Rush Bearing

[watervole]

This is unlikely to be of interest to anyone except those interested in North West morris dancing or English traditions.

I'm reading up on rush-bearing traditions at present.

In the days of earth or stone church floors, they used to cover the floor in rushes for insulation and to provide a softer surface to kneel on.  Castles and houses likewise

Comments

[veronica_milvus]

I love this sort of stuff. All very "Golden Bough". Thanks for posting.

[watervole]

Ironically, it's not really 'Golden Bough' at all. Frazer, and those of his time, tended to attribute pagan origins to things on the flimsiest of evidence and not to spot evidence that contradicted it.

eg. It's easy to find condemnations of morris dancing as pagan. Unfortunately these come from a period when almost everything that involved having fun was condemned as pagam/unglodly/immoral. If you look at the actual quotes, it's pretty clear people were just having a good rant. If you go a hundred years earlier, the church was actively supporting the morris and using it as a fund-raiser.

But if you just mean folk history in general, then I agree - it's fascinating.

[watervole]

Duffy?

What was the mediaeval church like? It certainly appears to have had a strong social function from what I'm reading about church ales, but I'm only really reading about the morris connections at present. (and I've picked up something about our old, lost, traditions of mystery plays, etc)

[vjezkova]

I had a look at the Wikipedia text and I found 2004 cart name was Pilsner, I wonder if that has anything in common with Czech town Pilsen - Plzeň (and famous beer)...
This is interesting, I haven´t known rushes, of course I can´t read Shakespeare in original.
This tradition is very nice and as always, thank you for your comment!

[watervole]

Bound to be a connection - morris dancers like beer.

[vjezkova]

:-)I thought so. Do you?

[watervole]

I'm a cider drinker.

[watervole]

I'm getting a very strong urge to head up to Saddleworth this August.

Or to Gorton in September... http://esd.mmu.ac.uk/gmm/