns up pretty quickly, a couple of my friends bands have performed there on stages near the green field, one was just last year.
One of them was called the Tansads, now Merry hell my missus is very good friends with their manager
Cant beat a sunny day
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@stringy -
Cool!
Both of the videos of the Beltane Border Morris were recorded in Haytor, down in Devon - May 1st this year.
Sorry for the confusion. I liked the Beltane Border Morris dancers better than anything I saw in Glastonbury.
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I get you Emily, I like all morris dancers, I think in the UK they tend to be thought of as quaint or even amusing, but its extremely serious, I love the dancing the music and the entertainment they provide as well as the history, which most people over here, believe it or not have no idea about, its sad when people have no interest in old traditions
Cant beat a sunny day
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@Gordon Shumway -
I'm sure I did not see the director's cut of the 1973 Wicker Man back in the 80's. Just found a 2013 article by Roger Ebert (film critic) - “The Wicker Man”: The cut may be final, but the film is still incomplete. He talked about all the versions we got over here & claims even the 'Final Cut' was missing important parts. Thank goodness he describes some of what's missing (and 'why' it's important) - because I can't find anything better.
Yes, some films, especially cult films should never be remade!
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