The solstice was last week, anyway, and clocks did not exist in the Middle Ages when dances like the Helston Furry Dance were popular in England and Ireland. So the players, in carefully made, traditional village finery from a long ago time, belted out tunes and performed whirling dance steps with enthusiasm.

The solstice event Saturday was a spinoff from the Christmas Revels, held every December in the Oakland Scottish Rites Theater, which have drawn capacity crowds for the last two decades.

Saturday's event drew about 50 people, who sat on blankets in the shade of the giant eucalyptus that towers over the Lake Merritt Boat House.

This is a beginning, said Revels executive director Dirk Burns. Traditionally, revels celebrated the seasons, not just the winter solstice.

"This year we celebrated May Day with a maypole at the Oakland Zoo. We got lots of kids involved," Burns said. "We're planning a fall harvest celebration, too, but we haven't got the details worked out yet."

"The revels mark something that was lost in the Industrial Age," he said. "We hope this will get people to get out from behind their computer screens."

It was a bit like a Medieval village, if one ignored the high rises and the roar of cars along the lake. Master of ceremonies Shay Black of Berkeley belted out an old Irish song. He is a member of a famous Irish folk family and stars in the Christmas Revels

The Deer Creek Morris Team did traditional dances. A chorus sang old tunes.

Artistic director David Parr said a lot in the program has pre-Christian roots. For instance, there was a"gurning contest." A gurn in ancient England was an ugly face. In the contest, each participant puts his or her face through a horse collar and makes the worst face possible.

A horse collar, for those born in the computer age, was an oval, padded collar placed around a work horse that allowed the horse to be attached to a wagon or plow or other conveyance that used horse propulsion.

The music, the dance, the ancient traditions have a way of hooking people, participants say. "I first went to the revels in the early'90s," said M.C. Haug of Oakland.

"I started bringing my children and I volunteered. Then they asked me to be on the board, so I did that," she said. "I just love making this happen."