Haphazard By Starlight

chalked charms & darkling glim

Medieval stone and flint crown, church of St John the Baptist, Coltishall, Norfolk

Epiphany takes us from the longing darkness of Advent and the cosy inner space of the Twelve Days of Christmas into a wilder landscape of frost and stars, swan’s wings, and fox tracks in the snow.

Jacqueline Durban (on Facebook)

Hello friends, and welcome to the first Bracken & Wrack of 2026!

It’s been a quiet time here in this corner of north-east Norfolk, or that’s my overall impression. Yet when I look back over my camera roll I see there have been plenty of small adventures and tastes of the season over the past few weeks.

Winter has an icy grip over the lanes here. Over the past few days I have often retreated from the optimistic thought of a walk down the lane and turned instead to the comforting task of lighting the stove. Today I nearly succumbed to the need for fresh air, until the postman, crunching his way over the yard, spoke gloomily of the broken wrists and knees he had come across on his rounds. ‘Honestly, I’d stay here love unless you absolutely have to go out’.

Trouble was, I had a new video ready to upload and found myself restless until I decided to go against the postman’s advice and drive to the nearest town where there’s a café with strong enough internet to tackle the task. When it came to it, there were only a couple of dodgy patches of ice along the lane and all went well. So if you’d like a glimpse of those ‘small adventures’ I mentioned earlier you’ll find a patchwork of them here:

This edition of Bracken & Wrack was inspired by some of my favourite words - Twelfth Night and Epiphany. For some reason, these have always tingled with enchantment and a sparkly mysticism in my mind, even though the reality may be a little more mundane as we decide whether to take down the decorations now, or leave them up for Old Christmas and Old Twelfth Night. That would keep the festivities going until 19 January. Or even, as in earlier times, until Candlemas on 2 February :-)

Homemade wreath on one of the cottage’s many doors (don’t ask!), using foraged finds from Dancing Bear Wood and Crow Wood, Norfolk

I celebrated Epiphany by making a vegan sticky toffee pudding last night, its darkly golden richness a nod to the gifts of the Three Wise Men. And if you read on you may find out (as is just dawning on me) why the coming of the Kings has had such a strange pull on me all these years.

And the mystery, which seems woven in equal parts from gold (rich, deep abundance), frankincense (the unseen and unknowable) and myrrh (rites of passage and ceremony) all wound around with starlight, draws me back again and again. Memories of my mum’s paper kings mingle with words from a childhood book in which a French family’s sitting room is entirely taken over by the journey of the Nativity, with the Magi in the form of clay figures - santons - making their way over the Twelve Days towards the village of Bethlehem. At Epiphany, of course, they arrive at the stable illuminated by a single star.

When you look, you find a wealth of art and poetry inspired by this journey and of the arrival of the Magi. It’s then that you realise how deeply the story touches us even today, even if we are not - or are only vaguely - Christian. The Wise Men’s perseverance and faith, their long journey, the way they unite despite (in folklore anyway) their different appearances and, perhaps, cultures. Even the magic held within their names, which are never actually mentioned in the gospels. These were first recorded as Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar in an 8th century chronicle, their initials being invoked in the charms of cunning-folk and chalked around many a doorway to bring good fortune to the inhabitants of a home.

Chalked Three Kings good fortune charm, seen in Little Walsingham, Norfolk. The 20 and the 23 show the year I took this photo as the chalk must be renewed annually. Between these two number lie the initials of the Magi, C + M + B

In this issue:

• The Magic of the Magi

• A Waft Of Gold Spray Paint: the Three Kings remembered

• Poetry by Ursula A Fanthorpe & George Mackay Brown

• Circumscribed By Signs: guidance for a healthy new year

• Three Kings Golden Squash Dhal: a recipe for Epiphany-tide

Young oak on the heath, 3 January 2026

To hear an audio version of ‘BC:AD’, please click here:

This was the moment when Before

Turned into After, and the future’s

Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

This was the moment when nothing

Happened. Only dull peace

Sprawled boringly over the earth.

This was the moment when even energetic

Romans

Could find nothing better to do

Than counting heads in remote provinces.

And this was the moment

When a few farm workers and three

Members of an obscure Persian sect

Walked haphazard by starlight straight

into the kingdom of Heaven.

Ursula A Fanthorpe, ‘BC:AD’

Rainbow enchantments down by the Otter Stream, 3 January 2026

A WAFT OF GOLD SPRAY PAINT: the Three Kings remembered

They were made from stiff cartridge paper. Not pure white, but a soft milky colour that slowly yellowed as the years went by. All three were of a height, perhaps a foot tall including their crowns. And I can just about picture the first Christmas that the Three Kings arrived on top of the low bookcase with its sliding glass doors that stood behind the sofa in our suburban sitting room.

I was probably around four years old, my brother still a baby, when the Kings reached St Catherine’s Road, and after that they were retrieved from the loft December after December, surviving and thriving even after two house moves.

The Three Kings (and less well remembered, the matching Nativity trio) weren’t the only special things that saw the light of day for only a dazzling moment each year.

There was the glossy pair of choir boys mum had brought home from pottery class, each with an indentation in their outstretched arms exactly the right size for a birthday cake candle. Always, the Advent calendars from previous years. And, most excitingly, the wooden manger with its wisps of hay in which I would place Jonathan, my baby doll, before press ganging two of my other dolls into the roles of Mary and Joseph.

Of course, I grew out of the thrill of setting up my homespun nativity as I approached double figures but the Kings, well, they were timeless and although it’s several years now since I’ve seen them, they’re still quite vivid in my mind.

So let me describe them to you, in as much detail as I can remember. Each was formed from a tall cone of thick paper with a ping pong ball head. (In those days it was ping pong, never table tennis.) In their simplicity there was no suggestion of hair or features. In fact, so minimal were they that over half a century later they would look quite at home in today’s Scandi-style interiors.

Their magic, for me, lay in the fairytale filigree of a gold paper doily. These doilies came in packs of assorted designs, in which a keen eye could discern trims, motifs - and crowns, each different. The Kings had only a scattering of gold punctuating their creamy whiteness, making the suggestion of opulence all the more mesmerising. One of them held a tiny gold paper lantern, representing one of the gifts. Another carried a gold card casket before him.

But my favourite gift - the one my eye was always drawn to - was a golden urn, conjured into being simply by gilding a poppy seed head with a waft of gold spray paint.

I’m wracking my memory as to whether that shimmering vessel held gold, frankincense or myrrh. What would be your guess?

The Dream of the Kings from a medieval illustration (source unknown). In the Epiphany story, an angel comes to the Wise Men in a dream and warns them not to return the way they have come, as Herod is on their trail and plans to have them murdered. Gratefully, they go home by a different route.

[The] Magi keep the fire ever burning. And there, entering daily, they make their incantations...

Greek philosopher, Strabo of Amasia

CIRCUMSCRIBED WITH SIGNS: guidance for a healthy new year

New Year’s Day may be past now, but don’t forget that at the time Buchard of Worms was compiling his Corrector and Doctor (c. 1008 - 1012) the date would have been thirteen days later, so equivalent to today’s 14 January. And that means it may be a good idea to pay heed, now, to the Bishop of Worms’ teachings on the matter.

(You can read more about the background to this list of edicts, compiled to help Christian priests in their mission to ‘cure’ souls from ‘sickness’, in Something Ancestral, a recent edition of Bracken & Wrack.)

• Have you observed the first of January using pagan rites, so that you did something more on that day because it was the new year than you would normally do either before or after it, by which I mean to say that on that day have you either set your table with stones or food-offerings, or led singers and dancers through the neighbourhoods and streets, or sat on the roof of your house with your sword circumscribed with signs in order for you to see and know there what will happen to you in the coming year? Or have you sat at a crossroads on a bullskin in order to know your future? Or have you made loaves of bread to be cooked in your name the night before so that, if they rise well and are firm and tall, from this you foresee that your life will be prosperous in the coming year? If so, because you have abandoned God … you should do penance for two years on the appointed fast days.

• Have you done the sort of things that pagans did and still do on the first of January, going about [masquerading] as a little stag or a calf? If you have done so, you should do penance for 30 days on bread and water.

Medieval people masquerading as animals while a musician plays a gittern in New Year revelry

If you would like to hear an audio version of ‘A Calendar of Kings’, please click below.

They endured a season

Of ice and silver swans.

Delicately the horses

Grazed among the snowdrops.

They traded for fish, wind

Fell upon crested waters.

Along their track

Daffodils lit a thousand tapers.

They slept among dews.

A dawn lark broke their dream.

For them, at solstice

The chalice of the sun spilled over.

The star was lost.

They rode between burnished hills.

A fiddle at a fair

Compelled the feet of harvesters.

A glim on their darkling road.

The star! It was their star.

In a sea village

Children brought apples to the horses.

They lit fires

By the carved stones of the dead.

A midwinter inn.

Here they unload their treasures.

George Mackay Brown, ‘ A Calendar of Kings’, from Following a Lark

THREE KINGS GOLDEN SQUASH DHAL: a recipe for Epiphany-tide

And finally, a suitably golden recipe which seems to me to be easily fit for a king (or three). Not to mention being incredibly comforting and warming for those of us for whom Epiphany falls at the chilliest time of the year.

1 butternut squash, peeled

1 teasp ground cinnamon

1 teasp ground cumin

Drizzle of olive oil & pinch of salt

1 onion

3 cloves garlic

1 teasp ground turmeric

Small chunk of ginger

1 tbsp curry powder

300g red lentils, rinsed & drained

1 tin of coconut milk

250ml plant-based milk

1 lime, juiced

2 tbsp coconut yogurt

To serve, some of the following (optional) - chopped coriander, sliced red chilli, toasted flaked almonds

Set oven to 200C. De-seed the squash and chop into bite-sized pieces.

Place the squash pieces in a roasting tin and mix with cinnamon, cumin, olive oil and salt. Roast for 30 minutes or until soft.

Warm another drizzle of olive oil and good pinch of salt in a large pan, then add the onion and garlic, both chopped small and cook until softened.

Add turmeric, ginger and curry powder and cook for a minute before adding the red lentils and coconut milk. Cook for 15 - 20 minutes, adding the milk a little at a time as it’s absorbed.

Once the lentils feel soft, stir through the lime juice and squash pieces, mix through the yogurt and serve with toppings to taste.

Golden willow twigs by the River Bure, Norfolk, 27 December 2025

Until next time.

With love, Imogen x