Description
In the old towns and villages of Britain, before the police, before the tabloids, before social media shame-storms, there were other ways to deal with those who stepped outside the rules. Noisy ways. Cruel ways. Dangerous ways. The Rough Music rituals — part punishment, part theatre, part folk magic — at the dark edge where community, cruelty and celebration collide.
Liz Williams, a Glastonbury-based author, folklorist and pagan, comes to the Bureau. Her latest book Rough Music: Folk Tradition, Transgression and Alternative Britain, explores these forgotten traditions of noise, mockery, and ritual humiliation — and how they ripple forward into today’s counterculture, protest movements, and online shaming
And we hear about some other less cruel but deeply strange British rituals that cling on: the annual Cheese-Rolling at Cooper’s Hill, The Burryman’s Parade a dn the Shin kicking competition…
