The weird and the wonderful

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

Who doesn’t enjoy discovering something new...

When Jasper was researching his book ‘Country’ we were regularly enlightened with tales of incredible British traditions and customs that remain at the centre of local communities to this day.

Tonight the village of Hinton St George in glorious Somerset will be celebrating Punky Night. Local children will parade through the streets with eerie lanterns cut from mangold-wurzels hoping that their creation will win a much coveted prize.

Legend traces the root of this celebration back to a time when local wives, finding their husbands missing, formed a search party with some cleverly improvised lamps. The errant men had fallen asleep on their return from Chiselborough Market only to be awoken, terrified, by this ghoulish gathering.