How I will celebrate the solstice

When I greet the sunrise early on Saturday at the Callanish Stones with my wiggle of willing wenches, I shall be undraped and unashamed, as always. I must answer the distant call of the ancients and, in the morning moistness, wash away the dustiness of two decades since I last skipped up the avenue, calling on all the sun gods.

They never answer. They must all still be asleep. It is 4am, after all. Prostrating myself in the chilly dew of the stone circle, the maidens will gather round pushing to my lips milk, honey and warm, reviving kisses. It’s a tough job but . . .

The summer solstice festival lasts just hours and holds a significance to druidic types. I am a druid. It is Gaelic for a starling and is used to belittle someone for being ridiculously small. My uncle called me a druid when I was seven after I let his tyres down. Anyone under 5ft 8in is a wee druid.

We are well and truly in the season of latter-day festivals. Celebratory traditions are being recalled for a morning, a weekend or even a week. Modern lifestyles take us so far from the pull of Mother Earth that we yearn ever more for those al fresco get-togethers where we can speak freely of peace, love and whether Tennent’s is better than Stella.

Most festivals are not actually about taking your clothes off and having a yarn with the sun god Lugh. The idea nowadays is to celebrate music. Whereas we once had the Mod for that, in the last few years there have been fests at Durness, Rockness, Loopallu, Speyfest – and even Barrafest with Nolly, the Uistman from Barra, and his crew on next month’s bill.

Our own HebCeltFest is also upon us in a matter of weeks. Something Celtic for everyone, they promise, and they do deliver and a whole lot more. A fringe of superb sideshows and street entertainment, it even features, for the kids, the man in the balloon from Britain’s Got Talent.

Then if you can wait until October, there’s the Royal National Mod. This year, it descends on the diamond in the rough that is Falkirk or Spotty Church, if you literally translate its Gaelic name. The Mod provides its last chance for that settlement to redeem itself to me. Known for nothing wheely interesting, except that no one famous ever came from there, I have to say that I found it a scary place.

As young servicemen, we had to run the gauntlet of grunting knuckle-dragging Falkirkians. So manic were their growls, we had to forego our uniforms, just like the Army did in the Falls Road. I then learned that Falkirk had two mottoes, “Touch ane, touch a” and “Better meddle wi’ the de’il than the bairns o’ Fawkirk”. How cool is that? Mottoes celebrating juvenile aggression. Maybe municipal anger management is still called for.

Another big festival question is whether the Mod will happen in Caithness in 2010. Although they deny they are anti-Gaelic, there are a bunch of councillors up there who give fantastic impressions of people who are just that. These deniers claim they are only bothered about spending money on Gaelic road signs. The history books are obviously wrong. Whatever.

After all, it’s not as if Highland Council is anything like the Gaelic mafia in Stornoway. They are now erecting Gaelic signs in places which have been happily monolingual since Maciver and Dart began selling TVs. An example is Parkend. I have never heard it called by any other name in my puff. Now they have put up signs labelling it Ceann nam Buailtean. Duda?

Parkenders cannot fathom it. They have never really spoken Gaelic. Most of them struggle with English. Except Johnny Fraser, of course. As a young druid of a taxi operator, he heard passengers from Bernera in his yellow taxi muttering mysteriously in Gaelic about “am bradan”. Quickly learning the language in order to eavesdrop, Johnny discovered it meant salmon. That sparked his fascination with the king of fish. He would have it anytime. Usually lightly poached.

In Peebles, they have a wonderful-sounding festival called Dirty Weekend. I have cancelled my tickets as I have just found out it centres on nothing more thrilling than the muddiness of mountain biking. The festival with the potential for real fun and frolics will be in September next year. Alex Salmond has just ordered Barra people to hold a Whisky Galore feis.

I will suggest to Julian in the Craigard Hotel to offer free nips to anyone who has to travel more than 120 miles. That’ll stop the ever-thirsty Uibhisteachs and Hearrachs from mobbing the joint while leaving the way clear for Leodhasachs and Barrachs to boogie on down.

Party on, druids.

Published in the Press and Journal on June 18, 2008