I’ve been on a video-editing binge over the last couple of days… mostly because I’ve had about 50 gig of footage sitting on my main drive — taunting me — for the last 6 months or so … and also because I’m running seriously short of SD card space. Of course, I *could* just go out and buy more SD cards — but that’s just delaying the inevitable.

So, recently uploaded to YouTube…

Burning the Clavie.

One of the oldest Scottish fire customs. A bit more sedate than I was expecting … though the fire got a bit lively when they started chucking buckets of oil onto it.

Randwick Wap

An odd May Queen custom that the village of Randwick has (apparently) been doing since medieval times. It involves some odd cheese-rolling activities (they roll the cheeses widdershins around the church a few times, IIRC, but that happens days before the main event, so isn’t shown here) … and carrying a may queen around the village before dipping her in the local well/pond. Disappointed to discover that the dipping has turned into more of a symbolic thing that an actual dipping these days. Shame! I think this all might have happened on the same day that we visited Helston Furry dance … but memories of that week are already a bit blurred. There’s an awful lot of strange fertility rite nonsense goes on down south… it’s difficult to keep track of it all!

Jedburgh Ba’ Game

This possibly makes the game look a lot more exciting than it actually is… since there are lots of dull 20-minute periods where players pile onto a big heap in the middle of the street and nothing happens… then somebody will crawl out, pretending to have the ball, and half the scrum will chase after him — only to discover the real ball was smuggled away in somebody’s pocket while nobody was looking.

Not the most photogenic of games. Quite a curiosity though.