As something new for this year’s Priddy Folk Festival, we are delighted to be welcoming a Giant to the village!
The Giant is already starting to take shape under the guidance and direction of designers and co-creators of giants and beasts of disguise, The Lost Giants.
Born of a 35-year-old giant-making tradition in Lostwithiel, Cornwall, the Lost Giants’ work revives and reimagines folk practices while bringing people together through acts of shared making and celebration. Founded three years ago, the Lost Giants are theatre designer Ruth Webb and her sister-in-law Amy Webb, a designer and illustrator. Ruth grew up with a Giant, called Peter, who was commissioned by her father for Wadebridge Folk Festival.
In medieval times, it was common for workers’ guilds and villages across the UK to create enormous mascots. Now, thanks to a growing interest in community activism, folk and craft, these processional giants are making a spirited comeback. In recent years, the Lost Giants have made giants for events ranging from the annual Lantern Parade in a Cornish town to a harvest procession at Hauser & Wirth’s Somerset gallery
For us here in Priddy, our own Giant, the Faere Ladye of Priddy, will be channelling the power of a local and extremely ancient water source. Fair Lady Well, which still bubbles up today, is one of the few sources of above-ground water in this part of the Mendips, which is more generally characterised by dry valleys and swallet holes. It has supplied water to the village since at least Roman times but has a somewhat chequered history because of its proximity to both ancient and Victorian mine workings. Nowadays its waters run through a nature reserve, home to reptiles and many unusual, and sometimes rare, plants.
The Lost Giants have been working with the children of Priddy Primary School to bring the Giant to life for the Festival. This work will continue during the Festival itself with a series of workshops over the weekend suitable for all ages to join in to help prepare the Giant for our festival procession.
In Saturday’s free workshops, starting at ten in the morning and two in the afternoon, you will be able to make something processional (think decorated sticks or something to wave about). There will be a final workshop, again free, on Sunday between 10-11.30 where it will be ‘all hands on deck’ to cover our festival figure in foliage before her first trip around the village!
Come and join the procession on Sunday (gathering from 12.45 outside the Lost Giants’ tent) and hear stories & a special song before setting off on a short walk around the festival site, accompanied by musicians from Folk @ Pill and Morris sides Kittiwake and Pigsty – all welcome!
(Image: The Lost Giants procession at the Pumpkin Festival at Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Benedict Webb)