We were just finishing breakfast at about 9 o’clock when our ‘mooring host’ Mrs Aari (Harma) appeared at the side of the boat to ask if we would like to accompany them to Schagen, a town about 15 miles north of here, where a traditional historical display was to be performed. They would be leaving in about 15 minutes. (Harma had knocked on the boat earlier but got no reply – we had thought we heard something but at that moment felt disinclined to investigate.)
So we all piled into their little Yaris and were in Schagen for about 10.30 – time for a coffee and cake supplied by the good ladies of the church and a quick look at the setting up of the whole affair – stands, crowd barriers, horse course (see later) etc. It was all very jolly as we hope you can see from the photos though we had little luck managing to get good pictures of the more active parts of the day. We separated from our hosts agreeing to meet up later, which meant we could do our own thing – go up the church tower of course, wander round the extensive street market, buy more cheese (!) buy saddlebags for the second bike and then watch the parade.
The townsfolk put on this display (unpaid) every Thursday for ten weeks in the summer, and they have a range of topics apparently which they cover in alternate weeks. This week it happened to be ‘horses’, so the parade was wonderful, horses and carts, horses pulling splendid carriages, tiny Shetland ponies pulling children’s carts, a fire engine horse-pulled and so on. In between were whole families pushing babies in 19th century prams and everyone, babies included, dressed in traditional clothes. The men all wore black suits and hats, the women wore wonderful floor length, up to the neck dresses or suits and their very particular caps, white lace with what looked like a sort of solid plastic (!?) half moon round the back and all clipped together with gold or brass bulldog clips, for want of a better description! It was wonderful.
After the parade came the ‘spiking of the rings’ contest. At four points on the edge of the ‘course’ (which was the road all round the church) a pole was set up with a 2 foot long horizontal arm on the top. On this outstretched arm, which overhung the course, hung a 50mm (2") ring held by a magnet. The horses trotted round pulling the carts and carriages while a passenger in each one attempted to spike the 4 metal rings and remove them from their holdings. All this was greeted with much merriment as most of the crowd seemed to know the participants really well. We had managed to secure pole position, literally, at a café table where we had lunch while we watched.
It seems from what we have seen that the Dutch are determined to maintain the old crafts and way of life so that they are never forgotten. We do have such events in England of course, but here, they seem to be much more a part of everyday life.
It was a lovely day and many thanks must go to Aari and Harma for their kindness in including us in their own day out.
No comments:
Post a Comment