It was a pleasure to be re-invited to Chippenham Folk Festival for the fourth year running. We met a lot of sides whose dancing we greatly enjoyed, and we hope they enjoyed ours! We met up with past dancers and friends and had a really great time. The following photos show our day and some of the sides we danced with. 
Photos by Andrea, Paul, Claire and Erin.

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Another stunning evening saw us dancing out at the above establishments, with a good trickle of local people dropping by to check out what we were up to.  Some of them liked it so much they parked up, told their families and came back with their wives and children!  And the lovely Fatia from Montreal in Canada was so excited to see us she became our official paparazzi for the evening, trailing us to the Brunswick after our Westbourne set and joining in with Brighton Camp.  And she only popped out to get vinegar for her sister!!  We also had some young people get involved, one or two of whom we thought we might have seen before.  Careful now, Morris dancing can be contagious and addictive...

Alongside our wonderful audiences and ‘volunteers’, we were also joined by a Very Special New Person - Ben and Morwen’s baby.  Welcome to the world little one, and welcome to the Sweyn’s Ey Morris family.  It was great to see all three of them out enjoying the evening and looking well.

Our resident musicians did a fine job of trying to keep us on the straight and narrow, even if the sets were occasionally a bit wonky, our sticks kept breaking and I lost count of how many times people dropped their hankies.  Fortunately, Sweyn’s Ey does not take itself too seriously, and the squiffy bits provide additional entertainment for the audience, the dancers and the musicians alike.  Aside from the shonky ones, the rest of the dances we nailed, obviously.

After the dancing, Siân and Di played a few fiddle tunes to keep us entertained, and we all went home happy and contented after a fabulous evening of dancing, drinking and fellowship.  Probably.

For those of you who like to keep track of this sort of thing, our first set at The Westbourne included dances from the Fieldtown, Adderbury, Bampton and Sweyn’s Ey traditions, including Banbury Bill, Postman’s Knock, Valentine’s, The Curly Boar, Sheriff’s Ride and Bonny Green Garters.  The Brunswick saw us perform a particularly energetic set, at least near the start, including Step and Fetch her, Riggs of Doom, British Grenadiers, Lads a Bunchum, Brighton Camp (with volunteers), Speed the Plough and The Curly Boar (again), topped off with another rendition of Bonny Green.  I think.  I’m sure Alex H will correct me if I am wrong!

Thanks to the Westbourne and the Brunswick for being so welcoming and putting up posters about our performance in advance of the big day, and thanks as always to our eclectic audience who stayed and watched rather than running a mile.  And big up to everyone who drove past us by The Westbourne and beeped – we love a good heckle!

Photos by Claire, Zep and Di, words also by Di.

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​Sweyn’s Ey visited The Beaufort
Arms in Kittle and then moved on to The Joiners Arms in
Bishopston. It was unseasonably warm for May in Wales,
fortunately there was Reverend James on tap in The Beaufort and a wide choice of lovely ales in The Joiners, including Pedigree, to help us re-hydrate.
A few of our regular, reliable members were busy elsewhere but we still managed to field 10 dancers (Alex D, Alex H, Alison H, Claire, Erin, Geoff, Keith, Ken, Nige and Zep). Siân and Roger provided the music (with a little help from Keith). It was Zep’s first Thursday tour, she didn’t take much persuasion to get involved in the Adderbury dances. Zep has a stylish take on the Sweyn’s Ey kit so look out for future developments in this direction.

Our set list included enough hanky dances to keep Geoff happy as he can’t wield a stick at the moment. In the Beaufort car park we danced Banbury Bill, Banks of the Lea, Valentines, Curly Boar, Y Caseg Eira, Postman's Knock and Bonny Green Garters.

We created enough space to dance in front of the Joiners by moving the furniture out of the way, we remembered to put it back afterwards. We danced Speed the Plough, Brighton Camp (Adderbury), Sheriff's Ride, The Curly Boar, Riggs of Doom, Grenadiers, Lads a Bunchum and Bonny Green Garters. Some of the side have their own names for our dances which help them remember which one is which. Nigel will work on translating these with Erin and Claire so the set lists will be easier to understand. Anyone know what ”hit, hit, fishy, fishy, clack” might be ?

We discussed the possibility of other members of the side
coming up with set lists for our Thursday outings, Erin was keen to help with this but confessed that the list would only have 3 dances which we could repeat as often as needs be.

Although it was warm we danced a lot of dances for an evening tour and were grateful when it became too dark to clash sticks safely.

​write up gratefully recd from Nigel Haworth.

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​Bradford on Avon Greenman Festival Sat 10th May

The 100 odd mile drive to get to Bradford On Avon is always worthwhile as we spent a fabulous day dancing in this sun drenched town in Wiltshire at the Greenman Festival which included 45 dance groups and most of them being Morris sides.

We performed at four different locations around the town and it was lovely dancing near to the river Avon which is a central theme of this honeycomb coloured town.  Most of the material used to build Bradford was hewn from mined rock, much like nearby Bath. It was great to see Alison there with Roger. Hope we see you back with us in the autumn Alison!

We danced our new dance, Curly Boar at the four locations and that drew positive reactions from other Morris sides we danced with. 

The Greenman came and visited us at one spot near the famous Bradford Cheese Shop and a lot of the side joined him in a country dance which seemed to spontaneously break out!

Thanks to all the dancers who were able to make it to the event, and especially so to the musicians Sian and Roger who found the hot weather playing havoc with fiddle tuning pegs!

Here’s a selection of photos taken on the day by Claire, Erin, Di, Alison and Paul. Hope they invite us back next year!

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​Murton May Fete Monday 5th May

The side was invited to dance at the Fete again. A convoy of WW2 army vehicles left the field to drive the lanes around the area, along with army re-enactors dressed in accurate uniforms, leaving us to entertain a large crowd of people. British Grenadiers seemed to be the appropriate dance to start our dance set which was performed on grass in the centre of Murton Green. 

Several Fieldtown and Bampton dances were performed before we invited volunteers up to have a go at Adderbury Brighton Camp and we were surprised at the large number of peeps willing to have a go and promising they’ll look us up at practice time! We finished our performance with Bonny Green and headed for the Tea station that sold a tidy bit of buttered Bara Brith!

Here are some photos of this enjoyable event, taken by Erin, Alison and Paul.

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​May Day has arrived!

Sweyns Ey Morris celebrated May Day by dancing at Arthur’s Stone, Cefn Bryn, Gower at sunrise this morning. We had  enough dancers for two sets and it was good to see several people had come along to watch us! Things looked a little dramatic on the drive over as there was a huge anvil shaped thunder cloud, somewhere south of Devon and Cornwall which sometimes flickered with pink lightning! Fortunately it never reached us.

Zep danced out for the first time with us and gave a good account of herself. We performed dances from our usual Adderbury, Bampton and Fieldtown repertoire together with some Nantgarw (Y Gaseg Eira) and Sweynsey (Curly Boar) dances as well as Litchfield.  After dancing for about an hour in lovely warm morning air, we spent time just watching the marvellous changing colours of the dawn over Llwchwr estuary and talking among ourselves  before heading to The King Arthur at Reynoldston for a superb breakfast, and a pint! 

We were hopeful of visiting Swansea Castle, Wind St, and the Queen’s Hotel this evening but we have had to cry off as we are all tired out getting up at 0400am and after dancing on grass! Time for a rest!

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