City Druids line up to put a spring in their step

City Druids line up to put a spring in their step
By Sam Coates



IT WAS an incongruous sight: 40 hooded Druids staging a fertility ritual next to the Tower of London, while customers from an adjacent fast-food restaurant looked on in bewilderment.

Yesterday was the spring equinox, one of two dates each year when day and night are of equal length. Since the earliest times this has been celebrated by pagan festivals, with Druids and others gathering round the bonfire to chant, sing, dance and leap through the flames, while praying for a bountiful harvest.

Festivities were held around the country yesterday, including a dawn celebration at Stonehenge. But perhaps the most bizarre was held in the City.

Here the Ancient Druid Order, a pagan group based in the financial heart of London which includes businessmen, a dancer, an osteopath and an alternative therapist, donned their white cloaks to take part in the traditional ceremony, begun in London in 1717.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,170-1534709,00.html

Normally they perform the Vernal Equinox rite on Primrose Hill: