Easter Chair Heaving

There were Morris Dancers in Greenwich this afternoon...a strange lot, but they always seem to thoroughly enjoy themselves! A lot of the tourists were completely confused as to what was going on, ("who are they?" "why are they doing this?" a lady asked me) I wasn't sure myself when they selected a girl to sit in a flower-decorated chair, lifted her in the air and turned her around three times (fortunately she didn't tumble out now that would have made a good blip!)

I looked it up on my return to the sofa of laziness...I'm a little tired today for some odd reason! Too much chocolate eating I think.

The idea is that a chair (seemingly from the local pub) is decorated with spring flowers, and then a local lass sits in the chair whence it is lifted (or heaved) up by the Morris Men and turned around - being repeated three times. Kiss are offered to the men, and a decorated egg is offered to the lass. The Morris Men noted that is was probably an older tradition being a form of sacrifice to Eostre, an ancient Goddess of Spring who is closely associated with the original pagan Easter celebrations.

Some thoughts are that it represented the rising sun, others that it was representing the desire for strong growing crops in the fields. Later it was thought to be a "satire" on the resurrection of Jesus, which lead to the Victorian disapproval of the practice.