II. Festivals and fairs

1. Burns Night. There are hundreds of Burns Clubs scattered throughout the world, and on the 25th January they all endeavour to hold Burns Night celebrations to mark the birth of Scotland’s greatest poet. The first club was founded at Greenock, Renfrewshire, in 1802. The traditional menu at the suppers is cock-a-leekie soup (chicken broth), boiled salt herring, haggis with turnips, and champit tatties (mashed potatoes). The arrival of the haggis is usually heralded by the music of bagpipes. “The Immortal Memory” is toasted, and the company stands in silent remembrance. Then follows dancing, pipe music, and selections from Burns’s lyrics, the celebration concluding with the poet’s famous Auld Lang Syne.

2. The Shakespeare Birthday Celebrations. Every year the anniversary of the birth of William Shakespeare is celebrated with joyous ceremony at Stratford-upon-Avon, the Warwickshire market town where he was born on April 23d, 1564. Flags are unfurled in the main street, people buy sprigs of rosemary (“for remembrance) to wear in their buttonholes, the Town Beadle heads a long procession along the streets to the parish church where everyone in the procession deposits a wreath or a bouquet (or a simple posy) at the poet’s grave, and in the evening there is a performance of a chosen “Birthday Play” in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. In spite of the attendance of distinguished representatives from all parts of the world, the Birthday celebrations seem essentially local, even parochial; they are the tribute of his fellow townsfolk to an honoured citizen who, notwithstanding the fame and fortune he won in the course of his career in London could think of no better place in which to spend his last years than the small country town in which he was born. He might have had a resplendent tomb in some great cathedral; instead, he was well satisfied with the prospect of a simple grave in the same church in which he was baptized. So, when his birthday comes round each year, the good townspeople may well be excused for thinking of William Shakespeare, first and foremost, as a son of Stratford.

3. The Welsh Eisteddfodau. No country in the world has a greater love of music and poetry than the people of Wales. Today, Eisteddfodau are held at scores of places throughout Wales, particularly from May to early November. The habit of holding similar events dates back to early history, and there are records of competitions for Welsh poets and musicians in the 12^th century. The Eisteddfod sprang from the Gorsedd, or National Assembly of Bards. It was held occasionally up to 1819, but since then has become an annual event for the encouragement of Welsh literature and music and the preservation of the Welsh language and ancient national customs.

The Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales is held annually early in August, in North and South Wales alternately, its actual venue varying from year to year. It attracts Welsh people from all over the world. The programme includes male and mixed choirs, brass-band concerts, many children’s events, drama, arts and crafts and, of course, the ceremony of the Crowning of the Bard.

Next in importance is the great Llangollen International Music Eisteddfod, held early in July and attended by competitors from many countries, all wearing their picturesque and often colourful national costumes. It is an event probably without parallel anywhere in the world. There are at least twenty-five major Eisteddfodau from May to November.

In addition to the Eisteddfodau, about thirty major Welsh Singing Festivals are held throughout Wales from May until early November.