WE (World English): UK

Showing posts with label UK. Show all posts

Who Were the Norman's?

The Bayeux Tapestry Animated

Meet Saxon King Harold &

Norman King William the Conqueror

Battle of Hastings

Conquering a Medieval Castle

Nut Dancers, Bacup (Lancashire, England)

Every Easter Sunday morning, the Lancastrian clog dancers known as Nutters, Nut or Coconut/Coconutters, dance 11 km (7 miles) across town and nearby areas for about 9 hours!

The dance has been performed for a 110 years since 1857.

Some of the actions of this particular dance show listening for sounds that could warn of the danger of tunnels collapsing.

The tradition of blackening their faces, dates back to when miners in the area danced when emerging from the mine pits, with their faces dirty with coal dust. Others say that mill workers danced to get extra money and painted their faces so that their landlords wouldn’t know and raised their rents.

Their name comes from the wooden nuts worn on the waist, wrists and knees made of wood, used down the mines when men often had to crawl.

The clogs, shirt and britches are traditionally from Lancashire, but the white and red skirt and hat/turban were adopted by Cornish tin miners, from Moorish pirates who came to England from the North of Africa, through Spain and France and stayed to work in the mines.

When the work in Cornwall diminished during the 18th & 19th centuries some of these Cornish miners moved to the North-West to work in the mines and quarries, bringing the tradition with them.

Ravens: The Legend of the Tower of London

The legend of the Tower ravens

It is said that the kingdom and the Tower of London will fall if the six resident ravens ever leave the fortress. There are seven ravens at the Tower today, plus one spare!

Charles II is thought to have been the first to insist that the ravens of the Tower be protected after he was warned that the crown and the Tower itself would fall if they left.