Wolf's Head & Vixen Morris
Est. 1995
Wolf's Head & Vixen Morris
est 1995 Wolf's Head & Vixen Morris
A fabulous article about Wolf's Head & Vixen Morris written by Barry Fentiman Hall and originally published in The Rochester Radar 2027
My name is BFH. Sometimes I go by Meanderthal.
A poet who walks the Medway Delta
Tales of Meanderthal - THE DARK MORRIS
A poet who walks cannot but be seduced by the power of stories. Our steps make a beat on the earth that vibrates in our heads and shapes the world around us into a thing we can interpret with words. This is how we dance and the old stories get remade in a language that reveres them.
I first met Wolf's Head and Vixen Morris (WH&V) after attending the workers' May Day event at Rochester Castle. Sweeps being as new to me as socialism was habit. Seen through the window of The Golden Lion, weary happy wildies drank long banquet style blinking in the mid-morning novelty of full glasses at breakfast.
The WH&V side are a band of poets, artists and dreamers who dance the dark morris. The world reflected in mirror shades, what light there is at 5am on Blue Bell Hill absorbed by black paint. Happyserious, gamefaced when the music begins and the sticks crack in the still air clean across the river. Welcoming when new friends arrive. The conviviality of morning beers works a spell. They had collected me and next year I had to go to the hill to see the season safely in.
Now winter is over I'm happy to say
And we're all met again in our ribbons so gay
And we're all met again on the first day of spring
To go about dancing with Jack in the green
Jack in the green, Jack in the green
To go about dancing with Jack in the green
Fire and dark shapes moving to an earthy rhythm. The petrol aroma of new age hedgewitchery. Echoes of old steel on earth and renegade magic.
The river that shines each year in the fresh light, as it bends towards Wouldham and summer, and the riot of Rochester High Street when the hill comes to the city. The poet Philip Kane chest out proud as a crow with the valley at his back, shadowcast, mirrored in the lens of a collector who has come to capture the wild men of Europe.
Tankards raised in greeting Bluey, Smurf, Lloyd, Shaun, Philip, Di huddle near the fires to keep warm. The women's bare shoulders in corsets the only pale sight. Old stories picked up again and embellished how we wish...
Others join, the rainbow rags of Loose Women flapping, and The Bishop Gundulph in traditional Cotswold white wheel and crash with blunted swords, the youngest of their number still buzzed on the cusp of hungover dragged around, ragged amid the flying steel but still on it enough to survive. Committed to the dance.
And we sing Jack in every year, to bring light to the city and beyond. Pouring like sparkle dark sand from the blue hill to the grey cobbles. The faces change but the summer still heats, sparked by the heels of the dark morris.
More from Barry Fentiman Hall can be found at wordsmithery.info/booksbybarry
Wolf's Head and Vixen Gothic Morris Side Rochester kent
A fabulous article about Wolf's Head & Vixen Morris written by Barry Fentiman Hall and originally published in The Rochester Radar 2027
My name is BFH. Sometimes I go by Meanderthal.
A poet who walks the Medway Delta
Tales of Meanderthal - THE DARK MORRIS
A poet who walks cannot but be seduced by the power of stories. Our steps make a beat on the earth that vibrates in our heads and shapes the world around us into a thing we can interpret with words. This is how we dance and the old stories get remade in a language that reveres them.
I first met Wolf's Head and Vixen Morris (WH&V) after attending the workers' May Day event at Rochester Castle. Sweeps being as new to me as socialism was habit. Seen through the window of The Golden Lion, weary happy wildies drank long banquet style blinking in the mid-morning novelty of full glasses at breakfast.
The WH&V side are a band of poets, artists and dreamers who dance the dark morris. The world reflected in mirror shades, what light there is at 5am on Blue Bell Hill absorbed by black paint. Happyserious, gamefaced when the music begins and the sticks crack in the still air clean across the river. Welcoming when new friends arrive. The conviviality of morning beers works a spell. They had collected me and next year I had to go to the hill to see the season safely in.
Now winter is over I'm happy to say
And we're all met again in our ribbons so gay
And we're all met again on the first day of spring
To go about dancing with Jack in the green
Jack in the green, Jack in the green
To go about dancing with Jack in the green
Fire and dark shapes moving to an earthy rhythm. The petrol aroma of new age hedgewitchery. Echoes of old steel on earth and renegade magic.
The river that shines each year in the fresh light, as it bends towards Wouldham and summer, and the riot of Rochester High Street when the hill comes to the city. The poet Philip Kane chest out proud as a crow with the valley at his back, shadowcast, mirrored in the lens of a collector who has come to capture the wild men of Europe.
Tankards raised in greeting Bluey, Smurf, Lloyd, Shaun, Philip, Di huddle near the fires to keep warm. The women's bare shoulders in corsets the only pale sight. Old stories picked up again and embellished how we wish...
Others join, the rainbow rags of Loose Women flapping, and The Bishop Gundulph in traditional Cotswold white wheel and crash with blunted swords, the youngest of their number still buzzed on the cusp of hungover dragged around, ragged amid the flying steel but still on it enough to survive. Committed to the dance.
And we sing Jack in every year, to bring light to the city and beyond. Pouring like sparkle dark sand from the blue hill to the grey cobbles. The faces change but the summer still heats, sparked by the heels of the dark morris.
More from Barry Fentiman Hall can be found at wordsmithery.info/booksbybarry
Wolf's Head and Vixen Gothic Morris Side Rochester kent