Sunday, November 6, 2016

Bonfire Night Virgin

WARNING CONTAINS: fire, fireworks, sparks, wood, gross generalization about whole countries of people, Brexit, effigies of Drumpf, burgers and fries.

You remember the fifth don't you? The fifth of November? Right. You remember. I can tell.

This 5th of November, I experienced my first Guy Fawkes Day, which is mostly called Bonfire Night these days. Probably because explaining to small children about burning a Catholic in effigy is too challenging and it's far easier to simply say - It's a night we burn and blow up things...as a community.

My little village (less than four thousand residents) has it's own celebrations that have been going on nearly fifty years. I missed it last year as I was on a writing retreat and the year before I stayed home with our youngest. This was my first real experience of the celebrations anywhere in England.

It began in the parking lot (that's car park for those American-English impaired) of the local library* and the judging of the Guy competition. This is where people make their own, less anti-Catholic stuffed dummies to be placed on the fire so we can burn them. Nothing like a bit of sadistic role play on a cold night! The one that won the in the children's group was called "Hans Brexit", though I couldn't get close enough to see why. I am assuming that burning such a named object is an expression of dislike for Brexit, and therefore I approve. But I still felt odd about it.

Next came the tractor pull. No, my American friends, not the loud, fun kind. This was three or four tractors, each pulling a hay filled cart behind it jammed with children. The idea being that the walk to the bonfire field is long and the kids can ride. What I found strange was watching several tractors rolling away in the dark with mostly children in tow - as though they were being taken away. Still, no one seemed to mind and my children stayed with me and as far as I know all souls were united at the top.

Then came the lighting of the torches. You have to purchase a torch. They're cheap and the sales fund next year's bonfire and fireworks. It's a lot of sturdy sticks with aluminum cans tied to one end filled with a kerosene soaked cloth. The organizers light a few and the fire is passed along. It reminded me of passing the flame between candles on Christmas Eve except this was more dangerous and smoky. Nonetheless, a huge sea of lit torches is beautiful and stirs something in the caveman brain that's undeniable.

Everyone then processed about a mile to the big field. And when I say everyone, I mean a good three thousand people, two-thirds of which carried torches. It's a lot. It's long. It's kind of intimidating. My husband's cousin said it very well, "I've always wanted to be an angry villager." And that's when you realize that mixed in with wonder is a definite sense of unease. Because if you're most modern people, you associate a long line of people with torches with things like chasing down witches, Frankenstein, storming the castle, and, if you're me, the KKK. That is NOT to say that this procession was like that AT ALL. But I really couldn't help feeling odd! Sorry!

A tip if you are ever chased by a very large mob with fire sticks: I highly recommend zig-zag running. A big group with burning objects can't turn well. Hence at every kink in the path to the field, things backed up for several minutes.

When we arrived at the field, there was the thing, waiting to be lit - the bonfire. This one was three stories high. Yes. Three. Made of hundred of pallets, bits of trees or perhaps whole trees, plus the Guys had been transported to await their fate. Lighting it was a very managed and controlled thing, as you'd imagine. Once ablaze it was stunning and awe inspiring and really, really, really hot. People moved further and further away from it as it went volcanic.

And at last, after the fire settled, there was a really good fireworks display that included firework tanks shooting firework mortars. It was a display any American city let alone small town would be proud to show. I watched it from the huge line for buying burgers though because my youngest was having a meltdown about having something to eat. But they stop making them while the fireworks go off, so I had to wait. And when I got back to my family, certain people were a bit beside themselves due to my absence.

In the end though, once we made it home and raised our body temperatures back above cryo-stasis, we all agreed it was pretty amazing and cool and not at all like a mob performing fake vigilante justice.

What I was most reminded of was Celtic celebration from which we get the jack-o-lantern tradition. Once upon time, on a dark night, everyone in community would put out every fire in their home save small lights carried in hollowed out turnips or gourds. They then carried those lights to a place where the fires were merged into one, large fire, and had a big party. Then you take some of the group fire home and restart all your home fires with the shared flames. So the Brits might keep calling it Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes, but I might just call it Samhain quietly, to myself lest I end up a Guy.

*my local library is run totally by volunteers after being de-funded by the local authority. it's only open three and half days a week, but those are some great people in there!