BURNING BARRELS, DEVON, UK
Posted by Jill Bowen on Mon 14th May 2007 at 03:00 AM, Filed in November
Roll out the barrel…lets have a barrel of fun…. this old song has a special connotation for the folk who live in the Devonshire town of Ottery St Mary. Each year a strange tradition takes place. Not content with such mundane things as fireworks (or just drinking the contents of the barrels) the spectacular festival of the Burning Barrels occurs.
This event evolved in the 17th century allegedly to rid the streets of evil spirits, and is now revived annually as children, then women, followed by the men take turns to run through the roads with the burning barrels on their shoulders!
Each pub in Ottery sponsors a single barrel (their contents having been previously drunk)! In the weeks prior to the event the barrels are soaked with tar. The barrels are then graded by weight as the weight determines who will carry them, and lit (in turn) outside of each of the pubs. When each barrel is alight with flames pouring out it is hoisted onto to a local’s shoulders or back.
The event starts in the afternoon with the children and women’s barrels. The main part of the evening is the men’s event – with each barrel weighing up to 30 kilos, and goes on past midnight! Seventeen barrels in all are hoisted during the course of the afternoon and evening. Flames ten feet high reach into the sky as the locals stagger and sweat beneath their burden. If one man tires other member of the family (brothers, father, even grandfathers) take over.
The streets around the pubs are packed with throngs of people watching this exhilarating spectacle, all wanting to feel the heat from flames. Running with the burning loads requires great mobility as the hoards of onlooker’s part miraculously to allow the burning barrels through. The flames can be terrifying for young children with screams of excitement and fear ringing out as the barrels with their flaming contents rush past.
The Burning Barrels is a truly family event, with the entire town becoming involved. The barrels finally make their way down to the river Otter where a huge bonfire is set up, and the barrels duly tossed in.
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