Morris dancers coming in to land

I left home an hour earlier today  than I needed to for getting to our open choir rehearsal (a full run through of Haydn's Seasons with invited audience before we get to Grenoble for our concerts there) to  see whether anything interesting was happening in the folk-filled streets. And - knock me over with a white hanky - in almost no time I had the picture I spent for ever trying to get yesterday.

The English are hugely mocked for this bizarre dancing tradition of ours but as long as it's not taken too seriously it's probably no madder than traditional dance anywhere else in the world. This side is dancing Cotswold morris, originating in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, for which the white garb, flowery hats, crossed ribbons and bells on the legs are typical. Dancers usually hold either white handkerchiefs like this or sticks and there is sometimes a seventh dancer, wearing a smock or riding a hobby horse or both, who cavorts around the outside hitting the other dancers with, traditionally, an inflated pig's bladder to promote fertility. It definitely works - just look at family sizes in the days when morris dancing was common.

The side waiting their turn at the left do north west morris, originating in the textile mills of Lancashire for which the dancers wear bell-laden clogs whose wooden soles add to the rhythm of the music. These sides are more likely to include both men and women and this one was using mill bobbins in place of sticks.

The side to the right, wearing a costume made from strips of cloth, dance the more vigorous border morris, from the English-Welsh border. These dancers often have blackened faces, for reasons lost in the 500 or more years that it's been going on, or, nowadays, almost any other colour.

No sword dancers here, sadly. They're from the north east, where the accents are so delicious they almost don't need music. There's a separate clog dancing tradition there too.

As I headed off I came across a three excellent buskers in Cornmarket Street entertaining the crowds with rap, human beatbox and sax. Not part of the folk festival, but rhythm is rhythm, fusion is fun, and it was great to see a clog dancer in swirling skirt rant (a walking dance step) down the street in time.

As for the rest of the day's music... our rehearsal was appalling, quite appalling, and not only because I'd taken a Mendelssohn score with me instead of Haydn. Oops. Our audience of six clapped generously anyway. They must have been someone's loyal family. Thank goodness there weren't any more.