Marsden’s burning: Pagan event heralds start of spring

The annual pagan Marsden Imbolc Fire Festival featured stilt-walkers, drummers, singers and a samba band. Onlookers saw a ‘fire circus’, fire sculptures and a battle between the Green Man, who symbolises spring, and Jack Frost, who represents winter.

The event in the village of Marsden, West Yorkshire, on Saturday, culminated in a firework finale welcoming the sun.

Organisers have been holding it since the 1990s for the people of Marsden to come together at a quiet time of year, explore the environment around them and to be aware of the turning of the year.

In other parts of the country, communities were being warned of the all-too-real impact of nature’s power as the prospect of heavy rain looked set to lead to flooding on already saturated land.

The Environment Agency said the whole of the south of England will be at an “increased risk” of flooding within the next 24 hours, despite a break in the rain for the country’s flood-hit communities yesterday.

A number of flood alerts and warnings were in place for Yorkshire, including the River Ouse in York, though the region is not expected to be as badly affected as others parts of the country.

Officials say fresh flooding could affect the south coasts of Devon and Cornwall today as well as Somerset, Dorset, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

The River Severn in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, the Frome and Avon in Dorset, the river Thames and its tributaries in Oxfordshire, West Berkshire, Reading, Slough and Hampshire and the Medway in Kent are all of concern this week.