At Ross: Black faced and bold.....x

The blackened faces of these men are for disguise, they tell me. I ask for a picture, and perhaps like folklore and tribal tradition the mask is more the man. As I snap away, their wooden batons smashing and splintering together as they leap in dance, my dog quivering at my heels.

I nearly wrote black faced and coal. The faces Silurian Border Morris dancers remind me of the border coal miners. Not related I know, but perhaps they had more than the black faces in common. I am guessing that coal miners would have chanted traditional rhyme as they worked, and perhaps the bond between the men was as united as these men...most likely more so...x