Boxing Day Cavortings

Morris dancing outside pubs on Boxing Day is a long tradition. Today we went to The Six Bells to watch Headington Quarrry morris side celebrate the 125th anniversary (to the day) of Cecil Sharp's first visit here. Sharp, who became a major figure in the revival of English folk music and dance, noted down his first Morris tunes here, played on the concertina by William Kimber (bricklayer and erstwhile bird-scarer). Kimber became Sharp's informant on the Headington Quarry morris tradition, which dates back to the late 1700s, and assistant at Sharp's lectures, where he demonstrated the dances and played the concertina.

Gathered around the car park at lunchtime, we all sang the Wassail song, then watched the Headington Quarry Mummers perform an absurd confrontation between St George and 'a Turk' over who actually killed the dragon, listened to carols rung by the Headington Quarry Handbell Ringers, and watched rapper sword dancers recover from a series of tangled errors so elegantly I suspect they were deliberate.

The Six Bells pub is now run by Aziz, which used to be an excellent Indian/Bangladeshi restaurant near where I now live; in a wonderful demonstration of multi-culturalism we were all treated to free mulled wine, onion bhajis and samosas.

The light and my vantage point conspired against taking pictures of the action, so here is rapper/morris dancer/fiddler/handbell ringer, 'Claus', fishing in his bike pannier for his beard.