Mercian Muse

The Frost Place, New Hampshire USA

2011-10-04T10:50:00.001-07:00

We're currently on holiday touring the East coast of the US. I've been posting about our travels on Tales of a Kitchen Herbwife. One of the accidental places we visited was the Robert Frost Museum and Poetry Centre in Franconia. This is my tribute to the poet.

The Frost Place
Your woods I walked today
Red apples shimmering in the sun
Birch and fir tall sentinels
Maple and alder lining the ground with red and gold.

Fat raindrops fell glistening from branches
White stoles wrapped themselves around mountains
As we sat on your porch
Edged with purple aster
Four years of your life laid out within the modest home.

You found it too cold to grow
In dark, New Hampshire winters
Forty four acres not enough
To feed your growing family

You thought to farm
Bur your successful pen brought better fruit
Sat beside the fire
Writing of bending birch
Discarded apples on trees
Your arms and shoulders aching from their picking.

Yet you knew your fields
Sweet whispers of scythes
Penned for your posterity
You left the hay to make itself
Hopeful of summer's heat

As we stood
Grateful for sun,
A welcome respite from torrential rain
Allowing us to walk in your woods
Share in your works
Drinking the colours of fall
Amidst white mountains.

11.15am 3/10/11.

Last cry for summer

2011-08-23T06:36:00.000-07:00

I don't know where the summer months have gone. As I sit outside after work preparing home-grown runner beans for dinner, I ponder on time when I should have been writing, but instead I'm weeding or picking or preparing things for winter.

None of my creative work appears to progress and there is little new to offer. There was one poem entered for the annual poetry competition. The ajudicator passed it by saying there was too much detail and I'd left a spelling mistake in the submission. It was enough to make me crawl away and hide except the previous Saturday I read three poems at "Herbfest's got talent".

As I read the distant healing poem, the room was still.

"I don't think they breathed," Chris told me afterwards, "they seemed mesmerised." Maybe they were or maybe the poem has its own power.

Below is the competition poem. I sat under the apple tree and simply wrote what I saw for the hour I had free. I spent the following days honing words and rhythmn until it flowed to my satisfaction. The first verse has been lifted away - another moon contemplation which didn't really sit with the sunny day.

What do you think?

Chosen by rooks
Is your soil strewn with cherries?
Red skins ripped by mawkish marauders
Does your wooden bench hide strawberries?
Wild morsels of crimson sweetness
Garnets and rubies of an alpine range

Do you crunch apples underfoot?
Hard shards pressed into softness
Do you notice morsels lost amidst abundance?
Should you mourn when hundreds swell above you?
Contentedly modulating green within the canopy.

More green from pea pods where pristine petals fall
Their clusters call to bees
Following unseen flight lines to coat their fuzz with pollen
Nectar-driven pilots buzzing from yellow poppy to red woundwort
They drowned in cherries too
Humming their love song to the tree until blossoms fell

Have you noticed redbreast feeding fledgling?
Nurtured still on cherry’s bough
Carefully flitting from branch to chair to roof
Bright watching for strangers
Until he darts deep into darkness
To feed his sitting hen amidst forgotten trimmers
Their former nest forsaken for a safer space

Will you watch the white-tailed bumble rest?
Her bed of bean leaf crowned with scarlet flowers
Perhaps vermillion drops of currant catch your eye
Hanging above swollen gooseberry globes
Or yellow stars of agrimony and St John
Draw your delighted gaze on this bright day.

Such starlit gold along with silver moon
Bejewelled planting
Guarded by oak and fir
Serenaded by blackbird, robin, wren
Chosen by rooks
Let rue offer you such grace as can be gained
Within my summer garden.

Novel writing: hints and tips

2011-06-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

Like every writer, I have several stories on the go at any one time. Some sit around for years until I feel inspired to take them up again, others live with me either from day to day or week to week.

In my writing group we have a novel sub-group which meets every other week in a local pub where we read out our latest chapter or part-chapter to our peers. One of the group is transferring her novel into a radio play, so we all get a chance to play with the characters and interact with the story. It’s great fun and gets us all laughing.

I’ve been very fortunate in that I’ve already had two of my novels published by Loveyoudivine. You can see all the covers here with accompanying blurbs. I’m now exposing “Gofannon” to the Pub Clubbers and they’ve raised a lot of useful pointers showing how to improve it. My biggest problem is making the time to do the revisions!

This weekend I’ve been putting together my various stories about my shapeshifting cat people just to see how many words I’ve already written and how much more I’d need to write before revising and submitting. I’ve posted a single story on Literotica if you’d like to see what the characters are like. It’s a stand alone story, not central to the plot, but don’t read it if you’re averse to adult content! I’m waiting to see if they upload another story about the cats submitted yesterday which is part of the main book. (You can find it here.)

Trying to shape a novel brought me back to the novel writing workshop Sue Johnson put on for Solihull Writers Workshop at the beginning of May. Sue is a lovely person and a gentle and inspiring speaker. The advice she gave was sensible and sounded achievable, although she had us all gasping when she told us she had forty pieces of work out seeking placement at any one time.

I guess the difference is that she’s a full time writer, with a long track record of successful article writing and poetry publications and has just landed her first romance novel contract called Indigo Dreams with Samhain Publishing. She attributed her success to knowing her characters inside out, so she could describe the leading male as a “Rum truffle” (apparently the publisher use this as a test for all aspiring authors!) and was clear about her marketing potential through Facebook, blogging, twitter and workshops.

Sue said there were five main reasons why novels fail.
1. Insufficient conflict – conflict needs to be in place right at the beginning.
2. The characters are not gripping or convincing e.g. a TSTL heroine (too stupid to live!)
3. Settings are unbelievable – this can be rectified by having pictures or recordings of the place you have in mind and you must engage all the reader’s senses to take them to that setting and keep them there!
4. Unconvincing dialogue – all dialogue must be gripping and must move the action on. Don’t include every word, summarise and remove slower scenes.
5. Insufficient use of senses – must include colours and smells within the action.

A plot emerges from the motivation of the characters but must have enough conflicts within the story. A friend of mine likened a plot to a journey, but there must be threats and points of learning along the way.

My problem has always been that I don’t plot a novel before I start. I usually play with the characters – often with a writing partner online and let the characters decided their own stories by their interactions together. This is really good for understanding your characters, but can make deciding on the beginning, purpose and ending of the story really complex. One of these days I shall be disciplined and plot my story first!

I can understand what Sue means about conflict. I have a very gentle story I’ve played with on my own for a couple of years but apart from the characters heading towards a significant argument, they spend most of their time preparing food and looking after animals which really doesn’t help the story along!

Sue recommended conflicts should be included on three levels. Most stories are actually based on fairy tales and myths. She cited that twelve novels in the top two hundred best sellers are built on the fairy tale structure. James Bond is an example of a mythic plot.

If these structures are followed, you can see that conflicts come in threes.
1. The character’s battle with one aspect of themselves
2. The character’s battle with someone else
3. The character’s battle with some aspect of the environment e.g. weather/disease – something which causes a problem thereby isolating them.

If you are working with things happening in threes, foreshadow, but don’t let things happen immediately. If you have two false alarms, it heightens the tension.

The numbers three and seven are the most popular numbers in all cultures. If you are engaged in persuasive writing, emphasise the point three times.

Sue told us that Jane Austen included a plot twist every six or seven pages, which keeps her readers surprised and wanting to know what happens next. She said you need to have background information available about each character to ensure you keep everything consistent.

There is nothing more disconcerting in a story if you have decided to change the name of a character half way through but forget to make sure all the changes have been made in your word processor.

We had this problem in The Strongest Magick. The hero’s name originally was Agravaine, but his nickname used throughout the book just didn’t fit, so my collaborator came up with an older form of the name, Agryffan, so the nickname , Gryff , made more sense. I cannot tell you the hassle it was to go through the entire text and ensure everything had been changed correctly. You cannot trust a word substitution programme!

When you’re plotting a novel, Sue suggested you should decide the opening and the ending and twenty key scenes. These can be developed into chapters on a postcard. Chapter lengths should be varied. Cliff-hangers are good because they keep the pages turning. You need to have enough happening, possibly with events set in threes.

Prologues should be not too long and punchy. Use them to give an overview. The purpose is to give an idea of what has happened before providing any foreshadowing needed.

Similarly, an epilogue should sort everything out, but to achieve all this, the reader must care about the characters.

If you are writing heterosexual stories, Sue said the male and female parts of the novel should be developed equally. The same could be said if you’re writing about same sex couples – i.e. each partner has to be developed to the same extent. You can’t be captivated by Lavonia and have Count Leverhulme remain a cardboard cut-out.

What does he like for breakfast? How did he get the scar on his little finger? Why does he always groan when he hears Beethoven’s 5th Symphony played yet cannot stop drumming the opening sequence on any surface with which he comes into contact?
Sue suggested writers should not plot too tightly. It was more important to get to the end of your novel before tinkering. Don’t worry about perfection; get the bones of ideas down.

An interesting point Sue brought up which publishers are requiring to a much greater extent than before is what is the author prepared to do to promote their book? Sue recommended such things as building websites, offering promotional material, writing competitions, offering workshops, reading in libraries and all the social networking sites. To those can be added giving readings, attending conferences and book fairs.

All these examples are possibly less trouble if you are living and writing in a niche market. It would be much easier for me to write books on herbs or healing because I know where the gaps are and who might be interested and the subject matter is one which can be discussed over the dinner table with friends. It’s more challenging if you write for “adult” markets and can’t publicise your work perhaps as much as you’d like for fear of alienating family, friends or even losing your job!

Sue told us that most publishing contracts for novels often include the need for another novel within twelve months. If you follow her advice to have a minimum of forty pieces of work submitted at any one time, this can be made up of short and long versions of the same short story, articles, poetry, flash fiction, competitions etc. She advised us to have a database tracking system so we knew what was happening to any one piece of work at all times.

When submitting a novel, Sue advised getting the synopsis as good as you can get it, making sure you look at the publisher’s website as well as the Writers and Artist’s Yearbook. It is also advisable to ensure the first two pages have NO mistakes on them. If they do, no-one will read any further.

A one page synopsis can almost be considered as a blurb (the writing on the cover back page). You must make sure the synopsis includes the ending – a publisher does not appreciate surprises!

Publishers will often have blogs giving their pet hates. It is worth reading these so you don’t fall foul of such formatting issues as not having the first paragraph indented but making sure you indent all subsequent paragraphs. Sometimes publishers have enquiry forms and these should be downloaded and completed.

The workshop left me with lots of ideas and hopefully some new skills. Sue told us there is a market for everything. We should go for what inspires us and keep going until we get a result, at the same time looking for every opportunity you can find to promote yourself.

Now I have to follow her advice and push myself into action!

Storm

2011-06-09T13:23:00.000-07:00

It can be difficult to come up with an original idea when you're writing to a given theme. The subject of storm seemed to bring out everyone's darkest fears of death and destruction. I count mine as a true story from 1995, when my Oregonian friend and I were playing with the story of a Celtic healer. While Chris held a meeting in our front room, I sat in the lounge and imagined the story's finale as the thunder rolled around the garden in front of me. It was a very surreal experience.

*******************************************************

“Come in, come in. Looks like you made it just in time.” David welcomed his two fellow Beaver leaders into the house and took them through to the front room.

“Would you like some tea?” Janet hovered in the doorway, trying to be hospitable, but wanting to keep her distance from this planning meeting for the next term. Her suggestions for ten weeks of tree projects had not gone down well. Five year old boys were not interested in trees, she was told. They needed more interesting topics to hold their attention.

David took the drinks through into the front room from the kitchen leaving Janet to occupy herself in the lounge. The children were upstairs asleep. Normally she would sit and watch television but the large screen was blank and she felt no desire to pick up her knitting needles and concentrate on yet another Thomas pattern.

Janet stared out into the darkening garden. Even with the French window wide open, there seemed to be no air. Black clouds hung low, hugging the top of the apple tree while thunder rolled in the distance. A single blackbird called an alarm from the top of the neighbour’s fir tree, but there was no sight of the other garden dwellers.

“They must all be hiding in the hedges,” Janet thought, as she caught sight of a slender forsythia branch swaying in the stillness. A robin or bluetit must have landed on it briefly before seeking shelter amongst the green hawthorn.

Sheet lightning danced across the clouds, the flashes mesmerising her. She waited, counting silently for the thunder to crash overhead. Nine seconds before the sky cracked. It was almost overhead. Sudden sounds on the concrete slabs heralded raindrops as the storm arrived, bringing with it swirling air currents which ruffled the curtains.

“Should I shut the French window?” Janet wondered, but she was tied to her chair by her terror of the storm. Her fingers gripped the armrests as her mind took her back to another time, another storm where summer rain lashed the bracken around a large stone dwelling.

It had been a disastrous year. Savage frosts burned the fruit blossom. Spring planting was difficult with many fields of seeds rotting where they were sown because of incessant rain.

“The God is angry with us,” people muttered. “No sun will shine until the land is nourished with blood. No crops and we’ll all die this winter.”

“Have you seen the Laird?” Ygraine asked, passing through the kitchen in search of her aged husband. Many decades had passed since they accepted the clan leader’s torcs. Ygraine’s once raven tresses were streaked with grey and Angus’ gleaming golden mane was now as white as snow on winter hillsides.

“I saw him walking down towards the stones before the storm broke. He took the knife with him.”

Ygraine whirled towards the speaker, a dour man with grizzled hair who was hanging pots and pans on their hooks in the wide oak beams. “What do you mean he took the knife?”

“He said it was time and you were not to worry.”

An anguished scream tore from her throat as she flung open the thick wooden door and ran out into windswept moorland.

“Angus, Angus, where are you?” but her words were lost to the thunder as she ran along the narrow track leading to the ancient stone circle. She stumbled many times in the darkness, but as she reached the brow of the hill a sudden flash of lightning lit up the fateful scene below her.

Angus was kneeling behind the altar stone, the sacrificial knife held high in front of him. His long white hair stuck to his clothes, drenched by pouring rain.

“No!” screamed Ygraine, but even as her cry echoed around the glen, she saw Angus plunge the knife into his chest and a tell-tale stain began to seep across his white shirt as he slumped forward onto the ground.

She flew down the track, throwing herself to her knees and cradling his body in her arms.

“Why you?” she sobbed, wiping the rain from his face.

“The king must give himself for the land,” he whispered. “I’m old and tired, Grainne. I want to go home. Better now, herein this sacred space, than a living death inside stone walls.”

Her sobs gave way to heart-wrenching cries as his body went limp and the spark died within his eyes. It was there they found her, their children and the rest of the clan. Tenderly they took him from her, laying his body on a horse drawn bier, their sons supporting her, their daughters arms wrapped around each other as they slowly followed along the track.

As the Laird’s blood seeped into the soil, the wind dropped. Against a departing wall of clouds the emerging sun threw a double arc of rainbows across the sky. The man leading the horse stopped at the top of the hill, the bier suddenly alive with colours.

“You’ve done enough,” he spoke to the corpse. “We’ve hope again.”

The front door slammed, dragging Janet back from her reverie.

“Storm’s gone now,” David said, closing the French window and drawing the curtains. “We managed to get everything sorted. Do you want some tea?”

Janet looked at him, wondering if the tears she felt running down her face were really there or just stray raindrops blown in through the open window. How could she tell him what she’d witnessed?

“I’ll make it,” she said getting up from her chair just as he put the light on. “It was an amazing storm.”

Jessica and the Bear

2011-05-07T14:26:00.000-07:00

At Solihull Writers Workshop next Wednesday, the theme of the evening is a piece of science fiction writing. I'm not very interested in space ships and aliens, so I'm taking a piece of fantasy along with me in the hope it will provide a small diversion.

*************************************************

“Grandpa, how long have you had a bear living in the garden?”

Jack Robbins put down the runner beans he was planting in large pots in the greenhouse and regarded his granddaughter, Jessica, carefully. The fair-haired nine year old was not given to telling fairy stories.

“I didn’t know we had a bear living in the garden. “

“I saw him last night when I was getting a drink of water from the kitchen. I looked out of the window towards Stow church and saw him in between the plum tree blossom and the apple tree.”

“What was he doing?”

“Nothing at first. He was just a large, black shape until he rose up on his hind legs. It was definitely a bear. He was covered in long, black fur apart from his belly, which was cream. He must have seen me because I heard him growl. It was very frightening, so I put the light off and went to bed.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“You were out in the barn. I knew if I told someone, they’d just say I was making it up, but I’m not. I’ve found his tracks. Come and look.”

Jessica led him to the flattened grass at the base of the Victoria plum tree, then walked slowly across the lawn to the flower border.

“Can you see his prints? He must be very big. He left me a bunch of violets.” She held the fragrant bundle up to her face and breathed in the scent.

Jack shook his head. He had to admit there was something in the grass, but his brain could not accept there were bear tracks leading out of his garden. Bears didn’t live in the Cotswolds; wolves, maybe, when the hills were wooded before the Bronze Age, but not now in the 21st century and no animal left a bunch of violets as a gift.

“I shouldn’t worry about him, Jess,” he said gruffly. “Let me know if you see him again.” And he went back to finish planting beans.

Jessica did see him again, but not until she was a young woman, busy with her life in the city.

“Do you think I dreamed him?” Jess asked her friend, Mark, one day when they were sitting outside one of the small cafes they liked to frequent after work. She trusted Mark. He didn’t make fun of her when she talked about the strange things she’d seen and done as a child. The bear was not the only creature to enter her world. There was also the black unicorn she saw regularly in the bottom field when she was growing up.

Mark shrugged, “It doesn’t really matter whether you were awake or asleep, he came to you and you remember him.” He took another swallow of his drink. “They say bears help you to know yourself and give you strength to trust your intuition. Maybe he came to show you how to be wild and free?”

Suddenly the wind got up and Jess shivered, pulling her cardigan around her shoulders.

“There is maybe one more thing.” He paused, pointing to black clouds travelling across the sky, a brilliant window of sunlight streaming through their midst. “You said the bear had two colours, black and cream?”

Jess nodded.

“Maybe there is also balance to be considered. Male and female, tamed and free; there are so many things your bear could bring you.”

“Shall I see him again?”

Mark grew still, as if listening for the answer in the wind rustling leaves and stray paper along the pavement.

“I think he will come to you again. If you have courage, go with him and learn more.”

A few weeks later, Jess drove to the farm to visit her grandparents, travelling through fading, evening light. As she turned into the village, roads were wet, the sky lit by lightning rods and echoes of thunder.

“Shut the hens up for me, will you?” said her grandfather as she opened the car door. “I meant to do it earlier, but it was raining too hard and I shrink if I get wet these days.”

Jess found her boots out of the back of the car and with the ancient straw egg basket on her arm; she went up to the rickyard to fasten the henhouse door.

It was dark, the only light coming from an ancient railway lamp at the top of the drive. She could smell moisture left by the departing storm. All around her the sky crackled with electricity before being broken apart by the thunder cracks rolling overhead. Diligently, she opened the slats into the nesting boxes, searching through warm hay for fresh eggs, placing her bounty in the curved base of the basket.

When she could find no more, she made her way back to the gate, stopping for a moment to rest the basket on the sharp stone commers on the wall. She looked over to the horizon, watching another burst of lightning cross the clouds. Just as the brilliance faded, she thought she saw the familiar shape of a bear standing in the field across the road.

When she looked again, a man stood on the roadside near a young ash tree just on the edge of the lamplight. He was tall with soft, black hair framing an aquiline face. His nose was long and his lips, thick and sensuous. It was hard to judge his age. His large frame and broad shoulders spoke of maturity and strength. He smiled, his eyes crinkling as if amused by Jess’ considered gaze.

“Do you always rob your hens so late in the evening?” His voice was deep, yet soft, as if carried on the disappearing storm. Despite his sudden appearance, Jess did not feel threatened. She had the uncanny feeling she had seen him before.

“Not usually, my grandmother collects them when she feeds the hens at lunchtime, but she’s not been well.”

“Would you bring me a dozen tomorrow when you come to tea?”

“You’re Arthur Britton?” Jess held out her hand in greeting. Her grandfather mentioned they were invited to visit the next door neighbour over the weekend. “Glad to meet you.”

She felt warm, rough leather grip her palm and when she looked down; she could have sworn her hand was covered by a bear’s paw.

“We’ve met before, Jessica,” he said, his grip firm as he looked deep into her blue eyes. “You were only a child then, but I knew you would remember me."

As his hand fall back to his side, Jess saw a bunch of violets left on her palm. Without thinking, she brought the fragrant blossoms to her nose, savouring the subtle scent.

When she looked up again, he was gone, with no sound of departing footsteps along the road.

The Maid and the Blacksmith : a story for Beltane

2011-05-06T05:25:00.000-07:00

When the lilac buds thickened, the girl knew it would soon be time for the maypole dancing. The men would go to the woods and cut a straight ash pole, planting it firmly in the earth on the village green. Then they would take ribbons, red and white, blood and energy to symbolise the union of the Goddess and the God, so the earth would be blessed and the land would bear fruit in due season.

Every year the girl saw the maypole being cut and watched young men and women dancing the whirling dances on the green. She knew when the sun faded, the dancers went off to the wood, the boys with flushed faces from too much ale, the girls giggling and apprehensive. Men and women would follow along hidden pathways, for everyone wished to honour the union of the God and goddess with their own Great Rite.

No-one minded when the children came, for Beltane children were blessed. They would see light at Imbolc, Brigit's festival, when the world was still dark and quiet, but the sun was born again. These children would be called Robinson, for they were the offspring of Robin Goodfellow and many were the maids who thought to share the Great Rite with a faery lover that night.

The girl grew and it worried her that she should soon be joining her fellows around the maypole. Who would take her into the woods when the day grew cold? Who would keep her warm and light the fire in her belly? She could not know and the thought turned her stomach cold. What of the Sidhe, the faery folk? What if one of them took her? It was said that those who loved the faery folk wasted away from their desires. What could she do to escape from such a fate?

The years rolled on and the girl grew thin. She thought if she did not eat, she could delay the time of her womanhood. The wise woman saw what she was about and came to her one day when she toiled in the fields. She asked the girl to describe her fears, but the girl refused. But the wise woman saw what she did and was not alarmed. She gave the girl's mother herbs to put in her milk and soon the girl found that she was hungry again. She ate as a normal child would and she grew and blossomed. The day came when she saw her first blood and knew it would soon be time to take her place at the maypole.

But the wise woman saw everything and spoke with the village elders. The girl was not chosen for the maypole dance, not that year, nor the next, or the next, until she thought it strange all her companions had danced the ribbon dance. She watched them go laughing into the wood, returning with a new light in their eyes and a softness to their look. She wondered what it would be like to lie under the stars and feel the God enter her.

At last she went to the wise woman and asked why she could not join the ribbon dance and the wise woman told her to go to the blacksmith and ask him. So the girl went to the blacksmith at his forge and asked if she could join the ribbon dance that year.

The place was filled with the heat of the fire and steam from the water barrel where the blacksmith cooled his irons. The blacksmith looked at the girl and asked her to pick up his smallest anvil. She tugged and she pulled but she could not lift it.

"Go away," he told her. "Come back when you are stronger then perhaps you may dance the ribbon dance."

The girl was very angry she should be asked to perform such a task. She went to the wise woman and complained. The wise woman smiled and gave her strange herbs to eat and told her to swim every day in the village pond once the sun went down.

So every night when the sun had set and the light had gone from the land, the girl went down to the pond and took off all her clothes and swam in the pond as the wise woman had told her.

Now the pond was next to the smithy and the blacksmith was always late at his work. For not only did he shoe horses and cast ploughshares and other tools, he also made magical tools for those who wished to use them, for the blacksmith was beloved of Herne and cared for his people. As he heated and hammered and shaped the iron, he saw the girl swimming in the water and he smiled.

All through the summer, the girl swam in the pond. When winter came, still she swam even though ice covered the water. The blacksmith used to break it for her before she came down to swim.

Then came spring. Flowers bloomed and the hedgerows grew green again. The girl returned to the blacksmith's forge and asked to try lifting the anvil again. The blacksmith pointed to the corner of the forge and the girl went and tugged and pulled but still she could not lift it.

Then the blacksmith came behind her, silently, for though he was a big man, he could move like a cat in the night. He put his arms under her arms and around the anvil and lifted it clear from the ground.

The girl was astonished, but the blacksmith merely smiled and nodded and from his apron pocket he pulled a red ribbon.

"Tie this on the maypole," he said, "and you shall dance the ribbon dance."

On 1st May they hoisted the ash pole and bedecked it with the red and white ribbons. The girls were dressed in their finest clothes, their hair crowned in wreathes of green and flowers like the May Queens they were. Round and about and in and out they weaved the ribbons with the men and boys until there were no ribbon lengths left to weave, then they turned and danced the other way. Again and again they danced until all were tired and thirsty and thankful to sit down to the feast in honour of the marriage of the Lord and Lady.

Long did they feast and drink until the sun went down. One by one, couples began to wander together into the wood. No-one asked the girl to go with them and she was left sitting at the tables, feeling old and foolish and wishing she had never worried about the ribbon dances.

As she stared at the table top, a shadow crossed the boards. She looked up into the face of the blacksmith. He held out his hand and looked towards the wood and she knew the time had come to set aside her girlhood and become a woman.

It was cool amongst the trees. All around her the girl could hear whispers and giggles from behind bramble patches and fallen logs. The blacksmith led her deep into the wood, past oak trees and lime trees until they reached the place where a yew tree grew. Underneath the green branches was a mossy bank to lie upon and here the blacksmith led her.

"This is the tree of passage," the blacksmith said, "from this life into the next. Tonight you will set aside your girlhood and join the womenfolk. If the Goddess wills, in time you will become a mother as She does this night."

The girl looked at him, her fear showing on her face, but he took her tenderly and held her gently and whispered many sweet words as he laid her down and prepared her for what must be. This was the blacksmith's role, to offer Great Rite to those whose time had come. Skilled he was too and pleasure he brought with him. The girl hardly noticed pain as he lit the fire within her and made her what she must become - a woman.

Afterwards, she lay smiling in his arms and her eyes grew soft as he pushed tendrils of hair from off her face and kissed her.

As the days passed, the sun grew hot and the land was fertile and the people gathered in the harvest. The girl knew she had indeed been blessed, but she said nothing, visiting the wise woman, who kept her secret.

Leaves fell and winter came, the woman's belly swelling with new life. Often she would go and sit by the blacksmith's forge and watch him as he worked. He saw how she quickened and he smiled. When she slept at night, he built a cradle from the yew tree wood where they had joined in the love of the Lord and Lady.

When Imbolc came, the child was born. The blacksmith took him and showed him to the village, acknowledging his son and his wife. The woman lay and suckled her babe. She knew her fear was gone and a new life stretched before her.

The Holly and the Ivy Part 5

2011-01-04T12:12:00.000-08:00

Colin sat on his bed turning the horn dagger over and over in his hands. Outside his window, snow fell in thick white clumps, adding to the blanket already covering hills and valley.

Granny’s words reverberated in his head.

“Take this knife, Colin. You will need it to make your offering when snow comes. Go back to the King Holly behind the chapel and make a single cut so the blood drips down on the snow. Red on white.

“It’s our way, you see. Our way to show our life connects to our land. Our lifeblood, vibrant while the earth sleeps.

“The King’s chosen you this year. Don’t be scared. Means he has something for you, something special. You’ll know what it is once you’ve offered your gift.

“Don’t forget the knife. It’s very old. Some say it came from the antler of the first white stag. Take good care of it.

“When you’re done, go to the chapel. Angie will be waiting for you.

Colin examined the dagger more closely. It was a single piece of yellow bone, with a carved hilt and finely tapering blade. He knew it would be sharp enough when the time came. He wondered how many others had done this, sitting alone with the dagger, waiting for the right time to begin.

When he looked up at the window, the snow had stopped. Shafts of sunlight were making ice crystals dance on the hilltop. Better go now, before it got dark; before he lost his nerve.

He pushed the dagger into his trouser pocket, blade first. Then he flung open his bedroom door and thundered down the stairs. His green jacket was hanging on its peg in the porch. He pulled it on, grabbing his hat and gloves from the wire basket by the back door. His boots were nowhere to be seen.

Sighing, he sorted through the heap of footwear left by his brothers and sisters until he found his own. They were all off sledging with the other village kids, but Colin hadn’t felt like joining them. Maybe he would tomorrow when this was all over.

As he knelt on the step to lace up his boots, he noticed a dried leaf beside his foot. It must have blown in from the back garden where the oak tree stood.

“Ackerleys must live near oak trees.” Colin heard his grandfather’s voice. “That’s what Ackerley means – oak meadow. We’re all oaks in our own way.”

Colin picked up the leaf and slipped it into the pocket with the dagger. Five minutes later he was trudging up the field behind his house towards the path which led to the chapel.

“Colin’s gone. I saw him leave.” Maggie rushed into the vicarage with her news. She stopped short when she saw Granny and Emily standing either side of Anthea as the vicar’s wife breathed through a painful contraction.

“Go and get Zeb,” Granny told her. “Tell him to take the Landrover up to the chapel in an hour’s time. Don’t want to spook the lad. You get up there now and start the fire going. Heat up some water. He’ll need a hot drink when it’s all over.”

“Isn’t that what you should be doing?” Maggie grinned at the three women. “Where’s the vicar?”

“Out playing in the snow, where he should be. Henry will fetch him when the time comes. He’d only be in the way.” Granny rubbed Andrea’s back as she began to walk around the kitchen.

“Good luck, love.” Maggie kissed the young woman then quietly made her exit.

It was sheltered in the hollow where the chapel stood. It was as if the snow absorbed all sound. No wind, no birdsong, only the soft flow of water from the holy spring into the well house.

Colin trudged through the drift by the side of the chapel towards the King Holly, brushing the powder snow off his brown trousers. Same colour as the oak leaf, he thought idly as the leaf drifted from his pocket onto the ground. His jacket was green like the holly tree bark, a vivid vibrancy in the snowy landscape.

He pulled off his gloves and stuffed them inside his jacket. He’d need them later and he didn’t want to lose them. His hand shook as he pulled out the dagger. He didn’t like knives, ever since he’d picked up his father’s penknife as a small child and sliced his hand open.

He remembered how easy it had been. How the blood flowed from his palm onto the ground beside the oak tree. How his mother screamed, making him drop the knife, so the cut hurt and his own frightened cries filled the air. There was still a small white scar on his right palm.

“So you offered yourself to the oak and now you come to me to take my place, eh, young Allon?”

“What!” Colin staggered backwards, dropping the dagger on the ground.

An old man, dressed in rich garments woven with holly leaves and berries leaned heavily against the trunk of the holly tree. Though his words were stern, his eyes shone with mischief.

“Who are you?” Colin’s eyes were fixed on the man, hardly noticing the blood dripping from his left middle finger, caught by the dagger as it fell.

“Don’t you recognise me, Allon? I admit the tables were turned when we met at mid-summer, I was the young man then and you looked as if a breath of wind would carry you away. Now the wheel has moved and it is my turn to offer you the crown.”

The old man walked towards him, holding out a woven wreath of leaves which he placed on Colin’s head. Though the shape of the leaves had been holly-like in the old King’s hands, as soon as they touched the boy, they transformed into oak leaves with a light green hue as if newly unfurled from leaf-buds.

“Rule wisely, Allon. We shall meet again soon.”

The old man turned, as if to walk back towards the holly tree, but with each step he took, the colours of his clothes faded until he became transparent, disappearing into the tree; leaving Colin alone.

The boy blinked, suddenly noticing his bleeding finger and sucking it furiously. He reached out a hand to retrieve the dagger and put it safely away in his pocket, but the sight which met his eyes made him stagger backwards until he reached the safety of the chapel wall. He felt the solid stone against his back and let his breathing return to normal.

Where the horn dagger fell, a white stag now stood, his four pronged antlers almost brushing the lower branches of the holly tree. His coat shone against the green of the tree; against the bank of snow, he was invisible except for his deep brown eyes and black, curling lashes. He turned his head towards Colin then began to walk through the snows in the direction of the wood.

Colin stood mesmerised for several long moments, but when the stag stopped again on the edge of the trees, he quickly got to his feet and followed.

The stag’s gait was slow and steady, walking along the ancient woodland rides as if he knew them. The broad canopy above captured most of the fallen snow; leaving the leaf mould floor brown and crisp. Colin imagined all the creatures living in this place, from tiny dormice to burly badger, turning in their sleeping chambers, unconsciously aware of the white stag passing through his ancient domain.

The stag led Colin deeper into the wood than he’d ever been before. Lime trees, oaks, hazel and ash stood in regimented lines as if planted here for a reason. Holly bushes were everywhere, long thin tendrils hanging almost to the ground like a huge festive curtain. They climbed up a small rise, then the stag leaped across a ditch, leaving Colin to slither downwards and then clamber back up again.

When he reached the top, he could see the remains of a robbed out wall, trees pushing from underneath like the remains of an ancient hedge – hawthorn, black thorn, spindle trees, elder; all dark and leafless. A flash of white caught his eye.

When he turned, the stag was standing in the midst of row upon row of gnarled tree trunks. Some were toppled, covered with ivy and lichen, but most were still erect, their thickness proclaiming their great age. Snow covered everything like a soft white cloak on the upper portion of each branch.

“Where am I?” Colin wondered to himself. This wasn’t part of the wood, there was too much light. All the tall trees were behind them. This section was deliberately kept clear. Why.

As he watched, he felt a gentle breeze on his face and saw the grass underneath the trees turn the bright green of springtime. Suddenly, the tree were bursting into blossom – pink, blushing apple, huge white snowflakes of pear and the delicate white of cherry.

“It’s an orchard!” Colin cried. “An orchard inside the wood!”

In the blink of an eye, the light changed again. Now the trees were covered with fruit, all different shapes, sizes and colours. Colin thought he saw brown, cowled figures walking between the trees, gathering fruit into baskets, then taking it to a huge press in the corner of the orchard to turn into juice, which was poured into barrels. The barrels were then loaded onto a cart and driven away with much singing until the music died away and the orchard returned to its winter slumber.

“You need someone to take care of the trees,” Colin said to the stag. “I could do that. Even if I only worked until mid-summer when my time is up, I could prune and clear away the brambles and make the orchard wall secure again.

“Is that what you want of me?”

The white stag walked towards him until his nose was so close he could feel warm puffs of breath on his face. The boy reached out to touch the white brow but his fingers felt nothing. He toppled forward into the snow and lay still.

As the moon rose in a cloudless, frosty sky, a frantic search party from the village finally found him. The warmth from his body had melted the snow around him and his clothes were covered with different sized oak leaves.

“Is he breathing?”

Maggie’s terrified words slipped from her as Anvil and Zeb gently rolled the boy onto his back.

“He’s alive. Bring the blankets. Let’s get him on the stretcher and back home.”

An hour later, a dazed Colin was sitting by a blazing fire in the vicarage parlour sipping hot broth; guarded by his mother who refused to let anyone ask him any questions.

“He’ll speak when he’s good and ready, not before.”

One by one, she shooed everyone out, all except Anvil, who sat in the opposite chair staring into the fire.

“I have to say, I’m grateful to you, Anvil, you and Zeb, for finding my boy.”

“It weren’t so bad, once we found the trail. He followed the white stag into the Abbot’s Orchard. I saw it standing over him until we arrived. He wasn’t harmed, but he will be changed. He’s Allon now.”

Lizzie Ackerley gasped. “There’s not been an Allon in the village…

“…since Granny Blackwell’s great-great-grandmother’s grandmother was a child.” Granny completed the sentence as she pushed the parlour door shut with a quiet click. “That’s when Earl William forsook the orchard. Refused to tend it after his son was killed by an oak tree. Promised to transport anyone who so much as picked an apple. Elders thought it best to leave it hid. No point in causing more misery. Things were bad enough back then.”

“Now the stag thinks otherwise and who are we to gainsay him.”

“That’s not all,” Granny said, resting her hand lightly on Anvil’s shoulder. “Didn’t you hear the baby cry? I think you’d better come upstairs to meet our future.”

Twelve months later, the Abbot’s Orchard was host to a very different scene. Stone walls topped with hedges lined the perimeter. Two huge oak gates secured the entrance and a roaring bonfire warmed the pressing corner where most of the village were gathered drinking mulled cider from the orchard’s first harvest for over two hundred years.

It was Colin, now employed as the orchard’s official Keeper, who led the others in the ancient Wassail.

Chorus
The winter sun’s arising
The deer are running free
With holly berries red as blood
A- wassailing go we.

The king he is a hunting gone
To catch the spotted deer
He rode amongst the forest trees
That stood both tall and bare
The winter sun’s arising etc.

The king he spied a milk white stag
Mid holly hanging low
“Stay here,” he said, “and hold my horse,”
“I hunt this stag alone.
The winter sun’s arising etc.

The king approached the noble beast
His knife held in his hand
To take the stag’s own life he sought
Spill blood upon the ground
The winter sun’s arising etc.

“Come close, come close, O worthy King”
The stag began to cry
“My life I give this Solstice Eve
“My eyes will close this day”
The winter sun’s arising etc.

“For in green holly’s warm embrace
“My blood alone is red
“And ever more my life will run
“Like holly berries shed.”
The winter sun’s arising etc.

“Now tell your churchmen, tell them true
This land is sacred now
“A forester must tend the trees
And cut the holly boughs”
The winter sun’s arising etc.

The king he slew the milk white stag
Red blood upon the snow
They bore him home to feast and dance
Mid holly hanging low
The winter sun’s arising etc.

The king he told the Holy Man
The forest should be shriven
The Abbot had the holding now
Of lands so freely given
The winter sun’s arising etc.

The Abbot called his treasurer
“Count up my gold, “said he
“For I would build a forest fence
“Around the trees so green.”
The winter sun’s arising etc.

Then came the men with stones and picks
The boundary walls to build
A forest wild to tame and tend
Wherein the stag was killed
The winter sun’s arising etc.

The Abbot built a garden
Within the forest walls
With apples, pears and hazelnuts
To bring us all good cheer.
The winter sun’s arising etc.

Here’s health unto the Abbot
Our king we toast all round
A toast unto the milk white stag
With blood upon the ground.
The winter sun’s arising etc.

The Holly and the Ivy Part 4

2011-01-03T09:19:00.000-08:00

“He’s very young,” Granny said, clutching Colin’s handkerchief with both hands.

“No younger than I was the first year I was chosen.”

Anvil picked an apple from Granny’s fruit bowl and took a large bite.

“Yes, but you’d been working at the forge for two years by then. You had muscle and bone twice his size. Granny Blackwell never had a moment’s concern about you. She said you could lose two armfuls of blood and never notice.”

Anvil chuckled. “She did, did she, the old bat.” Then his face softened. “She lost sight of some things in her later years, did Granny. It’s not about how much you lose, but what you see that matters.”

Granny let the handkerchief slip onto the table in a crumpled heap.

“What did you see, then, Greg?”

“I never told no-one, not even Granny. She didn’t like not knowing. Nearly cost me Anvil when she told Blake I wasn’t fit to lead, but he must have seen something in me when he took me as apprentice.”

“I’m sorry,” Granny got up to clear away the dinner plates. “I shouldn’t pry into what isn’t my business.”

“Oh, but it is, Amy. What I saw was the Crone, the Calliech herself. She was wearing a pure white woollen cloak, her face almost hidden by the deep hood. There was so much snow up by the chapel that winter she was completely camouflaged.

“I didn’t notice her until after I made my offering. The wind blew one of the ivy tendrils away from the chapel wall and suddenly I could see her. I swear I was so terrified, I could hardly raise my eyes to look on her.

“She said nothing, but her smile… Oh her smile warmed me more than any day spent at my forge. I knew then, whatever happened, it would be as they willed. I knew it would all come right – the circle, the village. She gave me hope again.”

Granny stood very still, her voice hardly more than a whisper. “What has that to do with me?”

“She wore your face.”

Granny almost dropped the plates on the table and sank down on a chair. “She wore my face?”

“Not as you were then. It was just before you became Madron. Henry was about six months old. She looked as you look, well not quite now, maybe twenty years from now, but I knew it was you.”

“So you knew I would be Crone.”

“Yes. I didn’t dare tell you in case the telling would undo the truth. Now I can.”

“Thank you.” Granny leaned over and dropped a soft kiss on his cheek. “And now the whelp goes to seek the Holly King. “

“Let’s hope the Crone is as kind to him as she was to me.”

*****************************************************

“He can’t be chosen, he just can’t!” Jack bellowed, his arms gripped firmly by Zeb and Andy as he attempted to launch himself at Anvil in the small kitchen of the village hall.

“It’s not my decision, Jack.”

“You’re our Anvil. You can change things. Let Peter go, you saw the holly prick him. There was blood on his finger.”

“He wasn’t the first, Jack. You know the lore. It has to be first blood. Colin’s handkerchief was covered this morning. You saw it the same time as I did. If that weren’t enough, he went to the King Holly by instinct and the King chose him.

“If we didn’t believe it, he’s bled three times this afternoon just from attaching the leaves to the wreaths he’s been working on. Madron’s confirmed it as well as Granny. He has to go.”

Jack sagged against the two other men. “He’s not ready. He’s not even made his knife yet. He doesn’t like cutting things. I’ve seen him faint at the sight of blood.”

“So why hasn’t he fainted today?” Zeb asked quietly. “He’s not worried. You heard him; he’s been singing to himself and whistling all afternoon as if he hasn’t a care in the world. I’ve never seen him so happy other than when he’s planting saplings in the wood. You have to let him go.”

“It’s not as if he’ll do it today. There’s time until snow falls. You never know, maybe we won’t have snow this year.” Andy tried to reassure the anxious father but Anvil shook his head.

“Snow’s coming soon. I’ve seen it. It’ll be deep too. “

“What about Andrea? If it snows along Borough’s Pike she might not be able to get to the hospital in time. Do you think we should send her to stay with Zeb’s Emily in town?”

“You worry worse than my husband, Uncle Andrew.” The young woman in question eased herself onto a stool next to the sink. “We’ve got it all planned. Simon’s offered to stockpile supplies at the Manor for the entire village and there’ll be plenty of milk from his herd. If it snows that badly, the milk tanker won’t be able to get through, so we can have it. No point in wasting anything.”

“But what if you go into labour? I heard Granny say you’ll likely be on time. What do we do then? Call the helicopter? “

“I hope it doesn’t come to that, Uncle Andrew, really I don’t. Emily will be here for the solstice anyway and I’m sure she’ll look after me if anything does happen. How many babies has she delivered now, Zeb?”

Zeb smiled, he was very proud of his elder daughter who managed one of the delivery suites in the local hospital. “Three hundred and sixty it was, last time she told me; that’s not including her two.”

“Well then,“ Andrea beamed at them all. “I’m sure I couldn’t be in safer hands, so stop worrying!”

The Holly and the Ivy Part 3

2011-01-02T11:29:00.000-08:00

When Saturday arrived the village was shrouded in a blanket of fog. The holly gatherers met at Anvil’s forge, relishing the warmth of the fire before they set out. Some seemed subdued as if the fog pressed down on them, while others laughed and joked as if nothing were amiss.

“Everyone got their basket?” Anvil asked before they set off. There was a general chorus of agreement, so he ushered them outside, pulling the main door to the workshop closed behind them to deter visitors.

As they set off along the road, their boots rang against the hard surface; a welcome sound when the group leaders could not be seen by those at the back.

“Keep together now, lads. We’re going to take the track to the west copse from Bowsen Lane once we get up to the water trough. I don’t want anyone getting lost.”

“You think you’re the only one who knows their way around the woodland?” called a voice from the middle of the group.

“No, Jack Ackerley, I don’t, but I don’t relish explaining to your Lizzie why you or Colin aren’t home for dinner on time because you mistook Lawsons Oak for the Laurel Tree down on Hollowbarn Rise.”

Jack laughed loudly. “You tell that to our Lizzie and you’ll likely get the dinner thrown at you, Anvil or no. “

“Seems a terrible waste of good stew.”

“How’d you know we’re having stew for dinner?” Colin asked, fighting with his basket straps which threatened to strangle him rather than hang neatly from his neck.

“I gave your Ma the rabbits, that’s why.” Anvil came up beside the young lad, taking the basket from him and untwisted the straps so they could pass easily over his head and lie as they should.

A gap in the stone wall on the roadside loomed to their right. The leaders turned onto the Bowsen Path and started to walk uphill. Their boots squelched in mud and several of the men nearly slipped as their feet slid from under them.

As they reached the brow of the hill, a smaller path took them left into the woodland. At first they passed large bramble bushes covered in frost damaged leaves, a few young elders and holly lining the route, before taller trees –hawthorn, crabapple and hazel appeared out of the mist.

“Not far now,” Anvil said to Colin. “When we reach the first lime trunks we turn left and start down to the clearing where the best holly berries grow.”

Colin made no answer. The fog seemed to have entered his brain and he couldn’t think clearly. He knew every inch of the wood. His father was gamekeeper for the Earl of Landreich, who owned most of the village and thousands of acres nearby. Colin had been coming here ever since he could walk, but he wasn’t interested in the birds they bred for shooting or keeping the vermin down. Colin loved the trees.

When he was very young, he told his siblings the trees talked to him, but when they laughed at him, he learned to keep his thoughts to himself. It didn’t stop him from spending time in the woods and learning woodland skills along with all the other village children. It was these skills which had enabled him to join the Anvil’s Wood Folk at such an early age. His nineteenth birthday wasn’t for another two months. Most men were twenty one or older before they were accepted. Some never joined at all, moving away from the village or preferring the mental challenges of the Bridge Club.

Suddenly, Colin’s foot caught in a low-growing briar and he sprawled onto the damp carpet of dead brown leaves. When he picked himself up, there was no sign of the other men. Colin knew he should follow them to the clearing by the six-trunked lime tree, but something turned his footsteps to the right instead of the left and he found himself going back up the hill and over into the hidden fold where the sacred well and the chapel nestled.

Behind the chapel stood an ancient holly tree, covered in bright red berries.

“I don’t know why Anvil’s taken everyone to gather holly down in the copse, there are more than enough here,” he murmured holding his hand out to touch the smooth bark of the trunk. “You don’t mind, do you?” he said, looking up through the branches to the mist laden sky.

An hour later, Anvil’s group were gathering together at the edge of the wood.

“Anyone seen Colin?” his father asked. The men all shook their heads. Each man had only thoughts of gathering the holly leaves and berries once they reached the clearing, wondering if this were the year they would be chosen. Only Colin’s father finally realised his son was nowhere to be seen.

“Don’t panic, Jack. He’ll be somewhere close by. It’s not as if he can come to any harm.” Anvil laid a reassuring hand on the other man’s arm. “Let’s walk on and see if we come across him on the way back.”

Sure enough, as they reached the Bowsen Path, Colin was walking down the hill towards them, whistling cheerfully.

“Where have you been?”

“Look at all the holly I’ve got!” the boy exclaimed, holding his basket out for his father and the other men to admire.

“Where did you get this?” Anvil’s question was quietly asked, but suddenly the whole group was silent, waiting for Colin’s answer.

“I fell over soon after we entered the wood and when I got up, you’d all gone. I remembered the holly tree behind the chapel was laden with berries this year, so I went there.”

“You cut leaves from the chapel tree?”

The boy stepped back, hugging his basket to him defensively. “I didn’t cut them, I broke them off with my hands. I don’t have a knife, remember? I did ask and the tree didn’t seem to mind.”

Anvil caught sight of a blood smeared handkerchief poking out from Colin’s trouser pocket. He pulled it out and presented it to the boy.

“Is this yours?”

“Yes.”

“It’s stained with blood.”

Colin sighed. “I know. Ma’s going to be cross. She gave it me clean this morning. She always says blood stains are the devil to get out once it’s set. I was going to wash it in the well, but I thought I’d better not. The holly prickles were something fierce on the lower branches. They weren’t so bad once I’d climbed up higher.”

“This is your blood?”

“Yes.” Colin tried to retrieve his handkerchief, but Anvil tucked it away inside his coat.

“I’ll keep it for now. We’ll see how you get on this afternoon.”

Anvil turned and walked briskly after the rest of the group, most of whom were already on the road back to the village.

“Why didn’t you stay with us,” Jack hissed .

“I told you. I picked some beautiful holly. I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”

“You shouldn’t have picked from that tree. It’s the King Tree. It’s where you go if you’re chosen.”

“Not now, Jack.” Anvil’s voice cut through the fog like an arrow through butter.

“See what happens this afternoon.”

Colin frowned. He opened his mouth to ask a question, then shut it again as he could see from the look on his father’s face he’d get no answers.

Why did old people have to make everything so complicated!

The Holly and the Ivy Part 2

2010-12-23T14:50:00.000-08:00

The public bar of the The Plough was quiet when Granny entered. Two travellers ate bar meals in front of the large TV. Granny nodded towards the Landlord, who was washing glasses behind the bar as she made her way to the back room where Anvil’s Wood Folk were holding their weekly gathering.

She opened the door, a fog of sound enveloping her. Thirty men of various ages ranging from gangly teenagers to white haired grandfathers were lustily singing an ancient carol to the accompaniment of a melodeon, fiddle and two guitars.

Granny did not stand still for longer than it took her to open and close the door. She wove in between singers like an exotic dancer, greeting some with a touch to the hand, but most with a kiss. By the end of the last verse she reached the front of the room and the small space where the musicians sat. A loud roar of approval for their playing rose up as the song ended. Granny kissed the melodeon player on the cheek, then went to kiss the fiddle player, a tall, thin youth in jeans and a thick cotton shirt. He blushed as her lips touched his, then grinned.

“Don’t I get a kiss from my own wife?” asked Zeb as he replaced his guitar on its stand.

“Not this year, love. I need you for other things.”

“And we all know what those are,” came a deep voice behind her as Anvil appeared from the middle of the crowd.

Granny was serious for a moment. “You took note of those I kissed?”

Anvil nodded. “Fewer this year, I reckon. There’ll be some long faces tonight.”

“And sighs of relief from others. It’s not me who picks, Anvil, nor will I do the choosing. You know that.”

Anvil clapped his huge hands together twice and the buzz of conversation slowly died.

“It’s that time of year again, lads. We need to gather holly from the copse to make wreaths for all the front doors in the village. We’ve booked the village hall for Saturday afternoon, but we can’t go in until the tap class finishes at 3 o’clock.

“The women are bringing ivy and dried fruit for us to use, but I need volunteers from amongst those of you who aren’t seeking holly to cut some withy fronds from Fletcher’s Brook – we’ll need at least fifty if we’re to cover the new estate as well as the rest of the village. We’ll also need bracken from the bridle path near Cooper’s Way. It would be best if we can all meet at the forge on Saturday morning. Will ten o’clock suit everyone?”

There was a general murmur of agreement.

“Now don’t forget to bring your knives. They have to be your own. I can’t lend you a knife and anyone who tries to use secuteurs will be sent home. Does anyone have any questions?”

“What if we don’t have a knife?” A slight young man standing at the back of the room looked at Anvil with a somewhat defiant gaze.

“Then you’ll have to use your hands, won’t you, Colin. Maybe you’d like to think again about making your own. The forge door is always open.”

“How are we supposed to get enough bracken back to the hall? Fifty wreaths are going to take a helluva lot, Anvil.” The speaker was a middle aged man sitting to one side of the room.

“You can take Robin’s pony with you, Andy. I finished making the panniers last week. They should hold enough and you won’t have to carry anything.”

“I’ll cut the withies, “ Zeb offered. “Paul and Martin will go with me. “

“Thanks, Zeb. Leave them at the vicarage. Andrea will take them across when she goes.”

“She can’t carry them, “ Zeb protested, “It’s as much as she can do to carry herself these days.”

“Maggie and I will be with her and I dare say the Vicar will lend a hand. “ Granny’s tone brooked no dissention and the room grew eerily quiet. When she spoke again, her voice was so soft, anyone would have thought she talked only to the person next to her, yet every man felt she spoke to him alone, her words piercing their way into his heart.

“It’s a special year, this year. I feel it and I know Anvil does too. The new Madron bears a solstice child. The Lady Well has a new Keeper, old enough to know the traditions, yet young enough to ensure they are kept throughout the village. These changes don’t go unnoticed. There have been ripples in the women’s side; Anvil senses something approaching for you too.

“Some of you are disappointed not to be kissed tonight. This is not a game where you can win or lose. Only one of the gatherers will be chosen on Saturday. Only one of you will go before the Holly when snow falls and fall it will this year. Anvil says we have two weeks. It’s not long. Every one of you should think what you can do to support both the gatherers and the chosen. He may act alone, but he acts for us all.”

No-one spoke as Granny turned to kiss Anvil on the cheek, then made her way through the crowd and left the room. Zeb picked up his guitar, tuned it thoughtfully for a few moments, then began to sing the Battle of the Holly and the Ivy. Before long, others joined in and soon the room was alive with song once more.

Nay, Ivy, nay, it shall not be, I wis,
Let Holly have the mastery as the manner is.

Holly standeth in the hall fair to behold,
Ivy stands without the door; she is full sore a cold.
Nay, Ivy, nay, &c.

Holly and his merry men, they dancen1 and they sing;
Ivy and her maidens, they weepen1 and they wring.
Nay, Ivy, nay, &c.

Ivy hath a lybe, she caught it with the cold,
So may they all have, that with Ivy hold.
Nay, Ivy, nay, &c.

Holly hath berries, as red as any rose,
The foresters, the hunters, keep them from the does.
Nay, Ivy, nay, &c.

Ivy hath berries as black as any sloe,
There come the owl and eat them as she go.
Nay, Ivy, nay, &c.

Holly hath birds a full fair flock,
The nightingale, the poppinjay, the gentle laverock.
Nay, Ivy, nay, &c.

Good Ivy, [good Ivy,] what birds hast thou,
None but the owlet that cries How! How!
Nay, Ivy, nay, &c.

The Holly and the Ivy Part 1

2010-12-21T05:49:00.000-08:00

An ivy stem flapped against the parlour window.

“Wind’s strong tonight,” said Maggie, placing another block on the fire.

Granny nodded but did not look up from the stitches she was counting. A complex woollen lace creation tumbled over her lap from sturdy needles.

“Mull some cider, will you, Maggie? He’ll be here soon.”

The younger woman got up to place the poker into the flames, then fetched a bottle of cider from the pantry, returning with three tankards which she placed beside the hearth.

As she set them down, they both heard the knocker sound.

“Strange he should use the front door, “ Maggie murmured as she went to welcome the visitor.

Granny rolled up her knitting. “Formal business warrants formal entry. Don’t you know anything, girl?”

Opposite her rocking chair, in the ancient, brick-backed fireplace, flames flickered in the draught caused by the open front door. Granny heard a medley of voices;

Maggie’s soft soprano compared with Anvil’s rumbling bass and another greeting from the kitchen where Granny’s husband was keeping himself busy. Then she heard the clump of heavy boots along the thinly carpeted hallway and sudden shadow as he entered the parlour.

Granny stood to greet him.

“Good evening, Granny.”

“Good evening, Anvil.”

The tall man fixed his gaze on the bright, birdlike eyes of the woman in front of him.

“I went to the woods today and the holly berries are ripe.”

“Many berries this year?”

“The most I’ve seen this twelveyear.”

“So there’ll be snow.”

“I reckon so.”

“Soon?”

He shook his head. “The wind still smells of rain rather than frost. Three weeks maybe.”

Granny nodded, resuming her seat and gesturing he should take the comfortable chair in front of the fire. When both were seated, Maggie hastened to pour cider and spices into the tankards. She felt them watch her as she grabbed a padded cloth to wrap around the poker before pulling it out of the fire, shaking it free from ash before she plunged it into each drink in turn.

The cider hissed and sizzled in response to the intense heat. Carefully, Maggie returned the ironwork to the stand before she picked up two tankards, presenting the first to Granny and the second to Anvil. Grasping the third, she slid back into her cushioned seat on the inglenook settle, breathing in the heady spiced fumes before she dared to try her first sip.

“You’ll check on the chapel tomorrow.” Granny’s words were more statement than question. Anvil swallowed a mouthful of hot cider before nodding. “Take the pony to carry spare thatching. We don’t want wheel tracks on Bowsen Path if we can help it. Wouldn’t do for strangers to visit there until it’s all over.”

“One of the shutters is loose on the far window,” Maggie said, “and we’ll need more wood for the brazier and full lamps. I don’t really want to take blankets up there beforehand if they’ll only get cold and damp.”

Anvil grasped his flagon in both hands, his thick fingers locked together as if drawing comfort from the warmth.

“There weren’t enough length in Upper Barn ground straw this year after the drought. Not for thatching. Rob Taylor and his nipper went off for a long weekend to the Broads at Michaelmass. He said there were enough reed beds to thatch the whole village, so he traded some rabbit skins to bring back reeds for the chapel. He said we might not need them this year, but it were best to be on the safe side, just in case.”

Granny unrolled her knitting and picked up the pattern where she’d left off before Anvil’s arrival. The tension in the room began to dissipate as her needles clicked in time with the fire’s quiet crackles.

“Rob’s turning out to be a real forward thinker since he was chosen.”

Anvil smiled. “It does that to a man, being chosen. Good to have the chapel sound, just in case. Do you need anything else done, Maggie?”

The younger woman thought for a moment. “I don’t think so. We cleaned out the well just a week ago. I had to wait until the Rowan’s leaves were all dropped. She was late this year. Lots of berries though, just like the holly.”

“You made any rowan jelly? I’ll drop you and Tom a pheasant next time I’m passing. We took a good dozen last Saturday when we walked Badger Drift.”

Maggie held out a small jar to him and he stuffed it into his jacket pocket. “That’s from the first batch. It’s from the Guardian Rowan, so it’s really bitter. I’ll be making some more with berries from the copse together with our windfalls this week. You’re welcome to some of that too. Granny said you liked the bitter jelly.”

“I do when bitter’s called for.” His face creased into his usual smile. “There’s times for sweetness too.”

Anvil drained his tankard and stood up. “I’d best be going before the rain sets in. You’ll be there Tuesday night, Granny?”

“You still meeting upstairs at The Plough?”

“No, Old George moved us to the back room last week. Seems the Bridge Club needs more space these days. Four more couples from Edgecombe Close have joined including Samantha Brierley.”

Granny chuckled. “I think her husband will be looking for a new bridge partner soon. She’s agreed to come to the Knitting and Worship Circle next Thursday.”

“I thought she might. Her Granda was a Ravenswick, just like the vicar’s wife. Can’t see her sticking to the four suits when there’s studying and knittin’ to be done. Let me know when you want me to make her a set of needles.”

Maggie accompanied him to the front door. Granny heard her sliding the heavy bolts home after shutting it behind him. When she returned to the parlour, she was already dressed in her coat.

“I’ll be off too, Granny. “ She bent to kiss the older woman’s soft cheek, surprised when Granny grasped her arm firmly.

“No scrying now, Maggie Tulliver. You may be the Keeper of the Well, but it don’t give you the right to see who might come your way.”

“Granny, I wouldn’t!” Maggie’s face was shocked.

“I know you wouldn’t mean to, but I’ve seen your black saucer filled with well water sitting on the windowsill. You might just be tempted. Throw it away when you get home, there’s a good girl.”

“But what if Tom….”

“What ifs butter no parsnips. What will be will be as you know very well.”

“Yes, Granny.”

Maggie wrapped her scarf around her head and left the cottage through the back door. Granny carried on with her knitting.

“You’re too hard on that girl, Amy.” Zeb came in from the kitchen where he’d been mending a long case clock for the vicar.

“She’s got to learn, otherwise there’ll only be heartache.

Zeb settled himself down in the armchair recently vacated by Anvil and picked up the paper. “I seem to remember another young woman scrying for Holly’s chosen one not so many years ago.”

Granny sniffed, “That weren’t scrying, that were just a bit of preparation. Just in case.”

“Granny Blackwell didn’t see it like that.”

Granny cast off six stitches with great concentration. “Me and Granny Blackwell didn’t agree on many things before she died. Doesn’t make it wrong.”

Zeb hid himself behind the open paper so she wouldn’t see him smile.

The walled garden, Trewince Manor, Cornwall

2010-12-01T07:28:00.000-08:00

Last week's exercise was to write a monologue or conversation piece regarding a wall. I immediately thought of Willy Russell's wonderful conversations with the wall in Shirley Valentine, but I could not think of a house wall I wished to include in a similar fashion.

Eventually I decided upon a walled garden. One I know well, having visited it almost every year for the past twenty two years, until I made a deliberate decision not to go near it. The deliberate destruction of fertile land always upsets me. Maybe I shouldn't concern myself and concentrate instead on the land I have influence over.

I wasn't able to read this at Solihull Writer's Workshop as I was feeling too ill to attend. So it's being posted here instead.

********************************************************

You might call me, “coward” if you could speak. Twenty years ago I stood outside your bothy washing dishes, lifting my gaze to the pristine gold of cut wheat on the headland. Watching moon rise over the sea and catching glimpses of bats flitting around branches.

You transmuted sound then; happy children’s laughter as they played within your domain, soft murmurs of conversation as parents sat beside you in folding chairs.

Even when the campers left, you still welcomed us. I could sit on green grass, imagining footfalls of Victorian gardeners; the crunch of wooden wheels from wooden barrows rolling up and down paths between beds of vegetables and flowers. Warm sun-ripening fruit on espaliers, grapes turning green and black inside glass enclosures. Sore backs from digging barren beds, adding compost from the farm next door, then planting a second crop of greens before frostfall.

Outside your main gate, white dust wafts with remembered carriage wheels. The Captain taking his daily drive along the lane then down the steep track lined with buddleia and blackberries. Stopping to sip tea in his natural amphitheatre overlooking the estuary below. Only dog walkers follow his steps today or sailors travelling to or from their boats moored in the tiny harbour opposite St Mawes.

They walk beside you ignorant of your past. Your gates and arched doorways are boarded now, your bothy destroyed. Keep Out! Danger! Notices scream at wouldbe trespassers. We are not wanted here. Briars fasten themselves across your openings, denying access.

Many years you have been left to decay, the owners wishing there was no preservation order on your bricks, welcoming their success in gaining permission to build three more wooden houses within your domain. Their only thoughts;the profit to be gained rather than their responsibility in stewarding the land.

I have done nothing to save you; to return your original purpose. I have smiled when your owners talked, unwilling to share my views, my anger, my disgust at their greed. There were so many other possibilities in your future if they had considered partnerships instead of profit.

How little would it cost to restore your original purpose, reinvigorate your soil, offer activities and employment within your garden? One hundred years you produced food for the Windy Farmhouse before being sold as holiday lets. Your vegetables disappeared and you grew caravans and palm trees instead.

It could be so again, but not in my life time. New people will buy a viewless holiday home, relish the peace and quiet and proximity to the sea. Maybe their children will play games and laugh without noticing the sunset, their parents drinking champagne on twisted iron verandahs.

I shall not know or see. I cannot bear to visit you again, to run my fingers over coloured stones marking your age, grieving over what could have been. Even had I screwed my courage to the sticking point and spoken before, my words would have fallen on deaf ears, blind minds and frozen hearts. You will still stand, still enclose, still remember no matter what is done around you.

Inspiration from a picture

2010-09-24T09:26:00.000-07:00

During the fifteen years I have been a member of Solihull Writers Workshop, we have always met in the Margaret Wharam room in Solihull Methodist church next to the railway station and bus depot. The room is named after a woman I knew as a teacher from Dorridge, whose junior school choir would accompany the Chandos choir during our Christmas concerts. The room was named in her memory after her death.

On the wall behind the Chairman's table hangs a faded green and brown print of a road/trackway leading up and over an English hillside in winter time, flanked by three leafless trees. It always reminds me of the 3 miles of Icknield Street between Condicote and our farm.

Our theme for last Wednesday's meeting of the Writer's Workshop was to write something inspired by the picture. There was a wide selection of poetry and prose at the usual high and thought proving standard from Mark's version of "My Last Duchess" to Alex's varied soliloquay.

The following story was my contribution. Although the details are taken from my own memories, I have yet to walk the three miles again. Something to put on next year's "to do" list!

********************************************

Sophie parked her car on the wet grass verge. Her closing door startled a black cloud of rooks in the nearby sycamore tree, which flew off scolding both herself and each other.

The tree was larger than she remembered. The air was chill but autumn sun warmed her face. She could see the path winding off up into the distant horizon. For a few moment she stood listening for sounds of sheep and lambs, but wind rustling in the grass was all she could hear.

No-one would be driving sheep today. The flock existed only in her memory. How many times had she walked in front along the three miles of neglected Roman Road on their way to the sheep dip on her uncle’s farm.

There was no point in trying to dip them at home. With only thirty broken mouthed ewes and their lambs it made no sense to dig a large enough hole to immerse them when family would be filling their trough with treated fluid for the large flock of Suffolks and Kerry Hills.

Summers were always hot in Sophie’s childhood. She remembered the thrill of watching the sheep moving through the holding pen towards the dip. Her father and uncle standing either side as the animals swam across or leaped on each other’s back, using their friends as stepping stones in an attempt to escape the noxious liquid.

They never did. Both men held shepherd’s crooks, the curved handle capturing each errant sheep and pushing it firmly under the water. Sophie worried sometimes the animal would drown, only reassure when they climbed out the other side coughing and shaking their whole bodies to remove as much of the fluid as possible.

It was for their own good. Sophie had never known their flock catch any of the dreadful diseased the dip protected them against – sheep scab and others. No-one knew then about the dreadful neurological harm caused to humans by the dipping liquid. No-one wore protective clothing or masks or rushed to wash off any ovine induced splashes. Thankfully, no-one suffered any damage that they could tell.

Sophie looked again at the track in front of her. Was she going to explore further or remain walking down memory’s lane? She locked the car, took a deep breath and set off up the hill.

It was steeper this way. She could only remember walking downhill before. Three miles was enough for small legs. The return journey was usually done by car with her mother and sister, racing to reach the crossroads to stop any traffic as the flock approached.

The fields were empty on both sides of the track. She looked in vain for her great uncle’s wild, long horned cattle. She could not remember the year he passed away, dying alone in a foreign institution, away from his land and his beasts. A stranger owned the farm now. One field lay brown with recently ploughed stubble, the other pale green cropped short by hungry mouths.

The track was rough under her feet. On either side deep ditches dug by Roman soldiers with short axes still remained. Hedgerow trees of hawthorn and blackthorn lined stone walls, their branches now red with hips and haws, purple sloes hiding in shadows.

It was difficult to say which barriers grew of their own accord and which placed deliberately either as boundary fencing or after the enclosures act. Whatever their origin, they respected the line of the road, even though modern authorities left it to crumble away, preferring later roads defined by Norman rulers.

Sophie plodded upwards, eventually reaching the crest of the hill where a roadman's hut lay derelict on her right hand side. When they first moved to the farm and local councils still employed men to mend the roads, this hut served as a resting point to keep tools and brew dark mugs of workman’s tea. In summer months, smoke could sometimes be seen rising from the chimney in the evening showing the presence of a nocturnal visitor.

The local tramp was well known and tolerated in the area. Sophie didn’t know if this gentleman of the road was the same man who survived sleeping under their own barn outbuilding, woken by falling rubble as the roof collapsed. The neighbouring farmer removed the stone from the barn before her family bought the land. She remembered hearing about the tramp staying in the roadmenders' hut, but never saw him. She was always too afraid of disturbing him to look through the window when they walked past.

The road drew straight for a short while before beginning its descent to the next valley where it would meet up with another Roman road. If she looked hard along the opposite hill, she could see puffs of steam rising in her mind’s eye.

“Look at the ghost train, Sophie,” her parents said, directing her six year old gaze into the distance. The small goods train was too far away to be heard and within a year or so Beacham cut the line. Someone decided the large viaduct was too expensive to maintain and it, too was destroyed, ensuring the railway would never return to this quiet place.

So many different lives and buildings decaying, Sophie thought. The weight of her memories was too much. She turned and made her way back down the track to her waiting car. She could travel to another life, another world. Maybe she would return and remember more another day.

Perils of Poetry Competitions

2010-09-08T04:05:00.000-07:00

My poetry writing is very spasmodic. If I'm not emotionally wraught, I don't write! The exception is the Solihull Writer's Workshop annual poetry competition, when I try to create something.

The judge was a performance poet - very skilled, very interesting and a fantastic performer. She gave us useful tips on creating mature poetry, meaningful and enjoyable to the reader. The advice was very simple and applies to other areas of writing - edit ruthlessly, don't spoonfeed the reader, allow them to find their own meaning in your words rather than spelling it out for them too heavily.

She didn't like my poem. She said there were two many images. She also presumed the line "We stand beside hops and mugwort discussing flavourings for ale" related to a group of men, rather than the actual crowd of 7 women and one man who were there in reality. All the images I used, were sights I'd seen during 19 June, apart from the fox with the pheasant in her mouth. My father saw her a few days before and told me about her.

I shall be reading the poem at the Celebrating Herbs Festival near Stow on the Wold this weekend, along with other poems relating to Springfield Sanctuary. I hope the audience like it. See what you think!

Summer Solstice
Mid way between winters two meadows grace a Cotswold hill
Their boundaries set for centuries in stone
Summer sun shows skylarks guarding nests with song
Tall grasses ripple stippled wind-born waves
While rose briars quiver in the breeze
Blush-kissed petals surrounding yellow pools where insects drink.

Beside a wall, a stately pheasant peruses his domain
Red circle bobbing between the rye
Across the field flying formations rise up
Then disappear into a surfeit of seeds
Silent now their quest
Unlike the hearty chorus in the hazel tree at dawn.

Half way to the valley floor, a spring-birthed stream flows clear
We stand beside hops and mugwort discussing flavourings for ale
A half-grown rabbit scampers between legs to prickled sanctuary
Startled, those with sharper eyes notice a weasel
His long neck extended towards our voices
A chance hunt thwarted by our invasion

Later, a vixen trots, jaws filled with pheasant
Ruler of the grass deposed
Her fealty to growing cubs, deep in the badger’s sett
Careless, she leaps up and over one wall,
Runs across the field then leaps again
Safe home to fill bellies as feathers fly.

Colours fade as light succumbs to dark
A half-circled moon shines from blackened sky
White clouds drifting serenely across her face
I lean through my open window consuming silence
Waiting through this shortest night
For the promised dawn.

A complement of poems

2010-07-19T11:51:00.000-07:00

Occassionally I have written a poem which has then sparked others to draw on their own creativity. Here are a selection.

Good Friday at Temple Guiting 2003
I saw you watching from the edge of the thicket
Waving your antlered head in acknowledgement of my thoughts
Were you drawn perhaps by music?
The sense of worship?
Wondering at the need for sacrifice
Forgetting the new life bursting all around
Certain within their own containment
Thick walls, Templar built
Sunk into ground
Marking their territory
Defining their own need for glory
Whilst forgetting yours.

Only I whispered blessings to the spirits of place
Honouring years of worship
Travelling back to a Saxon wattle church
To the open sacred place beside the stream
Beheld you standing there, watching
The faint smile on your lips bestowing certainty
Knowledge that all things return to you
Given time, space and opportunity
Then, as we journeyed homewards,
A deer sprang across our path
Sure-footed, not distracted by our man-made lights
Secure in the twilight to complete the journey
A message confirming my own misgivings
You saw me there.

SJH

The Green Man Preys
Be still,
If you wish to be passed by.
It is the motion in you
That invigorates my eye.
It makes me dream again
Of the patterns in the scents,
Your movement holds me
While I taste the air’s intent

I see you now
Through the forest weave
Where branches break the light apart
And my breathing thrills the leaves
You lie down gently
In my petal-smattered glade
While my creatures dance and sing for me
Of the beauty of my prey

“She... there...”
Calls out the jeering crow.
As songbirds praise the prettiness
Of the stagman on his doe,
The fox’s jaded smile
Invites the willing of a wish,
And writhing slow against my arm
My serpent friend insists.

But only I know
That already it’s begun
Or perhaps you feel my heat
As you unfurl in the sun,
Perhaps
You taste the spice of an over-friendly breeze
That billows under hem
And lifts it over knee...

Perhaps anticipation
Has brought you to this place
To revel in warm shivers
As you anticipate this chase,
Perhaps your smile is shaped
By a promise from the past
That has brought you to this sacred ground
To make the offering at last.

And perhaps it does not matter
Why this time has come
Only that the rain must fall
And the river has to run
Reasons are for other worlds
And now that you are here
Let instinct find the light and heat
Let passion trample fear.

A thigh among the bracken
A foot upon the loam
A forehead lashed with brambles
Struck by lightning antler bones
Nostrils fan a spark
From dark imagination
And my eyes roll back delighted
At the prospect of creation.

And now my shadow straddles
The valley of your lap
A horned man has risen
With the budding of the sap
It would only take my will
For your limbs to form a nest
I only have to want it
You only have to rest.

Uncurl your wrapped petals
So I can see that time has passed
Drape yourself with moistures
Like the dew bejewelled grass
Let the weight of your endeavours
Be lifted from your heart
And feel the weight of pleasure
As it prises you apart

I hunted you forever
To bring you this escape
I caught you like a glimpse
Under shadowed forest cape
I’ll save you from your blood
By ravaging your flesh
I am ancient and unstoppable
I am innocent and fresh.

Yes reach for life and press yourself
Fill yourself with breath
Stretch out for some small pleasure
And receive my little death
Make a barrow for this seed
In the dark warm of your mound
And release yourself, increase yourself
Upon the altar of the ground.

So now your eyes are open
I can smell your deep belief
Your spirit is unbroken
Yet you wallow in relief
Because you know me don’t you?
You know my ways of life
You knew that I was coming
And you made your sacrifice.

Provoked by a weather forecast
In the midst of rain
I offer you sunshine
Bringing you light and heat
To envelop you with warmth
To nurture you
In joy and peace

Together we can watch the raindrops
Cascading down windows
Or track the path of a single glistening jewel
Caught in the shelter of a leaf
Lodging in safety
Until it slides contentedly to earth
Crystal on green

You are my leaf
Moulding yourself to catch me
Shelter me
Holding me to yourself
As I seep silently through your pores
Until breeze stirs your form
Encouraging me to dance away
Into the air.

SJH

The leaf replies
Glowing, growing green.
I feel your cool touch as you nestle
Held for a while by some magic that is not magic

Where you move over my skin
You leave a kiss, a blessing
Some small trace of you
Mine forever

And when the wind wins
We part company
For you to nourish another leaf
Another root, another life.

SCC

These next few are from a "work in progress" called The House of Rohke which allows a glimpse into a world of shapechanging humano-cats where females are dominant and males serve. In their world, the great houses keep spare males to offer to any high status visiting females. One of the stories tells of a chance meeting between such a "lown male" called Roehve and a young alpha, Oruleah. I will leave you to guess the author of each poem. (Hint: there are two authors)

The Lone Male’s Hope
Perhaps this evening
I may catch her scent
And my heart will hammer
Suddenly

Perhaps tonight
She will seek diversion
And send for someone
Discreetly

Perhaps tomorrow
I will wake
Ravaged and used
Taken and torn
Bitten and clawed
Aching and sighing

Happily

Two Voices

Oruleah
I give you no mark because you are not mine
I give you no collar because I do not own you
But you have swallowed my musk
My scent covers you
My ambre stains your maw
You know the secrets of my glands
You have submitted your sex to my tongue
You have offered your throat to my teeth and your flesh to my claws
You have covered me
Your seed coats my womb
Your musk runs for me
I hold your pattern in my soul
You are mine.

Roehve
Lady,
Before tonight
I served
I groomed
I nudged
I licked
I moved
I responded
I sought to please

Tonight,
You walked through my mind
Leaving prints
You do not follow tracks
You make your own path
Wherever you walk
I cannot seek you
I cannot ask to know Your will
I cannot ask to serve You
I bear your mark upon my soul
You are here.

Oruleah
Kitten curled
Pounding heart soothed
Slow, steady beats
Whiskers washed
Ears flat
Eyes closed
No dreams to chase tonight
Warm, soft body
Relaxed
Around
At peace

Roehve
Lady,
Wake,
For dawn breaks
On morning,
Crisp and clear

Open your eyes
To snow-dusted hills
Pink, pale,
Soft sky
Muted blue to rosy taupe
From a birthing sun.

Come
Let me groom
Your sleek sides
Feed you morsels
Clothe your stretching limbs
Against a prying world

Let me worship
The scent of your footfall
The soft whisper of your tail
Remembering
The warm glow of your ambre
Biting my tongue

Allow me
To breath your presence
As you slip
Into the world
Alone.

A story for Midsummer

2010-06-17T13:47:00.000-07:00

The grass of the glade was cool under their feet after the long dusty path down from the stone circle. They had woken in the black night, lit by the waning moon and climbed the steep slope to where the stones stood silhouetted against the sky. A cool breeze wafted the scent of the heather towards them. They had no words, as they sat huddled together waiting for the dawn.

Theirs was the silence of watchers, unsure of the future and with little experience of the past to guide them. They had come on a whim, a chance desire to do something for the first time. Neither of them had seen the sun rise on midsummer morn before. Sunrises, yes there had been many, but caught after a night of revelry on the way to sleep, rather than woken and anticipated with the dawn.

Although the circle was high on the moor, silver birch trees encircled the stones. Three ancient pines and a stunted oak tree stood over to one side, as if watching too. Their branches shivered in the wind, sighing. How many sunrises had they waited for, the girl wondered - hundreds, thousands, singing their songs of welcome with the wind whether or not others chose to join them in their rite.

Her mate nudged her as the first signs of grey crept across the sky.

"We need to be over there, " he said, pointing to a spot behind the tall stone standing alone outside the circle. "When the sun rises, it will hit the marker stone so that the shadow enters the circle and covers the Goddess stone."

"Not another fertility symbol," the girl groaned and saw her mate grin mischievously.

"Of course! The God enters the Goddess and their issue ensures a plentiful harvest for the earth."

"But I thought we did all that at Beltane," the girl complained.

"We did, " the boy draped a long arm across her shoulder and held her close, "but you can't have too much fertility if the earth is to provide all our needs."

The girl leaned her head against his shoulder, hugging her secret to her. She'd not told him yet that their Beltane loving had been successful. She wasn't sure if he was ready to leave his youth behind and take up the responsibilities of fatherhood. He was a loving soul, but bold and impetuous, seizing each opportunity and wringing it dry with enjoyment. How would he cope with the need to hold and nurture another life, providing a safe environment for them all to grow within?

The sky began to pale and colours crept back into the world. From the paleness of a blue/grey sky, tiny wisps of clouds floated across, tossed by an unseen breeze.

As the light brightened, they scrambled to their feet and stood apart, the time of waiting almost over. It seemed as if they blinked and there was the golden orb spilling across the horizon, it's first rays hitting the marker stone. The shadow grew, stretching along the grass until it touched the Goddess stone. The girl drew in a short, sharp breath as if the God had indeed entered her and sought to fill her soul with the love that he bore for the land.

Too soon, it was over and the sun had risen, the early warmth giving rise to the promise of heat within the day. The girl picked leaves from the oak tree and wove them into the boy's long hair. He whooped and sang, leading the girl in an intricate spiral dance around the stones. Together they celebrated life and love and joy and it seemed as if all the creatures and birds joined in their chorus of praise.

They slept for a while amongst the stones, but the fierce heat of the sun drove them to seek the coolness of the glade below. A stream ran amongst the trees and they could hear the water gushing over the rocks, long before they came to it.

The girl sat down on the bank and dangled her bare feet in the cool water, but the boy seemed troubled. He searched along the stream bed until he came to a place that was deep enough for swimming. Casting off his clothes, he jumped in and swam towards the dark bottom of the pool. The sound of the water filled his ears but as he neared the pebbled floor he began to hear singing and the flashes of reflected sunlight appeared as stars twinkling in the depths. A white shadow shimmered above a circle of smooth stone and as he blinked, it took the form of a beautiful woman, her curves enhanced by the unborn child she carried.

The Lady bad him welcome and he stood before her.

"You know what I seek of you this day?" she asked

The boy grinned, "You have so many moods, I know not which cloud I am supposed to part to see the sunshine, Lady, but I am, as always, at your service." and he swept her a low bow.

The Lady nodded, a slight smile on her lips rewarding him for his impetuousness before her. "Will you seek my cauldron willingly, Angus Og, King of the Oak? Will you renounce your claim upon the earth, give up your youth and your crown to the Holly King, that he may rule for the next half of the Wheel?"

"'Tis your time, Lady," he replied, "you are my Lady, all that I am is yours."

"Aye, all time is my time, all then and now and tomorrow and I seek you to be with me, my son, my lover and my consort that we two may be balanced within the circle.

"As you wish, Lady, " his voice was sober now, ""It will be as it has been since the beginning of time, our dance through the seasons."

"Will you enter the cauldron willingly, of your own volition, to be born again?"

"Always, beloved, and again and again."

The darkness within the pebble circle rippled, like the surface of a boiling cauldron. The lady held out her hand "The only way to me is through the cauldron." he heard her say, "I will be with you through the darkness of the cauldron's waters and back into the light."

The boy stretched out his fingers and as he felt the touch of her hand, he was suddenly dropped into the dark waters. They swirled around him and he had no idea which direction was which and where he should go. After a moment of panic, he relaxed and allowed the water to lead him.

Soon he saw again the light of reflected stars shining behind the lady's head and there was her hand held out to him. He grasped it and felt her draw him out of the cauldron. She set him up by the side of her and greeted him with a kiss.

"Welcome to you, Holly King. Come, take your place at my side, beloved." She offered him honey cake from a golden platter, saying "Eat, that your body be nourished and that you may never hunger," and they shared it until not a crumb remained.

Then she handed him a steaming goblet, "Drink, my love, that your body be warmed and that you may never thirst." and again they shared the mead until the goblet was empty. When they had finished, the Lady took his hand and placed it on her belly. "Feel the fruits of our love and the abundance of the earth. Go now and return to the world as the man that you are, knowing that love sustains all in the fullness of time."

He smiled at her and nodded, kissing her first upon the cheek, then upon her hand and lastly on the soft curves of her womb. Then he sprang up and shot like an arrow to the surface of the pool, droplets of water of water flying off in a crystalline arc from the mane of his hair.

He found the girl asleep in the shade of the trees. Quietly, he lay down beside her, watching the way her eyelashes curled against her cheeks. Her hand rested protectively across her growing stomach and he realised then that it had not been by chance the Goddess had sought him out to make the change from Oak King to Holly King.

The girl's eyes opened and she was surprised by the gentle way he looked at her.

"Come and see what I found," she said, leading him along the trees until they came upon a young holly, hidden behind an ancient crab apple. She pulled down the green branch until he could see the white flower petals bent back to make a globe that would turn green and then red as the year progressed.

"Aren't they beautiful!"

"Yes," the man agreed, "and so are you and so is the world on this Midsummer Day" and the trees echoed his joy as he bent and kissed her.

Making a story your own: The solder, the inn and the axe

2010-05-11T03:18:00.000-07:00

Background
This is a tale my mother told me as a very young child. It is one of the series of stories about a soldier returning from the war. Others include The Magic Tinder Box and Stone Soup, which is my favourite.

Who was the soldier and which war was he trudging home from? He never has a name and his age varies from young enough to marry a princess after making his fortune from the Magic Tinder Box or show his cunning in Walter De La Mere’s Twelve Dancing Princesses or old enough to be weary of all the fighting as in Stone Soup and this story. Which war had he been fighting? Again, we never know, but the story has a feel of Middle European and perhaps Napoleonic when soldiers were press ganged into taking the King’s shilling and many folk songs tell the stories of the time such as Sweet Polly Oliver, By the Banks of the Sweet Dundee, The Blue (or white) Cockade.

It might also be helpful to consider the difference between an inn and a public house. The latter is merely a building within a village where ale/beer and other alcoholic beverages can be bought and consumed. An inn is different with much older origins.

An inn is a building set beside a road expressly for meeting the needs of travellers. Rooms were always available for hire and food was offered. Often spare horses would be stabled there for use of the public coaches which came past, but stabling and provisions for private carriages or single riders would also be available.

Ordinary people mostly travelled on foot and would not have been able to afford the luxury of a bed in which to sleep. Indeed most people, unless they plied a trade which involved travelling such as tinkers, tailors, weavers and drovers would never have set foot outside their own village or small market town. Travellers were seen as outsiders and feared.

The Story
A soldier was returning from the war. He had been walking a long way through the forest and he was tired. His clothes were covered in dust. It was the end of summer, when all the moisture had been drawn from the soil but the winter rains had not yet arrived.

The soldier’s throat was dry. His water skin, filled from the last stream he passed within the forest, was nearly empty. Before him came the light of a clearing and within the clearing stood an inn.

The soldier’s mood lightened. He felt in his pocket for the few remaining coins. There was enough for a drink and maybe he could trade his strength – what there was left of it after months of fighting and walking – for a hot meal if his luck held. He stamped his feet and brushed the worst of the dust from his clothes with his hat before clasping the iron latch on the heavy wooden door and walking in.

The main room of the inn was dark after the brightness of the sun outside. The soldier looked around, but saw no other travellers beside himself. The large, burly innkeeper was wiping a row of pewter mugs laid out on the bar before hanging them up on hooks on a low beam.

“Be welcome!” The innkeeper’s voice boomed through the still room.

The soldier nodded, finding himself a table on which to place his hat and sword in full view of his host.

“A pint of your best ale, landlord, if you will.” The soldier laid the small group of coins on the bar and the innkeeper nodded

“Take the weight off your feet, soldier. No doubt you’ve come a long way.”

The solder looked at his dusty boots.

“Yes and many more miles to go before I reach my home.”

He took a seat just as the innkeeper’s beautiful daughter came into the room. Her hair was the colour of golden straw. Her face shone with the brightness of her smile and her body flowed with the promise of youth. The soldier drank in her presence with his eyes as she took up her father’s cloth and began to wash and dry more tankards.

The innkeeper dried his hands on his apron.

“I won’t be but a minute. The barrel of ale is finished and I must go down to the cellar and fetch a new one.” He opened a door beside him and disappeared from view.

The soldier wanted his drink, but he was used to waiting. Fighting the enemy taught you many things, most of all patience. Besides, the innkeeper’s absence gave him an opportunity to talk to the daughter.

He asked her simple questions about herself, her life and her family. She answered him well enough, her fair cheek blushing at his compliments, but she never left her side of the bar, no matter he offered to show her the trinkets he had picked up during his travels.

Time passed, but the innkeeper did not return. His wife came out of the kitchen, the aroma of boiled cabbages lingering on her apron.

“Where’s your father?” she asked the girl. “He was supposed to bring me turnips from the garden an hour ago.”

“He went to fetch a new barrel of ale,” the young girl told her. “I don’t know what is keeping him.”

“I’ll go and see,” the old woman grumbled, opening the cellar door. They heard the sound of her boot nails clanking on the stone steps gradually fade and then stop.

“Get a lot of trade, do you?” asked the soldier. “Your father has a large cellar?”

“We do enough,” the girl replied, but her face was worried. The long case clock on the wall ticked and tocked, but still her parents did not return. “I’d better go and look for them,” she said at last. “They might need my help.”

The soldier nodded and smiled, but his throat was dry and the smell of ale from the slops behind the bar was making his thirst increase. He buckled on his sword and went to investigate the cellar.

He counted five steps until the staircase turned a corner. The sound of weeping filled the air. The soldier drew his sword, wondering what massacre would greet his eyes when he came into the light below.

There, sitting on the bottom steps were the innkeeper, his wife and his daughter; all of them crying as if their hearts would break.

“Whatever is the matter?” The soldier asked, scanning the darkness with wary eyes for hidden danger.

“Look,” sobbed the innkeeper’s daughter, “look at the axe!”

There above the iron sconce holding the torch was a large axe.

“What about the axe?”

The innkeeper’s wife spoke first.

“Oh Sir, when I came down the cellar steps, I found my husband sitting here, crying as if his heart would break. When I asked him what was the matter, he told me he was walking down the cellar steps when he noticed the axe as if for the first time. He thought what a terrible thing it would have been if he had asked our daughter to fetch the cask of ale and the axe had come loose from the wall and fallen on her head and killed her. Our beautiful daughter, killed by the axe.

“When I heard his tale, I felt tears come to my own eyes, for what if the axe had killed not our beautiful daughter, but my husband instead? How could I continue living here as a widow with all the hard work entailed in looking after the inn. My daughter and I would be forced to leave, to become beggars until the wild dogs attacked and killed us in the forest.”

“Oh Sir, it’s true,” the innkeeper’s daughter sobbed. “When I came down here to see what had happened, I found both my parents weeping and wailing. They told me about the axe and I thought how terrible it would be if the axe fell down on their heads and killed them leaving me an orphan, with no-one in the world to love me and care for me. So I sat down beside them and joined them in their sorrow.”

The soldier, by this time, was losing patience. He took his sword and cut through the fastenings holding the axe to the wall so it clattered safely down into the cellar.

“There!” he cried, pointing to the fallen axe. “There is your axe. It is quite safe on the floor. It can never fall and kill any of you. Now, please can I have my ale?”

The ending
There are two endings to this tale and you may choose the one which pleases you the most. There are some who say the soldier was so enraged by the stupidity of the innkeeper and his family that he slew them all with the axe and took over the inn thereby ensuring his future prosperity.

There are others who say he returned to the inn’s main room and waited for his ale. He was rewarded for his actions with the offer of a job and a place to stay and in time, he grew close to the innkeeper’s daughter and married her. When her parents became too old to do the heavy work around the inn, they took over. They were lucky, too, for the King adopted the road through the forest and it became a safe route to travel so trade was brisk and the inn prospered.

And the axe, you ask me? What happened to the axe? Well it’s over there in a glass case above the fireplace for everyone to see.

A story for Beltane

2010-05-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

"I'm going to be Queen of the May, Queen of the May!" Merilla crowed, dancing around the kitchen holding the special white dress high above her head.

"You're just angling for a roll in the hay with young Rob Jenkins," her older sister retorted as she tried to clear the table for lunch before her father returned.

"You're just jealous, because I was chosen to lead the procession and you weren't, even though you're the oldest girl of the Wise Woman and the Blacksmith." Merilla stuck out her tongue. "The Elders must feel that that the Goddess smiles on me more than she does on you, Nessa!"

Nessa said nothing and went to fetch the butter from the dairy. Privately she thought that the Elder's choice had far more to do with the fact that Merilla fitted the dress lovingly created two years ago by Libby Proudfoot's mother than any affinity she might have with the Goddess, but she recognised that such a spiteful thought probably was tinged with jealousy and sighed. She stopped on her way to smell the blossom on the cherry tree and almost lost her balance as the heady sweetness drew her senses deep within the tree and the promise of the summer fruit to come. She put out her arm to steady herself on the tree trunk and caught her father's apprentice, Tobyn, a resounding blow to his chest as he walked past her.

"Hey, what was that for, Nessa? I ain't done nothing to you!"

Nessa felt her face turn scarlet and her throat seize up as it always did when any of the young men of the village addressed her. With wild eyes she picked up her skirts and ran to the dairy, glad of the coolness to try and regain her composure.

What was happening to her? Normally this was her favourite time of year, with all the plants growing and the leaves coming upon the trees and the new born calves in the fields with their mothers. This year she felt so strange - as if the sap rising in the trees was rising in her too, bringing a unity with all growing things. When she turned over the earth to plant the seedlings she had grown so carefully during the Spring months, she wanted to plunge her hand deep into the soil and feel the earthworms moving around her fingers. When she listened to the birdsong at dusk, she could almost hear each separate note and without thinking whistled a response as if she were another of their kind, marking out her territory.

"What's the matter, Nessa?" the soft voice of her father's oldest journeyman broke in upon her thoughts. "Tobyn said you just hit him!" Jeran stood in the doorway, his solid bulk blotting out the light and casting deep shadows upon the bowls set out for the cream to rise.

"None of your business!" Nessa shouted, "If you come here asking questions, you'll get no answers from me!" and she picked up the pat of butter wrapped in leaves and pushed past him, diving out into the sunshine and running as fast as she could back to the house. The entire household seemed to look at her with a disapproving air as they sat around the huge kitchen table while her mother ladled stew into bowls.

"It's not my fault!" she wanted to scream, but the words stuck in her throat once more and all she could do was drop the butter on the table and run.

"Nessa?" her mother called out, but the errant daughter was soon out of earshot, heading out of the village, across the green where the maypole stood with its virgin ribbons flapping in the breeze and on towards the sacred grove and its stream.

Her mother exchanged worried glances with her father, but when he rose to go after her, Jeran stopped him.

"I'll go," he said. "I know the paths of the grove and it's me she must answer to now."

The blacksmith nodded and his wife put her hand on Jeran's arm. "Go gently with her, Jeran, she's not felt the calling before and it's always hard on those who feel the earth."

Jeran bent and kissed the Wise Woman's cheek, "Don't worry, little Mother, I'll not hurt her. I've loved her far too long to harm her now. It will be as the Lord and Lady wills, if we are chosen!"

"But I'm the chosen one!" Merilla protested. "The Elders said so! I'm Queen of the May!"

"Yes, dear, " her mother soothed her ruffled feelings, " and a very beautiful Queen you'll be for the whole village! But sometimes the Goddess choses someone else to light the need fire on Beltane night and jump the flames to ensure the crops will flourish. The Lord has spoken to Jeran and we can only wait and see what happens." and with that Merilla had to be content. She grumbled into her stew but everyone else was too full of excitement for the morrow's celebration she could not stay cross for long. She was the one who would wear the crown of blossoms in her hair and lead the ribbon dancing and everyone would look at her and glory in her gift to the Maiden.

Nessa didn't look where she was going. until she came across the maypole on the village green. She wished she were going to be one of the ribbon dancers the next day, but she was too old now. Things had been so simple when she was a child, but now - she didn't understand the bands of energy coursing through her, making each part of her body feel more alive than she had ever felt and the only thing she could do was to run, run, run away. Away from the looks of her family, away from the idle chatter of her sister and the footsteps she heard running after her.

The trees! The trees would hide her, no-one would find her in the glade. She stopped for a moment and whispered words of petition to the Elder mother guarding the entrance. When her leaves shivered in the still air, she ventured further towards the Oak father, placing her hands on his trunk and feeling the energy rising towards her, leaving patches of warmth on the bark where her hands had been.

Again she heard the footsteps and recognised Jeran's shadow on the grass. He would not take her back! Quickly she glanced around and darted towards the maze, deep in the heart of the glade, seeking to lose him in the twists and turns of the hedgerows.

Once inside, she slowed to a walk, the still air warm on her face. She noticed how the hedges were grown from different trees, the bright green of the hazel, the white blossom of the blackthorn and the glossy evergreen holly that pricked her hand as she leant against it.

Then, as she turned a corner, there was Jeran, standing in front of her, the branches of the willow rising up behind him like the antlers of a young stag!

"Why have you followed me here?" she challenged him.

"Because I love you, " his voice was young and deep in the still air.

"How can you love me? " she teased him, "when you can't even catch me!" and she ran off again, darting along the paths as if she had always known their secrets.

"No matter how long you run, I will always find you!" Jeran's voice rang in her ears. "Though the moon shall wax and wane o'er the ocean and the sun rise and set amongst the mountains, still I will follow you, for my love is endless and together we shall encompass the earth!"

The blood pounded in her ears as still she ran, twisting and turning until she came to the centre of the maze, the sacred place, the grass covered mound from whose depths a tiny spring rose. A place honoured by the ancients with a single monolith, cup marks gouged from its side, and there, leaning against it stood Jeran.

He stood quite still as if a living part of the stone. She went towards him, as if drawn by the stone's power, her chest rising and falling from the chase, but the need to run in her finally sated.

He held out his hand and when she took it, his palm was cool and dry but so large that it engulfed her tiny hand. They looked at each other for long moments.

"I have come to thee, my love, because the Lord has bid me find thee, his Lady. Will you have me to join you, now and for enternity as the wheel of the year and of life itself, turns?"

"Yes, beloved, for the Earth has called me to her, to be kissed by the sun and washed by the rain and infused by the sweet air we breathe. I am your Lady, now and for all time as the wheel turns."

Then he took her in his arms and laid her upon the sweet grass and together they honoured the earth and the air and the sun and the stream, that all things might prosper in the time ahead.

When they awoke, the sky was dark and a million stars twinkled above them. They heard the sounds of the villagers coming towards the grove to set up the need fire, that every household could light their torch and so rekindle their hearths.

Jeran led his love from the maze and they stood before the people.

"Is it done?" the blacksmith asked, his voice echoing off the trees.

"It is done," Jeran replied, "The Lord has found his Lady and together they have ensured the land will prosper!

A huge roar went up from the crowd, marking their approval.

"It is your place then to light the needfire, " the blacksmith said, handing him the flint and box of tinder. Jeran knelt and struck the flint until sparks began to rain upon the tinder. Then Nessa blew upon the sparks as the tinder began to curl and flame and they pushed the tiny fire under the need fire, watching it catch the fronds of dried bracken and then the twigs and then the kindling until the fire was strong and bright.

One by one the women of the village brought their cauldrons to take the flame back to their hearth and then the men lit their torches and when everyone had what they needed, they went back to the village singing and rejoicing that summer had come!

"I shall still be Queen of the May tomorrow, " Merilla objected when Nessa brushed out her long black hair that night before she slept.

"Of course you will, dearest, " Nessa assured her, "You are the Maiden and it is Her we honour."

"Can I still honour the Maiden," Jeran asked as Nessa slipped into bed beside him.

"As many times as you like, my love, " she replied. "How else will I pass from Maiden to Mother if you don't?" and she laughed as she blew out the light.

Dolores : Writing from a given sentence

2010-04-30T06:03:00.000-07:00

Without pausing in her stride, Dolores eased her jacket off her shoulders, dropped it into a skip as she passed and headed for the station. It was never one of her favourites and the blood stains on the cuffs refused to budge, no matter what she did with them. It was better off in the skip. She wouldn’t have to concern herself with it any more.

The warm, summer wind blew along the platform as she waited for her train. She felt the subtle caress against her skin through her thin, cotton blouse. She smiled, remembering the rough feel of the towel underneath her back earlier when she lay sunbathing by Mr Robinson’s pool.

He preferred her to sunbathe topless. He said it gave him pleasure to watch her pale skin turn pink in the gentle heat. Who was she to deny an old man a simple pleasure? It wasn’t as if he had many pleasures these days, confined to his wheelchair since the end of the war.

He was a sweet old man and he paid her well for visiting him twice a week to take down his memoirs. They would spend an hour or so “working” in the morning. He would tell stories and she would record them in her shorthand notebook.

Then Mrs Martin, the housekeeper, would bring in their coffee served in Royal Albert china coffee cups. Crisp, brown sugar lumps nestled in their bowl, while silver tongs waited for her touch, her gentle squeeze as she picked them up, one by one and held them on the side of the cup until they slid silently into the smooth brown liquid.

“Will you be mother, Dolores?” Mr Robinson asked hopefully each morning.

“One lump or two?”

His eyes twinkled, “You know I need three to keep up with a sweet thing like you, my dear.”

It was his little joke and she didn’t mind pleasing him with her smile as she handed him the cup and saucer, watching to make sure he didn’t spill anything as he negotiated the space between his wheelchair and the small table by his side.

He would doze after his coffee, lulled into slumber by the rhythmic clatter of the typewriter keys as she transferred his stories onto the printed page. She read them through when she was checking for mistakes, inspired by the strength of the pictures he painted with his words.

She knew he wanted to publish them one day. It was sad he wouldn’t live long enough to see his dream come true.

As the grandfather clock in the corner struck one, Mrs Martin would enter and lay the table for their lunch. She was an excellent cook, always surprising them with imaginative dainties and fresh, seasonal produce.

Nothing fancy, mind you, Mr Robinson didn’t approve of anything “fancy”, but somehow Mrs Martin managed to indulge her love of Italy and France, disguising it with vegetables and herbs grown in the garden and meat from young Mr Robinson’s farm. If it were home grown, it couldn’t possibly be anything “foreign”!

If the weather was nice, they would eat outside, lingering over their coffee to “aid digestion”. Sometimes Mr Robinson would persuade her to sunbathe for him, finishing off with a short dip in his magnificent pool.

The afternoon would take the same pattern as the morning - stories until 3.30pm when Mrs Martin would serve afternoon tea, more typing and then she would collect her things together and bid him farewell.

“Don’t speak to any strange men, Dolores,” he would tell her, his eyes crinkling at the edges. “It’s a dangerous world out there and I’m not as young as I was to be able to protect you.”

“Don’t worry, Mr Robinson,” she would reassure him, planting a single kiss on the top of his bald patch as she made her farewells. “No-one is going to trouble me – not when I tell them I have a black belt in karate.”

He would smile and let her go, patting her hand as she said goodbye.

“Dolores! Dolores!”

A young man rushed up the platform towards her waving her jacket.

“I saw your jacket in the skip and thought you must have dropped it by mistake.”

She shook her head.

“I’m not Dolores, Mr Robinson, my name is Sophie. Your father insisted on calling me Dolores and I didn’t like to make a fuss. I’m afraid you’re mistaken about the jacket. I don’t need it any more. Classic Fifties Haute Couture isn’t really necessary in modern offices. It helped your father to remember, which is why I wore them.”

“Oh.” The young man was at a loss for words. “You’re not coming back any more?”

“What would I do, now your father’s not there?”

“Tuesdays and Thursdays won’t be the same without you.” His strong hands scrunched the collar of her jacket as he twisted them together.

She smiled sadly. He looked so like his father, she wanted to take him in her arms and tell him everything would be alright.

“Look, how about if I wanted a secretary to type up my stories?”

“How much would you pay me?”

“How much do you charge?”

“£30,000 a year plus three paid holidays to Europe and the Far East for two people.”

“Two people?”

“You don’t think I want to go on my own, do you?”

“Oh err no, I suppose you don’t.” He blushed.

“When would you like me to start?”

“Would next Tuesday be acceptable?”

“Very,” she said, smiling at him.

Just then her train pulled into the station and she got in, jostling against other evening commuters. She saw him standing on the platform, still holding her jacket. She waved and saw him straighten to wave back.

She would enjoy working for young Mr Robinson. It was all part of his father’s plan. His youngest son needed someone sensible to look after him and she’d agreed, just before the final heart attack took him, the light slowly fading from his eyes as she screamed for help. He’d fallen against the glass table, cutting his head, his blood spattering the arm of her jacket.

She’d never really liked that jacket and now she would never have to wear it ever again.

Spring Colours

2010-04-06T02:03:00.000-07:00

I came searching for yellow
You showed me daffodils wafting in soft spring breeze
Primroses dancing by the well
A single celandine nestling in grass
It’s star of sunlight pulsing gold amidst green.
Catkins blowing from treetop height over the pond
Their pollen shed, no longer yellow but brown.

I came searching for white
You showed me dazzling bells of snowdrops edged in green
Furred backs of small burdock leaves
Twin plants hiding at the willow’s foot.

I came searching for red
You showed me thin slivers of marshmallow overshadowed by aquilegia
Bright spears of Echinacea pushing upwards towards the sun
Each new shoot the colour of blood, of life.

I came searching for green
You showed me grass, long and damp
Vibrant woad shining proudly above brown soil
Curled cuckoo pint thrusting their way through every surface
Their heart-shaped leaves unfolding with new promise.
Tiny elder leaves bursting from each twig,
Narrow edges thrusting their way into the light
Young nettles, their velvet crimps so enticing
Stinging unwary fingers
Yielding their green to a boiling brew
A toast to freshness, Springtime, new strength!

This poem comes from my collection, At Home and Away, published by Romance Divine. The paperback version can be obtained from Amazon.co.uk, but if you would like to hear me reading the poems, an audio CD can be ordered along with the book from the publisher's webpage

Waking the Young God

2010-03-20T06:44:00.000-07:00

It was a long winter. Despite the promise of snowdrops and celandine, rain fell almost continually. Fields were waterlogged . Ploughing oxen strained against their yokes but it was almost too much for a pair to drag the single-ploughshare through drenched clods of earth. Boys, whose job it was to lead the teams, came home crying with wet and cold and aching limbs. The men were little better. Their pain showed in their eyes, pausing at the hearth only to shuck their mud-encrusted trews, shovelling food into mouths too tired to chew or swallow, falling asleep where they sat.

Food was scarce. Soon the last of the grain would be gone and none dared breach the sacks destined for seed. Salt fish and meat clung to the bottom of the barrels stiff with brine. Though women foraged for fresh greens, there was little to find and small children began to wail with empty bellies.

“We must wake the God,” the old women grumbled. “He has slept too long this winter. We must go to him with drums and shakers and loud cries, forcing him to rise and strengthen the sun, so the fields will dry out and we can plant grain for the summer.”

It was agreed. On the day most auspicious for waking the God, when hours of darkness equalled the hours of light, the whole village met on the edge of the wood and began to dance. Their feet pounded on the bare earth. Men brought huge drums made from hollowed logs and covered in skins. They beat them with sticks, their deep booms resonating against the trees. Children shook rattles and shouted – glad to be free of winter houses where everyone told them to be quiet and still. They ran around chasing playmates. Older boys and girls ventured into the edges of the forest, whooping and shrieking, calling out to the God to join them in their games.

When they could leap and shout no more, the villagers gathered their drums and children, making ready to trudge back to the village and once more tend their flocks and cattle.

Gilda was troubled. It did not seem right to wake the Young God without waiting to see how he fared. She knew what young folk were like, with three lively children of her own including two year old, Tomaz, who should really be weaned, but there was little else to give him other than a thin gruel.

“You take him for me,” she said to her mother, lifting the child onto Ella’s back. “I’m going into the wood to forage. There may be some patches of greens I’ve missed. I’ll be home before dark.”

The old women regarded her daughter through narrowed eyes. Gilda’s words were simple enough and goodness knew they needed whatever she could find, but it was only half the story. It was not like Gilda to put anything or anyone else before her man and her children, but now was not the time to ask questions. Ella called the other two children to her and they began to pick their way carefully along the muddy track back to the village.

Gilda stood watching them until the path curled away down the hill out of sight. The sky was clear now. More rain had fallen during the night, but the pale blue canopy held only white clouds high above, moving fast in the freshening wind. Far away on the horizon, Gilda could see the sparkle of sunshine on a quiet sea. If no more storms came, the men could go fishing and everyone could eat.

Gilda sighed. It was not in her nature to deceive her mother. Petros, the children’s father was long gone, busy moving sows into their farrowing pens before they dropped their litters amongst the other pigs where newborn piglets could be killed before anyone could save them.

She turned towards the wood, taking the higher path deep into the heart of the forest where deer lived and wolves roamed. On the other side of the hills there were said to be huge caves where bears slept during the winter. Gilda’s grandmother used to tell stories of the day when a huge black bear with two cubs were seen fishing on the sea shore when her grandfather was a boy, but no-one had seen them since that time, so it may be hunters killed all there were or maybe they moved to another cave on another hillside, frightened by the noise of the fishermen and their dogs.

Gilda was not a good hunter. Though she could set traps for hare and wove fine nets for fishing, her eyes and arms did not move well enough together to allow her success in the hunt with bow and arrow or spear or even sling shot. She practiced with her peers as a child, but everyone else could hit the target when she still missed. In the end, her father said it was a waste of good arrows to make them for her and showed her how to weave gathering baskets from grasses and young hazel or willow shoots. When others went hunting, she stayed behind to mind children or took her baskets with the elders when they went gathering.

Gilda walked steadily upwards. Although huge trees grew all around her, it was still light within the forest. No green canopy grew to shut out the sun. Everywhere she looked branches were bare. Even when she pressed her head against their thick bark to listen for sap rising, she could hear nothing.

Until she came towards a less densely wooded glade. Here were carpets of bluebells and wild garlic. Primroses painted a yellow path of colour around the edges of the clearing, drawing her forward towards a low, sheltered rock covered in green moss. As she drew near, the moss shimmered in the sunshine and seemed to move. Long limbs stretched and a lithe figure sat up from the soft bed where he had been lying.

He sat, blinking in the sunlight as she approached. His dark brown hair was a wreath of curls around his head, but Gilda could see antler buds pushing their way above his crown. His skin was pale, as one who has been too long away from the sun and his legs were covered in fine brown hair, smooth as silk

He yawned and stretched again. “You woke me,” he said, fixing Gilda with deep brown eyes, like a fawn’s eyes, but older than the earth itself.

Gilda felt her insides churn. She was no shaman, used to travelling to the spirit world to talk with Gods and Spirits. Yet she knew he would need someone with him when he woke, to remind him of his duties, to guide him into a new world to do what must be done.

“We need you,” she said. “The winter has been long and wet. If you do not wake and grow strong, we cannot till the soil and plant our grain. There will be no grass for our cattle and sheep, no blossom on our trees, no plants to grow and feed my children and my man.

“If you do not mature, who will catch the maiden and sow your seed. The Mother will be barren, we shall starve and wither away.”

He blinked again. “What is that to me?”

“Without your strength, we cannot tend the earth the Mother provides for us. Without us, you are forgotten and the earth is bare, blowing away as dust upon the wind. No-one will manage your forests and the trees will die. The deer will over graze the young trees and the stags will kill each other in their fight to gather enough hinds around them in the rut.”

He shook his head, then slipped off the rock and stood on the ground, his feet pawing at the earth like a young stag. His head went back and his call echoed around the glade. It was not the deep roar of the mature stag, but rather the young male who stands on the cusp between childhood and maturity.

Gilda shivered. It seemed a lifetime ago since she stood on the edge of the forest at Beltane after dancing around the maypole with all the other young men and women. When the ribbons were all intertwined they climbed the path to the woods, laughing and giggling, wondering who would meet with the God amongst the trees. One by one the others fell behind, hiding in pairs behind bushes and brambles to play adult games with adolescent bodies.

Gilda found herself alone on the path until she heard the God calling. She did not remember going to him, nor what befell her that night. Petros found her wandering amongst the trees in the half-light of dawn, her dress torn and muddy. He took her back to the fire coaxing and soothing her until they leapt the flames together and the elders agreed their union.

They never spoke of that night again. The children she bore him were hale and hearty. If her eldest girl sometimes talked to unseen friends, they put it down to her age and knew she would grow out of it once her childhood passed.

Hearing the young God call brought back so many memories, but Gilda was no longer that maid, she was a woman, a mother. He needed someone to care for him and guide him.

He looked towards her. “I’m hungry.”

Gilda thought quickly. “The only food I have is my milk. It is yours if you wish it.”

He smiled at her, his brown eyes twinkling. Taking her hand, he led her around the stone where grass and moss together made a soft seat. He sat her down, lounging beside her as she loosened the lacings at her breast. Even though her youngest child was near weaning, his call had made her milk let down, dark wet patches, staining her blouse.

His fingers stroked her, drawing the material away from her breast. He traced the dark blue veins of milk down to her nipples, circling the aureoles, then catching the pale, blue/grey drops of milk on his fingertips. He raised it to his mouth, his long, pink tongue catching the drops and taking them inside his mouth.

He smiled again, nodding, as if to signify the taste pleased him. Then he draped himself across her, resting his head in the crux of her arm as he drew her nipple into his mouth and drank.

She felt the long, slow pulses of his tongue against the roof of his mouth and the streams of milk leaving her. She felt him swallow, each draught of milk filling his need and feeding his body. When that breast was dry, he turned himself, latching on to her with skilful ease. She stroked his head, rubbing the tiny antlers as they twisted through his hair, crooning the same lullabies she sang to her own children. She could not wonder how her milk should be so plentiful, only that he wished to feed and she could serve him.

When he was full, he lay in her arms and slept; the sun warming them both on the soft grass.

When he woke, he looked up at her, his dark eyes warm and loving.

“I will not forget,” he said. “Those who come to me without fear, without conditions, offering themselves alone, those I allow to serve me. This is your second time. Come to me again at Beltaine and I will quicken you. Your voice will mark my harvest and you will help the Mother bring me forth again at Yule.

“Go now. Follow the left hand path to the edge of the forest. Beside the rowan tree you will see a rock shaped like an eagle’s beak, under it flows a spring. Around the pool fed by the spring you will find ample greens for your children. Gather only what you need each day and it will keep both you and them until the grass grows again and other plants can feed you.” He kissed her cheek. When she moved to thank him, he was gone.

Gilda got to her feet and set off down the hillside, following the left hand track through the trees. When she reached the edge of the forest, she saw a single rowan tree standing beside a stone. As she drew closer, she could see the stone did indeed resemble an eagle’s beak, with clear water running from it. She was tired after her long walk, so she stopped and gathered the water into her hands and drank. It tasted cool and sweet.

The spring ran down into a tiny stream, which then flowed into a small pond. Just as the Young God said, around the edges of the pond grew thick, lush watercress, bright green and tasting hot in the late afternoon sunshine. Gilda filled her carrybasket, offering her thanks to Young God and the spirits of place who allowed her such bounty with which to feed her family.

“The Gods must favour you,” Petros said later, his mouth full of watercress. Gilda said nothing. Her milk was gone now. Tomaz was weaned, but he would not starve. Her thoughts turned towards Beltane and she smiled.

A Story for Ostara

2010-03-16T15:38:00.000-07:00

It had been a long, hard winter. Although the snow had come and gone, frosts and freezing rain had taken their toll on the people and the land. Constant rains had turned the fields to mud baths and those cattle and sheep that were not in barns found little to forage.

Snowdrops had come and violets too in sheltered woodland; sticky buds hung on the trees and catkins had been swinging amongst the branches of hazel trees for weeks, but still there was no letup from the constant rain. Signs from the west showed there should be more snow.

"How can there be snow?" wondered the boy to his mother as he watched her pound the last of the grain for their evening meal.

"How should I know?" his mother sighed. "Such knowledge is not given to me. Go away and play, Joschin, I am very tired."

So the boy went and sat amongst the empty sacks, thinking of a time when snow only fell at wintertime. When Ostara came, the promise of Imbolc was fulfilled and the weather grew warm again

"It's not fair!" he grumbled to himself. "Things have never been right since Emmy went to be with the ancestors. If she were here, Spring would come again, Mother would not be so tired and Father might smile once in awhile"

Suddenly he stood up and said to himself, "I'm going to find her! She should know she is needed here with us, not amongst the darkness with the ancestors. She is young and beautiful and her laughter is like birdsong in the dawn. I want her back with us...now!"

The boy found his cloak and his walking stick and set off into the rain to find his sister. After a while, the rain stopped, but the wind blew against him, freezing his cheeks.

He thought he heard tiny voices crying in the wind. Turning around, he cried aloud, "Stop buffeting me, wind! I am going to find my sister. She is sleeping with the ancestors in the darkness; do you know where I might find her?"

The voices in the wind did not answer him, but a huge grey owl took off from the branches of a nearby tree. It flew across the path in front of the boy and then up towards the nearest hill.

He took it as a sign that he should follow the owl and started to climb towards the summit. When he reached the top, he stopped for a moment to get his breath. He shielded his eyes with his hand, trying to see an entrance to the world of the ancestors.

Just at that moment, the clouds parted and the sun shone through leading a beam of light into the valley below.

"Follow the river," he heard a quiet voice say. The boy could not see a river, but he knew that little streams were often found on the valley floor, so he set off once more and strode down the other side of the hill until he came to a glade of trees.

"Is this the way to the world of the ancestors?" he asked politely as he entered the glade. The bare branches of the trees rustled in the wind and tall green ferns shook their fronds at him.

"Follow the river." He heard the voice again and this time he caught the sound of water tinkling along a stream bed. He walked towards the sound and there, sure enough, was a stream merrily tripping over large stones as it made its way down the valley.

The boy followed the stream for many hours, but it never reached the entrance to the world of the ancestors.

"What am I going to do?" the boy asked.

He knew that the ancestors lived underground in huge caverns; that was where they had taken Emmy the previous autumn, when the leaves had turned golden and brown and had fallen from the trees. The Shaman had told him that the Lord of the Underworld would cherish her and she would return to them again one springtime when the flowers bloomed.

If he could not find the entrance to the underground caverns, how could Emmy return? He began to despair he would not find her and Spring would never come again.

Just then he heard a great splash! When he looked towards the sound he saw an enormous salmon leaping out of the water. He ran forward and threw himself down on the rocks beside the stream to see where the salmon had gone, but all he saw was a shimmering whirlpool with clear water going round and round in tight circles.

"Follow the river!" Once again the voice came in his head.

"Follow the river where?" the boy wondered, but at the back of his mind the thought came to him that the world of the ancestors was underground and the whirlpool was also going down into a secret place. Maybe if he dived into the whirlpool, it would take him to the entrance he sought.

Without another thought, he threw off his cloak and his shoes and dived headfirst into the swirling water. He found himself floating down a huge shaft of blue grey stone. The air was warm and silky smooth and somehow he was gently lowered into the entrance of an enormous cave. The place was lit by huge, flickering torches and light danced on the cave walls, revealing giant paintings of many different animals.

The boy walked towards the middle of the cave, awestruck as he watched the animals run and jump in the torchlight around him. First he saw a chestnut horse run across the plains, kicking its legs in the long grasses. Then a lion rose from its hiding place and ran after the horse, but it could not catch the flying hooves. As the boy watched, the lion turned into a running sheep and then into a goat with curled horns that were almost as big as its body.

The goat began to stand on its hind legs and grew larger and larger until it filled the whole cave. Its coat hung down in long woolen ringlets and between the horns there was a face - forbidding yet kind, dark and yet surrounded by the light from the golden wool.

The boy fell to the ground in front of the huge beast.

"Please, my Lord, "he begged, "I have come to fetch Emmy, my sister. She has spent long enough amongst the darkness of the ancestors. We need her laughter and her smiles to coax back the Spring or Winter will never leave us!"

The huge figure was silent and the boy wondered if he had said too much, but when he looked up again into the creature's face, the cave was empty. The boy rose slowly to his feet wondering what he should do now. As he turned around, he caught sight of another glow of light in a further hidden part of the cave.

As he ventured towards it, he heard someone talking.

"You'll like it in the light, my little friend," a soft voice said. When he peeped around the rock, there was his sister, sitting on a stone, feeding lettuce to a tortoise.

"Emmy!" he cried, rushing towards her and taking her in his arms.

"Hello Joschin," she smiled, "I've been waiting for you to come and find me. Has Spring returned to the world yet?"

"No Emmy, it's waiting for you," he told her. "Will you come back with me and teach us to sing again?"

His sister smiled at him and stood up, taking his hand.

"We must take my friend with us," she said, pointing towards the tortoise, "he's been asleep too and now he's awake and wants to walk in the sunshine."

Joschin picked up the tortoise and held him under his arm, but as he turned, he found their way barred by the Lord of the Underworld.

"Would you take away that which is mine?" Cernunnos demanded.

"But, Sir," the boy said. "They belong to us both. Once light equals darkness, you cannot keep them here underground when they need to be with us amongst the trees and flowers. What would we do if the light did not grow brighter and crops did not grow and trees did not bear fruit?"

The Lord of Beasts growled softly in his throat. "If light truly equals darkness, then I cannot keep her here, but know you that when the tortoise sleeps again, she must return to me"

The boy looked at his sister and a great sadness grew in his throat, but he swallowed hard and nodded. "It shall be so, my Lord" he said, bowing his head. "When the tortoise sleeps, I will bring her back myself."

The creature nodded and opened his arms towards the girl and she ran to him, giving him one last embrace before she returned to her brother and once more tucked her hand into his.

The boy wondered how they would find their way back to the land of men, but as he blinked, he found himself once more in the woodland glade. Emmy ran forward laughing, reaching down to pick the primroses growing on the edge of the field. The rain had stopped and the sun was shining above them while an enormous rainbow arched from the sky to the land.

As they walked back up the hill they could see lambs in the fields with their mothers and birds sang in the trees as they passed. When they reached the village, all the people came out to greet them. Everyone wanted to touch the girl who had returned to them from the world of the ancestors and Joschin was taken up and rode high on the shoulders of the tallest men, for he had found her.

After the feast that night, when Emmy was asleep in her little bed, Joschin went to his mother and said quietly, "We cannot have her back for ever, Mother,"

"I know, Joscin, I know." his mother said, stroking his hair, "but you did well to bring her back when you did. Even though she must return to the Lord of the Underworld, she is not lost to us, only sleeping until Spring sees her back with us once more."

From the army : flowers

2010-02-28T07:53:00.000-08:00

To read about my latest training experience with the armed forces, go to Tales of a Kitchen Herbwife

Stone Circle Hunting in Winter

2010-02-13T10:02:00.000-08:00

When an opportunity arose to greet the sunrise at Stonehenge, I jumped at it. Never an early riser, the winter months appeared to give ample time to welcome the light at a reasonable hour. As the date grew closer, a welcoming bed and breakfast was booked in Salisbury and we began to think of where else we wanted to visit either side of our morning access to Stonehenge. Avebury and Glastonbury came to mind, with the possibility of local Iron Age hillforts if weather and time allowed.

We sought the less travelled route of the Fosse Way, following it down through Cirencester and then heading to Swindon and finally Avebury, where we stopped for a late lunch.

The village of Avebury lies within a circular earthwork, 400 m wide, with a deep external ditch whose circumference is over 1200 metres. Inside is a 400-metre diameter circle of immense standing stones, and inside that there are two more stone circles each 100 metres in diameter. The village clusters inside the circle. To reach the impressive sandstone sarcens you have to go into four different fields and cross the busy road – not an easy task in the Wiltshire rush hour!

Wandering inside the circle, our thoughts turned to the original function of Avebury. The stones were quarried from the Avebury hills some 2-3 km eastwards and were first brought to the site from about 2800BCE. It is thought all the stone circles, earthworks and stone avenues were constructed during the following five thousand years.

We reasoned such a project would not have been achieved merely for religious reasons but for the entirety of people’s lives. The circles may well have housed temples and the avenues led to burial chambers and places of inner devotion at the sanctuary. The stone’s alignments gave people access to calendars and weather reporting and other knowledge necessary for successful agricultural pursuits which in turn provided means of sustenance for the people. The stones also offered meeting places and opportunities for trade and exchange not only of goods and services but knowledge and training, as well as the sharing of joy and sorrow throughout the wheel of both the year and of life itself.

Light was fading fast, so we left Avebury and drove out to West Kennet Long Barrow. The five-chambered long barrow is one of my favourite places, but I have always visited it in summer when the corn is high and the barrow seemingly enclosed within fields. It was a revelation to visit in winter, reaching the summit to look out from the barrow over the surrounding countryside.

Inside the barrow, five chambers lead off from a central gallery, all built from huge sarsen stones. It is thought the barrow was first used as a burial chamber around 3700-3600 BCE and was closed about 1200 years later. At the time of sealing the barrow, a row of huge sarsens was placed immediately in front of the entrance in the manner of blocking stones.

The majority of the barrow was damaged by grave robbers and local farmers hunting for stone, so it is difficult to imagine how the entire barrow would have looked during the time it was in constant use. Sketches in the Avebury museum suggest that skeletal bones from the barrow would have been paraded during major ceremonies. The theory is that such bones would have been carried around the boundaries of a tribe’s land to show ownership and also to connect the tribal chieftain with the ancestors and provide him with a valid base for leadership.

Next morning began before 7am with the realisation the sun had risen without us and was shining with a rose tinted light on the walled garden whilst we ate breakfast. We reached Stonehenge just after 8 am, along with eighteen other foreign nationals who had come to visit the most publicised stone circle in Britain.

There is no doubt of the impressive and imposing nature of Stonehenge. Viewed from the hilltop overlooking the site, you could imagine the awe and fear struck into the hearts and minds of tribespeople coming towards the open plain. The inspiration and fortitude of the original architects and builders was quite incredible – to achieve such a construction by bringing stones from Wales to mount upon Salisbury plain is truly amazing.

All I felt, was cold. Not just the freezing, biting wind of winter blowing through our clothes and chilling our bodies, but the dearth of laughter and joy throughout the circle. This was not a place of commerce and sharing, but of power and fear. I sensed death within the circle, not something I have felt in any other stone circle I have visited.

There was something about the straight, worked stones which felt very different from the roughly hewed cones and lozenges of other circles. There was nothing personal here, nothing to link the individual with the energy of the stones, it was a place to fall and cover your face as the sun touched the tip of a stone, bathing it in orange light.

We did not seek to remain longer than our allotted hour. We were chilled through and through. It took quite a while to stop shivering and draw in the heat from the car as we turned towards Glastonbury, away from the plain.

At Longleat, we met cars covered in snow. Nearby Cley Hill was also sugar coated in the morning sunlight, accentuating the steps of the iron age enclosure with hut circle settlement and hillfort with mediaeval strip lynchets around the side. At the top there is another round barrow, but it was far too cold to consider climbing up to see it!

The trip to Glastonbury took us over an hour, but the sight of the Tor as we came into the town along the river was truly impressive. We also passed lots of mistletoe balls hanging from bare branches, something I had not seen since visiting Oregon. It was good to know it was growing somewhere in England, as I have never been able to successfully promote growth from berries in my trees, either apple or oak.

A dark cloud was just starting to cover the sun when we girded our loins, changed our shoes and set off to walk up to the top of the Tor. The steepness of the slope and the biting wind made us stop at frequent intervals to admire the view. Even the inside of the tower on top of the Tor afforded no refuge from what now had become snow flurries, but we eventually found shelter against the south west face. Here we watched the rooks trying to take off against the wind and failing. Eventually, we walked down to the Chalice Well, drawing comfort from the peaceful gardens, before returning to the car on quivering legs, exhilarated by our short pilgrimage.

We were sad to leave the ancient city on Saturday morning, but broke our journey at the Rollright stones not far from Long Compton in Oxfordshire. These are my “local” stone circle, but I had never visited the Whispering Knights, a collapsed Neolithic Dolmen (single chambered burial mound) before. The circle is built from local Cotswold stone and is showing the pockmarked signs of age as a consequence. The stones (The King’s men) are much smaller than the other circles we had seen, but no less impressive in their own way.

The Rollrights is the circle furthest south on the trade route from Axe Mountain in Cumbria. Swinside and Castlerigg stone circles are two others built in the same manner. Neolithic stone axes have been found in several circles, suggesting they were places to store and trade goods in very early times.

The stones have many local legends. It was said someone wishing to become King of all England was on his way to London when he chanced to meet the local witch, Mother Shipton. Of course his plans came to nothing, with the man being turned into the King Stone, his men into the stone circle and his Knights into the Dolmen. It is also said her spell is released at midnight, when the men come to life again and dance in a ring and the Knights go down to a spring at Little Rollright Spinney to drink.

This latter part of the legend echoes the one of the Whittlestone in Lower Swell, another sarson guarding a roundbarrow, which goes down to the Lady Well to drink when Stow on the Wold clock strikes twelve. It is interesting two such similar stories should be attached to stones not ten miles from each other!

Too soon, our brief excursion into a different world was over. We returned to our respective responsibilities refreshed by our experiences hunting stone circles in winter.

Call of the Crone

2010-02-13T09:58:00.000-08:00

This poem was inspired by the stone circle hunting trip. Everything described within the poem was experienced or seen during the trip.

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I am still winter
I am the icy gust of wind
I am the snow flurry
I am the frost-crowned hill fort
I am the sliding mud beneath your feet
I am the snowflake hurtling against your naked eye
I am the snowdrop dancing in the breeze
I am the orange crocus in the grass
I am the ball of mistletoe hanging from the branch
I am the catkins ringing yellow peals
I am the raven, jackdaw and the crow
I am the air they fight to ride
I am the rising spring within the garden
I am the stream fast flowing to the mill
I am the flooded plain
I am the ice within the hollowed stone
I am the darkness in the tomb
I am the sunlight above the hills
I am the lintelled stone, still tall and proud
I am the smallest pock-marked rock within the circle
I am the fallen dolmen by the hedge
I am the white fleeced flock within the field
I am the hare crouching in the furrow
I am the hawk hovering in stillness over the grass verge
I am the hunting owl gliding across the path
I am the silence and the roar
I am the weakness and the strength
I am the fading light as day slips into night
I am the promise and the fear
I am.

Imbolc story from "The Wheel of the Year"

2010-02-01T13:37:00.000-08:00

Kiera was hunting for firewood on the edge of the forest when she came across the first snowdrop. The white bell nodded in the breeze like a tiny snowflake left behind from the latest thaw. Kiera touched it gently with her finger, marvelling at the pale green line edging the petal as if someone had come in the night and painted it whilst no-one was looking.

"I found snowdrops by the thorn trees this afternoon, Gramma," she said as she carried the carefully chopped logs and placed them in the box by the fire.

The older woman smiled, the light from the oil lamp casting soft shadows on her face and making her young again. "I've always loved snowdrops. They bring promise of spring and show that winter cannot last all year long."

"I saw the men building the Imbolc roundhouse when I was searching for wood earlier. Will I be allowed to join the celebrations this year?" Kiera's eyes were wistful. Ever since she was a little girl she had asked if she could be allowed to take part in the ritual.

It was her favourite part of the year, when young lambs were born and creamy milk from the ewes given to the children to make them strong. Usually she sat with the other children on piles of straw playing with the lambs and joining in the singing and dancing as gifts were offered to the Goddess - new ploughshares forged by the blacksmith, strange smelling potions from the healers and songs and poetry from the bards. All these to honour the fire Goddess, Brigid, who inspired all these different crafts.

"What makes you think this year should be different for you, Kiera?" her Grandmother asked as she did every year when Kiera made her request. The girl looked into the fire and thought for several long moments.

"I'm different this year, Gramma." and her eyes as she searched her Grandmother's face were wide and open in the firelight. "This will be the nearest rite since I saw first blood and I should dearly love to be allowed to honour the Maiden. She is the one who is breathing life into all things in preparation for Spring.

"I've not really noticed it before, but this year it is as if I can sense the days becoming longer and when I'm out in the woods there's a humming under my feet as if the roots of all the trees are waking. I've watched the leaf buds change from brown to green and thicken on the twigs and branches and all the birds are singing to mark their territory and find their mate." Her voice dropped almost to a whisper.

"Sometimes, Gramma, if I go to the woods in the fog, it seems as if the whole world is waiting for the God to appear, as if the fog is his silent caress to the earth. Everything is so quiet, so breathless....."

Her Grandmother nodded. "And what have you created that might be a gift for the Goddess?"

"I've made Her a song, Grandmother! May I sing it to you?" and when she saw the other's assent she began to sing in a clear, sweet voice,

"A lamb for the Goddess I bring to you
Here's snowdrops for welcome and crocuses too
The green of the ivy for life ever new
These gifts do I bring to you

Some milk for the Goddess I bring to you
Here's cheese from the shepherd and wool from the ewe
The brown of the soil where young shoots will grow
These gifts do we bring to you

Some wine for the Goddess we bring to you
Here's fish from the river and salt crystals too
The blue of the goblet reflecting the sky
These gifts do we bring to you

Our love for the Goddess we bring to you
Here's garlands of evergreen woven anew
Our hearts ever joyful to welcome the Spring
These gifts do we bring to you."

"That's a lovely song, Kiera!" Her Grandfather stooped as he entered the room, his head almost touching the thatch as he stood up. "Shall you be singing it when the full moon rises in two days time?"

Kiera looked at her Grandmother. "I think so, Ranulph. She's shown that she can listen as well as speak and she uses her eyes to watch for the hidden secrets as well as the obvious mysteries. She's aware now of the waxing powers of the sun over winter's darkness. I think it's time for her to wear the yellow cloak and sweep the roundhouse clean before we begin."

"Oh Gramma, thank you! thank you!" Kiera flung her arms around the older woman's neck and hugged her tightly.

"You've got a lot to do in these two days, Kiera." Her Grandmother told her. "Imbolc is a time for purification, for cleansing both mind and body of winter's sloth and despair, ready for doing what must be done in the coming year. You must use this time to plan your spirit's journey through this passage of the wheel, to wonder at the marvels of the earth and to explore the gifts that the Goddess and the God have made manifest to you."

She went to the linen chest and took out the yellow woollen robe and placed it in Kiera's arms. "Go home and tell you parents everything I've said now, dear."

"Yes, Gramma and thank you again!" Kiera kissed her warmly on her cheek and rushed out to find her family and tell them the wonderful news.

"You've made a very happy lass, Guytha!" her husband said, enfolding her in his long arms and drawing her to him. "I can remember when you wore the yellow cloak for the first time and sang for the Goddess. I knew then you were the girl I wanted by my side so we could serve the God and Goddess together through the Wheel of the Year."

Guytha rubbed his cheek with the back of her hand. "It's not been easy, Ranulph, all these years, seeing to both the physical and spiritual needs of our people."

"That's why Imbolc is a special time for us as well, love, for it's a time to celebrate all soul midwives, those like you who assist our spiritual paths towards the light. I, for one would have been in darkness far longer if you hadn't been around to light my fire."

"Ranulph!" Guytha buffeted his arm in mock reproof. "Trust you to say something like that when I thought you were being so solemn!"

"But it's true, Guytha!" and he swept her up into his arms as if she were still his young bride and not his loving wife of forty years. "Now is the time to celebrate and what better way to honour the God and Goddess than by lighting the fire of our love so that it can burn long and merrily until spring returns again!"

Imbolc extract from "Singer to the Gods"

2010-02-01T13:17:00.000-08:00

For five years now I have been working on an Iron-age romance set in the time before the Roman invasion of Britain. Gofannon, a Pictish warrior is captured and made slave to the local Druid, Aoife. The book tells their journey from suffering to understanding, where love and magic can replace violence in service to the Gods. This extract comes from the beginning of their tale, when Goffanon is still fighting his gheas.

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Now it was time to begin. Aoife clapped her hands and gradually everyone fell silent.

“In the name of Bride, the Maiden, I welcome you to our Imbolc rite. Let us come together to honour our ancestors and the spirits of this place as together we ask the blessings of the Goddess on the children who have passed into maidenhood during the past year.”

Taking the hand of the woman nearest her, Aoife led the women and children into a slow, stately dance of welcome, weaving in and around the poles which held up the ritual hut and around the walls. Using only her voice and the shells she wore around her neck, ankles and wrists, she encouraged them to sing their praises to the earth and bid a joyful welcome to the emerging Goddess.

From his hiding place against the wall, Gofannon sat in a watchful crouch as the women danced. He was amazed how Aoife was changed by this role of priestess. At Yule she brought in the light to the nearby burial chamber, marking the point of sunrise with great whoops and loud cries, but she had been different then - austere, controlled, a spiritual guardian of the dawn, the promise of the sun’s return. She sat apart from the rest of the tribe, lost in thought, hardly hearing words spoken to her, the very epitome of the dark crone of winter whom everyone feared for her knowledge of life and death and rebirth.

Tonight, she was the Maiden returning from winter’s sleep, her bright green gown shimmering in the torch and firelight, rays reflecting from the surface of the shells she wore. She’d even woven tiny shells within her hair and round her throat, tiny pinpricks of light which moved as she did, with gay abandon; drumming on the earth with her bare feet to waken and draw forth the Maiden within.

Laughing and smiling, the dance came to its end. The women sank down onto the rugs and skins on the floor, gathering their children around them. Only the ten maidens remained standing, each one holding the special gift they had worked on during the year to represent their unique lives up until now. Some carried pieces of carefully woven cloth, bright with different colours, others painted clay dolls or smoothed sticks adorned with feathers and leather strips hung with carved bones or dried berries or flowers.

They all looked very young and apprehensive. They knew this ceremony was for them. Although they had been part of similar events in previous years, it was very different being a spectator from standing up in front of all the women in their village.

One by one, Aoife called them before her and took their offering, hanging it behind her on one of the bare branches. In return, she daubed a sacred sign in red paste upon their bare tummy, murmuring blessings on their wombs to bring them health and fertility in years to come.

Gofannon found his eyes were suddenly wet as he watched the line of girls come forward to be blessed. They were all around the same age as the girls he thought of as his own, though their mother would never tell him so. He hoped somehow, somewhere, they were being offered the same nurturing, care and blessing as these children and not thrust into a world of unwilling sexual slavery as their mother was. He should be there to protect them, but he was here, a slave like them!

“Be at peace, Gofannon. “ Aoife’s soft voice came into his head from he knew not where. “Remember the Goddess protects all maids who call on her at this time. All will be well.”

He rubbed his eyes furiously, wanting to curse and rage, but he could not move, could not draw attention to himself. How did she know? How did she tell his thoughts when even he barely caught them as they flew his mind?

“Are you a spirit?”

He looked round and saw a small child standing by his side, a dirty finger stuck in her mouth.

“Aye,” he whispered, “Now go back to your Ma like a good girl.”

The little girl shook her head. “I want to stay with you” and before he could protest she pulled herself into his lap and curled up in a warm ball against his stomach. Instinctively his arms came round to support her and before he knew it, she was fast asleep.

Soon the ceremony was over. Women came round with jugs of ale and flatbread and hard cheese wrapped in nettles. Gofannon felt his stomach rumble for he had eaten nothing since the morning, but he could not move for fear of disturbing the sleeping child and found himself dozing as well.

When everyone had eaten, Aoife closed the ceremony and the rest of the village went back to their own homes to sleep.

“You can come out now, Gofannon.” Aoife called him.

“What about the child?”

“What child?” Aoife came over to his hiding place and shook her head.

“There was a child asleep on my lap. Did she go back to her mother?”

“I didn’t see a child. Are you sure you didn’t dream it? I know every child in this village and beyond.”

Gofannon told her what happened; as he did, her eyes widened.

“Oh Mother!” she breathed. “I asked for a sign and She sent one!”

There were tears in Aoife’s eyes as she offered her hand to help him stand up. He was very stiff after crouching in the darkness for so long and confused by her emotional response.

“It was only a child,” he protested, “nothing to get excited about.”

With trembling hands, Aoife pulled the mask from his head and kissed him soundly on both cheeks.

“The Goddess has chosen you as her own, Gofannon. When these three days are over, you will be dedicated to Her service. Your new life is beginning.”

Gofannon held his tongue. Although he understood the words she used, he could not apply them with any meaning. All he had done was let a child sleep on his lap. She kept him warm and, now he thought about it, she helped the pain and rage he was feeling to melt away. Nothing strange about that. She must have toddled back to her Ma while he was dozing, nothing else.

He scratched his chin where his matted beard was playing host to a new generation of fleas. He could do with some food. Out of the corner of his eye he saw some cheese and a full jug of ale still sitting on one of the table at the back. He went over and started to eat.

Aoife let him go. There was no need to trouble him with what really happened. It was enough she knew he was chosen and could act accordingly. The dance of life had begun!

Sharing a tale

2010-01-14T08:14:00.000-08:00

The dreadful weather we've been experiencing for the past few weeks led to the cancellation of Solihull Writer's Workshop this week, so, having written a short story to the given theme, I thought I would share it here.

I was inspired by a photo taken after Christmas by a Scottish herbalist friend of mine, Claire Mullen. It was a stunning view of the blue moon touching a tall fir tree.It was one of those scenes which just begged to be included in a story.

The theme we had to write about was someone who didn't fit in. Once again I have drawn on my own experience - it's very difficult to make friends in a small school where you're the teacher's daughter, you live five miles away from the village and your mother doesn't really think that any of the village children are suitable friends for her child.

The glue pasting incident is true as well. It happened in NZ and the 12 year old boy who decided I was far too clean was the local vicar's son in Mt Manganui. I don't remember anyone coming to my rescue, but everyone was shocked! Needless to say, I survived, but my lasting friendships were made in secondary school when I was far enough away from home to form my own relationships.

Finding a friend

2010-01-14T08:11:00.000-08:00

Jenny looked up at the stars. She didn’t know why, but it seemed important to stare into the darkness on the first night in her new home. She couldn’t remember the sky around the old cottage where they lived before. It was in the middle of the village. There were always lights from the houses or farm buildings.

Here, there was nothing for miles and miles. The only shape she had seen as twilight disappeared was a huge fir tree on the horizon. It stood alone against a vast, unbroken darkness filled with tiny, sparkling, pinpricks of light.

“The tree doesn’t have any friends,” Jenny thought to herself. “Just like me.”

Her mother came out into the porch. “Jenny, whatever are you doing?”

“Looking at the stars.”

“Come inside you silly child, you’re letting heat out of the house and you’re not even wearing your coat!” Grabbing Jenny’s arm, her mother drew her indoors. It was seven o’clock on a cold November evening and time for bed, no matter what her daughter might think.

The next day Jenny started at her new school. It was a long way from her home and she had to walk down the hill to some houses in the valley where two other girls caught the school bus. Jenny’s mother knew their mother. They went potato picking together in the autumn. Jenny sat on her own in the seat in front of the two sisters.

When the bus stopped outside a high stone wall in the middle of the village, the girls took Jenny through a yellow wooden door into the playground. Almost as soon as they arrived, a small, middle aged woman with dark hair tied up in a bun came outside ringing a bell. The children jostled each other as they went into the small cloakroom to hang up their coats and hats.

“Here’s your peg, Jenny,” said the headmistress, Mrs Brown. “I’ve written your name on a card by the side. When you’ve taken off your coat, I will show you where you are sitting.”

Jenny went with Mrs Brown into the large room. One half was filled with desks in front of a large stove surrounded by a fireguard. The other half was empty with a piano in one corner and trestle tables and benches stacked up along the walls.

“Over there is where we do gym and eat our lunch,” Mrs Brown explained. “This is your desk. Your exercise and text books are all inside. You will need to put your name on them and make sure they don’t get lost.”

Jenny looked at the desk. It was right at the front of the class where everyone could see her. Everyone else’s desk was in a pair, so children could sit by their friends, but Jenny’s was alone. She took a deep breath and sat down in her chair. A door beside Mrs Brown’s desk opened and all the infant children came in for morning assembly. The school day had begun.

Jenny liked school. She knew most of her times tables and didn’t mind standing in front of the fireguard in turn to recite while Mrs Brown took the register each morning. She loved reading and enjoyed writing stories and copying the writing off the board when they did history and geography on Mondays and Tuesday.

Her favourite day was Wednesday when the girls did sewing and the boys made things from bits of wood on the dining tables. The little girls started with square mats embroidered with pulled thread work then progressed to felt purses and stuffed toys.

Jenny was working on a dressing table set for her mother. It was made from blue material and she had chosen white and red threads for the decoration. In the centre she carefully made a spider’s web, weaving the silks under and over the threads Mrs Brown had sewn for her.

Jenny loved the spider’s web because it reminded her of the full moon. She loved the moon and always looked for it when she woke up in the morning to see it was still in the sky.

One week, Mrs Brown was ill and Mr Heath taught them. When Wednesday came, he told the girls they would be making cardboard animals on the dining tables with the boys. They had to cut out the shapes, colour them in and then glue the pieces together.

Jenny was sitting opposite Andrew Pulham, the vicar’s son. Andrew was a year older than Jenny. Soon he would be sitting the eleven plus so he could go to the big school in Northleach. Jenny was carefully sticking her elephant’s legs on when he suddenly leaned across and painted the backs of both her hands with glue. Jenny looked up at him in horror.

“You’re far too clean and tidy,” he said, daring her to say anything to him. Helen Morris, who was the same age as Jenny, gave her some paper towel to wipe off the glue.

“You horrible boy,” she glared at Andrew. “How would you feel if someone did that to you?” She took a brush full of glue and coated Andrew’s hand.

Jenny held her breath, wondering what Andrew would do next, but he said nothing. When they finished the lesson and it was afternoon playtime Helen went with her into the cloakroom so she could wash her hands.

“Just because he’s the vicar’s son, he thinks he can get away with everything!” Helen told her. “I wasn’t going to let him play his horrid tricks on you!”

Jenny smiled and thanked her. “I do hope Mrs Brown gets back soon so we won’t have to sit with the boys again next Wednesday!”

That night Jenny helped her father to feed the cattle. It was warm and cosy in the barn. The cows and last year’s calves lived together in a large pen all through the winter. Jenny climbed up on the hay stack and threw down an opened bale into the hay racks for them to eat.

When they were finished, Jenny walked down to the house. Half way there she looked up at the sky and saw the moon rising above the horizon. The branch of the tall fir tree seemed to touch the moon like a giant finger.

“Oh,” she sighed, “the fir tree has the moon to play with. It won’t be lonely any more.”

Jenny ran into the house looking forward to her next day at school when Helen had promised they would play together. It was good to know she had a friend.

A Christmas story - or The tale behind the tale

2009-12-23T06:52:00.000-08:00

Back in 1998, members of Solihull Writers Workshop were asked to bring in items relating to Christmas. We then had to write something inspired by one of the items. I can't remember what I took, but my attention was taken by the beautiful velvet jacket brought by Mary. It has a pattern of large flowers whose outlines are illuminated by gold thread.

It spoke to me of Christmas at home in the Cotswolds where I would often provide a relief organist to one of the local church services either on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning. I remember one Christmas morning when my mother was playing in one church, I was playing in another and my father was ringing bells at a third!

Those times are past, but they can still provide settings and "flavour" to a story and thereby be preserved and shared. Can you work out which village it is?

This story has been a long time coming to fruition. The original version, where the main characters were both university students was rejected by The People's Friend as not being suitable for their readership. Mary kindly critiqued it for me afterwards and made some helpful suggestions. I then "left it hanging in a cupboard" for seven years and have now dustied it off and made some alterations. I hope you enjoy the finished article.

The Christmas Jacket

2009-12-23T06:45:00.000-08:00

The velvet jacket lay on the bed, gold thread encircling deep purple and blue flowers glittering in the harsh electric light

"Very seasonal!" Hugh's words lingered in her mind. At the time, his approval of her expensive Christmas purchase made her glow, but now she could hardly bear to look at it.

"Come on, Sally!" her mother called up the stairs. "If we don't go now, we'll be late and that dreadful Mrs Pringle will sit in our pew. She always does if we're not there first!"

"All right, mother, I'm coming." Sally sighed and pulled on the jacket, trying not to notice the soft velour as it fitted snugly round her. She could almost feel Hugh's arms encircling her, stroking the velvet pile. It was too cruel he wasn't here to share her Christmas!

It was October when she first invited him to join her in spending Christmas with her mother in the small Cotswold village where she lived. They’d spent many happy weekends as visitors, being plied with home cooked food and strolling along country lanes breathing lots of fresh air.

Hugh had struck up a relationship with Oswald Prenderghast, the emaciated organist at St Mary’s church. He offered Hugh the opportunity to try out the small pipe organ and Hugh surprised everyone with the beautiful music he created from the moth-eaten instrument.

Sally arranged to collect him from the upstairs flat above the greengrocer’s shop in the High Street of the busy market town where they both worked. Hugh’s job was only a mile away from where he lived, so he walked or used his bicycle. Sally was the car owner, spending an hour each day commuting.

Everything seemed set, but they forgot to agree a time. Things were so rushed at work Sally didn’t contact Hugh until just before she left. There was no answer from his darkened flat, his mobile was on voicemail and when she stopped by the Observatory where Hugh spent his days analysing computer data from distant stars, the security man told her all the staff were gone.

Perhaps he had forgotten their plans. Hugh spent so much of life with his eyes on the stars; it was difficult to keep him focused on practical things. He must have gone to stay with his sister in Kent without telling her. Unsure what to do for the best and with time running out, Sally decided to drive home without him. She had to be back in time for the Christmas Eve service.

Sally grabbed her fur hat from the top of the wardrobe and pulled it tightly down over her curls. It was always cold in church. Even more so on Christmas Eve. David, Lower Trumpton's hard-pressed vicar, was sure to have forgotten to put the heating on until tea-time, when he knew it needed all day if the ancient stones were going to warm up and release the frost.

Finding her boots by the front door, Sally put them on and fiddled with her gloves as her mother fussed around her until they were both safely outside in the dark night. It was only a short distance up the hill to the church, so it was silly to take the car.

Arm in arm, they climbed the steep road, stopping half way to get their breath. Sally looked around at the silent village. The lights were still on in the hotel and she doubted the landlord of The Golden Ball was calling "Time!" yet, although some of his customers were already making their way up the hill for their annual visit to Church.

Frost made the road surface twinkle, reflecting the bright stars above. Sally could see the Plough standing on its nose behind bare thorn trees by the village hall, but the moon was not high enough to be seen against the black sky. It wasn't really dark at all, Sally thought. Soon they reached the black railings of the churchyard. Someone had hung coloured lights around the two yew trees, so their way was lit to the old oak door.

Carefully minding the step down into the Norman nave, Sally's mother smiled brightly at Mr Culpepper who was giving out carol sheets, whilst looking anxiously over his shoulder to see if "their pew" was still unoccupied. It was and Sally heard her give a sigh of relief. Together they walked up the aisle admiring the holly in the deep window ledges and the large Christmas tree Mr Watson from the Gas Houses had borrowed from the local Garage for the Christmas services.

Sally sank down onto her blue, embroidered kneeler trying not to think of Hugh’s absence. The pews looked much brighter since the ladies of the Mothers Union finished their mammoth task of re-stuffing all the church’s kneelers and embroidering scenes to commemorate village history as part of the Millennium celebrations.

She let her gaze drift towards the lady chapel with its beautifully carved stone arch adorned with animals and birds from the medieval bestiary. In front of the small altar stood the green man chair. The smiling face usually lifted her spirits, but tonight he seemed to be mocking her for thinking she would be able to share her simple village Christmas with Hugh.

The organ was playing a quiet medley of mediaeval carols. Hugh loved early music. It deepened her sadness to think he wasn't there to hear them.

David came out of the vestry. Everyone stood up and the service began. Sally sang the well-known carols, but her mind was elsewhere. She hardly heard David's usual thoughtful sermon, interspersed with well-worn anecdotes. Before she knew it, the organ was thundering out "We wish you a Merry Christmas" followed by a raucous rendition of The Boar's Head Carol and everyone was going home.

“Coming for a sherry, Sally?” Her mother always joined Mrs Dorncliffe, their nearest neighbour, for a festive tipple after the service.

“I’ll be along in a minute.” Sally indicated the mess of carol sheets strewn all over the sandstone floor by the wind whistling in through the open door. David had already rushed off to celebrate the Midnight Service with his other parish five miles away and old Mr Culpepper was busy counting offerings in the vestry.

Up in the nave, the organist was locking up the organ and switching off lights. She heard the clink of keys being dropped in their usual hiding place behind the memorial stone to Edward Palmer, Esquire, the 17th century church benefactor, then footsteps came down the flagstones towards her.

"I like your jacket," said a familiar voice, "very seasonal!"

“Hugh!” Sally gasped, dropping the carol sheets again in her surprise.

"I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to phone you before you left," Hugh knelt beside her, gathering up errant carols sheets into a tidy pile. "I had to finish my calculations on Ursa Major at the observatory before I could leave. I fell asleep under the telescope and you'd already gone by the time I got back to the flat.

“Luckily, the greengrocer was coming down here to make a delivery to The Golden Ball, so I hitched a lift. I knew Mr Prendeghast is always busy tonight with three services to play for on Christmas Eve, so I offered to deputise for him the last time we came down. My mobile had no battery left and there wasn’t time to come and tell you before the service. I hope you’re not too cross with me?"

Sally looked at the earnest young man in front of her and her heart melted. There was no point telling him how miserable she’d been without him. He was here now and they had the whole of Christmas to spend together. She smiled. The carol sheets lay forgotten as Hugh enfolded her in his arms. Christmas was complete and the gold thread in her special Christmas jacket sparkled in the light.

Three Yule Stories

2009-12-18T04:59:00.000-08:00

Several years ago I started to write short stories to illustrate the eight different seasons which make up the Wheel of the Year. As time passes I notice there are many aspects for each season and the number of stories grow. Here are three which illustrate different issues associated with Yule.

Please accept these stories as my Yuletide gift. Feel free to share them with your friends and family. Leave me a comment so I know how the stories have touched you.

An Ancient Story for Yule

2009-12-18T04:55:00.000-08:00

The earth froze. Far away where ice had not yet grasped the air in its fiery breath, rain fell upon rivers so they swelled in darkness and burst their banks. Men and animals fled to high ground to escape the floods, but the hills were covered with snow. Sheep and oxen scraped in vain for frozen grass.

Pale light filled the sky and the men knew day had broken. They looked to the sky for signs of the dreadful conditions easing, but all they saw were black, hanging clouds above the hilltops that spoke of more snow and bitter weather.

Those who laughed and sang when the sun was high and warm grew silent. Harps were stilled. Those lucky enough to have shelter from the elements drew their furs around them and huddled together, only venturing into the icy wind when animals needed feeding or there was water to be drawn from the one well still unfrozen.

They tried not to think of the travellers, making their way along the Ridgeway track for the winter solstice. It was bleak along the top of the hills even on the mildest days, but now the beaten path would be hidden and treacherous under the snow. The old women shuddered and hushed children who were too young to hide their questions.

Would the sun rise again? This was the question on everyone's lips. Would the child of the Triple Goddess be born to bring life and hope to this ice bound world, or would winter hold sway for ever, snow and frost eking their way into carefully hoarded food until even the strongest perished alone under the shadow of the hills?

"Will the priestess come, Granda?" asked a small child. "You said she'd be here to celebrate Yule with us this year?"

"I don't know, little one." The old man shook his head and pulled back the wooden shutter to peer out into the flurries of white. "I don't think there's much hope. We'll just have to pray they found shelter somewhere before the storm struck."

The child seemed about to speak again, but he saw the fear on his grandfather's face and kept his peace, slipping his small hand inside the larger one for comfort and reassurance.

At least they still had food, although no-one felt like eating when they thought of the small party stuck somewhere along the ridge. They gathered around the fire and spoke in low voices, eating their stew quickly and seeking their beds, as if trying to escape from their fears in sleep.

Some time in the middle of the night, the boy awoke. Bright moonlight was shining on his face through a crack in the wattle. The wind had dropped and an eerie calm enveloped the round house, broken only by heavy snores of those still sleeping.

The boy got up and shook his grandfather. "We must go and find the priestess, Granda, or the sun won't rise in the morning."
The old man muttered in his sleep, but the boy persisted, bringing him his fur lined boots and his warmest cloak. Together they went out into the still white world, marvelling at the fullness of the moon shining as bright as day.

"This way." The boy tugged at the old man's arm, leading him down the hill and into a gully where an exposed rock lay half buried under the snow.

"How do you know?" the old man grumbled, but deep in his heart he'd heard the call as well, faint at first, but stronger as they neared the stones. There under the rock they found them, the small group of travellers huddled together for warmth and still alive. The priestess' eyes glittered with the power she had called to herself, but she greeted them with a smile and helped the others as they made their way slowly up to the roundhouse.

The priestess looked up to the sky and urged them to hurry, to wake everyone in the small community so the ritual was not delayed. Bleary eyed, men, women and children stumbled from their furs, holding birch torches in the snow as the priestess led them up to the burial mound at the top of the hill in a dance of welcome to the son of the Triple Goddess.

As they finished the dance and stood watching the moon fade in the darkness, the sky began to lighten above the hills. A sudden brightness shone from behind the highest peak. A beam of gold struck the huge capstan on the sacred stones, lighting the inner chamber for all to see. A great roar rose from the people as they greeted the sun returning to them for another year.

The roar masked groans from the priestess, caught in her own birth pangs, brought on by the journey and the hardship she had suffered. The women took her inside the birthing hut, tending her for many hours until another shout was heard and the healthy cry of a new born babe rang out for all to hear.

"You see, Granda, everything was all right," the boy said solemnly as they sipped a Yule cup together beside the fire. "The sun has returned and we have our own child from the Goddess to care for."

"Aye, lad." The old man's eyes misted over as he ruffled the boy's hair.

Once again, the Goddess shared her greatest gifts amongst them. Spring would come again to the land.

The Battle of the Kings

2009-12-18T04:53:00.000-08:00

It was well past noon when they noticed Ann's absence. Everyone was busy with preparation for the Yuletide feast.

The huge Yule log had been dragged in from woodland three fields away. Now it lay in the Great Hall hearth to be lit tonight from the remains of last year's ember which had been safely stored on a special shelf in the chimney. Every nook and cranny was decorated with garlands of holly and other evergreens. Sunlight pouring in through high windows shone on waxy green leaves making the dark red berries glisten.

Donald made his way through the mud to the warband's winter barracks next to the cattle sheds. He was sure he would find his sister treating the never-ending toll of cuts, bruises and hacking coughs brought on by the bitter weather and the need to search further afield for fresh fodder and fuel for both livestock and people. As the only remaining unmarried daughter of the chieftain, Ann was responsible for the health and welfare of their tribe now her mother slept with the ancestors.

Brian, the warband leader, was busy showing young lads from the settlement how to hack an enemy to death using a straw filled dummy. He wasn't happy to be disturbed.

“No, she isn't here." Brian grumbled at Donald. "Check with Michael, she was heading for the kitchens the last time I saw her."

Donald let flow a string of newly acquired curses, "She's not in the kitchens, she's not in the solar, she's not in the cellars and she's not down in the infirmary!" He was angry his younger sister was taking up so much of his time when he wanted to be making his own preparations for tonight's feast. "Dan says she's not been in the stables either."

Brian sheathed his sword and sighed. This wasn't the first time Ann had gone missing. As a child he was always retrieving her from various hiding places, but it was a long time since she'd disappeared without telling someone where she was going.

"It's not like Ann to go running off when there's things to do," Donald admitted, worry edging his words.

"Get on with your duties, lad," Brian told him, "She's not gone far in this weather. I'll find her" He pulled on his sheepskin boots and wrapped a great cloak of furs around his broad shoulders. The cloak was warn in places and spattered with mud from recent forays, but as he strode out into the yard, his long, bronze hair looked like a great ball of fire moving amongst the buildings.

He climbed up the watchtower, thinking he might see her if she'd made her way outside the settlement. His keen eyes gazed out over meadows and fields then he caught sight of something blue fluttering in the cruel wind by the wall on top of the far hill. The huge winter sun was just beginning to touch the horizon, bringing with it the longest night of the year. Brian had already seen the full moon risen high over the hills behind him, the pale silver circle foretelling the power of the Goddess in the night sky.

Brian left the settlement quickly, passing bondsmen feeding sheep in the near pasture and went up the hill to the high stone wall. On the other side was a ploughed field, dark brown clods stiff with frost. The wall was sheltered on his left by a patch of woodland. To his right stood a single line of fir trees, beyond which lay the small stone circle high on the cliffs overlooking the sea.

Ann was sitting on a flat stone on top of the stile, wrapped in her new blue cloak, watching the sunset. She seemed totally mesmerised by the scene, hardly noticing when Brian climbed up and sat beside her.

"You've set them all searching for you!"

Ann did not reply, but he caught sight of two fat tears trickling down her cheeks to join the dark stain on the collar of her cloak.

"What's wrong, lass?" His deep voice was gentle as he wiped away the tears.

"It's so beautiful," she whispered at last, "and it's leaving us!" Brian covered her small hand with his and felt how cold she was. He drew her towards him, wrapping his cloak around both of them.

"It will be back tomorrow," he soothed her. "Didn't we welcome the birth of the child this morning in the fougou beside the outer wall?"

Ann continued to stare at the setting sun. "I saw them fighting, Brian!" She shivered. "There was so much blood spilled. You wouldn't think an old man had so much blood in him!"

For a moment Brian wondered what she was talking about. There had been no battles on this land for several years now and certainly none where old men had fought and died. Then he realised what she had come here to see - the battle between the Holly King, God of the waning year and the victorious Oak King, who would rule over the waxing year and bring in summer.

Brian rubbed her cold arms and hands. "Come back, Annie, that's not a good vision for a feast day like this. We should be celebrating. They'll be lighting the Yule log soon and starting the feast."

"But the Oak King had to win," Ann might have been talking to herself, "otherwise the wheel won't turn and the sun will set and not rise again; but it was so hard, with the Mother here in her fullness, both of them wanted to stay with her! Who would have thought the old man would have fought so hard!"

Brian wrapped Ann up with his arms and held her tightly. The sky was crystal clear in the freezing air with hardly a wisp of cloud to reflect the pale pinks and blues around the sun.

Brian nestled her head against his shoulder and rocked her as he would have done a child. "He wasn't always an old man, love,"

"I know." Ann's voice was tinged with sadness, "How could he have grown so old over just half a turn of the wheel?

"All Gods can do as they wish," Brian told her gently, "It’s just an illusion for our eyes."

"But I was standing here watching them fight; they called me to witness! Others came too. They bore the body away and crowned the Oak King with his crown!"

"Others?" Brian wondered who else amongst their people might have been called to view such an ancient battle.

"Colin was here," Ann named a young man who was part of the warband, "but I didn't know any of the others."

"The king dies and is reborn again," Brian said, trying to find the words to bring his charge back from her terrible grief. "It’s the same every year."

"That doesn't make it any easier, knowing events will repeat themselves."

Ann gave a deep sigh and pointed towards the horizon, "Look, it's gone now!" and as he turned, the last reflected rays slid away leaving only the azure sky above.

Ann turned her attention once again to the ploughed field where she had watched the battle such a short time before. "We should mark the spot where he fell."

"How?" Brian squeezed her hand. "Plant a tree? Plant another stone?”
"I don't know. I've not been a witness before to such an event." She turned and searched his face, hoping to find a solution to her continuing confusion. "Father will be angry if we mark his ploughed land."

Brian cleared his throat, "Your father doesn't plough up here amongst the stone circle."

"They didn't fight amongst the stones, it was there in the field" She pointed to a spot about ten feet in front of them. "They came out of the wood; the other witnesses came with them and that's the way they went back, through the trees." She wriggled free from his hold and climbed down the other side of the stile into the field. Holding up her cloak and skirts, she began to search amongst the clods.

Brian followed her. "What are you looking for?"

"His blood!"

"But . . . Ann!"

"The night you were left for dead by the raiders and I found you, the soil was coated with your blood. It was sticky. I kept slipping in it."

Brian closed his eyes for a brief moment remembering that time so many years ago. Raiders from the sea had lured them into an ambush. A hastily thrown axe pierced his body armour and he’d been left for dead. Then it was Ann who’d come searching for him, insisting his broken body could be healed. It was months before he could fight again, but she’d saved his life.

"Yes," Brian agreed, "but I'm not a God."

"But I saw it! He bled! There were great gashes in his front!"

"He's a God, Ann!"

She looked at him, her eyes glittering, "I don't understand. What does the old man being a God have to do with him not leaving any blood? I saw it, I bore witness!"

Brian thought. "First of all, he's not really an old man, he's just . . . he's everywhere, not just here. You saw an image of him here and thousands of others saw him in other places."

Ann's expression was distraught, "I held his head in my arm as his spirit left. I wiped the blood from his face with my skirt. I wept for him!"

"Look at your skirt, lass."

Ann pointed to a small dark patch on the material. "It's still there, look! Do you still doubt me?"

Brian knelt down and inspected the dark stain. "It's dry, Annie, blood doesn't dry so quickly, even in this wind. I don't doubt you at all, lass. I'm sure you saw what you think you saw. You've been given a great gift by the Gods. However, the nature of what you saw is not of this world."

"It doesn't feel like you believe me," Ann retorted, "it feels like it used to be when I saw pictures in the fire and Mother beat me, or I saw faces in the water barrel and everyone laughed at me. I was so sure it was real but now I have no proof! How can I bear witness if I have no proof?"

Brian stood up and grasped her firmly by the shoulders, his sea-green eyes boring into hers. "I'm neither laughing at you nor beating you. You have proof for yourself, lass!"

"But isn't a witness supposed to tell other people?"

"Tell what you saw if you think it is necessary. You saw it; you experienced it, that should be enough. Those who want to believe will, those who don't won't, whether you have evidence or not."

Ann thought about this for a few moments then she said, "It's not up to us to give others faith, is it? They have to find it for themselves."

"Exactly!"

"So this was for me.

"It seems likely."

Ann digested this and then nodded, "For Colin, it was different and would be different. He hailed the new king and beat his drum and laughed and sang as he followed the procession down through the wood."

Brian nodded.

"So my grief at the old king's passing was my grief at a time of change."

"Or just your grief for the old king."

Ann looked at Brian and smiled for the first time. "I didn't want to let go but I had to." She ran her hand down the side of her skirt, "I was afraid of change, but it's all right, I understand that now. It took the Old King's blood to draw me out of myself, to grow."

"Yes, I see you do understand." Brian took her hand in his and squeezed it. Here was his Master’s daughter, his charge, a girl no longer, but a woman born to live her life as best she could.

"You have found the secret of Yuletide," he said as he wrapped his arms around her in a fond embrace. "You must let go of the past and reawaken the joys of hope and possibility,"

As he finished speaking and bent to kiss her cheek, a huge flock of birds rose from the field and circled above them, calling loudly as if in agreement.

A Yule Ritual

2009-12-18T04:43:00.000-08:00

“The Solstice will soon be here, but I cannot go to the Grove meeting. I shall be travelling home.”

John looked at her, smiling, “You need to do something.”

Laura sighed. “Perhaps. Maybe I can visit my plants and speak to them about the turn of the year, of the darkest time, of bringing back the light.”

“You should do something.” His voice was insistent. Strange for one who did not follow her path to be pointing her towards a rite - something important, something she needed to do.

Time passed. She fetched holly from the garden, weaving it through the three woods of her pentacle – hazel, willow and ash- to bring green and red to her altar. She threaded velvet ribbons, green and purple over the holly and seashells, over the elder necklace and around the antlers holding her maiden and mother ornaments, their soft folds draping down to the kestrel feathers, the swan feathers, the polished wood of the yew bowl.

She brought home mistletoe, placing it reverently into the horn cup; the white, translucent berries adding richness to other hues gathered there.

Laura was sad it would not be blessed over the Yule fire. There would be no gift for the Dark Goddess this year.

How mistaken she could be!

The postman left a parcel. Out of brown wrapping she drew a gift. John explained in his letter. “The painting was done a while back. It was never quite what I wanted it to be, but I supposed that comes with working in a medium like oil on a small canvas, with limited skill. I always wondered why his face was never clearer, but perhaps it was never meant to be seen clearly. I thought you might like to have it.”

She sat for a while, taking in the scene – the Horned God striding through his wildwood, his long knife in his hand, caught by surprise by the watcher, turning to look over his shoulder for the briefest instance before returning on his way. His long legs and flank were fur-coated. There were antlers clearly visible on his head, yet merging with the branches of trees around him; vegetation shielding him from prying eyes.

It was time. It was the shortest day. She would be given space to bring light into darkness, blessing both mistletoe and gift before the Old Ones.

She lit her candles – a circle of flame creating a place apart from her modern world. She did not need to contain the sacred space, no circle casting on this occasion; it was her intent which was paramount.

She lit a charcoal brick, placing it carefully in sand where a bowl sat in the centre of the light. Incense from far away dropped onto heat, wafting smoke and scents into the air.

She stood before the flames, adopting the stance of invocation which came so easily to her now.
“I ask for blessings upon this room, upon this house, upon those whom I love and who love them.

“I bring air to this place in the incense burning. Air, so essential to our life; for without breath we cannot live.

“I bring fire to this place in the candles burning, drawing light into the darkness as we move from the dark time of the year once more into the time of light, illuminating our path.

“I bring water into this place.” She stopped and dipped her hand into the bowl, scattering droplets around the circle. “Water which sustains us, from which we came; without which we cannot survive.

“I bring earth into this place. Earth, which is beneath our feet, which is in the wood of the instruments, the wood of the candleholders, the wood of the furniture which supports us. Earth, from which we came and to which we shall return when the life spark leaves us.”

She drew the mistletoe from its horn and brought it towards the smoke. “I ask blessings for this mistletoe. May it bring joy, health and happiness to this household for the coming year.” She passed it through the smoke, before returning it to its place.

She turned to the painting, now sitting in the centre of the bookcase. She carried it tenderly towards the smoke. “I ask for this picture to be blessed with love; which was born of love and sent with love to be used on Hu Garden’s altar, to bring down the God into this place beside the Goddess. This day, when she brings forth her son into the quiet of the darkness, so he may grow and take us into the light.”
She passed the picture three times widdershins around the smoke, then returned it to the plinth.

“Finally,” she said, “I dedicate myself anew to the Old Ways. I ask for patience and compassion towards all who approach me. I ask for clarity of speech so all may understand my ways and how they, too, may be helped.”

Her voice dropped and her eyes glittered with tears. “I am so blessed in all that has been given me and I offer thanks.”

“Is there not one more thing you wished to do?” a voice inside reminded her.
She went to the bookcase and withdrew her herbal tarot cards. Sitting in the centre of the room, she shuffled the pack, then drew the first three from the top, laying them face up in front of her.

The first card was the five of wands – Turmeric. Such a lush, green plant, speaking of abundance in her life. The stave were crossed, preventing her from moving back into the past, but the wood showed green shoots - new life!

The second card was the six of wands – hawthorn, the herb of the heart, of love, of nurturing. Six staves were stuck in the earth, still sprouting leaves, protecting the man in the centre - a time for rest amidst the bustle of life before continuing with the battle.

The third card was Judgement. A woman held a goldenseal plant in her hands – rich, fruitful, mature, she was the plant, offering herself to the opportunities in the sky – renewal, new beginnings.

It was enough.

She put the cards away, standing to thank those who had drawn near to assist with her rite. She bad them farewell, opening the door to allow them to leave and the outside world to enter once again.

She doused the lights, leaving a single votive candle to freshen the air with scents of oranges and cloves.

It was done. She felt the quiet of ritual fill her deep inside and she smiled.

“A Blessed Yule to you and all you love and cherish.”

Let it be so.

Excited, inspired, enthralled! : An evening with Roger Ellory

2009-11-16T08:31:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday 11 November 2009, the crime writer, R J Ellory, came to talk to Solihull Writers Group. We usually have at least two speakers during our writing year. They are generally enjoyable and informative, but over the past few years I have not felt the need to take copious notes.

Roger Ellory was different. From the minute he began to talk, I was reaching for paper and pen to capture the nuggets of inspiration he was offering. He excited me and made me think everything was possible. As he said, "A published author today was an unpublished author yesterday. A writer is someone who has to write. They have no choice, so never apologise just because you haven't been published."

You wouldn't think that 96% of writers work full-time; that the average earnings of best selling authors is £7,000 a year. If a publisher gives you an advance and your book doesn’t make the requisite number of sales to meet the advance, you won’t be offered a second contract.

We were curious to discover Roger’s background and his inspiration for writing. He told us much of his life had been devoted to drug rehabilitation following his brother’s early death from a drug overdose. He first started writing ate the age of 22 during a course on nutritional and dietetic therapy for drug rehabilitation after noticing another student engrossed in a novel. He wanted to write something which held the reader’s complete attention.

Over the next six years he wrote twenty-two novels in longhand and spent £12,000 on photocopying and sending them out to publishers and agents. He collected over six hundred rejection letters and decided to let the matter rest. He was £40,000 in debt and needed to recoup his losses.

The day after the 9/11 terrorist attack on New York, Roger remembered a conversation with his grandmother. She told him, “Don’t live a ‘what if?’ life.” Looking back, he realised the time he felt most happy and creative was whilst he was writing. He began again and wrote three books in seven months. He sent the second manuscript out to thirty six publishers.

Thirty five manuscripts were returned with rejection slips. The remaining publisher was Bloomsbury. Having not heard from them for three months, Roger rang them to ask for the return of his manuscript so he could start sending it out again. The person he spoke to had read the novel and liked it, but he needed to get twelve other people within the company to read it and agree to accept it for publication. This took a further two months before a contract was signed.

Roger received £5,000 in advance. The manuscript was taken to the Frankfurt book fair where three translation rights were arranged. This paid for the advance.

Roger doesn’t think anyone can write full-time. A writer has to get out and “do stuff”. He also told us to “Write about your passions, don’t fall into the trap of writing about what you know – if you stick to that you’ll find yourself limited. You have to write the book you want to read, not the one you think other people would like.”

Roger works very quickly. He currently writes 2,500-3,000 words a day whilst researching simultaneously. Most of his novels are crime thrillers set in the US, so his attention to time and details has to be meticulous. He can produce a 120,000 word novel in 6-8 weeks.

He believes there are three types of novel.

(i) A page-turning pot-boiler where the reader is hooked in the first paragraph or page. The plot twists and turns. Afterwards, a little like a Chinese meal which leaves you feeling hungry, you can’t actually remember what happened in the book.
(ii) Literary fiction – a triumph of style over substance.
(iii) Books found on Desert Island Discs – compelling narrative tells the story in a way that can’t be put down. You read the book again and again, buying copies as gifts for friends and acquaintances. It is challenging, human emotionally engaging and changes your perspective on life. Talking about the book will always include a narrative by the reader on, “This is how it made me feel”.

Non-fiction books convey information. The primary purpose of fiction is to evoke an emotion, not to educate people, so too much information or detail is not helpful. A story can be organic and grow.

Roger recommended two books for the aspiring novelist.
• On Writing by Stephen King
• Paris Literary Review Anthology No 1 published by Picador

When asked how to go about getting an agent, Roger directed us to his website. He thoroughly recommended getting an agent because publishers will not consider unsolicited manuscripts any more. They can also be successful in negotiating substantially larger contracts than an author on their own. An agent will take 10% of earnings but will be concerned with the author’s best interests and leave them to do the important job of writing.

The importance of dialogue in a novel was discussed. When using dialogue, you can achieve the same result in three lines where it might take six pages of description. A fast pace novel has a scene or dialogue of significance which is pivotal to the plot every 1,000 words.

The easiest way to edit writing is to read your own work as a reader. Print it out and read it aloud. A writer becomes a writer by writing. If you read something you have written six months ago and can’t see how it could be made better, you are not improving as a writer.

To compost or not to compost? – that is the question.

2009-11-16T07:22:00.000-08:00

This is another snippet written to a given theme.

I have to confess a crime. It weighs heavily on my conscience. It goes against my beliefs and the current exhortation to save our planet.

On Tuesday, November 6 2008 , I burnt a pile of leaves. I did not put them in a black plastic bag and soak them with cold water and leave them for eighteen months to rot down into leaf mould. I also failed to place them in the green recycling bin given to me for that specific purpose by Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council. My compost heap was nearby but I did not place them amongst the grass cuttings.

My green credentials have been dinted. I can no longer consider myself a true friend of the earth. I hang my head in shame.

It was so much easier when I was a child. All vegetable matter went over the wall into the neighbouring field. Anything edible was eaten by passing badgers, foxes, stoats, weasels or fieldmice. It was not a concern. It did not smell. It disappeared over time. The same spot has been used for the past 48 years and is indiscernible amongst the wonderful crop of nettles, grass and horseradish growing on the other side of the wall.

All waste food goes to the hens. They adore potato peelings, meat, vegetables and the regular supply of mice and shrews caught in traps in the house or shed which holds the two deep freezes. They used to be pernickety about carrots, but since my father took over their feeding, they now show no distain.

There’s nothing to consume my waste food, it has to go into the bin to be removed by the rubbish men. I can’t even place vegetable peelings on the compost heap because of the rats. We know about rats. They really like our garden shed and our garage. My eldest son got to the stage where he recognised signs of rat infestation and would ring Environmental Services off his own bat. Even though he now lives elsewhere, he still rings up to check nothing has set up home in his bass drum or chewed through any of the other drum heads.

We can’t do as my father does and sit in the barn with a 12-bore until the rats emerge. It’s a slightly cleaner death than getting caught in a rat trap. Of course they’re illegal and the one hanging up in the barn is just an antique.

I understand we must recycle, re-use and compost our waste. Raw materials are scarce and there is no point in creating something new when we have the means to turn car tyres into place mats and juice cartons into the covers of notebooks. The new Eden Project teaching centre is filled with such examples from all over the world. It is very impressive.

Even at work I must wash out my milk cartons and the plastic bowls which held my lunchtime salad and place them in the recycling bin. Corporate clients expect their lawyers to now have green credentials alongside their legal practice certificates.
What should I do? Autumn stalks us and winter will not be far behind. As trees slumber more leaves are going to appear on the grass. I could leave them for the winds to transport elsewhere and forget them. This has been a very successful strategy over the years but I doubt wins me neighbours as good friends.

There will be trees to fell and hedges to trim this winter. Some of the wood will go for turning, but no wood turner wants hawthorn sticks and laurel leaves along with rose and blackberry brambles. The green wheelie bin may well be filled, but I suspect the fire pit will also play its part in garden management. The ash will add phosphorus to the compost heap and everything will come full circle once again.

Coals to Newcastle

2009-10-30T09:59:00.000-07:00

The past few months have been filled with herbs and needlecraft - both knitting and sewing - leaving little time or inspiration for writing. Here is a little tale composed last Monday for Solihull Writers Workshop on Wednesday evening. - enjoy!

I love my mother-in-law. Really, I do. She produced my husband thirty six years ago and brought him up to be the wonderful human being I adore. She is good with the kids, although sometimes she seems perplexed by them. It doesn’t help we live half way across the country so she doesn’t get to see them as often as everyone would like.

She is scrupulously fair when it comes to Christmas and birthday presents.

I appreciate that, having suffered as a child from being the recipient of second class presents compared with my more popular cousins. I’ll never forget the Christmas when we both were given a dolls cradle. My cousin’s was new with a beautiful canopy made from rose-covered material which draped down over the crib.

Mine was just a plain crib, obviously second hand with scuffed wooden legs and no covers. I couldn’t help but be disappointed, but there was nothing I could do about it except wistfully yearn for something I couldn’t have.

“I know you don’t have time to make jam, so I bought you some from Asda.” Janet fished around in the bottom of her carrier bag and brought out a huge jar of strawberry jam.

“That’s very kind of you, Mum,” I mumbled, but she wasn’t finished.

“Reg and I had a glut of strawberries this year and I was going to make jam but somehow we ate them all and when I thought about it, all the Pick Your Own strawberries were finished. I was so disappointed. I know how much Martin likes his home made strawberry jam. He went through a phase when he was eight when he wouldn’t eat anything else for his tea except my home made strawberry jam.

“It didn’t matter what other jam I made – gooseberry, raspberry, damson, plum, apricot, he wouldn’t touch them. He only liked strawberry.” She smiled fondly at the memory. “You know, I have a picture of him eating strawberry jam at the Sunday School tea party. He wouldn’t have eaten anything if I hadn’t sent a jar of my jam along with him. I must remember to show it to you next time you come down.”

“Cup of tea?” I smiled weakly, holding up the teapot.

“Yes please, dear. Nothing like a cup of tea after a long journey.” She searched in the bag again. “I’ve brought you some scones too. I know you’re too busy to bake now you’ve got this little job.”

I poured the tea and went to find a plate for the scones. Janet pulled out her apron from the bag and sat at the kitchen table happily halving scones and buttering them, before smothering them with shop bought strawberry jam - the superior kind with at least thirty per cent fruit and only half the sugar.

Martin came into the kitchen with his Dad. He’d been showing him the new car. My new car. Part of the deal when I started work as Chief Executive for a small commercial company. True, it was a job share, because I wanted to be at home when the kids returned from school, but it was still a sizable salary and a considerable responsibility. I’d tried to tell Janet about my new job during their previous visit, but she fell asleep half way through my explanation. No matter what either of us said to her, she was convinced I was working part time in one of the local shops.

“Scones for tea?” Martin’s face lit up.

“Yes,” I said quickly, “Your mum very kindly brought us some scones and strawberry jam from Asda. She said it was the only jam you liked.”

Martin frowned and opened his mouth to speak, but I shook my head at him. He knew as well as I did the larder was packed with home made jams and jellies I’d been making throughout the year. He’d helped devise a system for hanging the jelly bag when I’d made crabapple jelly the previous week and he had picked the huge yellow quinces which lay in a basket in the scullery waiting to be turned into jelly and cheese.

Martin loved all my preserves and boasted to his friends we never bought anything that wasn’t home made.

He bent down and kissed his mother on her soft cheek.

“Thanks, Mum.”

Poems of Place

2009-08-05T13:36:00.000-07:00

Poems are such personal forms of literature.

Last Night there was a programme on BBC4 about the lavicious lifestyle of Lord Byron. I knew very little of his life story, not surprising when you think I studied his poems whilst attending an all girl's school where such things were never discussed. I loved his Prisoner of Chillon, not realising how Byron associated himself with the ancient stories of an imprisoned freedom fighter.

Rupert Everret rowed over to the Isle where both Byron and Shelley left their names carved into the dungeon rocks as grafitti. It brought a sense of being able to touch the past by visiting the present.

Sometimes I feel the same way about places I visit. Our recent trip to Northumberland inspired me record a memory of one of the Caravan Club Certified locations. There wasn't time for me to write such a beautiful and carefully crafted ode as Lord Byron, but it was enough to win me second place in the Solihull Writer's workshop annual poetry competition judged by the Birmingham poet laureat, Chris Morgan. Brenda Langmead won first prize, with her poignant memorial to her great aunt.

Whitehouse Farm

Death lived here.
Rosie-cheeked pallor
Coughing blood-flecked phlegm across green meadows
Draped along verandas in pine scented fields.

“Dangerous buildings”
Red sign on a stately sycamore
But follow the dappled path
Past buzzing beehives to empty fields
All you will find is sun-drenched silence
No whisper of malformed limbs in ricket-ridden children
No white coats or starched caps
Just sterile soil.

Rooks live here now
Flying over buttercup gold
To wind blown nests
Dog roses blossom on banks of topsoil
Downy-green coltsfoot coats the edge of grass
Speedwell paints her palette blue amidst woodland green
Ancient trees hold sorrow in their roots.

Even the white house is silent
Her poor boys long gone across the ocean
Taking their Geordie voices to a foreign land
Exchanging abuse for hope of freedom
Today their modern brothers and sisters
Seek lambs and goats with delighted glee
Happy shrieks and laughter waft over quietly grazing sheep
A solitary carthorse waiting patiently to be noticed and admired

As shadows lengthen
Silence creeps amongst the leaves once more
Ignoring birdsong
Settling softly over wood and field
Holding memories still.

2009-07-13T13:11:00.001-07:00

Making wishes come true!

2009-07-13T03:48:00.000-07:00

What gives you inspiration to write? This is a question I am often asked. My usual reply includes the sage thought, “Writers write about what they know”. We all do this. We use experiences, phrases, stories told by others and pictures we see in our minds to weave a web of words to create something new, but which is based firmly in our own reality.

The opportunity for stories comes in many different guises. Take last week. I was sitting on New Street station in Birmingham waiting for a train to take me to Sheffield for a regular meeting with my line manager. The train was late and the man sitting next to me became very agitated. He was travelling to Leeds for a meeting with a different law firm from mine and was worried he would be very late.

“Why are you going to Sheffield?” he asked.

“My boss likes to make sure I’m alive and being nice to people.”

“That’s good,” he said. “I’m still alive yet 15 years ago a man was charged with my manslaughter. The police weren’t so nice then as they are today.”

It seemed such a strange fact to be sharing with a total stranger on a railway station. In one way I could wish there had been opportunity to discuss his life story further, but even so, he offered me the perfect beginning to a murder mystery or thriller – if I wrote those genres!

So where did The Lady and the Bull come from?

In 1999, Cornwall saw a total eclipse of the sun. It was also the year I decided to start visiting ancient sites all over the county. While my family enjoyed themselves at Shires adventure park, I went in search of some standing stones on the moor and Pawton Quoit. As I walked along a farm track, I was accosted by two traveller’s dogs. The owner came out of their landrover and quietened them so I could pass.

The following week, a fellow camper and I spent a day hunting stone circles, quoits and holy wells. When we reached Madron Well, a family were already inside the chapel. The mother was breastfeeding her baby while their two older children sat quietly on the stone seats by the alter. One of the two men with her asked me if I wanted to taste the water inside the baptistery and gave me instructions how to step on the middle stone.

I refused, feeling nervous and worried I would slip into the water. It was something I always regretted. When I returned the following year, the baptistery was dry – the local farmer had diverted the water supply from the sacred well. It was ten years before the water flowed again, thanks finally to the work of Andy Norfolk and others who love the site.

Even when I did collect water flowing into the stone baptistery, having gone to the chapel again with some German friends of ours, I was accosted by a local busybody who told me it was contaminated and shouldn’t be drunk!

But what of The Lady and the Bull? The story began as an account of our original day in West Penwith, which was eventually published in Circle magazine a year later. Then I took the first 500 words and decided to see what would happen if the woman who refused the water went back. The man who told me how to collect the water fascinated me. What would happen if he were still around? What was his history? What would she learn from being associated with him?

It was a difficult story to write. I had a vague idea of the outline, but in the end, the story decided what it wished to portray. When writing dialogue became a challenge, I was grateful to a friend of mine for helping to role play some of the scenes online so I could use the saved script as a basis for parts of the story.

For me, creating The Lady and the Bull was a profound teaching experience, helping me to understand a spiritual concept in greater detail. My readers may enjoy it for the developing romance and descriptions of wonderful Cornish countryside.

My only sadness is the fate of Altarnun bowsenning pool. I wish it were the clear, bathing pool it once was and could be again. Unfortunately, the farmer who owns the land appears to have no wish to conserve it and has not co-operated with local Cornish Archaeologists. The Parish Council at Altarnun is similarly uninterested in saving their unique heritage for future generations despite approaches by myself and others from the Wells and Spas community.

The Roman remains lie hidden and inaccessible under fallen trees and undergrowth. Maybe, the strength of the story will somehow reach out and touch the future in a way we cannot perceive today.

The Lady and the Bull published by Love You Divine

2009-07-13T02:38:00.000-07:00

When business woman, Emma, decides to visit a selection of ancient sites in Cornwall, she doesn’t know a chance encounter at a holy well will change her life. Refusing a drink of water from a traveler, she feels compelled to return to the well and meets him again. Through John, she learns how to face her fears of male strength and vitality, discovering more about the true nature of summer loving.

This new story by Sarah Head is set in the heart of the Cornish countryside – a place of ancient magic and healing.

Excerpt:

I feel asleep dreaming of the stars. Dreaming I was lying beside the fire gazing upwards, feeling my lover’s body upon mine, his face cutting out the stars from my gaze, yet his eyes were full of them. I dreamed I saw them reach down and touch me, bathing us both in their silver light. My hair was filled with starlight. I reached out my arms to take my place amongst the heavens….
…and felt John take my hand with his.

“You were dreaming, lass.”

I buried my head in his shoulder, wanting to hide from reality in his warmth. Once more his arm held me safe, while the other stroked my hair. When I was sufficiently soothed, I heard whispered questions in my ear.

“Why didn't you object to us sharing a bed tonight, Emma?”

His words stung me awake. They required thought and honesty from me. “It's a cold night and it's silly expecting you to sleep elsewhere. Why should I deprive you of your bed? Maybe I'm naive, but you don't strike me as the kind of person to take advantage of a situation.”

“It's a cold night, true enough, but you place a heavy burden on your impressions of me.”

I turned away from him, not trusting myself to seek his gaze, afraid of the truth he might steal from me. “I always do. I think I know something, but I don't make the effort to ask- to clarify.”

“Maybe,” he moved his arm, forcing me to turn and face him again, “but then, if I were a man who would take advantage, I would only answer in self serving ways and perhaps be very plausible.”

I turned my head into his chest, hoping my words would be too muffled for him to hear. “At least such a man would make me think he might want me, even if he didn't. With you, I have to make a decision, to be the person taking action. It's harder.”

“Yes. It's hard. But the night is cold and perhaps you felt that chill and wanted, no, needed human warmth.”

I let my head nod against him. “It's been a long time, ” I murmured, “even when you get used to sleeping alone, some nights you miss the warmth,”

His hand resumed its gentle, caressing strokes along my head, “Don't think I do not want you. I am powerfully drawn to you, but what I want is not relevant. You have to find what you want. I will help where I can.” I felt his mouth stretch into a smile.

“Tell me why it has been so long.”

“You really don't make things easy, do you?” I grumbled, “Doing things for other people is easy. It is easy to give, make others happy. It is more difficult to decide what I want and take it or make it happen.”

“Giving is not easy - necessarily - but it can be easier than wanting.”

I rolled on my back and studied the ceiling of the coach. There was no apparent light, but I fancied I saw a pattern littered with tiny stars twinkling down on me.

“Why has it been so long? I guess I missed out. At the time when there were many friends, a few lovers to share my bed. None of them seemed the one I wanted to stay with, so I drifted, let them go, did other things. When I looked around from the things I was concentrating on, there was no-one there any more. They'd all gone away to be with people who looked at them, spent time with them, cooked for them, offered them children. I'd grown use to a cold bed.”

He curved one heavy arm around me. It was a reassuring weight draped softly over me.

“You let you heart grow quiet and your body untouched.” My deep sigh acknowledged his observation and he smiled again. “Now, what does your heart need, what does your body want?”

It seemed an easy question. “They both want to be alive again.” I felt his hand move until it rested flat between my breasts. I did not remember removing my bra before getting in to bed, but it was no longer there as a barrier between his body and mine. His whole hand appeared to be resting upon me.

“I feel your heart stir,” he said, moving the hand to cup my breast, a soft, enclosing motion. “I feel your body stir...”

“Do you sense the turmoil -the questions and answers tumbling all together?”

“I feel it. Can I tell you something you may find hard to accept or understand at present? Do not look for questions to be matched by answers. Sometimes all the answer we get is to have the next question revealed to us. All we can hope for is interesting questions.”

“But then, at least the questions are ours. I feel those questions bombarding me at this moment are not mine. I hear others' voices clammering at me. It is as if I have to answer them to stop the noise.”

He seemed to understand my predicament. “No - simply listen to my voice. I have a question for you. Do you want me to wake your body? Now? Here?”

The answer nearly jumped from my mouth without my assistance. “I want you to know it, know my body, but that is different from wake it. I think you knew it once, but have forgotten. I do not have the courage yet to know yours.”

“That answer is yours - so it is a good answer. Our bodies remember things our minds have let slip away. The chemical components of a smell can wake long buried emotions. We can swim, drive a car, ride a bicycle - without having any of the knowledge of how-to, of the skills, present in our consciousness.

“If my hands remember you - if they recall your body - if they mapped your shape before, you will know. You will feel the confident touch of a knowing hand, not the fumbling approach of a stranger.

“If you sense my knowledge of you, it may be your own hands will recall me in the same way. Courage can grow when backed by confidence.”

His hands began to stroke whichever part of me came within their sphere. They were large hands with thick, deft fingers. This was not the feather touch of a lover seeking to arouse and excite, but the strong, sure stroke of one who knew my body well, seeking to reassure, to comfort, to bring my ease.

I felt his hand move again on my breast –soft, warm, the touch of a returning love. I knew if I reached out and touched his shoulder my fingers would recall the shape of his muscles, the hollow beneath his throat, the knotted strength of his belly and the rigid softness waiting for me between his legs. There was no need for my fingers to make the journey; the landmarks were already seared across the recesses of my mind. I let my arm fall lightly across his chest, releasing my senses to languish in his touch. When we knew each other again, it would not be tonight, not in the safe, containing warmth of a bed. I closed my eyes, feeling his breath against my cheek.

In my mind’s eye I saw the pictures painted on his skin – the dragon of wisdom curled around his shoulder, the many warriors grouped together upon his arm and on his chest a garden of flowers. In their midst a bull stood tall and proud, roaring his challenge to the wind.

It was the bull who sought me. I could smell him. He was quiet now while the Crone ruled, his strength weakened by winter sun. It would be different in Spring and Summer when his strength returned. Then he would take me. I felt grass beneath my feet and sunlight dance across my face. He had shown me when it would be. I slept.

To buy this story go to Love You Divine

Writing articles

2009-04-09T08:10:00.000-07:00

Most people who call themselves writers refer to their ability to create fiction, but many careers rest on the art of article writing. Ask any academic what keeps them in post and considered the leading light in a particular field and they will reel off a list of articles published in academic and popular journals. Indeed, you cannot apply for any research or lecturing university post unless you have published copious amounts of academic articles. Even junior pre-registration doctors start their careers with their name at the very end of a list of collaborators of a piece of published research.

While writers struggle to place short stories in a dwindling number of popular magazines, the market for article writing is much broader. As well as professional journals which require each article to be peer reviewed before they publish, there are also niche market publications and most charities and societies will have their own in-house publications which are usually desperate for copy.

Unfortunately the potential for payment for writing articles is probably just as limited as it is for stories. Most special interest commercial magazines will pay for one or two page articles and will provide their own illustrations. This is true of some professional magazines as well, although the dilemma then is - did you write them in your own time or in work time? If you claim the fee for yourself, you have to declare it for tax purposes, which then upsets your PAYE arrangements and brings you the delights of a fully fledged tax return.

Most special interest magazines and some professional journals will not pay for articles, even though they are commercial ventures with a cost per copy to their reading public. They claim they don’t have the resources to pay their feature writers. Instead you receive two copies of the magazine, so you can keep all your articles in a folder to impress new editors or lend them to friends to dazzle them with your achievements in the big wide world.

To write a good article, the process is the same as for stories. You need a title which will catch the eye of your reader. (This may be your own or may be provided by the magazine editor of a newspaper sub-editor.) Your first sentence must be dynamic and engage the reader before they turn the page and move on to something else.

Every article has an introduction, a middle and a conclusion. You tell the reader what you’re going to tell them, tell them and then describe what you’ve told them. Short articles need short, interesting sentences which move the information forward, trying not to drown the reader in whatever technical jargon might be involved. A designated word length helps to keep the writer focused, making sure each word helps to improve the article’s “story”.

I am not a prolific article writer, but I am successful in getting my articles published in both professional and niche market publications based both in the UK and the US. I write about the health service, mainly using stories told to me during my time supporting complainants. I also write about herbs and esoteric matters, depending on what subject matter tickles my fancy.

Article writing has been on my mind recently because I’ve had another complaints article published in Health Care Risk Report this week. The article argues the moral case to investigate a complaint after the statutory time limit has passed because sometimes people are too traumatised by an event to complain earlier.

I’ve also been writing two articles for the Solihull Writers Workshop annual non-fiction writing competition, adjudicated and sponsored by a former member, Mike Megano. Both articles are about subjects I’m interested in and hopefully, after the competition I shall send them out somewhere for possible publication.

New ebook published today! The Bear and the Ivy Lady

2009-03-13T12:21:00.000-07:00

Experiencing nature can be more than you expect when sharing nettles leads to an intimate encounter with both a bear and a hawthorn tree.

The Bear and the Ivy Lady is a romance with a difference. Herbalist, Clara, is woken from sleep by a strange dream about a bear. While out gathering nettles, she meets a new neighbour, Artur, who asks her to bring him some iced nettle tea. The electricity between them is palpable. Will Clara’s feelings for Artur be expressed, or will she keep them to herself when she visits his sumptuous barn conversion? Is Artur really a man, or does he have the power to change her forever?

This short romance by Sarah Head captures the heady delights of a hot, English summer deep in the countryside, when nothing is what it seems and knowledge must be gained through personal transformation.

Excerpt:

“Will you join me?” He waved me into a chair and I sank back into the opulence of the upholstery. He placed ice at the bottom of the glasses and poured the rust-coloured nettle infusion over the ice as if he were pouring a fine, vintage wine. As he gave me my glass, our fingers touched again. This time, the world stood still for several long moments as I stared into the deep brown eyes of this perfect stranger, losing myself in the whirlpool of possibilities he offered.

“To us,” he said, clinking the two glasses together. I blinked, my mouth suddenly dry, as if his words unleashed some hidden fear in me. I sipped the drink, letting the ice cold liquid slip down my throat and quench my thirst.
He sat down in the other armchair watching me watch him. He tasted his drink and smiled. “It is good, stronger than the last one you brewed.”

I wondered how he could have known this was only the second time I had made the maceration.
“The nettles were more mature.”

His smile became broader. “Like you, a mature woman who knows what she wants. Maybe the lightning helped release their minerals. It is a long time since I saw anyone picking herbs in the wake of such a storm. I knew I must make your acquaintance.” He crossed his legs, revealing sun bronzed skin and bare feet with long, sensuous toes. My fingers itched to touch them. “I’m glad you came.”

I tore my gaze from his feet stammering, “I was told you would return. I am here to learn.”

“What is it you wish to learn?”

My palms were slick against the leather. My feet ached to touch the soft white pile of the carpet on the floor. My mind fought with my body to control the passionate pictures threatening to overwhelm me.

“Can you show me how to be wild and free?”

He looked at me for a long while, his face almost amused at my request, but his eyes were serious.
“Is this what you truly wish?”

I used the nettles to give me time in which to create a response. “I know I have a path,” I told him. “I feel my feet against the warm soil and sometimes they flinch from the sharpness of the stones, but I continue forwards. Sometimes grass grows over the path, and interesting flowers entice me to wander in their meadow, or people call to me to stop and join them.”

“Or stop and help them when they fear to help themselves.” His deep voice shocked me with its truth, but I nodded.

“There are so many other things claiming me, I lose my way. I forget where the path is or how I should find it. I cover my feet with thick boots and although they save me from the sharpness of the stones, I cannot feel the path breathing beneath me. I am lost.”

“You wish me to find the path for you?”

I shook my head. “No, it has already re-appeared. A dream-bear woke me. My feet are walking again. They brought me here.”

He got up from the chair. “Then here you stay, until you wish to leave. You will join me in a meal?”

What could I say? He went back into the kitchen and brought out fat vine leaves, stuffed with piping hot cheese and meat spilling out onto white china plates. He placed them on a low, white table accompanied by freshly baked bread and a forager’s salad; dandelion leaves, sorrel, chickweed, fat hen, chives, mint, and marjoram, the flavours tart and fresh upon my tongue. I spread newly churned butter over thick slices of bread, to soak up the fragrant sauce. Every morsel of food stimulated and nourished me like sunlight after a dull, damp winter.

He bade me take off my shoes and we sat, cross-legged on cushions, eating with only a spoon and our fingers. When I complimented his skills, he waved them away, but his eyes twinkled. For dessert he brought out syllabub in tall glasses topped with candied angelica and violet flowers, their petals so richly dark against the pale cream, the golden centres shining.

As we finished the last mouthful, the deeply golden rays of the sun began to change colour.
“Come,” he said, holding out his hands and pulling me to my feet. “It’s time to bid the sun farewell.”

We stood leaning against the garden gate, breathing in the scent of honeysuckle. Beyond the fields, the village slept, while on the top of the hills, the huge ball of molten red sank inexorably towards the treetops. We watched in silence as the sun rested for a long moment on the horizon then slowly slipped beyond until only a glittering crescent remained.

Then the sun was gone for another day, leaving me aching for lost light. I was mesmerised by the inevitable descent, suddenly conscious of the warmth of Artur’s body behind me and the gentle weight of his arms around my waist.

I let out a long sigh, consciously letting myself relax against him. A soft breeze ruffled my skirt, bringing the chimes of the nearby stable clock upon the air.

“Nine o’clock,” he said, his voice warm against my ear, “still time for you to walk home in the light, should you wish to go.”

“And if I stay?”

“It will always be your choice, Clara. Your presence pleases me a great deal, but if you stay, you will change. Spending time with me always changes others.”

I turned so I could see his face. “I would not have come here without accepting such a possibility.” I felt a hunger rise inside me as I lifted my face to his and closed my eyes.

To purchase the ebook go here

Poems from 2008

2009-02-19T06:38:00.000-08:00

In June 2008, one of the items for Solihull Writers Workshop was a considered poetry evening. We provided copies of one of more poems to each member of the group for them to read and provide a critique during the following meeting.

The first poem is an addition to a collection I wrote around death and bereavement. This poem is about loss of a different kind. Sometimes I work with organisations who support people with brain injuries and their families. The last verse was taken from comments made by a brain injury sufferer at a workshop I ran in London on Coping with Loss.

Sometimes when I feel a poem coming on, I let my pen run away with me. I used to do this a lot as a teenager, less frequently now. This was how the second poem was born. I was possibly imagining a scene from the televised versions of Cranford or Lark Rise to Candleford, with Tinker's Squeezebox frightening the chickens and elderly parishoners feeling the urge to dance coursing through their limbs.

After the event
Mirror, mirror hanging there
You show a face, a face so fair
But though the eyes are shining bright
The world behind has lost its light
I cannot see
The person
Who once
Was
Me

A stranger stands before you now
With different speech and thoughts that go
Around my head in different ways
I never thought
I could have changed
So fast

Now I scan the camera views
Of people whom they tell me knew
My former self
They look confused and wonder why
I cannot look them in the eye
With smiling familiarity
All strangers now
To the new
Me

I still have thoughts and hopes and fears
My heart still beats, I still shed tears
And if I don’t remember you
Forget the past and think anew
Of what I can still be and do
A different me
A future new

And when we sit and drink our tea
I beg you, please don’t cry
And say how much you miss me.
I’m here,
Beside you
Still here
Not gone
I’m me.

Will you dance?
Will you dance with me again?
My legs are sore and buckle
In the breeze

But will you dance?
I hear a fiddler on the green
Mark out the tune

A squeezebox stirs
Coughing its melody
As chickens fly

Will you dance with me again?
I see hawthorn draped
Across the rose

Summer calls and I must follow
Follow, follow
Down the lane.

Welcome to Mercian Muse

2009-02-05T03:39:00.000-08:00

There are many ways to write and many audiences to reach. Some people write entirely for themselves but I have always believed my words don't live unless read by someone else. This blog is to share some of my writing with you. If you enjoy it, tell me by leaving a comment. If you think something could be improved, show me what changes you think would be helpful. If you want to read more, maybe buy my books and stories - the links are on the side!

Here are some extracts:-

The Strongest Magick

An Arthurian romance telling the story of Ygraine, priestess of Avalon & Agryffan, Prince of Orkney. The Strongest Magick celebrates the relationship between love for the Old Ways and the land of Britain when King Arthur threatens to lay waste the countryside by turning to the God of the East.

The Strongest Magick is an Arthurian novel from a different perspective. It celebrates the infinity of spirit, showing a woman's re-awakening to the possibilities of love and her own indigenous power. Ygraine's life has been full of sacrifice. She is beautiful, innocent, fragile - but mostly expendable; her task complete once she hands baby Arthur over to Merlin for safekeeping and training. Torn from the man she loves to marry another at her father's bidding, she grieves for her Sidhe lover, not realising he has already returned to her. Every woman has the essence of the Goddess inside her. When she is a trained priestess of Avalon, tied to the land of Britain by the son she bore to unite its people, how can she stand by and see the land suffer as her people turn from the Old Ways towards the new God from the East?

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-60054-259-6
Length: 128,600 Words
Genre: Dark Fantasy
Rating: Shooting Star
$6.99

Excerpt:

Soon all was ready. Ygraine picked up a fallen branch and began to beat the rhythm of a heartbeat against an old oak. The men took their shields and beat upon them with their daggers following her rhythmic lead. This was not a call to arms, or a display of power to strike fear into the heart of an enemy, this was the call to spirit, both seen and unseen, that they might use this place for their worship.

When the rhythm was strong, she borrowed a shield and without dropping a beat, began the dance of welcome. In and out of the men she wove, bidding them follow her in the dragon dance to call up the wisdom of the earth to assist their rites. Round the grove they danced and up and down until everyone could feel their blood coursing through their veins and warmth stealing into their fingers and toes from the very earth they danced upon.

Finally, she slowed the beat and brought them back to the circle around the fire and the altar. As they stood for a moment, to get their breath, Ygraine realised Agryffan had donned his priestly headdress of deer antlers entwined with ivy. At other times he had hidden his face behind the stag, but tonight she could see his features clearly. His eyes were golden and glowing in the moonlight and the dragons on his wrists writhed about his arms. She knew there would come a time when she would be asked to bear the dragons for him and she wondered if they would find her worthy after such a long absence.

The glade breathed in the silence, shadows beginning to form beneath the trees. Ygraine could feel their interest as they touched the minds of each person, seeking to know purpose and intent at this time of power. Ygraine took the cup and filled it with clear water, turning to the four directions and honouring the world above and below before offering libation to the earth. Then she knelt before Agryffan, waiting for him to charge it with his dagger, acutely aware of his moment of thrust as if he had struck the blade through her instead of the water. Together they shared the first sip. The strength of the liquid took her breath away. She would have dropped the cup if Agryffan had not steadied her.

"Breathe," he whispered. "It has been too long since you drew power unto yourself and your body has become unused to its strength. Breathe in the night and let our Mother give you strength for what must be done."

Ygraine did as he said and soon the dizziness lifted. She was able to take the cup to the men around the circle so that they too might share in its life-giving force. When this was done, Agryffan took the cup and shared it with Bronwyn and Sianna, hailing the three of them as the manifestation of the triple Goddess, maiden, mother and crone. Ygraine thought he would place the ivy circlet on Sianna's head, for the Maiden ruled this time of the year, but he drew her to him and took out all the braids from her hair, using his long fingers as a comb until it hung free like any maiden's on her wedding night.

"Now is the time outside of time." he said to her, "Gone are the times before and the times to come. As the earth renews Herself each year with the rising of the sap and the wakening of the seeds from their sleep in the rich soil, so too do I call you to awaken, Spring Maiden! Feel within your blood the life force return. Draw down from the moon the power of the Goddess herself to bring you new life, new love, new heart."

Tenderly he placed the circlet of woven ivy upon Ygraine's head and she raised her arms to invoke the power of the full moon. Like a sudden shower, the power began to flood into her. All she could do was close her eyes and accept what was given. She could feel the transformation around her and knew that when she opened her eyes the whole world would be different. She heard the trees begin to groan, as if wakened from their winter sleep too soon. Birds began to sing amongst the branches and into her nostrils came the sweetest scent of apple blossom she had smelt since leaving Avalon so many years before.

Unable to bear the suspense any longer, Ygraine opened her eyes and was greeted with the sight of a glade transformed. All around, trees were in new washed leaf and blossom hung from the many ancient wild apple trees bordering the glade. The moon turned from her silver radiance to the golden light of day so everything shone and sparkled. Beyond the circle she could see rabbits feeding in the short grass and deer cropped leaves of low hanging branches. A lone hare hopped into the circle and sat, twitching her nose at those within for several breathtaking moments before ambling away to the security of the bushes. Both fox and badger stood and watched as they made their way along ancient unseen tracks. They took no notice of the other animals, as if their Lord were nearby and all creatures were at peace in His presence.

At Home And Away

Many people record images of their home and holidays with still or moving pictures. Between the covers of this book lie two collections of images captured in words so readers can paint their own picture of the scene. A Natural Year reflects the ever-changing, unchanging cycles of archetypal English countryside as experienced in the herb gardens in Warwickshire and the Cotswolds, where land has been cultivated since Neolithic times. Memories of Cornwall takes you to the ancient coastline of Cornwall over many summer holidays. You can play with children on the beach, watch the moon rise over the English Channel, or visit the many sacred sites within the county.

Whether listening for the sound of bees, smelling primroses or tasting snowballs, allow yourself to be transported to another place where Nature will hold you and nurture an inner peace.

Excerpt

Lament for Winter

Where is the snow?
In this dark time, earth sleeps
Ploughed furrows wait for frost
Seeds hide deep
Thick coats longing for scarification

Black clouds hover overhead
Brooding, resentful
Firing raindrops in sullen, pounding waves
Drenching an over-watered land
Where man-made lights stay lit throughout the day

No bright noon-times
No golden-dawned sun dazzling ice-sculptured
windows
No chilled gasps of freezing air
No clouds of steam from feeding herds
No ice-covered troughs
No skating on frozen ponds
No toboggan rides down slopes
No snowmen with coal-black eyes and orange noses
No snowballs to throw or taste
No orange globes set fire to evening skies
No joy, no laughter, no fun!

Just damp, mud, rain
Not cold, not warm
Just soggy leaves from trees who seem unsure about sleeping
It is the time of dark, of rest
It rains.

Insect Song

There are spiders on the curtains
There are earwigs on the light
There are lacewings on the windows
When all is dark at night

There are ants on all the circle stones
Chasing us away
They only fly but once a year
Why should it be today?

There are bees upon the heather
Butterflies on the gorse
Damsel flies, green and turquoise,
Glitter along the course

Why are dragonflies so enormous?
Why does honey come from bees?
Why do flies drown in my teacup?
What do insects mean to me?

Bees and butterflies suck the pollen
Ants and beetles prey on leaves
Sandhoppers dance on seaweed
And they sometimes dance on me!

So many shapes and sizes
Different colours, different hues
At least there are no scorpions
Hiding in my shoes!

FREE READS

Going for a drink

A true tale from Community Health Council Days - who supports the supporters?

Healing across time

Past life regression has unexpected consequences...

Excerpt:

As the sun began its downward path, she stopped; searching for food in her pack. Dried meat and bread took time to chew, but they stopped the pangs in her belly until it was time to sleep. She rested against a low rock, watching clouds chase each other above other mountain peaks. A sudden flicker of movement caught her attention. When she turned, a man sat watching her on the other side of the trail.

"Where has he come from?" Claire wondered. The man sat, his arms relaxed against his sides, showing he meant no harm. His face bore marks of deep weathering from many seasons.

"He's not from my people." The men of her tribe kept their faces shaved, but this man's beard was flecked with grey, his hair hanging loose past his shoulders. His clothes seemed familiar, but his deerskin was dyed green and underneath she could see a cloth shirt nestling against his skin. His eyes were shaded by the broad brimmed hat he wore. She knew enough of strangers not to seek his gaze, lest it give him power over her before she set her own protection.

"Why is he here?" She made no move to greet him, trying to make some sense of his presence. "Am I not to travel alone?" she wondered. "Have the Old Ones sent me a companion, or is this just another test I must endure?

His tangled web

Internet friendships can become complicated when you don't tell the truth

Excerpt:

He expected me in velvet.

"I always see you in velvet" he said, when I admitted velvet skirts were my favourite clothes for relaxation. A style left over from the swinging sixties. A time of love, peace and goodwill to all men. A time I wanted to be part of, but missed by several years, hating the torn t-shirts, safety pins and spiked hair of the punks who coloured my adolescence.

I wanted to float, to dream, to spend time doing nothing except watch the sunrise and sunset and the glories which fall between.

Life isn't like that. When you finish feeding your mind with facts other people want you to know, there is work and work and more work. If you're lucky and find the right person, there is love and play and homes and children and joy and cares and tears and laughter.

I used to watch them. The mothers walking their children to school - clean clothes, neat hair, book bags dangling by their sides. Skipping along holding hands, with the light of enthusiasm still bright in their eyes. I watched them grow older as they changed schools. Boys with shirts hanging over their trousers, ties askew, girls in tight, short skirts and no coats no matter how cold the weather.

It didn't happen like that for me. There was never the right time, the right place, the right job. I thought there was the right man, but he was taken when I met him, bound up in commitments to wife, mortgage, children. There was passion, but he offered no promises, suggesting future opportunities, but the future has a habit of disappearing, subsumed by the present, making me realise the futility of allowing my future to be fashioned from the crumbs of another's possibilities. After fifteen years, I said farewell, taking my leave, determined to find a sunset of my own choosing.

I was growing old. The endless chatter of students brushing past me as I took my lunchtime walk in the park annoyed me. They spilled out over footpaths like a mindless sea, brushing aside anyone or anything in their way. I was invisible. The middle aged woman in the long green coat, merging with the hawthorn hedge or disappearing into the yew grove when no-one was looking.

"Will you come and hear me sing?"

The question surprised me. He lived so far away, why would he want me to come and listen to his songs? It wasn't as if we were real, we'd only been talking over the internet for a short time. It felt like a short time. Late at night in the darkness of winter when spring was still a glimmer of hope suggested by violets we came across one another. An evening of laughter. He made me smile. I appreciated the quick wit and banter, but did not expect to talk to him again.

I was wrong.

We found so many things to talk about. Music, books, work, play – the list was endless and immaterial. We talked. We shared experiences, hopes, the small minutiae of our daily lives. I learned the names of his colleagues and cousins, heard about their children, lives and events. I shared the pressures of my daily life,frustrations with my clients, the uncertainties of my job.

Somehow it made it easier having someone else to tell. He became my sounding board for new ideas, a sponge absorbing my emotions, helping me back towards a sense of balance. He was my friend.

We joked about meeting one day, about visiting art galleries in our wheelchairs, chaperoned by uniformed attendants who would push us where we wanted to go. I knew it wouldn't happen. He was too far away. There was no reason to spend so much money on just a trip.

I knew he would never visit me. Things were so different for him. It was as much as he could do to earn enough to keep himself and his son. His ex-wife had a drink problem and didn't work so he gave her money to keep her from losing a roof over her head. He blamed himself for what she had become, no matter how much I tried to show him it wasn't his fault, that we all choose our own path and walk it alone.

So how did I come to be standing here, outside the bar where I knew he was singing tonight?

Tears in a Dry Land - WARNING Chapters 6 and 8 contain adult content.

A romance from the shores of an ancient Mediterranean

Excerpt:

The girl stood in the shadow of the mud house to watch the rich man's progress through the market place. Her ragged dress could not hide the thickening of her waist. Her head was covered with a heavy veil to keep out dust swirling around on the hot wind from the desert.

Sometimes, men -- strangers to this place - thought her condition made her an easy target for their desires, but others would soon warn them about the curse. Anyone who lay with her would die. Though some tried, her vacant stare and mindless prattling soon made them seek easier companions.

She often stood here watching crowds jostle around the flimsy stalls, sometimes loading their purchases onto donkeys or haggling with the stallholders for a better price. Today a group of women were berating a small child for dropping a basket of watermelons in the dust. The fruit was well past ripe, the basket too heavy for her to hold. As she stumbled, melons slid to the ground, spilling their juices and fragrances into the dust. No-one would pay money for damaged fruit.

Already cunning beggar boys were picking them up and disappearing into the maze of alleyways before anyone could stop them. Furious hands struck the child, angry voices scolding her for not holding more tightly to the basket.

The girl did not hear what the rich man said. She heard only the silence which followed. She saw silver being pressed into the young girl's hand. Then another strange thing happened. The rich man raised his head towards her, his dark brown eyes meeting her gaze. He looked tall and thin under his simple robe, only his proud bearing marking him out for who he was. Everyone knew him. Everyone deferred to his command. Everyone, except the watching girl, who knew no-one.

In two quick strides he stood before her. He placed his hand on her belly and for a moment her vacant eyes cleared. It was as if a lightning bolt struck her. She could not tell if she staggered, but suddenly she knew this man fathered her child.

When she looked up, he was gone. Her eyes scanned the crowd, suddenly catching sight of his bare head moving away through the throng of people. At the edge of the square, he turned and looked back at her, seeming to pause for a second.

There was a meaning in his gaze, saying, "Come with me, if you will, but come now."