New Year's Eve Allendale's townsfolk

Allendale is a tiny community some fifteen miles southwest of Hexham. The village, which is built about a market place, is surrounded by magnificent Northumbrian scenery--pastoral toward the valley of the River Allen, bleak and forbidding toward the lonely moors. Against this dramatic backdrop, men and women have welcomed the New Year with ceremonial fires and dances for at least eight hundred and fifty years.

On New Year's Eve Allendale's townsfolk hurry towards the square to build a great bonfire. Meanwhile, a band of guisers dressed in all sorts of rag-tag fancy costumes makes village rounds and receives hospitality at different homes. Although all the performers are men, some dress in women's clothes. At each home, the men put on a rough-and-ready show in return for abundant New Year's cheer.

Shortly before midnight the misers troop into the square, which already is filling with people from far and near. Quickly a procession forms. First comes the Braes of Allen Band, then blackenedfaced youths (the number varies from year to year) supporting on their heads trays filled with tar lighted by a torch from last year's bonfire. Bringing up the rear are dancing townsfolk, who joyfully follow the long procession as it leaves the square and winds through the ancient village streets.

Now it is almost midnight. The burning tar is too hot to carry longer. The procession returns to its starting point and circles the bonfire from right to left. Suddenly the youths hurl the tar upon the huge pile, which bursts into flame against the black winter sky. The village chimes strike twelve. The band starts up a dance tune. Shouts of joy break from the crowd. Friends and neighbors congratulate each other and exchange good wishes for a happy New Year. Young and old dance deliriously about the flames. Allendale salutes the New Year. Not until the last ember dies do villagers disperse to thier own homes, or go "first-footing" to the neighboring farms scattered throughout the dale.

Even during the blackouts of the Second World War, Allendale observed its traditional ceremony. The bonfire, it is true, was lighted under an iron canopy, and candies, burning in darkened jam jars, were substituted for the trays of blazing tar. But in spite of wartime safety restrictions, the continuity of Allendale's ancient festival of fire remains unbroken from pagan to modern times.