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I write this entry sitting in the restored Ticket Hall of Alton Station on the long-gone North Staffordshire Railway. Unfortunately, our arrival here on Monday, for a week’s holiday, was just too late in the day to witness the annual Horn Dance ceremony held in the village of Abbots Bromley, just a few miles south of here. It’s held each year on the Monday following the first Sunday after the 4th of September. The dancers comprise six men, each carrying a set of reindeer horns (that have been carbon-dated back to the 11th century), plus a hobby horse, a Fool, a Maid Marian, a bowman, a musician and a triangle player. Starting at the parish church, they process around the village and local area, stopping at various points to perform their dance which has been described as a ‘steady, rhythmical plod’. If you watch it on YouTube I think that you will agree it is one of England’s strangest ceremonies.
I came across the haunting tune that accompanies the Abbots Bromley Dance long ago in a book of traditional Processional Dance tunes but found it very difficult to play on guitar, so abandoned it. I was recently reminded of the tune when I was recording a wassail song for a Christmas YouTube video. The song was ‘Drive the Cold Winter away’ and its tune had elements of the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance tune. I thought it would be a good idea to run the two tunes together so made the effort to persevere this time and learn to play the piece. Once recorded, my friend, Joceline, agreed to be filmed, with a set of my home-made ‘horns’, in a loose homage to the spirit of the Processional Dance. The video which combines The Abbots Bromley Horn Dance and ‘Drive the Cold Winter away’ can be viewed here.
No band gigs or rehearsals this month so my focus has turned to write new songs, if I can come up with ideas. I mess around on the guitar in the hope that something interesting will happen which I can then develop into a song structure and then add words. And that’s the usual way; music first, words second. But, sitting out on the platform with my first cup of tea of the day I’ve had some ideas for words which I’ve hurriedly noted down on my phone. Sitting here on the platform reminded me of those ghastly mornings in the cold of winter waiting on the platform for the inevitably late-running packed commuter train into London. My idea was of someone in a similar unenviable position, in an age before Walkmans, mobile phones and headphones, letting their imagination drift away to escape the mind-numbing reality of commuting. The working title is ‘Slaying Dragons’. Who knows if it will develop into a finished song? We must wait and see.
(My thanks in research to the excellent book The English Year by the folklorist, Steve Roud.)
All text, images and music samples on this site are copyright © Childe Rolande.
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