Community Tent
Inside the Community Tent this year we are celebrating everything and anything about ‘Hay’ in our local community. From old stories, herbal hay fever medicines and meadows to traditional Eel ropes and some amazing local art work…
Outside of the tent there will be a new village green area, with fun fun games to play made by a wild and wonderful local inventor, The museum of roadside magic, a herbal spa, herbalist drop in sessions, ice cream, morris dancing and much much more.
Plus our legendary Hay Boy will be on walk about so watch out…
INSIDE THE TENT (2025)
SATURDAY WORKSHOPS
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Please see the Saturday Courses page of the website for more information and booking for these two workshops:
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Creating a Folk Legend
Join us for a day constructing the 2025 reincarnation of our Green Scythe Fair Folk legend.
SEE HERE FOR MORE INFO
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Willow Sculpture: Scythe Fair Willow Lady
Spend the Saturday with Kim Creswell (www.kimcreswell.co.uk), professional willow sculptor, medicinal herbalist and author of ' A Celebration of Willow'.
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SEE HERE FOR MORE INFO
SUNDAY WORKSHOPS
Talk
11:45am–12:45pm
'Meadows & Microbes – Nature's Elixir for Life
Soil microorganisms created land plants 470 million years ago. Those early plants wicked carbon from the atmosphere and helped develop a stable climate, and food, for life that followed. Beneficial microbes are now being discovered in all plant tissues including seeds passing on the mother plant's biological elixir. Indeed wildflower meadows are the driving force of habitat restoration following natural disaster or indeed man-made damage, working in close partnership with the soil microbes; the wildflowers feed the microbes with a photosynthetic smorgasbord of sugars, vitamins and enzymes, and in return the microbes supply the plants with a vast array of stress-busting compounds, plant-growth-promoting hormones, and biocontrol agents.
This session is a perspective-shifting illustration of the partnership between above-ground and below-ground biological diversity and function that provides insight for all plant life.
With Paul from meadowinmygarden.co.uk and Eddie Bailey from RhizoPhyllia
Talk and Workshop
1–2pm
Miracle cures & remedies- the whys and why nots of hayfever
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Join student herbalist Julia Bedford of Herbal Brue, as they work miracles and wonder on hay fever. We will get to understand what causes hayfever and its side effects, plus what can help relieve the symptoms. There will be room for discussion on your tips and tricks plus some tastings of herbal tea remedies.
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Facebook : Herbal Brue
Storytelling
2.10–3pm
Join Sarah Mooney, mythic mistress of the deep and curly wild.
She will take you on a story odyssey to the liminal realms, where hay and tales are spun together to create a world woven with magic.
Talk
3.30–4.30pm
Andrew Kerr, Somerset Eel Recovery Project
Dive into the mysterious world of the European eel with Andrew Kerr, chairman of the Sustainable Eel Group. Hear the incredible story of these critically endangered creatures, from their epic journey across the Atlantic to the urgent fight to save them from extinction.
Our local Somerset Eel recovery Project, a grassroots group, is very active in this area – doing its best to roll out projects to aid eel recovery and to deliver its Eels in the classroom program.
Andrew’s captivating talk will reveal why eels matter to our rivers, our ecosystems, and our future. Perfect for nature lovers, eco-enthusiasts, and curious minds!
Performance
4.45–5.15pm
Nature Voices entertains, educates and inspires audiences to care for the natural world and those whom we share it with, by way of endearing characters describing themselves and their lives in the novel format of boom bap hip-hop. Martin Sheills weaves enchanting rhythms in his dulcet baritone through original beats with a warm, old-school flavour, covertly informing the listener along the way. The live act involves audience participation and contains something for everyone.
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Featuring Dori the Dormouse, Percy the Pine Marten, Olivia the Otter and other lovable members of endangered or vulnerable species, each song is introduced with an animal call for audiences to guess. Strong personalities and cheeky swagger abound and each song is chock full of fascinating facts and innovative lyricism.
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Nature Voices' organic, homemade beats use live instrumentation and tight harmonies, and live harmonica features in the stage act. Having cut his teeth at conservation events with The Wildlife Trusts, Nature Voices is taking its campaign for a thriving British countryside to new audiences.
ARTISTS SHOWING INSIDE THE TENT (2025)
Rima Staines
Rima Staines is an artist whose work straddles myth, magical realism and the folk arts. She has worked over the years predominantly as a painter, but also with music, writing, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, theatre, puppetry, animation and book arts. She was co-founder and co-director of the Hedgespoken travelling storytelling theatre and small press and in 2018 she was a finalist in the 'Best Artist' category of the World Fantasy Awards.
Her visual world is an umber and madder-infused chapel of misfits and magicians, story-rich and alchemical. Her paintings, which feel both ancient and familiar at once, have been exhibited and published internationally. Rima has a long-held fascination with the idea of the liminal - that which lies at the edge of culture, society and consciousness as well as the literal boundaries between one place and another, both metaphorical and real - and with the power of art that comes from that place. Her work is a kind of “Iconography of the Otherworld”.
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Fascinated by how talismanic, apotropaic imagery has been used throughout human history to make real magic, she has a strong belief in the power of art to change things, in art as a true alchemy. Stories, too, play a fundamental role in Rima’s work - she believes that they speak truth to us in a similar non-linear language to that which imagery speaks, and that we need them more than we think we do: inside them are old maps back home.
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She is a mother to two young sons and lives in South Devon halfway between the moor and the sea.
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Rima will have her tiny art gallery in a wagon at the Green Scythe Fair this year, as well as some of her original pieces on show in the community tent.
Grace Green
My multidisciplinary practice examines care for the landscapes we inhabit, focusing on commoning and our shared resources, through painting, drawing, and community workshops. In my monoprinting process, I blend ink onto a plate, then disrupt the surface, allowing the ink to move freely and form organic shapes. This process mirrors the rhythms of cultivation, where control gives way to the natural flow of creation.
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@gracegreenartist
Megan Willoughby
Megan Willoughby is a landworker and artist, who thinks of her creations more as recipes. Each raw component used comes from the hodgepodge of her life to embody a relationship. Like all raw ingredients they can be both universal and deeply personal, having their own origins for every person, and when they are grouped, arranged and transformed a story overflows. The stories are different for everyone listening, but she believes that the bones are always the same. Megan thinks of her recipes as arrangements of these bones, creating shrines of understanding to the cycles of life.
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@meganwilloughby_
PLUS! DO NOT MISS! Our display of the iconic scythe fair set up over the years! Horses, Fire cooking, Community and Green solutions to make this special event what it is today.
The Museum of Roadside Magic
The Museum of Roadside Magic is a travelling archive, documenting the use of magical practice, folk custom and plant knowledge, in vehicular maintenance, repair and journey making. It is the only known archive of its kind and holds an extensive collection of artefacts, costumes and photographs. The displays show a great breadth and variety of roadlore practices including Gasket Dancing, Pipe Dressing, Diesel Clapping and the mysterious Brydes of Tacho.
At first glance, the concept of treating mechanical issues in this way may seem absurd. However, looking back just a few generations, such practices and rites were an intrinsic aspect of agricultural life, with a folk ritual for every type of harvest, and festive celebrations of pageantry to mark the turning of the year. So, If we already have rituals for agriculture, and give thanks to a process that sustains us, then is it that strange to think we might carry out the same kind of acts for our beloved chariots or the winding roads that carry them? Also, looking back a little further still, to Medieval times, the use of charms, spells and incantations was very much commonplace, viewed as practical solutions to everyday problems. After all, many of us already engage in small acts of vehicular ritual: dashboards are often host to luck bearing trinkets, we will coax a sluggish engine up a long hill with a whispered incantation, so is it that strange to think you might Molly Dance for an M.O.T. Test, or parade the streets with coagulating herbs to ward off a gasket leakage?
@libby.bove.arts
@museumofroadsidemagic
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Herbal Spa
Hosted by Herbal Brue, Magpie:
and Glastonbury Mental Health Network
Foot soaks, herbal advice, herbal teas and infused water. Plus some herbal/ plant- art/ observation, herbal potions and lotions to sell.
The Library Bus
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Kim Creswell – Herbal Drop in Clinic
Kim Creswell MNIMH, of Goldberry Herbs, will be offering 10 minute medical consultations in her beautiful bow-top caravan, 2pm-3pm. Patients will receive personalised herbal prescriptions, which can be ordered directly from Goldberry Herbs, or sourced elsewhere if preferred.
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Instagram: goldberry_herbs
