The Reckless Dance

scattered stitches & fairy glamour

‘LIKE SILVERY FISH’

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout …

W B Yeats, from ‘The Song of Wandering Aengus’

The hazel tree is easily recognisable, for it is quick-moving and mercurial, like silvery fish … Country folk say that silver snakes surround the hazel’s roots.

Jacqueline M Paterson, Tree Wisdom

In the damp place by the stream where alder and bluebell and wild garlic flourish, there also grows the hazel tree. You will know it, even under moonlight, by the mother-of-pearl of its coppiced trunks.

In late winter if the breeze is up, you may stand mesmerised by the reckless dance being performed beneath its branches. If you hold your breath and move closer, the fey dancers will reveal themselves as shimmering male catkins grown long and filled with pollen. Golden tassels, wild and vivid against the dark winter twigs.

With their joyful resemblance to lamb’s tails, it’s no wonder that they were traditionally hung about the hearth at lambing time in an act of sympathetic magic for the birthing ewes.

Hazel is aptly ruled by air, as you will know if you have sat under one and experienced its sparkling energy. Yet it’s also deeply attuned to water and is often encountered beside a holy well, strung with offerings and petitions.

It has two especially strong tides; in the autumn when its nuts of wisdom and nourishment are ripe, and around Candlemas when its early growth speaks of new beginnings. Hazel is associated with luck, fertility, protection and wishes - all reasons that a seeker may journey to a sacred well.

Hazel rods can divine the presence of water, fairly leaping in the hands of the diviner when they feel the forgotten flow. 

It’s also said that a forked hazel stick can find hot spots or ‘pulse points’ on the land if you seek with sensitivity and an open heart. I believe this to be true, since I have seen with my own eyes the way divining rods can pick up the edges of a Bronze Age barrow and cursus. Why should that not extend to other special places within the landscape? 

In her book Traditional Witchcraft: A Cornish Book of Ways, Gemma Gary mentions the talking stick, a forked hazel staff used by West Country practitioners to gain visions via these pulse points where the life force within the land is strong. The staff would be set into the land at an angle and the rounded forked ends placed against the closed eyes of the kneeling seeker. The practitioner would then feel for the serpentine energies flowing along the staff, bringing visions or messages from the land and the answers to questions. 

Like little tails of little lambs,
On leafless twigs my catkins swing;
They dingle-dangle merrily
Before the wakening of Spring.

Beside the pollen-laden tails
My tiny crimson tufts you see
The promise of the autumn nuts
Upon the slender hazel tree.

While yet the woods lie grey and still
I give my tidings: ‘Spring is near!’
One day the land shall leap to life
With fairies calling: ‘Spring is HERE!’

Cicely Mary Barker, ‘The Hazel-Catkin Fairy’

The flame awakening at Old Candlemas, 15 February 2008. My artwork at St Andrew’s Church, Wood Dalling, Norfolk.

Welcome to this new moon and Old Candlemas edition of Bracken & Wrack.

In this issue, I’ve tried to capture a little of the quickening I’m sensing all around me here in north Norfolk; the lengthening of days and the swelling of buds in hedgerow and woodland. Yesterday I noticed the first tightly furled blackthorn flowers along the lane. Spring is on its way.

This time, we have:

• ‘Like Silvery Fish’ - the mercurial magic of the hazel tree

• Old Candlemas At The Ladywell

• A Stag-Riding Bishop

• St Teilo’s Chocolate Nests

• What’s Written Cannot Be Unwritten

• Poems by W B Yeats, John Clare and Cicely Mary Barker

THE LADYWELL: AN OLD CANDLEMAS STORY

When we look to the Julian calendar dates for the old festivals, we not only understand the old proverbs and weather lore more readily but we sense how the seasons have shifted more than we perhaps realised during the 13 days between today’s dates and the dates on which those festivals would have fallen before 1752.

I think that St Brigid’s Day or Imbolc on 1 February and Candlemas on 2 February are perfect examples of this phenomenon. In the UK at least, the season often feels very different on 14 and 15 February than it does at the beginning of the month. Now, there is a sweetness on the air and birdsong is increasing every day, the buds are more prominent, many more snowdrops are in bloom.

It feels like a moment to mark, especially if you’re as fascinated as I am by folk practices and the ways of those who came before us on the land. So here is something I wrote a few years ago about a Candlemas visit to the Ladywell, a natural spring that rises behind St Mary’s Church at Sedgeford in Norfolk. You will see that it is also a recipe of sorts, for a blend of pure essential oils you might like to try warming over a burner to evoke for yourself the essence of that magical place or of any other holy well at this time of the year.

Although there are a lot of different oils listed here, don’t be put off trying this even if you only have a few of them. It’s the intention that matters most, and even three or four will help to transport you to a path in a meadow leading down to the water’s edge:

‘Lifting the rope loop I slip through the rickety gate into the lush pasture where I am greeted by geese. The path winds downwards behind the church - it’s no surprise that it’s dedicated to St Mary since I am here for the Ladywell.

At the bottom of the slope I stand among stray feathers, white on green, and gaze. A lone alder flutters with luminous purple catkins. Below its trunk crouches a huge boulder, rolled first by the strong arm of a glacier and then, surely, by human agency if not by a giant. Rolled to precisely this spot, where the Ladywell springs, spilling over pebbles, shallow enough to stand in to feel its soft vibrancy against my soles.

Scented smoke drifts skyward. My incense is called ‘Brigid’ and I don’t know what’s in it but the spice and wood and citrus call me home to this place where I stand in the cool sparkle of the very cusp of spring.

How to capture the scent of Candlemas? I reach into my pocket for the biscuit I have baked to share with the water spirits, or perhaps with the Lady herself. Shaped as a star and spiked with lemon zest, I break it and the sharp citrus refreshes and energises as the earth reawakens after its winter sleep. LEMON, ORANGE, GRAPEFRUIT, GREEN MANDARIN, BERGAMOT and LIME spin around my nostrils.

Stooping over the bubbling spring I’m aware of other scents, rich and earthy as PATCHOULI and VETIVER and sharp and exciting as BLACK PEPPER.

They say that water carries the memory of the ages, so is it so strange that FRANKINCENSE wafts faintly from the direction of the ancient church? I half expect to hear the rise and fall of plainsong.

Across the lane, the cottage smallholding looks cosy, the scent of ROSE GERANIUM reaching me from its windowsills. Inside, the goose-keeper turns over her paper packets, seeing what can be sown now. CARROT SEED for one thing. Back outside, from her smouldering bonfire I catch the aromas of evergreens ROSEMARY, BAY and PINE, burned to cleanse and clear after the midwinter festivities.

There’s even a faint note of BIRCH TAR in the smoke curling from the chimney. How very fitting. Birch, first among trees; the tree of new beginnings.’

At the Ladywell, Sedgeford, Norfolk. You can just see the incense vessel with its ‘Brigid’ smoke.

The sunbeams on the hedges lie,

The south wind murmurs summer-soft;

The maids hang out white clothes to dry

Around the elder-skirted croft:

A calm of pleasure listens round,

And almost whispers winter by;

While Fancy dreams of summer's sound,

And quiet rapture fills the eye.

Thus Nature of the spring will dream

While south winds thaw; but soon again

Frost breathes upon the stiffening stream,

And numbs it into ice: the plain

Soon wears its mourning garb of white;

And icicles, that fret at noon,

Will eke their icy tails at night

Beneath the chilly stars and moon.

John Clare, from ‘February’ in The Shepherd’s Calendar

February sunshine at the alder carr, Crostwight, Norfolk.

ST TEILO THE STAG-RIDING BISHOP

St Teilo was a sixth century monk and bishop, and an early Welsh saint. The patron saint of fruit trees and horses, his feast day is celebrated on 9 February.

Now, you may be forgiven for not having heard of Teilo. It’s true to say he has faded into obscurity compared with St David the patron saint of Wales. So it’s surprising to learn that there are still many churches in Wales, Cornwall and Brittany dedicated to him, second only in number to those dedicated to St David himself.

According to tradition, Teilo was born at Penally near Tenby in South Pembrokeshire around 480-500. He went on to study under St Paulinus at the monastic school at Whitland, Carmarthenshire. Here he became friends with St David, who may have been his cousin. Teilo subsequently travelled with him to Mynyw, now known as St David’s, where David set up his religious community.

Having been consecrated as a bishop during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Teilo went on to found an abbey in Dyfed, and may also have set up a centre at Llandeilo in Carmarthenshire. However the outbreak of yellow fever in Wales around 549 forced Teilo and his religious community to flee to Cornwall and from there, over to Dol in Brittany where they stayed for (a magical?) seven years.

It is said that during Teilo’s time in Brittany he saved the local population from a winged dragon which he tamed. Unfortunately he then kept the poor dragon tied to a rock in the sea, which as a friend to dragons I simply cannot condone. In another legend, when a local lord offered him all the land he could encircle between sunset and sunrise, Teilo chose to ride on a stag to cover as much ground as possible in the time available.

While they were in France, St Teilo and St Samson are also said to have planted three miles of fruit trees. To this day, these swathes of trees are known as the groves of Teilo and Samson.

In around 554 Teilo and his followers returned from Brittany to Llandeilo Fawr, where he died on 9 February around the year 560. After his death, Teilo’s body is said to have multiplied during the night by the magical number 3, meaning that three places could claim to have his true relics and thus attract the patronage of pilgrims. 

St Teilo’s Well at Llandyfan also became a place of pilgrimage. As the spring waters were revered as a cure for paralysis, hopeful pilgrims came from far and wide. It is recorded that St Teilo’s skull was the drinking vessel, although, if true, the skull has long since disappeared. These days its waters flow into a nearby reservoir but the well, used in the 19th century for outdoor baptisms, is still there next to the Victorian church built on the site.

Teilo’s story interests me in several ways. I love how some of these early saints have wild elements to their stories that are perhaps echoes of earlier tales. This early saint is not the only one to list dragon-taming among his attributes. Another is St Petroc (c. 468 - 564) who, besides taming a dragon, is known for founding a monastery at Padstow in Cornwall. He was an exact contemporary of Teilo and, like the stag riding bishop, he was born in Wales. What sets their stories apart from the abstract concept of St Michael or St George battling with the Satanic dragon of evil is the human element. These dragons are perceived as real beings who cause physical mischief to the local people until the heroic saint steps in to take things in hand. 

And of course the image of St Teilo riding on a stag between sunrise and sunset is a powerful one too; more like a lord of the wildwood than a Christian bishop. Or, if you half close your eyes, even one of the old northern gods quietly roaming the land, guarding its edges as before.

Stag in Acorn Wood: vessel by Michele Cowmeadow.

Dragon in Horning church, Norfolk.

ST TEILO’S CHOCOLATE NESTS

If Teilo had been roaming the land on his stag in February, he couldn’t fail to notice the remnants of winter birds’ nests clinging to the forks between the twigs. Here we are on the cusp of spring, just before old nests are patched up and others built afresh.

With that in mind, I think he would enjoy this recipe. I know it sounds like something from a primary school cookery session, but this is a healthier vegan take on the old favourite based on a Deliciously Ella recipe. I was delighted to find it at exactly the right moment. You might like to leave the nests empty to reflect this liminal point in the season, or feel free to fill them with chocolate or marzipan eggs if you feel like working a little sympathetic magic to lure in the spring.

Makes 9 nests:

60g quinoa puffs

5 tbsp cacao powder

6 tbsp maple syrup

5 tbsp coconut oil

2 tbsp almond butter

Place the coconut oil, cacao powder, maple syrup and almond butter into a saucepan. Gently heat until it’s smooth and melted.

While it heats, put the quinoa puffs into a bowl. Pour over the mixture and stir to coat all the puffs in chocolate.

Scoop spoonfuls of the mix onto a piece of greaseproof paper or parchment. Form into little nests and place in the fridge to chill.

These nests are best made the day before you need them so they can be left in the fridge overnight to set properly.

Along the lane, February 2024.

Something seems different 

along the lane drifting gold 

everything in motion

wispy strands shiver and billow 

the lane’s leaden edges embroidered 

bordered 

with scattered stitches, marking the trail.

Follow it, see where it leads.

 

Adored gorse adorned 

with Candlemas lametta

tossed onto its spines 

masking the sharp.

Out of its time 

as in a spell

cast onto wayside bushes 

to hasten summer.

Straw into gold

such alchemical kisses 

wooing sun-blossomed gorse  

whispered promises of stolen nectar

seasons turned on their heads.

Where pale rays pierce, cajoling,

urging limbs to part

there gleams the gold

the eye caught and held

a fairy glamour

here today gone tomorrow.

Imogen Ashwin

WHATS WRITTEN CANNOT BE UNWRITTEN

As I slid through the familiar gap I wondered how much more of the cliff might have slipped into the sea since my last visit. It’s been a while. According to the moonrise time I’d found online there was no time to lose. The sun had not yet set and there was only a faint suggestion of apricot washing the sky, the lighthouse not yet beckoning dusk on this February afternoon.

The little paths that marked the way were pale, beaten hard down, and I took one that carried me on its back towards the twisted remains of a sycamore copse. Yet more of its skeletons had been taken by the waves since I’d last passed that way. Now, it was little more than a huddle of bones.

A shadow-puppet crow on the topmost twig got me pulling off my gloves, rough wool sliding over skin as I reached for my phone. By the time my fingers had fumbled for the camera setting, I looked up and it had disappeared. All that was left was a crow shaped gap in the sky, bony sycamore fingers pointing wildly in all directions to tell me where it might have gone.

I lowered my phone. It wasn’t the same without the crow.

Still no sign of the moon as I crossed the car park and approached the little gate onto the cliff path. The sun was on the cusp of setting, cutting a furrow into the deep chocolate of the ploughed field. A wartime pillbox breaks the skyline, ploughed around respectfully year after year.  That one is lucky: for now, at least. Another pillbox teeters on the brink. You can walk between it and the gently-tumbled cliff edge but it’s a mere three feet from sliding down with the wild mustard and telltale barley. Soon it will have finished its watch. 

The path wavers, wildly in places, as it negotiates each new edge. But there was a clear view of the shoestring path before me as it swept around the bay towards the beach houses perched beyond. I turned in a circle to watch the sun sink and ooze colour and saw the first flash as the lighthouse stirred and shook itself from its daytime slumber.

Now it was well after the predicted moonrise time. I guessed that the low band of cloud over the horizon had blurred its progress as it nudged through the rim. It wouldn’t be the first time it had played peekaboo with me.

Originally I’d thought I’d get the best view from the path but now there was nothing to be lost by clambering down to the beach. The cleft was well worn, and it was easy to lower myself through the gap, run down the slope and swish through the soft dry sand below. Substantial rocks used to be clustered at this end of the bay, a puny attempt to hold back the insistent tide of erosion. They’ve all but disappeared now. The sea shapes after its own image. 

My boots left little trace in the sand until I reached the scalloped edge, redrawn over and over by the capricious incoming tide. Here, my treads stamped their mark in a meandering line of their own. Every so often a particularly pioneering etch-a-sketch wave gushed in before withdrawing with a quiet sigh as if embarrassed by its boldness.

I crossed the threshold to taste salt from my right hand - the sea gives. Then from my left - the sea takes. 

Respect, always. 

I know the ways of this charismatic charmer. At least, I know to be on my mettle, staying immune to its silky-tongued overtures. Playful wavelets teased my toes, spread out their enchantments. As soon as I was off my guard the One they served would chance a lunge across the pretty lace edging it had woven. Then, I would spin around and run until I knew it could not touch me. Only once did it outwit me that time, and then the price I paid was merely a damp sock where a white horse had shaken out its mane.

Cerulean to Prussian. Above the horizon the light was fading minute by minute. All the warmth now lay behind me where the sun was giving the land a goodnight kiss before snuggling under its corduroy bedspread.

Suddenly I remembered why I was here. And there was the full moon, just the top curve showing above swaddling bands of cloud.

I willed the full circle to emerge but it was having none of my conjuring so I instead I watched the waves as they turned in their own perfect circles.   

Breaking my gaze to scan the dusky sweep of the bay, I realised that a rosy mist had fallen.  It was hard to judge distances as sky softened into sea softened into sand. The lighthouse shot out its three wishes. Beyond stood the church tower, tall and aloof. I would say that the pair are a reassuring presence, solid and eternal, but the sea laughs and tells me they are not.   

My eye was caught by something that looked like writing. Runes? A word? Smooth-edged, the first wave had already licked it. But I was almost sure it was a word. Of course I had to go and see what message it might hold before the slate was erased.

Can you guess what the word was?

A few moments later it had gone, and the sea kept rolling in exactly as if that word had never existed.

But, just in that moment, I was there to witness it. And what’s written cannot be unwritten.

The word in the sand? I wonder whether you’ll believe me when I tell you. 

It was ‘Imogen’.

Happisburgh, Norfolk.

Until next time.

With love, Imogen x