cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/22061871

His first stop is to witness the ancient practice of tar-barrelling in Ottery St Mary, Devon, where on 5 November every year the townsfolk run through the streets with flaming barrels of tar hoisted on their shoulders. It is a tradition centuries old, its origins lost in the mists of time; it could be something to do with Guy Fawkes, with purging the streets of evil, or with fumigating the thatch of the village cottages. Or it could have arisen from a warning given at the approach of the Spanish Armada. As with all the best folkloric traditions, there is room for all these possibilities and more.

Cooper stays to the very end (“I saw the midnight barrel!”) and is enchanted. “There was a look in their eyes by the end like they’d been somewhere ordinary people have never gone.” Later, when he is investigating morris dancing, he sidesteps all the usual mockery of what is, let’s face it, one of our more easily derided traditions, and says simply and without guile, “Looks like a pure thing, doesn’t it?” Maybe it’s the season we’re in but I almost felt tears begin to prick my eyes.

By the time he was earnestly thanking the Boss Morris group for letting him join in their winter solstice dance – “It uplifted my soul. The most connected I’ve ever been to nature” – the tears were definitely there. God bless you, Charlie/Kurtan, whichever and however much of each you are.