Welcome to the Slaithwaite Moonraking Festival.
Did I hear you say "What's Moonraking?"
To some it means messing about, but if you live in the village of Slaithwaite, it is more a way of life - at least in February half term that is.
A week of fun and story telling starting with the opening "dance" on 9th February. Lantern and story telling workshops take place from Sunday until Thursday. The event’s street procession and theatre take place on 16th February 2008, starting at 6.00 pm. The Moonraking Festival is based on a village tale about two 19th century smugglers who were collecting barrels of the illegal ‘moonshine’ drink from the canal. The smugglers hid the barrels and told the police they were trying to rake the moon’s reflection out of the canal. Thinking they were fools, the police let the smugglers go and the ‘moonraking’ legend was born.
The highlight of the festival is a long procession of up to 3000 villagers and visitors with some 200 bearing lanterns made of willow withy and tissue paper and lit by live candles. The lanterns vary from year to year, depending on the theme of the festival, and can be shaped like magic lamps, glass slippers, fairies, pumpkin carriages and castles. The lanterns are made in the week preceding the procession.
The procession includes jazz, carnival and brass bands and follows a route through the village before returning to the canal. The tour takes about an hour. At the canal, performers re-enact the moonraking tale. Several men are dressed as gnomes, a woman is dressed as the moonraking fairy and two fancy dress policemen play the bagpipes. They all tow a moon-shaped lantern mounted on a float along the canal with the women using rakes to guide the lantern as it floats along and to "rake" it out. The celebrations start and end with a firework display.
So that's the basics of Moonraking - but it is different every year.
Now look around the site for more information about Moonraking past and present.
