The Sleepy Month

I can’t say why, but August the month has ever imbued me with a sense of sleepiness. Before the autumnal nip refreshens the air, a soporific inertia pervades every place. Humans snooze on beaches and on dried-up lawns. Cats and dogs doze in sunny corners and winged insects are rendered drunk on the sugary detritus of summer picnics. With the energy of earlier summer fizzled out, school exams done and dusted and the growing season faded away, we are left with a sense of waiting, for the results and the harvest and what better to do than sleep it off? And yet, there is life in the waning year.
Those of you on release from work and academia can choose from a raft of summer festivals. Depending on your location, the following may be of interest. On the first Saturday of the month, denizens of north-west England may catch a procession of rush sculptures or “rush-bearings.” This veneration of the wild plant reaches back to when rushes were valued as floor-coverings.
Fast-forward to the first Monday following August 12 and to Marham church in Cornwall. A Queen of the Revel is crowned by Father Time in front of the church, which was founded by St. Morwenna. Seated on horseback, the Queen is led to the Revel ground, where wrestling and other “Cornish” amusements take place. A week forward again and it’s haste to the River Teifi (bordering Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire in west Wales), and to the annual coracle races. This ancient form of boat is put to the test by modern-day fishers in catching a variety of sea and river species.
Third Saturday of the month and it’s on to West Witton (Yorkshire) to witness the burning of Owd Bartle after he is carried in procession through the town to the foot of Grasshill. Fear not: Bartle is made of straw, the effigy of a criminal from sometime in the past. Not quite Wicker Man, then. And this is only the merest flavour of what happens in August on the teeny island of GB. So get up and get going. Watch out for September.