{"id":5708,"date":"2013-06-23T17:24:50","date_gmt":"2013-06-23T23:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5708"},"modified":"2013-06-23T17:24:50","modified_gmt":"2013-06-23T23:24:50","slug":"britain-and-the-festival-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5708","title":{"rendered":"Britain and the “Festival Gap”"},"content":{"rendered":"

A contributor to the BBC magazine takes the summer solstice as an opportunity to comment on the UK’s paucity of good festivals \u2014 particularly at midsummer:<\/a><\/p>\n

If in this year of 2013, an interplanetary anthropologist came to England for fieldwork, what would they discover? On a variable Sunday each spring, we give our children more chocolate than is good for them, eat roast lamb and visit garden centres.<\/p>\n

On the last day of October, we dress the kids up in old sheets, black bin liners and plastic fangs, and send them down the street to extort sweets from our neighbours. A few days later, we gather around a bonfire, set off rockets and celebrate the execution of a Catholic conspirator. The following month, we get together with our birth families to exchange gifts, to eat too much and to argue.<\/p>\n

And that’s about it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not that he wants to be a Druid or anything: “Druids parading at Stonehenge seem to me as contrived as Morris dancers.” But there is a lack.<\/p>\n

For American culture, I suggest, the Fourth of July takes the place of midsummer, falling less than two weeks later, and being a time for family and community gathering, feasting, and loud noises.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A contributor to the BBC magazine takes the summer solstice as an opportunity to comment on the UK’s paucity of good festivals \u2014 particularly at midsummer: If in this year of 2013, an interplanetary anthropologist came to England for fieldwork, what would they discover? On a variable Sunday each spring, we give our children more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[88,127],"class_list":["post-5708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-britain","tag-festivals"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1u4","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9791,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9791","url_meta":{"origin":5708,"position":0},"title":"Being a Solitary Pagan Does Not Mean that You Celebrate Alone","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 18, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"If you are in the Northern Hemisphere, the fall equinox (Mabon) is nearly upon us \u2014 1:54 a.m. Universal (Greenwich) Time on Sunday the 23rd. For North Americans, that is Saturday evening. What will you do if you are a solitary Pagan? At Under the Ancient Oaks, John Beckett suggests,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/chile-festival-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/chile-festival-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/chile-festival-2.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7836,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7836","url_meta":{"origin":5708,"position":1},"title":"Grappling with Workshops and Festival Culture","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Earlier this week I sent in my workshop descriptions to the Heartland Pagan Festival, whose organizers kindly invited me to present. Now I get to be anxious for two months \u2014 can I do it? My experiences with turning my own writing into festival material has been, let's say, sort\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"heartland","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/heartland-126x150.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":447,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=447","url_meta":{"origin":5708,"position":2},"title":"Here's that meme againA New\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 29, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's that meme againA New York Times story on the Rites of Spring Pagan festival (login required) quotes two contemporary scholars of Paganism, Helen Berger and Sabina Magliocco on, among other things, the numbers of American Pagans.Ms. Magliocco favors the higher number [700,000] based on data like surveys, sales of\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=447#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13427,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13427","url_meta":{"origin":5708,"position":3},"title":"Ronald Hutton’s Gresham Lectures Available Online","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 19, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"The five lectures that Ronald Hutton gave this past spring in the Gresham College series Finding Britain's Lost Gods are available for viewing online. Each lasts about an hour. Gods of Prehistoric Britain Paganism in Roman Britain Anglo-Saxon Pagan Gods Viking Pagan Gods in Britain Finding Lost Gods in Wales\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Britain\"","block_context":{"text":"Britain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=britain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/hutton-anglo-saxon-1024x582.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/hutton-anglo-saxon-1024x582.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/hutton-anglo-saxon-1024x582.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10687,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10687","url_meta":{"origin":5708,"position":4},"title":"Scottish Academic: Runes are Hate Symbols, also Anti-Celtic","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 5, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"A free download from the journal Temenos: \"Pagans, Nazis, Gaels, and the Algiz Rune: Addressing Questions of Historical Inaccuracy, Cultural Appropriation, and the Arguable Use of Hate Symbols at the Festivals of Edinburgh\u2019s Beltane Fire Society\" The abstract: Although Beltaners \u2013 members of Edinburgh\u2019s Beltane Fire Society (BFS) \u2013 can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Beltane\"","block_context":{"text":"Beltane","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=beltane"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/runes.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2311,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2311","url_meta":{"origin":5708,"position":5},"title":"Two Festivals at Once!","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 30, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"If you are celebrating Imbolc in the next few days, be aware that Chinese New Year falls on February 3, so you may hear some extra fireworks, depending where you are. Calculated by the Sun, Imbolc occurs at 0420 Greenwich Mean Time on February 4.","rel":"","context":"In \"festivals\"","block_context":{"text":"festivals","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=festivals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5708"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5709,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5708\/revisions\/5709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}