We had the usual Beltane celebrations last night. And I'll be honest. After we all had a bit of a primal scream and then a few cider and rums, heated in beakers on the embers of the Wicker Person, it turned into a bit of a night.
Then woke up this morning to find the croquet lawn infested with Morris Men.
They're resilient little bleeders. The fire-hose and a few half-bricks removed most of them. But one snuck into the Moot House and claimed sanctuary by sitting on the Worship Focus table.
Problem you see. By being on that table, he became the Worship Focus. Not the focus of worship. But the thing that, by looking at, we learn something about God.
I'll be honest. An overweight real-ale-drinking Java programmer is not going to help me learn much about God. Except maybe that God's love is even greater than we imagine. But what can you do? We couldn't poke him with pointy sticks. He is protected by the rules of the Moot House.
So we switched all the taps on and flooded the building. Say what you like about Morris Men. But the hankies don't half weigh them down once they get wet. Abandoning the hankies, he legged it for the Orchard.
He was clearly hoping to hide in the hedges until the hunt died down. But as he snuck along, the bells on his ankles gave him away.
And now the pointy sticks were liturgically acceptable.
I've received my annual letter declaring war and threatening unending vengeance from Big Morris. I've filed it with all the rest. I guess it's same time next year.
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I have had to stifle my guffaws so as not to disturb my housemate across the corridor!
ReplyDeleteI once witnessed a Morris Men riot in a Cotswold town, when two competing Morris troops turned up at the same time to a food fayre being run on a Sunny May Day.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't a pretty sight, with handkerchiefs at 10 paces and duels of the bells and physical dancing around each other and shoulder barging.
There were bells flying everywhere and the children had great fun, chasing them and throwing them back into the ring. (so to speak).
In the end, the one with the larger, cider drinking rotund men, ran out of steam and retired to one of the pubs in the market place. Sadly, they were than besieged by the victorious troop who harangued them with calls of 'pansies' which I thought was a bit of the wrong season for them, and I'd not seen any on the flower stalls?
Eventually, the Town Cryer was roped in to maintain the peace, and his bell proved to be a boon, as he struck the troop members besieging the pub, soundly and ringing tones. He was bought drinks for the rest of the day, but the losing troop.
Lesson learned from this scene was that only a single troop of Morris Men can inhabit a space safely at a time, otherwise violence and hilarity will occur.