Beltane Faerie Story

In a land far from this land in a time far from this time there was a great gathering of all the people of the land to celebrate the Festival of Beltane.

The clans and families and tribes all met together.  In their midst were many great Bards, honeyed of voice and true of song; many powerful Ovates, skilled of hand and sure of vision; and many learn’d Druids, wise of thought and just of deed. It was they who led the revels and rites and rituals that would celebrate the Festival of Beltane, light the Fortunate Fires and open the Gateway of Summer.

uncredited on www.andybaggott.com

Each year the men and the women of the tribes gathered with each other to call forth the Spirits of the Land and the Season.  Games were played, contests fought and mysteries sought to determine who would be crowned the Queen of the May and the Lord of the Hunt.

Each year they separated. Menfolk with men and womenfolk with women, they set about their sacred tasks.  There was great merriment and passion and lust when the menfolk and the womenfolk were reunited to crown the fertile Queen of the May with a garland of white hawthorn blossoms and the potent horn’d Lord of the Hunt with a pair of stag antlers. When the champion of the menfolk was crowned, he embodied the Spirit of the Lord of the Hunt, just as the champion of the womenfolk embodied the Spirit of the Queen of the May.

Each year there was a group of folk who were apart from the rest. They had a desire for different games, a heart for different contests and a spirit turned towards different mysteries. The contests of the others did not bring them the same joys or the same thrills, so they could only take part for the sake of belonging, knowing they did not, or stand disconsolate to one side and wish for the same merriment and passion and lust the others felt.

Then one year everything changed.  The stars and planets were arrayed in new alignments; the ancestors dreamt new dreams in their barrows; and the Old Gods of the hollow hills sang new songs to the Land and the Season. The stars and the dreams and the songs lit a new spark in the souls of the druids and ovates and bards of those folk who had not the same passions as the others.

“We must seek out our Spirit of Beltane,” they said. A fellowship of those folk, with wise ones, seers and singers amongst them,  gathered upon a mist shrouded dawn and set off, following an old straight trackway across the land.

The journey was long and hard and the seekers travelled all day and rested by night, the bards singing songs of their ancestors around the hearthfire.  So they continued their quest and by noon on the third day they had travelled far and reached a place they knew to be the oldest of woods, within which lay an ancient grove of trees sacred to the Goddess of the Land. At the heart of that grove stood a hawthorn, with bright green leaves and countless pale white blossoms. The seekers approached the hawthorn.

“Are you the Spirit of Beltane we seek?” They asked.

The hawthorn answered “Not I, not I.” They knew they must travel on.

The journey was long and hard and the seekers travelled all day and rested by night, the seers interpreting signs and portents around the hearthfire.  So they continued their quest and by dusk on the third day they had travelled far and reached a place they knew to be the oldest of valleys, within which lay an ancient glen sacred to the Horned God. At the heart of that glen stood a stag, with great wide antlers and countless mossy tines. The seekers approached the stag.

“Are you the Spirit of Beltane we seek?” They asked.

The stag answered “Not I, not I.” They knew they must travel on.

The journey was long and hard and the seekers travelled all day and rested by night, the wise ones telling the tales of the old gods around the hearthfire.   So they continued their quest and by nightfall on the third day they had travelled far, the old straight trackway had thinned and vanished but they journeyed on into the night, turning their hearts towards the bright full moon and striking out along a shining new starlit path.

By midnight they had reached a place they knew to be unexplored by the clans and families and tribes. They saw it was a rolling land of meadows, within which they found a labyrinth, sacred to the Moon, spiralling through the grass. At the heart of the labyrinth stood a hare, with bright eyes and a pair of lustrous ears.

“Are you the Spirit of Beltane we seek?” They asked.

The hare answered, “I am, I am.”  They knew that they had found what they had quested for.

Moonlight Hares by Vikki Yeates http://vikkki.deviantart.com

In the heart of the Labyrinth of the Hare of Beltane, the fellowship made revelry that gladdened their hearts. The games were played, the contests fought and the mysteries sought to determine who would be crowned champion and embody the Spirit of Beltane.  They felt great joy when the champion was found and crowned with a pair of proud furr’d ears.

“Am I to have a consort?” asked the newly crowned Spirit of Beltane. “Only if you wish it to be so,” answered the Hare.

“I wish it to be so,” said the Spirit of Beltane. So, the Hare brought forth three fellow seekers.

The Spirit of Beltane approached the first.

“You cannot be my Consort,” said the Spirit of Beltane to the First. “There are no games we can play together.”

The Spirit of Beltane approached the second.

“I cannot be your Consort,” said the Second to the Spirit of Beltane. “There are no contests for us to fight together.”

The Spirit of Beltane approached the third and final potential Consort.

“You can be my Consort,” said the Spirit of Beltane to the Third. “But only if you wish it to be so.”

“I shall be your Consort,” said the Third. “There are mysteries we can seek out together.”

And so the Spirit of Beltane, the Consort and the rest of the weary but elated fellowship travelled back to the gathering, arriving back at the time between the setting of the moon and the rising of the sun.

There were great shouts of joy from the clans and families and tribes when the fellowship returned to the great gathering.  The seekers were reunited with those they had left behind and to them told their tales of the quest to bring forth their own Spirit of Beltane.  Although they had journeyed for three times three days and nights, they had returned in time for the Festival of Beltane.

Together, the Queen of the May, the Lord of the Hunt and the Spirit of Beltane led the Festival, blessed the Fortunate Fires and opened the Gateway of Summer. 

And so the Wheel of the Year turned, the stars danced merrily in the skies, the ancestors dreamed sweetly in their barrows and the Old Gods sang joyfully in the hollow hills.

This story was published in Touchstone, the Journal of The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids Issue 208 and a recording of me storytelling features on Druidcast Episode 84.

out of darkness and into light

The sun has set on the last day of this calendar year, barely piercing the grey gloom and drizzle that had settled over the city. For so many reasons it is entirely appropriate that even when I’m looking for it, I can barely find the low, pale sun. Sunsets in this complex and marvelous city can be magical… blazing off the towers of steel and glass as those bright new spirits seem to dance furiously and proclaim their might; setting the sky ablaze in seductive hues that make old stones blush; or illuminating a sight you don’t normally see in your day to day goings-on with a brief and secret spotlight. There are as many sunsets as there are those who perceive them, each one different because they reflect off a different spirit and resonate in a different chamber of the heart.

So for my battered soul, that the last sunset of this year should be indistinct and muted could not be more welcome.  A peaceful graduation through gentle shades of grey.  There have been so many trials this year and it is only as I begin to find closure that I can see that so much of it has been spent in shock, almost numb to the howling pain that threatened to devour me. Hasty walls of protection that would crumble or be breached and then need repair, an overabundance of the toxic fight or flight hormones coursing through my system for far too long. Of thinking that nothing else which I loved could be taken away from me and of finding out that I was wrong.

As I began to release into the dark of the year I hoped for healing, I felt optimistic in a way. But healing is not always comfortable or gentle and the very act of consciously facing all of that pain is not something to be taken lightly. My gods and guides have gone with me, by times sternly making me look at my own place in my wounding; pushing me to accept which of the things I thought I wanted are actually the things I really need; or allowing me to rest and dream of my future and forget for a while the work that is to come in building it.  The dark is not just a place of dreaming and forgetting, to only use it in this way would be to refuse its true power.  For within the dark there are no distractions, only the stillness needed to truly confront my past and my future.

“Proserpina” was the last song Kate McGarrigle ever wrote and ever performed.  A beautiful re-telling of that descent into the darkness of the Underworld, it is heavy with a feeling of loss and contains all of the sorrow of a parent losing her child, but really it is about a mother who knows she will lose her children because it is she who is about to die.  On the 9^th of December 2009 I heard that unique performance and it made me weep, just as it does to this day.  I was in the audience for “A Not So Silent Night” at the Royal Albert Hall… an untypical Christmas concert thrown by the sprawling folk dynasty of the McGarrigles and Wainwrights.  At the heart of the clan are Kate and Anna McGarrigle and Kate’s children Rufus and Martha Wainwright.  Only those close to her knew at the time how seriously ill she was. Kate McGarrigle would finally lose her battle with cancer in early 2010.

But the song was not a sole melancholy note in a night of frivolity.  It was a powerful proclamation of one woman, her art and her love for her family.  It was a song from a woman who was able to face her own death and create a lasting piece of shining beauty that told the world who she was and what she stood for.  A reminder that the darkness can never be permanent.

From a deep point in this descent into the dark I have found an unexpected new awareness: the returning of the light manifesting in my own life, not just in the natural world around me. Throughout this Yuletide season pagans will find themselves talking about the rebirth of the light, the coming of the Mabon or divine child, the astronomical process of the days lightening. Within my fortress of intellect I know all of these things, for years I have stood in ritual in the dark and lit a symbolic flame, or in bright frosty day turned to face the Sun to eagerly strain for the feeling of warmth on my face. Yet this year it is within the pool of my soul that I feel this light returning through the people who carry it into my life. 

They have brought in the light in as many different ways as they are themselves individual.  The gentle lantern which sheds new light on what was already there, the stalwart lighthouse who helps me plot a new onward course, the bright new beacon who insistently draws my gaze away from the dark. With each connection I can feel my own light begin to glow ever brighter and I am so grateful for the inspiration and optimism that they each bring into my life. So at the closing of the year, I reach for the water of life and toast these wonderful bright spirits, these people I am so lucky to call my friends.

Sláinte.