Sweeps Festivals
The London boys had one day's holiday a year, the first of May, (Mayday) International Labour Day. They celebrated by parading through the streets, dancing and twisting with Jack in the Green, merging several folk traditions. There is also a Sweeps Festival in Santa Maria Maggiore, in Italy and in Rochester in Kent where the tradition was revived in 1980.
Read more about this topic: Chimney Sweep
Famous quotes containing the words sweeps and/or festivals:
“What terrible questions we are learning to ask! The former men believed in magic, by which temples, cities, and men were swallowed up, and all trace of them gone. We are coming on the secret of a magic which sweeps out of men’s minds all vestige of theism and beliefs which they and their fathers held and were framed upon.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Why wont they let a year die without bringing in a new one on the instant, cant they use birth control on time? I want an interregnum. The stupid years patter on with unrelenting feet, never stopping—rising to little monotonous peaks in our imaginations at festivals like New Year’s and Easter and Christmas—But, goodness, why need they do it?”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)