It seems to me that some things have survived and we call them living traditions. Like songs and dances, these strange rites should be supported because they can be a bit magic.

They are actually 'living' - they have survived and changed as living things do. The challenge is to save what is best whilst keeping the tradition alive.

In this context we can look again at black faced dances which, lets be honest, some of us, some black and some white, feel uncomfortable. Not because they suggest some racist past, but because we live in a racist present.

The Brittania Coconut Dancers are a living tradition and a piece of magic. Would they be any less living or any less magic if they coloured their faces blue, green or red? I think not.

Back to the Oss. Another amazing peice of magic. When people seek to believe they have a choice scholarship or relgion. Scolarship demands evidence, religion demands faith and people can decide to believe what the like. The study of the English tradition in its broadest sense, has been heading from a psedo-religious understanding where people said all kinds of things to a scholarly understanding wher the evidence is slight.

But, we a saved by great songs,tunes, dances and magic rites.