Wassails and plough blessings, cheese rolling and well dressings, Bradford’s Mela and the Notting Hill Carnival, summer hen races and festive sword-dancing…

On any given week, somewhere in Britain, you will find people gathering – to mark a moment in the agricultural year, to commemorate an event in local history, to herald the beginning of a new season or bid farewell to the old. Some of these rituals have been passed down through the centuries; some are newer or recently revived; some have a deep connection to the British landscape or folklore, and some have been carried from other cultures and taken root here.

In this revelatory and beautifully illustrated guide to a living tradition of rites and rituals, we journey through some of the gatherings that shape our year, challenge our understanding of the past, and give pattern and meaning to communities across Britain today.

Praise

The Ritual Year is an almanac of unexpected information on everything from the origins of jack o’lanterns to the reason iPhones don’t have keypads… Though firmly rooted in the past, it isn’t stuck there, affording equal weight to Islamic melas as it does to morris dancing… [A] love letter to our country’s celebrations
Buzz Magazine

A wide-ranging collection that shows the variety of traditions still celebrated in these isles
Observer

A magnificent folkloric feast of a book filled to the brim with joy and wonder. I defy anyone who reads it not to want to get in and amongst the folklore of Britain
Lally MacBeth, author of The Lost Folk

Fascinating, funny and fabulously folky
Bryony Kimmings, author of Bog Witch

This is less a guide to “Merlin’s Isle of Gramarye” than to the messy, and sometimes contentious business of communities coming together, or pulling apart, in an attempt to a make some noise, have some fun, and assert their right to be
David Hopkin, Professor of History at the University of Oxford

A wonderfully rich, eccentric and joyful compendium… I loved it
Nicola Chester