The rest of the Sideways caravan peered over our shoulders as the small scene played out on the church steps.

 from reading of by Jacquetta Hawkes:

Walk through landscape that begins to lift and fall to Ronse ... find myself caught up in the tradition of St Hermes, whose relics are carried around the town on Trinity Sunday every year - he was the saint who cured madness, a madman was immersed in water for the 'bath mass' in Ronse, the cost was the madman's weight in food ...after the cure a certificate granted ... I wonder what's in the minds of the contemporary townspeople when they walk the stations of the ceremony (32 kilometres) with its archaic associations of 'possession by' and 'casting out of' demons. Everywhere there are little shrines in the fields, the procession circles each of them three times ... a pilgrimage that marks the bounds of the town. They sing 'St. Hermes, Keep madness away from the surrounding villages - but don't bother about us' ... or words to that effect. on the Monday after twelfth night (early January) the mayor still gives the key sod the town to the King of the Fools. They like their madness too much to lose it.

Hugh Lupton

22 August 2012, Markedal

I don't want to have a look at the map. The map is talking too loudly.

Marie-Anne Lejen

22 August 2012, Koefhoek