The Britannia Coconutters Dance, Easter Saturday 2012, Bacup, Lancashire, England

The Britannia Coconutters do their famous clog dance from morning til dusk all round their home town of Bacup in Lancashire, England every Easter Saturday. The custom of blackened faces is said to come from a pagan or medieval superstition done in order to disguise the dancers from being recognised by evil spirits afterwards, or it may reflect the coal mining connections of the area. The costume and dances are said to have come from the Moorish pirates who, having settled to work in the Cornish coal mines, brought their mining skills to the Lancashire area when these mines opened in the 1800's. The origins of many a British Morris Dance was in fact from these Moorish Pirates, the word "Moorish" becoming corrupted to "Morris" over the years. More info on the Coconutter's website: www.coconutters.co.uk/