With the Platinum Jubilee around the corner, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the only royal on everyone’s mind is Elizabeth II. Not so in Castleton, where the Garland King made his stately course past fluttering Union Flags on the evening of Monday 30th May [1].
The occasion was Garland Day: a traditional event, unique to the popular Peak District village. Coinciding with Oak Apple Day, the ceremony is said to commemorate the Restoration of Charles II in 1660—though Gladwyn Turbutt, among others, asserts that it had its origins in a Pagan ceremony [2]. The ritual is certainly bizarre when considered from an outsider’s perspective. The Garland King—wearing a ‘beehive frame’ of flowers and greenery—rides around the perimeter of the village with his Consort, attended by a brass band playing the Garland Tune and a troop of dancers. The merry company stops at six Castleton pubs, where the adults take refreshment and the younger participants perform a 'circle and chain' dance. At St Edmund’s, the King is unveiled; his floral frame is hoisted up to the top of the church tower as the clock strikes eight. Then follows a sequence of eight maypole dances in the market square. Finally, the King presents a posy at the war memorial. The band plays a solemn song, the bugle player sounds ‘The Last Post’, and the assembled crowd sing the National Anthem after a minute’s silence. This marks the official end of the evening, though the drinking continues late into the night.
Despite the fact that I’ve been visiting Castleton since I was a child,* and although my parents only live a few miles away, I’d never heard of Garland Day until I started researching traditional customs in the Castleton area. As soon as I saw pictures of the King, looking like the counterpart to the May Queen in Ari Aster’s Midsommar, I knew I had to see the ceremony in person. Folk horror tropes suddenly seemed thrillingly real and terrifyingly close. I imagined flaming torches snaking up the hillside towards Peveril Castle, drumbeats shaking the very foundations of Mam Tor, the silhouette of a sacrificial victim thrashing against the brooding Derbyshire skyline, flanked by men in antler head-dresses. So what if that sacrificial victim was me? I had to experience the horror.
But here I am the next day, still alive and not picking at any new mental scars. Why? Because, contrary to what we’re taught by every folk horror story in the canon (local customs are sinister spectacles that will inevitably end in death), Garland Day was not scary but... nice. There was a drum, yes. The King, his face entirely obscured by flora, possessed a sort of sublime power, which made me afraid to approach him, even when he was standing around with a beer in hand afterwards. The sight of maidens dancing around a maypole will forever take me back to Summerisle—an impression that was deepened when I discovered that the previous Garland King was a policeman. Yet how could I be scared when the inhabitants of Castleton were so warm, so welcoming?
When I popped in to watch the decoration of the garland at noon, I got chatting to a group of locals. One of them had been participating in the ceremony since he was a young Scout; he shared with me old pictures of Garland Day that he has long been collecting on his phone (see below).
Another became involved through bell-ringing. They have woven the frame with wildflowers year upon year, and encouraged their own children to take part in the dancing. Even relative newcomers to the village were marching along with the procession, rattling collection tins. The event was a joyful one, attended by smiling elders and students wearing crowns of oak leaves, photographers, young families and some of the cutest dogs on Earth. The whole thing felt normal after a surprisingly short amount of time. It was as if I’d been attending Garland Day for my whole life (and my mother certainly felt this way after half an hour of hearing the Garland Tune played on a loop).
So where does this delightful experience leave folk horror? Is the whole genre built on a kind of oiko-phobia— a fear of something fundamentally homely? Have I, in effect, spent a night in a haunted mansion, only to find that the spectres are Superhosts? Perhaps. But the event made me appreciate the sub-genre all the more. I’ve always thought that folk horror is about the shock of an outsider ripping back the veil, their sense of dislocation at discovering the continued existence of beliefs and practices that the modern mind cannot accept. Yet last night I realised, for the first time, that these are narratives not of exclusion, but of inclusion. The Wicker Man’s Neil Howie and Midsommar’s Dani Ardor progress from being outsiders to playing central roles in the ceremonies. Whereas this act of inclusion is a nightmare for Neil, it is cathartic wish-fulfilment for Dani. Masks, costumes, traditions that have been preserved in the isolation of rural communities: none of these things are frightening in and of themselves. It is the degree of consent—the degree to which one willingly embraces the ancient logic of the ritual—that determines whether the outcome is terrifying or beautiful.
*At school, I had to produce a particularly memorable piece of geography homework entitled, ‘Is Castleton a Honeypot?’. The answer, in case you’re wondering, is yes.
[1] Garland Day usually takes place on the 29th May, but was moved to the 30th this year because the 29th fell on a Sunday. For more details, see: https://www.castleton-garland.com/home
[2] Gladwyn Turbutt, Superstition and Religion in early Derbyshire History (Chesterfield: Merton Priory Press, 2006), pp. 33-34. Turbutt sees a connection between the Green Man in other local ceremonies, who is paraded around the village before a sacrifice is enacted, and the form of the Castleton ceremony. #folklore #folkhorror #PeakDistrict
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