First up on the Things to Do in Edinburgh List was a trip to
the Beltane Fire Festival. This is 'a dynamic reinterpretation and
modernisation of an ancient Iron Age Celtic ritual of a pagan festival to
welcome summer', according to the website.
This saw me, the Missus, the Other Woman and the Other
Woman's Long-suffering Fella, plus several thousand other folk, gather on
Calton Hill in the middle of the city to watch some pagan re-enactors crown the
May Queen and set fire to stuff before processing around the hill.
It was quite a fascinating event, mainly because the PA
system was awful so you has to fight your way close to the action to have any
clue about what was going on. The lighting of the fire from the temple
(pictured badly above) was quite impressive, but it also happened an hour later
than advertised.
Pagans and pagan re-enactors are clearly no the most
punctual of people. There were other events going on but it was a slapdash on
the organisation front and information was quite hard to come by, despite the
fact there was a printed leaflet.
So we stuck it out for a bit, then left and went to the
pub.
'We'll talk about this for minutes to come,' commented the
Other Woman's Long-suffering Fella. I think even he realised he was being
optimistic about this prediction.
The following day we went to Edinburgh Castle, which
was a much more organised and enjoyable experience. The Missus tried to attack
a cannon and won, and we also had a poke about in the jail cells, which were
very good.
In the evening, we ventured out to the Pleasance, which was
one of the venues hosting TradFest. This is a lowish-key festival celebrating
traditional art and music, and we saw a folk-meets-bluegrass out called Blue
Flint. Fronted by two banjo-playing women, they were excellent, and I bought
their most recent CDs, Stories From Home. This has been getting a lot of air
play at home and I'll be investing in their other two CDs.
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