Why not visit the Medway Sweeps Festival (Rochester, Kent, UK) for a very traditional / pagan British experience.
The Medway Sweeps Festival started life some 400 years ago, when it was commonplace for children (in addition to men) to be sent up chimneys as sweeps. As a diversion this holiday (traditionally held in May) was market by a procession through the streets of Rochester and a ‘Jack-in-the-Green’ ceremony which was held at Dawn and involved the ‘waking’ of a 7 foot character.
Fortunately the practice of child sweeps was outlawed in 1896 (by the Climbing Boys Act) and the festival ceased in the early 1900’s until its resurrection in 1981.
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