On The Bare Margins

elf-trees & tattered gold

Dear friends, happy full moon in Gemini!  

And, a warm welcome to the first birthday edition of Bracken & Wrack.

A birthday bouquet: alder and birch from along the lane.

In this issue:

• November musings

• Poetry by Ivor Gurney, Victor Tapner and Hilary Llewellyn-Williams

• The Last Hips

• Gabriel’s Message

• An Advent Playlist

• Becoming More Unruly

• Daemon Fire

Walking down the lane and over the heath as I do most mornings, it’s very noticeable how every day the woods to my left are more transparent while the bracken on the other side of the lane has begun to trickle into the earth like black treacle.

I love this reminder that nothing stays the same.

We can’t hold onto any single moment as everything is constantly shifting. It’s unsettling, melancholic even. Yet there is certainty that, at whatever uneven, jolting pace it may take the wheel is inexorably turning and another season is being dreamed into being.

My husband often used to quote Heraclitus - ‘you can never step into the same river twice’. He loved that thought. He seemed to find it comforting, though I never asked him exactly why.

I think I know, though. And those words often come into my head, as I feel gratitude for all that’s to be learned by stepping into that river - or lane, or heath, or beach, or woodland track - time after time and revelling in its newness within the deep familiarity it holds. Always something to surprise, to bring a flash of joy.

Have you been noticing the tiny day-by-day changes too?

Birch and bracken in late November.

It was one year ago this week that I first dipped my toe into the Substack river of possibilities and wonder. Here’s a little of that introduction. It’s a reminder, to me at least, that the wheel truly does turn again and again, bringing sensations each time that are both reassuringly similar and yet tantalisingly different. 

There will be a day when all is flashing rose hips, golden fairy-flag birch leaves strung along the boughs and a last fiery flash of bracken. A couple of days later after a rainy or frosty bout (no frost here yet!) and the world has changed again. The woods are see-through and go on for miles. Droplet-laden twigs and wicked spikes emerge at angles between the few remaining blackthorn leaves and clusters of sloes. The bracken melts away, autumn’s alchemy turning them from golden syrup to caramel to burnt toffee to black treacle. The wren and the robin flick in front of me as I walk and I can see the spot where they dip into the waiting hedgerow. Fresh dug earth and skid marks down the bank reveal the places where night-wanderers cross the lane. 

In the midst of winter’s quiet decay, paradoxically the world seems more alive, more full of movement and curious happenings than it does in the warm lull of summer. 

This morning, walking over the heath before settling down to write this, three roe deer stood gazing at me, white rumps bright against the soft russets and bronzes of heathers and grasses. Their angular ears making me smile as they always do. November arranges its colours and forms to perfection.

Oak and ivy-flowers in late November.

The moon, one tree, one star.

Still meadows far,

Enwreathed and scarfed by phantom lines of white.

November's night

Of all her nights, I thought, and turned to see

Again that moon and star-supporting tree.

If some most quiet tune had spoken then;

Some silver thread of sounds; a core within

That sea-deep silentness, I had not known

Even such joy in peace, but sound was none —

Nor should be till birds roused to find the dawn.

Ivor Gurney, ‘Old Martinmas Eve’

(Old Martinmas Eve is 23 November, so has just passed this year.)

The Last Hips

Ah, November! How I love your damp smouldering beauty. Just a few steps beyond the garden your musky earthy scents rise up and caress my nostrils. The last hips, the last sloes, even the last blackberries vainly trying to play catch-up. Tattered gold and russet bunting strung between the twigs. The green-grey of the stream cutting like a ribbon through the alder carr. Misty air, muddy verges, soft silver-pink of distant birch thickets. And home again for coffee and the lighting of the wood stove.

The last fiery hips. November 26 2022.

Gabriel’s Message

The angel Gabriel from heaven came,

his wings as drifted snow, his eyes of flame.

(from ‘Gabriel’s Message’, traditional.)

Yesterday was Stir Up Sunday, the last Sunday before the beginning of Advent when traditionally it’s time to get your Christmas pudding made. Time to stir up those aromatic dried fruits and nuts, spices, spirits, flour, eggs and other good things. And, of course, to make the annual Pudding Wish while doing so. When I was a child it would have been unthinkable not to have been called to the kitchen by my mum when the moment had come for the stirring and wishing.

As a gentle prelude to the season, I wanted to share here a beautiful version of ‘Gabriel’s Message’ I recently discovered, recorded by Sting for his 2009 album If on a Winter’s Night.

Digging a little deeper, I found out that it’s a Basque folk carol, originally based on Angelus Ad Virginem, a 13th or 14th century Latin carol. It was collected by Charles Bordes (1863 - 1909), a French music teacher and composer, and paraphrased into English by Sabine Baring-Gould (1934 - 1924), an Anglican priest, hagiographer, antiquarian, novelist, folk song collector and eclectic scholar (phew!) from Devon in England.

Sabine’s credentials for being the right person for the job seem to have rested on the fact that he spent a winter in Basque country as a boy, so it would be interesting to know how closely the English lyrics (which are admittedly gorgeous) adhere to the meaning of the carol in its original Basque.

Last year at around this time, I put together a list of seasonal music that, one way or another, has been a soundtrack to my Advents. To that, I can now add If on a Winter’s Night, so in case you missed the list the first time I’ll repeat it now. I hope you’ll find something to enjoy that might perhaps become a festive favourite in your own household. I’ve given a link to the CD where it still exists, but many are available for unlimited free streaming.

When my children were little there was a family tradition of playing two special CDs while wrapping presents, writing cards, making mince pies and especially while decorating the Christmas tree. 

My girls still keep up the ritual in their own homes and have said it wouldn’t be Christmas without it!

I’ve started with some for early Advent and they get more and more festive as you go down the list. The last two are the stars on the top of the Christmas tree. And maybe you’ll (I resisted saying ‘Yule’ haha) feel the same way.

Sting - If on a Winter’s Night

Gothic Voices - The Voices of England and France Vol 3

Rose Consort of Viols - Dowland: Consort Music and Songs 

The Cardinall’s Music - Byrd Propers for Christmas Day

Richard Hickox - Ralph Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on Christmas Carols

British Composers - Ralph Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on Christmas Carols - this is a different selection.

Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band - A Tapestry of Carols

Martin Best Ensemble - Thys Yool

Magpie Lane - Wassail: A Country Christmas

We give you raven

dog’s head

we sow salt

Seedkeepers in the deep earth

we disturb your world

Take this grain from our fields 

feed the trees

through the days of the dead

let no breath leave

We cover you with clay

our pit is filled

let snow fall

let the seed sleep

Victor Tapner, ‘Seed Pit’, Flatlands

Teasels in Old Lane.

Becoming More Unruly

Birch twigs spin cobwebs in the sky once more, their tumbled leaves softly gilding the ground.

Along the edge of Crow Wood, these wild beauties waved and winked at me and I realised how little I knew about them. I’d assumed that witches’ brooms were parasitic like mistletoe, but they’re not. They’re a natural phenomenon, a chaotic aberration from the polite society of ‘normal’ trees, becoming more unruly year on year.

Don’t you like the sound of that?!

Witches’ broom in Crow Wood, November 2022.

Tree of death of all trees,

all plants; elder from Hell

(that twilight country under the hill

or holy well) where Mother Holda shakes

her feather pillows out, and we have snow.

Elf-tree: avoid it after dark

and in the dark of the year, lurking

place of the Huldre-folk, who look fair 

enough, but whose backs are hollow

as stumps, damp cavities; and still

they dance on the bare margins of our world.

Hilary Llewellyn-Williams, extract from ‘ Elder’, The Tree Calendar

Daemon Fire

We haven’t heard from our Victorian Yorkshire wise woman for a while, so I felt it high time to share with you another of her recommendations. This one, a simple but perfect full moon ritual. Of course, if conditions aren’t right tonight the moon will still appear full for another night or so. This may also be something to save for a particular moment in the future when you feel the need for contact with otherworldly realms. 

‘First, find a receptacle of good strong metal, silver is best. Take it out under the full moon, which is the night of the Goddess. Wash the silver basin under the risen moon’s rays, turning it this way and that.

Have handfuls of pine cones ready. Place the basin on stone, making sure all is safe and well, and light the cones with the wick of a white candle. The basin should be deep so that you do yourself no harm.

Sprinkle dried sprigs of lavender upon the little leaping flames, and let the cones burn until they turn red.

Put no more now onto your Daemon-Fire, but gaze into its embers.

In this magical fire you will see ghosts of the past and dreams of the future. You will see faery birds and strange mythical beasts. And if luck is with you, when the fire has died quite away until there is nothing more than a trailing phantom of pine and lavender incense and a whisper of falling ashes, you may go outside to the woods and the fields and the lonely places and follow the moonbeams to find the fairy haunts.’

Alder cones in the enchanted carr.

PS: If you’re like me and have missed Stir Up Sunday this year, you might like to know that I’m including a delicious last-minute vegan Christmas Pudding recipe in the next edition of Bracken & Wrack. Watch this space!

Until then,

With love, Imogen x