European folk festivals reboot as covid-19 ebbs

IN NORMAL YEARS, on Trinity Sunday (eight weeks after Easter), thousands of denizens of the Belgian city of Mons chase an enormous plastic dragon around the town square until a local, dressed as St George, arrives on a horse and kills it. The procession, known as the Ducasse de Mons or simply Doudou, originated in the 14th century to celebrate the end of an outbreak of plague. But for the past two years the Doudou has been cancelled by a new plague, along with most of Europe’s traditional carnivals and festivals.This summer, with vaccinations beginning to tame covid-19, the continent’s folk gatherings are coming back to life. In June Swedes staged scaled-back versions of their Midsommar solstice celebrations. (Unlike the film of the same name these did not involve tossing old people off cliffs, though parliament did toss out the prime minister.) In Norway the Sami, an indigenous Scandinavian people, will hold their annual Riddu Riddu art and music festival, this time with new additions such as a seminar on sexuality. The village of Goudelin, in Brittany, plans to resume its peculiar mid-July practice of driving its horses into a pond and baptising them.