´óÏó´«Ã½

The aforementioned bush is a , a bower of leaves some 10 feet high which is carried round all day by a relay of individuals and a tough lot they must need to be (this year saw Hastings' first female carrier).

The Jack is protected and spurred-on by a loose team of Bogies aka Green Men.

Dressed in some of the most fantastic costumes I have ever seen, and accompanied by a band of drummers, they processed around the crowded narrow ways of the town, jigging and dancing and obviously having a hell of a time of it.

The has been going on (with an occasional pause) since the early 1800s and perhaps informally for long time before that.

All morning the Jack and the Green Men dance and spin their way round town eventually making their way up to the Castle.

At the end of the afternoon the Jack is ritually slain and the leaves distributed amongst the crowd.

Anybody who tries to steal a leaf before the ritual slaying is treated with varying degrees of courtesy.

The whole thing is, of course, extremely Pagan and is a fertility rite and a whole heap of fun.

It is also a community thing and cheers everybody up from the littlest tot in a trolley to old geezers like me. I find it greatly uplifting that people still do things like this simply for the joy of having fun with a lot of other people.

There were thousands of people in Hastings, dozens of Morris teams and gangs of folk covered in leaves and greenery (and one or two dogs covered in leaves too).

They had just come along to be there and have a good day out, listen to some fine music, dance at the ceilidhs, have a few beers and go home afterwards, as I did, feeling a whole lot better.

It was a long way to go from the Dales to Hastings but worth every mile. >More power to Jack and the Bogies!!