FOR the first time in many a moon, the Green Man Festival didn’t end this year with the ritual burning of the Green Man effigy that sits at its heart like a willing victim and chose to do something a little different.

The organisers decided to break with tradition because of the devastation caused by the ongoing wildfires.

So instead of people in robes, carrying torches and looking vaguely witchy as they set fire to a giant man made out of wood in a pagan ceremony that celebrates the birth of the new from the death of the old, we had lights, dance and song.

Which was a pretty colourful way to end a festival that even saw a little bit of rain falling from the skies in the hope of making the parched, yellow and blackened hills a little greener again.