WILTON – The students at High Mowing Waldorf School greeted spring on Saturday, April 30, with traditional Morris dancing and a May pole – a festival they haven’t been able to hold for the past two years because of Covid. Several hundred people gathered around the green in front of the school on a bright spring day to watch.

The May pole is an old English tradition, perhaps brought there by invaders from Germany, and then to this country in the 1500s. Dancers circling the pole in opposite directions carry bright colored ribbons attached to the top of the pole and, if done correctly, end with those ribbons braided neatly around the pole. Saturday’s dance went perfectly, in spite of what director Leslie Vogel called “a missed practice.”

A troupe of Morris dancers performed a number of traditional English folk dances to the rhythm of Vogel’s accordion. The dances are choreographed and called. Dancers usually wear bells.

The ceremonies included welcoming the Queen of the May with ceremony and singing by students from Pine Hill School. The King of Winter made a brief, and rather arrogant, appearance, attempting to return He was soundly booed off the green.

Other activities included a variety of games and a circus performance.