Christmas restoration

Today it’s Christmas Eve: as usual chaos reigns everywhere. The roads are choked with traffic, airports are frantic, the towns are packed with shoppers and people throughout the land are wondering if they will get everything done in time for Christmas morning. Then, in a flash, it’s all over.

It’s at times like these when a break outside - a breath of fresh air - is a restorative exercise. Go out and look at our beautiful countryside, soak up that superlative view or study a perfect flower: the simplicity of nature does help us get things into perspective. Christmas will be here tomorrow, gone the day after. The landscape is here to stay.


Yes, how I should hate to be without my own garden: my very own green space, even in winter. It is escape. But it needs to be nurtured to provide what I want from it. I like informal planting held in check with a firm structure: there must be plenty of food for wild life, mature trees and scented shrubs. I like the odd sculpture to juxtapose with the living landscape and strong axes.

I don’t need flowers every month of the year but I do like contrasts in foliage, both in colour and form. And I hate a sparse winter garden and bare earth. Evergreens are feature I think it essential to include in the English garden. It would be very bare without. Clipped shrubs are a particular favourite. They give a crisp outline, a foil for lush, overblown perennials. And in winter they really come into their own, strong geometric shapes in the cold winter light. Snow sprinkled sculptures in the bitterest weather.

Berries and winter flowering shrubs can also make a dramatic statement in these cold winter days. The bright yellow and architectural form of the mahonia is one of my favourite winter shrubs: the vivid berries of the pyracantha a cheerful addition. And one of the most attractive at the moment is the strawberry tree – Arbutus unedo – with its pretty little fruits hanging off the branches.

And I’m feeling as pressured as everyone else so I’m off out into the garden to chop down some ivy. Nothing quite like a little controlled destruction. If I can find some ivy with fruiting bodies that will be perfect for my mantelpiece. Long strands will look pretty draped over picture frames and a big bunch looks great just stuffed in an old bucket. And if I’m very lucky I might find some holly with berries that the birds have missed.

Hopefully, when I’ve had time to slow down, when I’ve brought a little green inside, I shall feel better. Not quite at one with nature, not quite divorced from the crazy tasks we set ourselves at times like these, but definitely a little restored. Ready to enjoy a very merry Christmas.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Michaelmas, an autumn festival

Today is Michaelmas Day: known in the Christian church as the festival of St Michael and All Angels it is, more simply, the feast of St Michael, the Prince of Angels. The Archangel Michael was a scary being. No messenger he. No, he commanded the War in Heaven. He could be portrayed as quite terrible in that old sense of the word: causing terror.

Marble statues of angels are pure white, beautiful and perfect of face and body. And paintings too show us angels with beautific expressions, golden auras, flowing white robes and golden wings and so we think of them as guiding man kindly between birth and death. There is supposed to be a unity of men and angels, the natural and the supernatural, and in days or yore this unity was celebrated on Michaelmas Day.

But the festival of St Michael that most of us are aware of is that of celebrating the end of harvest. To quote my blog of last year: it was on this day that servants were hired, farms changed hands and magistrates were appointed. And many tenant farmers presented their landlord with a goose as a gift or sometimes in lieu of rent. A goose was a gift to prize: dried, salted or pickled it would last through winter and roasted goose was a meal to celebrate with.

You can simply look in my blog archive (in the right hand column) to read what more I said then so I shan’t repeat myself. Very often the only time we remember Michaelmas now is when we think of the Michaelmas daisy. The daisy was that simple white flower with a yellow centre first mentioned in literature by Chaucer. The cultivated ones we know best are the asters in shades of rose red and varying shades of mauve that are such a welcome splash of colour in our borders at this time of year.

These perennials – given some sun and half decent soil – will grow nearly anywhere including coastal regions. But, beware, they can become very annoyingly invasive and absolute stink to get rid of. However, they are like manna from heaven to wildlife and worth giving a forgotten corner to just for that. Bees, butterflies and seed loving birds like finches absolutely love them, as do they the sedums that are so colourful now.

The sight of Michaelmas daisies in flower reminds us that autumn is approaching. Rosy apples fall from the tree, cobnuts and hazel nuts (those the squirrels have not filched) are collected, blackberries fruit in the hedgerows and leaves begin to turn colour. John Keats (1795-1821) describes this time of year beautifully in his ode, To Autumn. Here is the first verse:

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com
lucy.ann.white@hotmail.co.uk

Lammas festival

What a lovely word, Lammas; it’s derived from Anglo-Saxon and means ‘loaf-mass’, and it was one of the four agricultural festivals. Held on the first Sunday in August it was when loaves made form the first ripened corn would traditionally have been consecrated.

Lammas was a heathen Anglo-Saxon festival, which ebbed and flowed in popularity but completely disappeared at the Reformation. Many believe that prior to that Lammas was the Celtic festival of Lughnasadhl – the festival of the Sun God. Latterly, the Church of England has begun to celebrate agricultural festivals such as this one again.

But in all farming communities the harvest, cutting of the corn, the in-gathering, has always been an event to celebrate. Up until the middle of the last century harvest manikins - corn dollies – were still made from last ears of cut corn to lament the Corn Spirit. This corn dolly was then ploughed back into the soil the following year to ensure a good crop. We are less superstitious now.

Now that the wheat is grown in enormous, hedge-less fields and cut by one man in a giant machine all the community involvement and romance of the harvest has disappeared. Up until a hundred years ago there would have been no serious work on the farm for a week after the harvest was brought in. It was Harvest Home: time to give thanks for the safely gathered crop after all the hard work and worry that the weather might spoil it.

Bringing in the crop involved everyone on the farm, other farms, and villagers too. The hay had to be reaped, tied, loaded, carted and stored. The wagon and horses used to carry the corn would have been decorated with ribbons and flowers, with the children lifted on top, and the journey home accompanied with songs and laughter. At home there would be beer and cake before the corn was taken to be stacked.

In the evening it was time to celebrate at length: a supper of roast beef and plum-pudding with plenty of beer and cider to wash it down would have been followed by an evening of speeches and songs, rhymes and ballads. When men worked the land with their hands and their horses, when they relied on what they reaped to keep them for the coming year, they appreciated the results and celebrated their accomplishments. I’m all for progress but we’ve lost a lot of joy in the process.

But in literature we still come across the stories of bringing in the harvest, take Thomas Hardy’s novels for one. And in art we have plenty of reminders, Constable immediately springs to mind. And the Corn Spirit of pagan times has been called John Barleycorn, celebrated in ballads throughout Britain.

Robert Burns wrote a song based on old ballads to John Barleycorn – barley of course was used to brew beer which is why so many pubs are called The John Barleycorn and why the teetotal Burns was agin him – and here are the first and last verses.

There were three kings into the east,
Three kings both great and high,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn should die.

Then let us toast John Barleycorn,
Each man a glass in hand,
And may his great prosperity
Ne’er fail in old Scotland.

In many parts of the country there are John Barleycorn festivals again – perhaps we are trying to get back to our roots after all and celebrate our crops again. I’ll drink to that!

Lucy
lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Summer: picnic and open air concert time

Only the Brits would do something this daft: I ask you, would any sane person pay good money to sit in the open air - freezing cold, rain drizzling down their necks – to eat a picnic and listen to music? Are we a nation so in love with the idea of al fresco music and meals that we will suffer for it? I’ve been to two operas and a jazz concert this summer so I should know.

Going to these concerts is like embarking on an artic expedition and takes at least half a day to organise all the gear necessary, even if you’ve decided to cheat and just buy the food already prepared. It takes all day if you’ve decided to show-off, prepare the dishes from scratch and serve them in style.

Firstly all the stuff you’ve been storing in the car boot (a suit for the cleaners, several sample tiles to return, various M&S articles of clothing too small or too large to go back when you next pass the store, a soggy box of éclairs that must have fallen out of the supermarket bag and some old shoes for the re-cycle bin) has to be taken out.

Then in go the wellies, brollies, waterproofs and plastic sheet: that’s just the ‘cater for all eventualities’ weather bit. Next it’s folding table (if they’re allowed), collapsible chairs, picnic rug and rubbish bag. An ice box to hold all the food and a bag for the picnic set and cutlery, paper napkins and glasses are next. If you’re showing off, its lanterns, tablecloths and china too.

Booze is a category all its own – insulated bags are essential with plenty of water for the lucky person who draws the short straw and has to drive back. Forget a bottle opener at your peril. When you get there you have to lug all this stuff at least a quarter of a mile and do battle to find a space where you can see the stage. Because all this takes so long you will probably only have time to eat one course before the music begins.

During the interval you will pick your way to the loos and, if the queue was not too long, find some of the second course left when you get back to your party. When the music starts again you and every other person there will spend the first five minutes donning every article of clothing they have with them, finishing off with the picnic rug.

With luck the sound system is man enough to cater for an enormous space with nothing to bounce off and you can actually hear it. And perhaps your luck is really in and its clap-along music, which will at least keep your hands warm: this is an English summer. What fun!

Picture this: a day out in the country in the 1960’s. A green Morris Minor pulls up on a roadside verge, just beside a farm gate. Dad gets out, and from the boot comes a folding melamine topped table, two low canvas fold-up chairs, a rug, a thermos flask and a picnic basket. Mum gives instructions and everyone gives a helping hand to construct a little picnic scene.

Mum and dad drink tea, the children sip squash and everyone tucks into the fish paste sandwiches whilst the wind flaps the corners of the rug that the children now sit on and grey clouds scud over head. Every now and then a cow moos, a horse whinnies and they hear a bird sing. The portable radio is tuned in to family favourites. It is downright uncomfortable and the quality of the country chorus and the music is dubious but they sit it out. Our parents weren't quitters.

For several years my daughter went to Glastonbury: I don’t think there was one year when it didn’t rain – it usually poured - but it didn’t put her off. She just took her tent and kettle, her gumboots and lots of black plastic sacks. What was a little bit of rain and a river of mud when you could listen to bands all day and all night and eat on the hoof.

Thus are the next generation of ‘open air concert and picnic’ lovers born. The reason we keep going to open air concerts in spite of the weather may just be the triumph of hope over adversity or it could be plain old tradition. Either way, only the Brits who would do something so daft.

Lucy
lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

May Day

A merry dance around a Maypole decorated with coloured ribbons, handkerchiefs and flags; A May Queen dressed all in white, her head crowned with flowers; bowers of birch and blossoming May branches: these are the acceptable remains of the pagan Anglo-Saxon festival of May Day. We will draw a veil over the centuries when loose living men and maids cavorted all night in the woodland and courtiers and their consorts banqueted in arbours and made merry.

In 1889 May Day became Labour Day in Socialist France - in Russia much the same – and many of the traditions of May Day became subsumed. England – unlike France and Russia - had no peasants. Countrymen were not disenfranchised and could own land and somehow Labour Day and May Day festivals managed to remain separate. But in England May Day simply faded as a widespread festival as the traditional May Poles and village Greens disappeared.

It was the pre-Raphaelites who revived May Day, interested as they were in rustic traditions and festivals. William Morris believed that an honest and capable craftsman could produce an item that was not only useful but beautiful too using basic materials such as wood, iron, stone and clay. He was always pleased to find a link between the countryman and his skills, the simplicity of rural life and its sacred and magical rituals.

And Tennyson in his poem, The May Queen, celebrated the tradition:

I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake,
If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break;
But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands gay,
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

But it was Ruskin who did the most to revive the customs by reintroducing them to his pupils. In Oxford today there a still May Day rituals as there are in many market towns and villages throughout England. The dance, Strip the Willow, must surely be associated with May Day, Morris Men and Maypole dancers still perform on May Day and May Carols are still sometimes sung.

The superstition that it is unlucky to bring the May blossom into the house is rooted perhaps in the idea that the tree was sacred and still holds sway amongst some country folk today. But flowers still remain central to the idea of May Day everywhere. One lovely aspect of 1st May in France is the wearing of a Lily of the Valley: nothing could be sweeter than that or a more pleasing token of spring.

In England the flowers that were traditionally associated with May Day, as garlands or for decorating our houses, are still part of our landscape. The heady scent of lilac blooms fill our gardens, the purple haze of bluebells cover woodland floors and delicate blossom decorates the apple boughs of the orchard.

Only the simple cowslip – that flower of the meadow in May – is no longer as widespread as fifty years ago. Cowslips were traditionally made into May garlands and balls. They could be cut and tied into a bunch with ribbon and finally used to top a stripped willow-wand. Alternatively they might have been used for a hanging garland in the form of a globe, a crown or a spiral. These hark back to Celtic rituals, Saxon pageants and the festivals of Roman Britain with their goddess of flowers, Flora.

One ancient pageant was the Battle of Winter and Summer: flowers and dancing represented summer and chased winter out of the fields. And it is still true,I'm glad to say, that May chases Winter away.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Candles and Eggs

The name Easter comes from the Anglo-Saxon's Goddess of Spring, Eastre: the Rites of Spring, renewal and fertility, were celebrated by pagan peoples such as Norsemen to whom this meant the season of the growing sun. For all, bonfires and the candle – light - were important parts of the custom.

Throughout Europe Easter fires were lit on top of mountains, and new fire kindled – by rubbing sticks together – representing the pagan practice of honouring the strength of the Sun, longer days, shorter nights, rebirth and fertility.

For early Christians the Paschal Moon (from the Greek Pascha, Passover), the full moon of the Passover, seems to have set when Mary Magdalene entered the Garden in darkness but the Resurrection was revealed to her at sunrise. So these devout men spent the night before Easter day deep in prayer, illuminated only by the moon. Other men, believing the light would come, walked through the fields or climbed hills to see the Sun Dance.

For some reason many of us associate candles with Christmas time and the end of it, Candlemas, but in fact the candle is a more important symbol at Easter. In centuries past, on Easter Eve, the church was unlit until the candle was kindled by flint and steel. Then all other candles were lit from it to light the building.

The Paschal candle – which is always of beeswax, the purest wax – came to represent Christ, the Light of the World. In the Middle Ages in England this candle, obelisk in shape, was to lifted to "within a man's length of the roof", where it was lit by "a fine convenience" – an early match?

In some churches today the church is still left in darkness whilst a bonfire is lit outside to symbolise the coming light; the priest blesses the new fire, the symbol of Christ's Resurrection, and lights a candle from the new fire. This Paschal candle is then taken into the church from which the congregation light their candles. This Easter vigil includes a blessing of water as a sign of purification and water from the font is sprinkled over worshippers gathered there.

But way before this, in medieval England, on Easter morning households would strike new fire in the darkness –'need fire' as they called it – believing that the straw would not catch unless all fires and lights were put out first.

The yew in the churchyard was a symbol of life and it is the English or Irish yew that is the one true evergreen of Easter: the symbolic green of eternal life. And, apart from green, only the white of Resurrection is seen on the altar: narcissi, arum lilies, blackthorn or hellebore perhaps.

The swift and mysterious hare was thought to be sacred to Eastre – it would seem I have a thing about hares – and the hare was thought to lay eggs which it left in the grass for children to find. Today the hare's place has been taken by the Easter Bunny – a plebby upstart – but children still love searching for the eggs hidden in the garden and enjoy eating them just as much!

The egg was an object of wonder and the source of new life to primitive people and eaten whether it be that of the thrush, the pigeon, duck, chicken or goose. And from before Edward I's time, these Easter eggs - life's emblem - would be boiled in dye, which left them a beautiful blue, rose red or marbled green, and eaten for breakfast on Easter morning. If time could be afforded, a design could be scratched on the eggs with a steel pin.

When religious fasting was the norm – and the eating of eggs not allowed - the end of it, Easter, was a time to celebrate and eat all those other good things that had been denied. Throughout villages and in the manor houses of medieval England lamb and veal, capons, ducks, beer and bread, spiced cakes, custards and pies were prepared with care and eaten with joy and relish: Easter, then as now, was a time to eat eggs and rejoice in the light.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com
lucy.ann.white@hotmail.co.uk

Hey, what's this, it's snowing here! That's not part of the deal, this is Easter not Christmas, I was looking forward to the sun.

St Valentine's

St Valentine's Day had a bit of a naughty beginning, quite dissimilar to our romantic view of it. It's roots were in pagan Rome: during the month long Lupercalia festival the names of willing young women were written down and picked out at random by virile young men to be their companion throughout the time of orgy.

The Church disapproved of course and nominated a day and the acceptable face of a saint – Valentine – in the hope that he and not courtesans became the centre of attention. This was not an immediate success because then, as now, good times are not surrendered lightly: the young men and women continued to choose a real life Valentine with whom there was still fun and frolics.

Over time the Church did manage to steer the debauched festival into more fitting game of mystery and romance. Around the 15th century this took the form of a simple letters written to the partner of ones choice, with whom one hoped to perhaps eventually marry.

However, intrigue or the practical Valentine joke was often indulged as happened in Gaskell's novel, Cranford, with such sorry conequences. There were all sorts of ways to find a Valentine: in Samuel Pepys time – mid 1600's – the first man seen by a woman that morning became her Valentine, and she his, so a wise woman timed her outings so that she didn't bump into the dolt next door.

A wealthy Valentine was a very good catch because he would bring presents of gloves or stockings or, if he were very rich, jewellery. But letters, and names written on pieces of paper, were still common nevertheless. In the 17th century Valentines were often chosen by the recipient based on the skill of letter they wrote: it might be a sentimental poem, a few lines of flowery description or a painted heart.

These home-made 'letters' became more complex by the Victorian period: glue and scissors were employed to produce nifty decoupage or watercoloured pictures painted. Unfortunately those not blessed with any artistic ability were at a clear disadvantage.

The ever enterprising and commercially minded Victorians hit upon the bought Valentine card: embossing, patterns and perforations were used, with gold and silver gilding and love knots. As time went on these became works of sentimental and romantic art, birds, flowers, baskets, ribbons, lace, painted satin panels and cupids were favourite decorations with mottoes, couplets and rhymes added.

The cards became a roaring success; according to the General Post Office archives over 200,000 Valentine letters and cards were sent by post in 1825, which by 1850 had grown to 800,000. But mass production and OT decoration – three dimensional cards steeped in perfume, or boxed ones decorated with moss and feathers – caused these cards to lose their charm and the popularity of the Valentine card waned.

A revival (if for no other reason but to boost Post Office coffers) was needed: step in our hero, Rex Whistler. This talented artist designed the first St Valentine's telegram in glorious glittering colour and a new wave of sending St Valentine verses was begun.

I can remember the teenage angst that was palpable leading up to 14th February: if you received one it would accompany you to school and either be gloated over or discreetly dropped by 'accident' out of the satchel. Of course if you didn't get one you pretended the post hadn't been delivered before you left for school and hoped that by the next day the subject would be relegated to yesterday's news.

I have to say that I do think commercialism has rather overtaken the fun and charm of St Valentine's now: mark you, I have no objection to a bunch of flowers or (preferably and) a nice meal out from Best Beloved who, admittedly, does often need a little jog in the romance stakes.

But the sweetest of cards I ever received were those hand made ones that my children proudly presented to me after school. Alright, they weren’t anonymous and they were oddly shaped and strangely coloured, but I think making the cards taught them that not everything needs to be bought and that we all need little tokens of love now and then: so long live St Valentine's Day.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Plough Sunday & Plough Monday

Plough Sunday is the first Sunday after Twelfth Night, Epiphany, in other words the Sunday that falls between 7 January and 13 January: Plough Monday is the following day when work was supposed to resume on the farm after the Christmas holiday. I say, supposed, because Tuesday was usually spent recovering from the festivities and work often didn’t start until Wednesday!

Plough Sunday is one of the four agricultural festivals (after this is Rogationtide, Lammas and, finally, Harvest Thanksgiving) that date from pagan times. When ploughing was undertaken in the new year, the Christmas holiday was an extended one. As the fields were too frozen to work, the wooden plough would be kept indoors until Plough Sunday.

The Christian church embraced and adapted this pagan festival and on Plough Sunday the plough, or part of it, would be dragged to the church. There (where in Catholic times a ploughman’s candle was kept alight before an image throughout the year to obtain blessing for their labour) the plough would be blessed, prayers said and hymns sung: “Plough the fields an scatter, the good seed on the ground,” is still heard in churches throughout England today.

On the following Monday celebrations would be held - and these vary from county to county – but central to all was the need to raise funds for the ‘plough light’. Although the Reformation did away with these candles it couldn’t do away with the festival. Instead funds were raised for the working lads and lasses – often spent at the inn.

The young farm labourers would rise early and dress in clean white shirts. With bright bows and bunches of ribbons on their shirts and hats they would gather in the village. In some areas their faces would be blackened – so they couldn’t be recognized – but the white shirt and hobnailed boot of the labourer were universal.

There would be a Fool, dressed in animal skins and carrying a bladder, and a Betsy (sometimes Bessy, Ossy or Molly), a boy dressed as a woman often with a large nose and a tall hat. The lads would form a file and each take a rope attached to a well scrubbed, beribboned and decorated plough. The leader took the shafts and they proceeded through the village blowing cow-horns, whilst the fiddle and drum played and the Fool ran about and Betsy shook her box for pennies.

Any well-to-do householder too mean to stump up a ‘plough penny’ was likely to find a furrow cut through their front garden when they woke the next morning. When the procession reached the centre of the village they formed a circle and sword dancers stepped in. Similar in some respects to a Mummer’s Play of the North Country, many Foresters’ Plays or The Reversby Play of Lincolnshire, for example, the circular dance was derived from a prehistoric fertility rite.

When the dance reached its climax, the Fool kneels in its midst: the swords are locked and lowered over his head and the dancers, holding the swords still, whirl around. A shout, and suddenly they release the swords and the Fool lies dead. Everyone who took part had a very merry time and gained refreshment where they could – either offered by householders or at the local inn.

Over the last half century Plough Sunday and Plough Monday are enjoying a small revival: churches often have Plough Sunday services where, in the medieval manner, ploughs are blessed and with it the farm worker’s labour. And in many towns at festivals, or outside crowded pubs, Morris dancers, Molly dancers or sword dancers entertain the crowds and, although there may be no ploughing in the offing, the men dance and drink with the same skill and enthusiasm as did those young swains of years ago.