Christmas Eve, and so I'll post one of the stories from my Lantern. Not the best story in my opinion, and in fact I think the shortest, nor the most "Christmasy," but some might like it and might appreciate the effort that I took with The Lantern this year:
The Ancient Yule
by Tasmin Veale Ah, there’s plenty of Devon folk struttin’ into Christmas as if the world began with their own grandmothers, knowing no more of old forest gods than a hen knows of harvest accounts. And as for the wisdom our Viking forebears brought down from the north—why, it’s slipped clean out of their heads, if ever it got in. Those men knew the worth of a tree that’s stood longer than a landlord’s promise, reading its rings like a parish ledger—sunshine, storms, and every bit of druid’s tending writ plain for them. And they weren’t such fools as to forget, when winter’s dark presses in hardest, how to coax the good still sleeping in the wood and send it into the world again, lest the sun itself take fright and turn tail for good.
When those layers are set alight upon a solstice night, each one sends out a burst of power strong enough to chase off every dark spirit skulking about—though between ourselves, half the spirits are likely to run merely from the gathering of villagers’ faces in the light the fire gives off. And of course the bigger the tree, the stronger the virtue stored in it; why, in the north they’ll set to with logs twenty feet long, standing a good eight feet high across the trunk, and the whole village comes tromping out, gaping at the blaze as if learning for the first time the wonder of the world.
Cutting down a tree is an act to be handled with great reverence, for though the tree will serve us well, it’s still a living creature that’s suffered its share and yet stood thriving through many a long century. The oldest and largest oak is best—you’ll find some with trunks a good six feet thick or more, though it’s always wiser to look for one that’s seven feet at the least. And if no oak comes to hand, an ash of six-foot width or a beech a shade broader will answer—only you must be prepared to hunt for either before you set axe to bark.
Don’t go thinking, like some do, that a bundle of smaller logs or a heap of earth-preserved branches will serve; that’s nothing but opening the door to calamity. You must remember it’s the oldest rings that bring the magic forth, not the mere bulk of the wood. A branch is nought but knots and bark, so we should expect no good from that. You ought to understand the bargain that’s set before us: we take one life—the tree’s—to shield many lives, our own, in the year that’s coming. And if we mean to drive back the spirits that would prey upon us, the trunk has to be well and truly seasoned by all those long years between ourselves and the time when it was no more than an acorn, a mast or a key.
I’ve seen well enough what comes of a village that tries to spare itself the trouble, only to find the children ailing by January, and the livestock lying hollowed and dead on the moor by February, brought low by spirits no one can put a name to, with seeds that won’t so much as stir in the soil come April. It’s not worth the saving—do the thing properly, and seek out one of my own kind, a good druid, who knows the right way such hard work must be gone about.
Once you’ve settled on a trunk of the right thickness, you’ll want a good fifteen or more feet of its length, taking it from just above the highest root. That’s what gives you a burn that’ll last the whole night through—aye, and long past a single night if the wood’s sound. It allows time for folk from the surrounding districts, lacking their own yule, to make the journey and share in the ritual as well. Such a gathering binds a wider community together and promises not only a strong harvest in the year ahead, but a fair footing for trade and tradesfolk besides. And mind you, the brighter and higher the blaze, the farther its call will reach to others.
Mind this as well—that the days before the burning must be handled with all the seriousness you’d give to preparing for a siege, for bringing the tree into the village is as good as announcing the coming spiritual confrontation. The moment the felled trunk is carried in, the villagers must be off at once to shutter the windows of every building. It’s a thing most don’t rightly grasp, but the scent of the wood will draw the lesser spirits from hither and yon straight into the village; and these, being drawn so early and not yet met by the fire that’s still days ahead, will nose about to slip into any structure they can and make mischief. So every portal must be closed against them.
In the same fashion, the wells must be covered, for water is a favoured passage for whispering entities. A single open surface lets enough of them linger to put the whole solstice at risk. The livestock, too, must be brought together into the central barns and not left out in the fields nor left to themselves. And for safety’s sake, the iron implements are to be set leaning round the outside of the barn in a ring, with lines of salt laid all about it as well, for evil spirits are ever inclined to harry the edges of a community by preying on the animals first.
And you must take heed of this besides: children and the elderly are to be kept indoors—not out of any hardness of heart, but because the frail are ever the quickest to be led astray by the spirits’ own contrivances, seeing what isn’t there and being coaxed where they’ve no call to wander. In Yule-tide custom, it’s held to be plain sense to keep such loved ones close to the hearth, for the long winter nights are when wandering beings, be they the Wild Hunt aloft or house-sprites abroad, cast about for those whose strength is not equal to the season.
While all these preparations are under way, the square where the burning is to be held must be cleansed. That means sweeping off every scrap of windblown litter, for any bit of decaying matter gives certain shadows a place to fasten themselves. After that, mark out the boundary with chalk or crushed bone, mixed best with the wood ash saved from the previous year’s burning. And if none of that is to be had, then gather ash from hearths that have burned wood only—not charcoal, nor anything spoiled by drippings. With a bit of foresight, you may clean out several hearths weeks before the log is due, and keep them burning on clean wood so the ash is fit to use when the time comes.
But for the years ahead, you’d best keep in mind that the old ash is the very thing that matters; it holds the leftover strength of the last great fire, and the spirits know well enough when a boundary has been carried from one season to the next. Then, once the boundary’s laid, there must be a set company that’s given the duty to sit out each evening and tend the braziers round the square. Best for this work are clerics, woodfolk and, if the village has the luck or the trouble of it, any faerie kin tied to their own. These should keep a low ring of flame upon the braziers, so the boldest of the spirits don’t come nosing at the boundary before the main fire’s lit. And there ought to be good, able talk about those braziers too, for nothing frets a wandering spirit more than joined voices and neighbourly friendship; so folk should go and visit the keepers, if only to see them through their watch.
Yet all that good company mustn’t turn itself toward ribaldry or celebration; no cries of joy, nor singing, nor feasting should be heard in any house. In some places, it’s common for the constables or the church folk to go knocking at doors where they catch an unusual savour of too good a food in the air, to make sure no one’s taking more than the plain fare they’d set on the table for any day in November or January. For jubilation calls attention just as surely as fear does. And mind you, the days between the felling and the burning are the most perilous of all—spirits unsettled on every side, some frightened of being driven out by the fire, and others prowling for any scrap of wrong-doing they can fasten upon.
For that very reason, the whole community must go about its work with discipline, sobriety and a quiet, steady purpose, knowing full well that if all is done as it ought to be, the great burning will not only keep the darkness at its distance for another year, but stand as a sign of the prosperity and plenty that’s meant for all.
It’s at this point a druid is of exceeding worth, for such folk know the old invocations and the binding ways; without them, the burning is nought but a great heap of flame and no more. I am, of course, such a one myself, and shall be overseeing the doings in Tavistock this year—but there are others in the countryside, even now, who’ll come on short notice and do their best by you. Look for them in the outlying hamlets, among the foresters or on the very edges of the settled land. A small delegation may go to such folk quickly and quietly in the days after the bough is cut, carrying gifts of salt, wool or iron should there be need of barter. But leave off taking gold, or jewels, or any bit of fine workmanship, for such things have scant worth where the weeds grow high and the deer keep their own counsel.
Once the druid has come, their work is not only to bless the tree, but to read it through and through, to see whether any ill-willed thing has trailed the bough back from the forest and hidden itself inside. It’s a common enough matter to find some malign presence curled deep in the heartwood—but with warning given, a druid can take the measure of such creatures readily, driving them out or shutting them fast within, where the fire may finish the task. And because it’s the sort of danger easily missed by folk who’ve no learning in it, the trouble taken to find a druid who knows the way of such matters well is never wasted.
The village ought to make ready a place for the druid to stay, and it must be set well apart from the daily stir and muddle of the parish. A cordoned-off corner in a hall house will answer, or even a poor little hovel that can be spared for a week or two. It needn’t be warm, nor swept to shining, for a druid judges comfort by what’s found under the arms of the woodland, not by any measure fit for gentry. What matters—what truly matters—is that the place stand separate and still, so the druid isn’t pestered from dawn to dusk by every flutter of fear that seizes the village folk. For if you let them, they’ll be knocking to ask after this omen or that shadow, begging for a physic for their coughs, wanting charms for their cows and pressing in with a dozen little ailments—aye, even down to the hope the druid’ll set aside sacred work to peer at some farmer’s swollen toe. Such bother will sap an aspirant’s strength quicker than cold or hunger, and this is a time when the work of the yule wants all the concentration they can muster.
Once the shaman has done with muttering and peering and pronouncing, then the great log is fetched out and set in the middle of the square upon its stone bed, raised proper and decent from the ground so the air may get at it underneath and the fire not sulk or choke like a damp hearth. There it lies, waiting, solid as a promise, while round about the square the torches are fixed in their places, every one of them ready to hand yet left dark as prudence itself, making a ring of watchfulness rather than light until the very hour comes that says it is time.
Food and drink are brought out at last, and the log is set alight; and if you have never seen such a thing, then you have missed a sight worth the telling, for it begins modest enough, with a smaller fire coaxed to life beneath the great timber, and only by degrees does it take heart and climb upward along the yule, licking and spreading as though it were learning its own strength before all our eyes. As it mounts, the musicians fall to their playing, not in any wild or heedless fashion, but careful and contained, just as custom has always required, keeping the sound low and steady while the work is still being done. And then, almost before one knows it, the whole temper of the village breaks at once, the strain gone clean out of it, as if the fire itself had sliced through the cord that held every man and woman drawn tight.
Then folk cannot keep themselves any longer, but cheer and laugh outright, laying hands on one another’s shoulders as if to make sure they are all truly there and safe. The children come darting forward at once, bold as sparrows, pressing in as near as they dare and calling over one another in their excitement as the heat rolls out upon them. And with that, the musicians throw off all restraint and strike into the very tunes that have been held back the whole year through—reels and stamping measures that set feet flying and send the folk whirling across the hard-packed snow, glad as if winter itself had been answered at last.
Meat is set to roasting on every side and the air grows thick with it, the rich savour of it mingling with the sweetness of ale and cider and the keen bite of wood smoke, all of it together smelling like life come back again after a long absence. Young couples make no secret of their joy, kissing one another plain in sight of all, while the elders lift their voices to call down blessings as though they might fix good fortune in place by naming it aloud. And for the first time since the winter took hold, the village has a sound to it that is not wind or silence, but the true noise of people living.
Most important of all, it feels as though the worst edge of winter draws back a little, not gone, but held at bay, so that old grudges are set aside without a word said about them, hands meet across family lines that have been stiff for years and everyone finds themselves thinking, almost in spite of themselves, that the spring will come kindly, the lambing be sound and the harvest answer to honest labour.
There’s a sort of tremble in the air then, slight and hard to name, as if the world has been freshened for a moment and shown what it might be if things went right, the fire having burned a clear road toward brighter months ahead, so that the future seems to lean in close, offering its promise quietly, but with a generosity that’s felt all the same.
