Hope the Hedgehog

Hope may be a small hedgehog, but he's a big favourite with readers of The Mistmantle Chronicles. I was telling him about my sister, who looks after five rescue hedgehogs, and he was very interested in that. He also wanted to know about May Day, and I told him it was a bit like Spring Festival but with different dances. Then I had to explain.

Morris dancing, I said, is usually done by men in white shirts, dark trousers, long socks, and big noisy clogs on their feet. They wear bells, too, so they have music wherever they go. And hats with flowers on. And they wave white hankies, or, in some cases, swords.

"Isn't that dangerous?" asked Hope.

"It depends on the Morris Men," I said. "Mostly the ones with swords are the rapper bands. The rappers are sort of bendy swords and they weave them together to make a star."

"Then do they all go to hospital?" asked Hope.

"Not usually," I said, and, seeing that Hope was getting a bit worried about this, I moved on. I told him all about Maypole dancing, which, if you've never seen it done, features a tall pole with coloured ribbons attached and the dancers weave in and out so that the ribbons wrap very prettily around the Maypole. Then I had to explain it all again, because he was very interested. Next, he asked if I could very kindly lend him a bit of bamboo cane and some ribbons, and where exactly does my sister live?

So Hope is off to my sister's garden to teach Maypole dancing. If you live in Northumberland and find a bunch of hedgehogs rolling about trying to pull the ribbons off each other's prickles, please stop and help them. Carefully. At least it's safer than clogs and rappers.