Ba humbug

Mince pies, late night shopping, and counting down days til Christmas? No thanks. I'd rather go with the dancing, drumming, fire & nudity.

So that time of year is upon us yet again. Where piped, joyless, 'festive' carols blare out at you from every angle, along with overly commercialised 'sentiment'. Its hardly surprising that suicide figures soar at this time of year with the likes of Bing Crosby and Sinatra determined to depress us enough into contemplating it ourselves.

I think we had the right idea back in the good old pre-Christian days, when the main winter festival was the celebration of Samhuinn on November 1st; the ancient marking of the end of summer, and approach of winter. That's what you want in a seasonal festival: fire, fighting and excessive amounts of body paint.

Edinburgh has a very active Beltane Society who mark the four seasonal pagan festivals with processions and performances. The main theme of Samhuinn is the battle between light and dark, summer and winter, embodied as two characters who fight to the death, winter overcoming summer as inevitably as the seasons.

The Blue Man leads the procession down the Royal Mile to where the Horned God (2nd) will do battle with the summer lord.

Fire, body paint, strange figures in hooded cloaks, people dressed as wolves, and small bands of protesting Christians armed with placards trying to save all the devil worshippers (Bless them), its seasonal cheer to warm the cockles of your heart.

But even I can't be a total Scrooge about Christmas.. mostly because one of the things I love most are bright, colourful, shiny lights, and at this time of year, Edinburgh has them dangling off every branch of every tree throughout the city. Even I will admit that the effect is fairly breath taking..


Although part of me can't help but wonder if all of the colour and light isn't just a slightly bastardised version of the slightly less health and saftey friendly (and Christian friendly) ancient penchant for fire and light.