Weird England: Bonfire

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In this series of Essays, we usher you into a secret world of hidden folklore. Five young writers explore the odder, darker corners of English tradition: this is not an England of bluetits, roses and white cliffs, nor of country lanes and thatched cottages, but an invitation into a compendium of bizarre and sometimes creepy rural rituals. Each writer lives or has lived in the area. Their impression of the event stirs childhood memories, fires new convictions, deepens an understanding of ritual and reveals the awkward transposition of ancient ceremonies in contemporary life. In the final essay, the Japanese poet Lila Matsumoto takes her visiting parents to a Staffordshire horn dance. This series attempts to hear younger witnesses writing for the times in which we live: dispatches on Englishness from the weird frontline. 3. Bonfire Costumed revellers march to the drum beat. Fireworks crackle and explode, making patterns in the sky. Burning crosses move through the streets. And a giant effigy of Donald Trump is paraded through the town. This is Lewes, East Sussex, on Bonfire Night. Writer David Barnes, who grew up near the town, joins the processions, exploring the strange relationship between history and myth on display at Lewes Bonfire.