Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain [Paperback]

The definitive history of the british ritual year. From the origins of wassailing to why the English don't celebate St George's day, Hutton leaves no stone unturned in his relentless search for simplicity and truth in an arena that has for so long been dominated by fantasy and wishful thinking. While lacking nothing in academic rigour, Hutton's writing is also pacy and colourful, with occasional glimpses of a mischievous sense of humour. Contrary to previous 'reviewers' who have sought to undermine Hutton's work and peddle their own agendas on the amazon forum, the possibilty that this historian is an active participant in many of the rituals he describes makes his merciless debunking all the more credible. A remarkable piece of work: entirely non-partisan, essential reading for anyone involved in the folk world, essential reading for anyone who lives in Britain.

In his third book on folk beliefs and faiths, Ronald Hutton takes a day by day look at the sacred year. The book can be read on its own -- indeed it is excellent as a reference book for answering all those queries generated by the folklore industry and the tourism industry. if you wqant to know about Guy Fawkes at Lewes, May Day at Padstow and lots of others, then this is the book for you. For me what was especially interesting, was the realisation that the myths surrounding the orignins of our festivals, was almost as interesting as the myths contained in the festivals and celebrations themselves. Professor Hutton expertly lays bare the fact that for many of our festivals -- they are not the archaic survival of ancient pagan rites - preserved as folkloric tradtion. In fact many of our festivals, with a few notable exceptions, date no earlier than the middle ages - a decent enough pedigree to be sure -- but definitely not pre-Christian.

As a dozen good reviews could not begin to provide a fair account of this book, I shall offer a few key points which caught my attention as introduction only.

At the outset I had hoped for a more 'traditionally' pagan account of the ancient seasonal festivals, their origins and meanings.
I was initially surprised and eventually delighted to find however that although this work is more of an Academic compote of facts and dates and included ongoing assessment of earlier authors often unfounded but sometimes inspirational conjecture than I had anticipated (of Sir James Frazer et al) nevertheless this is a very enjoyable, remarkably researched and admirably objective book-collection of essays.

That much of this morass concerns the developments and impacts of constantly changing traditions due to Christian Reformation and Counter Reformation (certainly comedic at this distance in time), the ongoing process a seminal crucible (reminding me of both grail and cauldron) proved revealing, as the general view of folk traditions and their origins seems to usually favor the more arcane sources, this book by contrast documents only definite evidence, largely that of written records, of church, kirk and council across the land.

With a nod to the Scandinavian Yuil, as well as the Roman Kalendae, we embark on an exploration of the traditions of Christmastide, the Twelve Days, the Rites of Celebration, Purification and of Charity which included the remarkable Clementing, Elementing and Souling, even Thomasing, Gooding, Mumping and Corning (as well as more)regional begging customs, by which means the poor would recant rhymes for contribution of food for a feast of their own.
Similar socially accepted appeals for reward included the Hocktide 'heaving' or 'lifting' at Easter, in which gangs of men assaulted women for favor and groups of women also pursue and caught men of their fancy for same, at its best a raising up on a lifted chair of a person as proxy 'Lord' to commemorate the Holy ascent of Easter, the chosen surrogate released upon a reward of money or a kiss, at its worst a mere grasping by hands and throwing upwards as an occasion for assault and robbery.
The ongoing exposition of numerous social customs of this kind, both dazzle the mind with its quantity, as well as provides a clear insight into how poverty was communally accepted, dealt with by innovative appeals to the community at large and that these were often 'sanctioned' by inclusion of some short Christian phrase in the introductory verse or chant.

The author traces the development of such customs and portrays their eventual descent into more high spirited, reckless and even angry demands for assistance that could be met with threats and violence if not accepted.
Once national schools were established and later a more centralized protection for the poor was introduced, such earlier community traditions dissipated further, demonstrating the authors argument throughout this book of the movement from a community sharing seasonal rituals and traditions including those aspects of display that were geared to earn rewards, to the de-socialization of such community into a society characterized by its more insular and private approach to seasons and their festivals or traditions.

The Christianization of earlier traditions also has its place in this book, as for example the feast marking the end of winter and start of the summer months ahead at February 1st, Imbolc (the etymology of its name relating to ewes milk and thus new life) initially dedicated to the Irish goddess Brigid, but who was later morphed into the Christian St Bride.
This is an important theme of both this book and of the mythological psycho-social developments of these Isles. Most surprisingly the often claimed genesis or inception of many Christian traditions in the pre Christian, infact seems to have increasingly worked in reverse. As religious conflicts in the land over changing orthodoxies developed, the Catholic tradition with its wealth of near magical rituals was vigorously being uprooted from the public and community sphere of practice by the ascent of the puritan Protestant, the ensuing personal spiritual void resulted in many cases in the earlier magical Catholic rituals being carried on privately at home and eventually (d)evolving into allegedly ancient 'survivalist' 'folk-traditions'. Conversely, some of the Christianized traditions do appear to have had earlier sources such as the Rogationtide and Pentecost processions, at which time the people marched en mass around the crop fields, singing hymns at chosen stop points as the church ministers blessed the crops.

The book does feature ancient tradition where evidence has supported this, such as for example the affirmation of the Beltane as an accepted fire festival in certain regions of Northern Europe and the outlaying regions of the British Isles (unlike the later Samhain, for which evidence of a major 'Celtic' fire festival is less apparent). With greater detail due to the weight of evidence available however, Hutton explores the cultural progress towards our more modern current perspectives, for example plotting the development of the 'May' (which unsurprisingly did have ancient antecedents in the delight of Spring returned) as people initially adorned self and home with garlands and greenery, which in time became a tradition of young women selling garlands, later children took over this role, and in their turn both to manage the unruly and the revenue these were eventually taken over by schools and local institutions. By contrast, the Mummers Plays with their essentially Christian derived themes of battle, death and resurrection, were more officially sanctioned groups from the outset and had less to do with earlier pre Christian traditions.

Despite growing religious and institutional involvement in previously communal activities and traditions, the populace applied themselves with great enthusiasm to any occasion of social bonding, often at some cost to the societies they lived in (other than merely of money or means) such as the many community Maypoles stolen by rival villages and towns resulting in pitched battles between the two, the anarchic Saturnalia of Misrule as witnessed at the Shrovetide street 'foot-ball' games played across whole towns which could involve thousands of people and provided an occasion for licensed misrule resulting in damage to property and individual (although less violent than the serious riot and rebellion which was reserved for the Summer games as a time more suited for battle on the streets or field). The Church Ales or festivals also developed their Abbots of Unreason and a myriad practices of inversion and nonsense (Samuel Butler now we know where your inspiration came from).
Charting how an apparently arcane 'folk tradition' once also considered a surviving pagan fertility rite had originated in high social circles of the Royal Courts and devolved into the rural communities, Hutton's' research into the Morris dancers is fascinating for its explanation of how we may manufacture new ancient traditions out of nowhere.

Perhaps my favorite exposition in this work is that of the origins and evolution of The Jack in the Green, identified as a 'survival' of an ancient pagan fertility rite by the Frazerite Lady Raglan of the Folklore society in 1939, established on her view linking the dancing Green-Man in May day processions with the foliage faces on church walls. This was a lineage unresolved till 1979 Roy Judges study revealed the true origins to be somewhat less arcane, and linked them to a more traditional social ritual evolved as so many traditional customs of display were, to celebrate the new season with a display deigned to garner reward. To explain, during the17thC, London milkmaids danced the streets on May Day with their pails covered in flowers which symbolized the Springs new growth and so presented the promise of new grass for the cattle thus promising fresh milk, cream and butter. These displays earned them money as reward and therefore can be seen to serve a double purpose, of advertising their wares, as well a gathering much needed financial support after a lengthy winter without much income. They later left the pails for lighter wooden frames similarly covered in flowers and greenery, and later still were imitated in their greenery attired frames and street dancing display by the London Chimney sweeps whose claim for sympathy at this time was based on the end of winter cold meaning no more fires or work for them till next fall.

Hutton surmises this work with a number of provocative and insightful observations, for example that the notion of a distinctive 'Celtic' ritual year with four festivals at the quarter days and an opening at Samhain, is a scholastic construction of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which should now be considerably revised or even abandoned altogether.
Whilst the debt to a medieval, magical Catholicism seems to be growing apparent in my reading of serious studies of the origin of neo-pagan traditions, Hutton's final words over the changing Christian influence upon the traditional festivals of the year are revelatory.
He establishes that soon as the system of salvation through ritual was scrapped at the Reformation, the merry making began to be regarded as a liability by the social and religious elites....thus the ''evolution of a religious ideology ...(had) produced a society imbued with a general taste for ceremony and acted as a means to endorsement of secular festivity. Read more ›