A Midsummer Celtic Festival Dream
The festival started with an exploration of the thin veil between the natural and supernatural realms and of one of the great mysterious forces of the human heart – love. This intimate one hour garden performance by the Guildford Shakespeare Company of the mechanicals’ preparations for the Duke of Athens’ nuptial celebrations was delightfully funny and moving, and the best in my memory.
The London and South East Branch of the Clarsach Society introduced our audience to a range of Gaelic and Celtic harps, with stories, songs, and harp music to delight the soul and set the mood for our first Celtic festival. This delightful group of harpists portrayed the joy and exuberance of the Celtic music traditions through the ages and across these islands.
Our Celtic pattern of prayer and liturgy for the week was provided by the people and resources of the Community of Aidan & Hilda, the Lindisfarne centred dispersed community. The community’s creation based resources and love of Celtic Christianity and gentle leadership, provided oases of calm and space for the soul to commune with our Creator and with each other, where we also built a cairn of stones around the statue of Columba in our chapel.
We were fascinated by the illustrated talk given by Richard Savage of the Surrey Archaeology Society exploring the range of mysterious Celtic and Roman-Celtic sites of ritual, from the enigmatic 40 foot deep pits with layers of seeming ritual, through to grove sites adapted by Romans for worship sites, and their seeming influence on the early development of churches in Britain and Europe.
The Welsh Day at St Columba’s was crowned by the stunning performance and virtuosity of Glenda Clwyd which brought tears and gasps from the small but appreciative audience. Glenda delighted her audience with her beautiful harps and music, her singing in Welsh and English, her stories and teaching, and her confident all round presentation brought refreshment and joy to the heart and soul.
Stuart Thomas also led a welcome a much appreciated exploration of the development and range of Celtic music, while Jan Brind and Bryony Davis gathered people together for an uplifting and enjoyable repertoire of traditional and contemporary Celtic hymns and songs with ‘A Wee Sing’.
Columba’s Day on June 9th was celebrated through prayer and liturgy, a fantastic Scottish Lunch, and ending with a vigorous and fun-filled Ceili, played and called by local group Innistor.
The legendary folk musician and singer, Tom McConville along with a band member, David Newey, played a wide range of traditional and contemporary Northern England music which has been deeply influenced by Scottish and Irish traditions. Tom’s mellow voice and virtuosity on his fiddles provided the audience with moving insights to the development of a specific thread of development of Celtic musical traditions.
Dalla was a completely different experience for those of us who had not given much thought of Cornish Celtic music. A Bretonic Gallic influence was in evidence that reminded one also of Cajun rhythms. The group’s energy, stories, shanties, reels, songs in English and Kernow, and harmonies were a revelation of the Cornish Celtic connection and much appreciated and enjoyed by the audience.
The oracle of the coracle, Peter Faulkner of the Coracle Society, fascinated us and amused us with his workshop demonstration and exhibition of coracle and curragh building using natural traditional sources of ash, willow, cowhide, and horsehair and hemp. During afternoon session involved several people tried out a coracle on the Basingstoke canal. We were amazed at the efficiency and manoeuvrability of the small basket crafts.
Wraggle Taggle, in the tradition of North London Irish Ceili bands, put us through our paces in the evening, and finished with a concert including requests from the audience – all in all a wonderful finish to an enjoyable festival.
