Arwen
Dearest Milly,
Here is my hasty description of yesterday’s Summer Solstice ceremony as promised – and very strange and thrilling I found it, too!
It was just as well that Mr Jones had kindly explained the significance of it all to me beforehand, because otherwise I would have been quite confused.
It is held on the longest day of the year and has been celebrated since prehistory to encourage the sun to continue to shine brightly, so ensuring continuing fruitfulness and good harvests. They even light a bonfire to assist it! The ceremony also banishes devils.
Later, strands of Christianity were woven into the remaining pagan rituals, not to mention some elements from English Mumming and Mystery plays, brought in by Prynne ancestors.
Only three characters from history and legend take part in this procession, the Arch Druid, St Melangell and St John the Baptist, a strange mixture, you will agree!
Christians combined the Summer Solstice with St John’s Day, hence the presence of that saint.
Apparently, there are several more even odder characters in the celebration of the Winter Solstice.
After dinner, as the sky slowly turned a dusky, magical blue, people began to gather on the small green in front of the village hall.
By the time I joined them there was quite a crowd, for they come not just from Seren Bach, but from St Melangell too.
Many had lanterns on long hooked poles, or carried torches.
I joined Lily and Daisy Trimble, and by then was not at all surprised when they pointed out the vicar and Rose standing by the steps ready to take part in this pageant, the vicar as St John the Baptist and Rose as St Melangell, in the very sky-blue robe and mantle embroidered with hares that Effie had borrowed for the portrait!
She also had a gold cord tied around her head, which Lily said represented the saint’s halo.
The vicar cut a strange figure, with his thin, scholarly face and fly-away white hair, clad as he was in a long white surcoat embroidered front and back with the red Maltese cross and also carrying a cross made out of reeds.
The crowd suddenly silenced as the door to the hall was thrown open, revealing the impressive figure of Cosmo, seeming taller and more commanding than ever.
He swept down the steps in his long white robes, a crown of bronze oak leaves set on his dark head, and with a long white wooden stave or wand in one hand, which he knocked three times on the flags at the bottom of the steps, where the vicar and Rose waited.
A fire burst into life at the top of the dark hill behind him.
‘Come, follow me!’ he called in his deep, resonant voice, and we all fell in behind them as they walked away across the bridge and thence up the path that zigzagged towards the beacon and Mab’s Grave, which stood out against the dusky sky.
The path took us through the woods, where Cosmo stopped to pour what Lily told me was wassail over the roots of a very old oak tree.
The vicar gave some sort of a blessing, although a breeze snatched away most of his words.
Then we continued upwards so that this rite could be repeated at the stone tomb.
After this we stood in a circle around the bonfire and Mr Jones, who was standing nearby, told me that in olden days young couples would jump over the bonfire, which was thought to be a lucky thing to do, but the practice had been stopped as too dangerous.
As the flames began to die, Cosmo and his two companions led the way back down again, and we found that trestle tables had been set up outside the village hall, from which warm light flooded out.
They were laden with bowls of wassail punch and great platters of the biscuits that Mrs Bradley had been baking for days.
Bea and Maudie stood there, graciously acknowledging the greetings of the people who came up for refreshment, but not, I observed, actually serving out the refreshments with their own hands.
This was done by two of the maids, Bethan and, my particular friend, Efa.
I drank two cups of the hot spiced drink, which was rather nice but must have been more potent than it tasted, for things became a little fuzzy.
When Cosmo came to ask me how I had enjoyed the proceedings, I found him strangely scary in his white robes, with his dark, deep set eyes fixed on me: much more Heathcliff than Mr Rochester – or even one of the Demon Kings he had just banished!
I put this all down to the wassail.
Not surprisingly, I had the strangest dreams last night.
Your loving friend,
Arwen