Their Winter Eyes

scattered straw & cobble drift

The Witchmen in action at the Whittlesea Straw Bear Festival, 17 January 2026

Hello and welcome to Bracken & Wrack, just after the January new moon when a beautiful crescent hangs in the sky.

It’s the perfect moment for a walk along the wintry lane, and no sooner have my feet left the front yard than a flutter in the hedgerow opposite resolves itself into a wren. Two wrens, I think, as they dart between the spiky hawthorns on either side .

This is such a nice time of the year for informal bird watching, while transparent trees and leafless hedges reveal otherwise hidden silhouettes. Not to mention the red of a robin’s chest or the green zigzag flight of a woodpecker that shock against the greys, silvers and chocolates of a winter palette.

A splash of gold, too. Even when the goldfinches and goldcrests aren’t around you’ll always see gilded gorse bushes, though it’s a mystery as to why some of these seem to be in full flower while others remain resolutely green, perhaps with just a suggestion of tiny globular buds between the outermost spines.

Will the snowdrops have arrived beside the footpath that winds though Dancing Bear Wood? The clumps just inside the wood always seem to be earliest to flower. I think I spy a sprinkling of white so I peer in. Yes! They’ve crept up on me once again. Not only are there buds in abundance, each a perfect almond shape, but several bells are already waving gently in the January air. It would be nice to think they’re ringing in the spring. But if the promised blizzards come to pass, these delicate beauties may yet earn their French name that translates as ‘snow piercer’.

I don’t linger with the snowdrops, joyous a sight as they are. With my basket on my arm I’m heading for Acorn Wood where I plan to pick up kindling sticks before heading home over the heath. I’m looking forward to the open space there, and perhaps I might even spot a fox.

After marvelling at the different colours of those twigs nestled and jostled in my basket - some darkly wet, some whitened with lichen and the occasional gingery twist of gorse root - it’s time to head back across the heath.

No fox deigns to slip across my path today, though scrabblings in the rich chestnut leaf mould show maps of their secret journeys. And the unseen presence of rabbits is clearly revealed by the close-cropped grassy path snaking through the gorse.

I step onto the the green velvet carpet and it guides my feet back to the lane.

Snowdrops in Dancing Bear Wood, 19 January 2026

In this edition of Bracken & Wrack:

• Notes from a January walk along the lane

• A Traditional Wassailing Song

• Poetry by Dylan Thomas

• A Winter Tune: stepping into fairyland

• For The Love of Bella: sad days for the elfin canal-keeper

• A Scattering of Straw: pictures from Whittlesea Straw Bear Festival

Oh mistress and master our wassail begin,

Please open your door and let us come in,

Besides all on earth you’ll have apples in store,

Pray let us come in for ’tis cold at the door.

We wish you great plenty and long may you live,

Because you are willing and free for to give,

To our wassail so cheerful, our wassail so bold,

Long may you live happy and lusty and old.

Come fill up our wassail bowl full to the brim,

Come see it all garnished so neat and so trim,

Sometimes with laurel and sometimes with bay,

We’ll all drink our fill in the good old way.

Traditional, The Whimple Wassail (extract)

The alder carr, 12 January 2026

A WINTER TUNE: stepping into fairyland

Goathland, North Yorkshire, December 2024

The only word I can think of is stunning, you say. That must be why poetry was invented, for places like this. It’s like stepping into fairyland.

It is stepping into fairyland, I say. But you’re off ahead, looking at the water, at the shapes in the trees, their faces that sanction our steps.

We slip a little on the green-skinned rocks and on melting heaps of tawny, bronze and black-treacle leaves. The treacle ones intrigue me. They are so improbably dark, and the contrast they offer to the white-silver bloom on a twig or a sprig of sea glass hued lichen so startling that I have to get down to their level and gaze. I’m intent on burning those colours into my retinas, not that I could ever replicate them in paint or crayon. I just need to cradle them in my soul and add them to the long list of reasons it’s so good to be alive.

At times our paths intersect and we will point something out to each other. Usually it’s different things that have struck us, so the richness deepens. Now and again there’s a treacherous section and you hang back to offer me a hand and a word of guidance but more often it’s my trusty staff that assures my footing.

The constant roar of water, at first something outside myself, becomes internalised as a natural state. Now I’m carried along in its flow. Even before we see the waterfall the sound is soaking, soaking and entering, pulsing through my veins.

A sequence of big rocks to traverse, watch out they’re slippery. We search for the perfect spot to spread the altar, place spindle whorl and heart stone, alder wand and recorder. There’s a flat stone to hold a broken charcoal fragment, click goes the lighter and tentative sparks show the glow is good. A deft unscrewing of the blue glass pot and careful placement of a pinch of incense.

Surely it’s not alight? But miraculously, even with just two or three bits of incense precariously balanced on the charcoal the aroma rises, sweet and sharp and musky. Our incense. Each twig, berry, cone and blossom gathered along the way and pounded with dragon’s blood and a trickle of pungent oil. It’s served well in so many settings and here it curls up, twisting around the spray from the falls.

This place has power, has a shimmering presence, and we both feel an unspoken pull to honour the numinous beings all around us.

I play a winter tune on my recorder, perched cross legged on a rock while the incense lends its own sweet harmonics. Then we take out the zipped pouch, lumpy with found treasures, and choose a perfect little shell to make the water spirits sing.

But it’s chilly at this time of year, and we turn to warmth and companionship in the tiny pub. We’ll forgive them the hunting prints on the wall (just) as this place is like no other I’ve ever encountered, an ordinary sitting room with a hatch for the landlady to slide the pints through. Look, there are seats by the fireplace. Gratefully we strip off our fleeces, sink into chairs beside the 1930s hearth, rest our feet on the faded and threadbare rag rug.

Strange how this room is so much of the past yet here we are now, all our senses basking in the glow of firelight, the aroma of beer, the low chatter. I wonder who, and when, we really are.

It’s been one of those rare jewel-like moments but the inn is so tiny that when a party arrives, all warm jackets and wellies and standing behind us looking hopeful, we know it’s time to make room for them and be on our way.

Mallyan Spout waterfall, Goathland, North Yorkshire, December 2024

To hear an audio version of ‘A Dream of Winter’, please click below:

Very often on winter nights the halfshaped moonlight sees
Men through a window of leaves and lashes marking gliding
Into the grave an owl-tongued childhood of birds and cold trees,

Or drowned beyond water in the sleepers’ fish-trodden churches
Watching the cry of the seas as snow flies sparkling, riding,
The ice lies down shining, the sandgrains skate on the beeches.

Often she watches through men’s midnight windows, their winter eyes,
The conjured night of the North rain in a firework flood,
The Great Bear raising the snows of his voice to burn the skies.

And men may sleep a milkwhite path through the chill, struck still waves
Or walk on thunder and air in the frozen, birdless wood
On the eyelid of the North where only the silence moves,

Asleep may stalk among lightning and hear the statues speak,
The hidden tongue in the melting garden sing like a thrush
And the soft snow drawing a bellnote from the marble cheek,

Drowned fast asleep beyond water and sound may mark the street
Ghost-deep in lakes where the rose-cheeked nightmare glides like a fish,
The Ark drifts on the cobbles, the darkness sails in a fleet,

Or, lying down still, may clamber the snow-exploded hill
Where the caverns hide the snowbull’s ivory splinter,
Fossil spine of the sea-boned seal, iceprint of pterodactyl.

Oh birds, trees, fish and bears, singing statues, Arkfloods and seals
Steal from their sleeper awake as he waits in the winter
Morning, alone in his world, staring at the London wheels.

Dylan Thomas, ‘A Dream of Winter’

‘The Great Bear’ - here the Straw Bear dances with Old Glory Molly at the Whittlesea Straw Bear Festival, 17 January 2026. Fallen straws are lucky talismans so be sure to pick up one or two :-)

FOR THE LOVE OF BELLA: sad days for the elfin canal-keeper

As we turned into the gravel car park beside the canal, only the shimmer of lights festooning the balcony opposite gave any clue that today was Christmas Eve. Everything else looked much as it always does on a quiet winter’s afternoon at Ebridge Mill, including the presence of the copper coloured car that means that Martin the fairy canal-keeper is there at his post.

Of course, there was a mince pie for him, and freshly brewed coffee to pour into his outsize yellow mug which may or may not ever see a washing up bowl.

For many weeks now, since autumn days turned to wintry ones, Martin has spent much of his time as the canal’s unofficial guardian snug in his car, heater on and sometimes Radio Norfolk in his ears, the better to collect stories for his stash. That bird-like figure leant over a walking stick - so distinctive when you pass the Mill and your eye flickers across - for now remains in its cluttered nest.

But everything changed in an instant when I asked Martin how he was. ‘I’m all right’, was his instinctive response, but a moment later, ’Actually, I’m sad. I’ve lost my horse.’

Naturally anyone would grieve if their equine companion had passed away, but knowing Martin’s routine as we do, this was devastating news. It’s clear that he spends very little time at his solitary bungalow. Instead, he’s always up with the lark, dividing each day between looking after his horse - including working in his hayfield to provide her with food and bedding - and his self-appointed role overseeing all that goes on at the Mill.

Everyone knows Martin, and he knows everyone: swimmers, model boaters, paddle boarders, fishers, dog walkers. He’s a familiar character in Lidl too, not to mention his beloved Brunch Bar on the industrial estate where he gets a cheap breakfast most days.

We already knew how deep was the bond between Martin and Bella, his horse. When telling us what he’d done on any given day, or what was in store later on, she was always there, woven into the fabric of his waking hours. In fact, it took months of chatting to actually discover Bella’s name - I had to ask - as she was always referred to as ‘my horse’.

The story begins 26 years ago, on the day that Martin acquired his horse from a Mr Bell. As a nod to the one who had brought them together, he decided to name her Bella.

Now, as far as I know Martin has never had a wife or children of his own. His parents, brother, sister-in-law and niece have played a huge role in his life as his only close family. It so happened that his niece had a baby three weeks after Bella’s arrival. And by complete coincidence, she named her daughter Isabella.

As she grew up, and indeed to this day, Martin’s great-niece has always sworn blind that the horse was named after her. I don’t think Martin has ever had the heart to insist otherwise.

Over the months of visiting Ebridge to swim, to brew coffee, or just to say hello to the model boaters on a Sunday morning, we’ve got to know the elfin overseer a little better. Bit by bit, other scraps of the story have emerged.

Martin owns a little cart, and as his and Bella’s relationship blossomed he put her between the shafts and taught her to pull it. Often, the two of them would be spotted clip-clopping around the neighbouring villages. He would sometimes ride her bareback around the field too, he once told us, though I’ll admit these days it’s hard to imagine such a thing. On reflection, he’s elfin enough that perhaps I can imagine it, and what a beautiful image. Even in later years when he went out less often in the cart, he loved to put on Bella’s harness with the long reins and walk around behind her in his field.

Bella had her own endearing ways, which Martin soon grew to know and love. As he swung open the gate each morning and evening, she would lift her head and neigh three times, and he would playfully reproach her for not being able to wait for her food. ‘Hang on, hang on, I’m comin’!’.

Martin’s late brother lived in town, not far from the field. Often, he would take a flask on his mobility scooter and spend time there, making a fuss of Bella, enjoying watching the interaction between horse and owner and, of course, having a chat with his brother. This, we were told, was another special Christmas tradition.

When Martin’s mother was alive he would take her up to the field, too, and she would delight in seeing him ‘play with his horse’, as he put it.

As he’s got older - here I screw up my face, trying to picture a young Martin and finding it almost impossible - he has found ways of making the hard work easier. Once he told me how he’d learned to stay out of the cold weather by pitchforking his home-harvested hay from the store side of the stable to Bella’s quarters over a low division by standing on some steps. That still sounds a lot for someone in their ninth decade, but we’re talking fairy-folk here, brown, wiry and ageless. Human measures of time surely have little relevance to elf kind.

So - that sombre Christmas Eve encounter in the car park. A couple of days earlier, Martin told us, around the Midwinter Solstice, he had followed his usual routine of arriving at the field just before dusk. There he had found Bella lying on her side, unable to stand. He couldn’t help her up, so he crouched down to her, murmuring gentle words of reassurance.

The evening was drawing on and the chill setting in, which Martin’s slight body finds increasingly hard to deal with. He had withdrawn to the warmth of his car, staying in the field so that he could return to Bella every few minutes to let her know he was still there.

The last time he approached her she lifted her head and gave three weak whinnies. Sinking to his knees in the mud and forgetting the wet and cold, he took her head onto his knee and stroked her, whispering endearments as she took her final breath in this world.

‘The next bit’, he said, ‘is just between us as I believe you’re not allowed to bury livestock. Legally, they have to be cremated. But, you know the chap with the digger company down by there?’

I did, as he had come along with a mini digger to bulldoze the cottage garden for me in my early days at The Old Shop when I was still living in a caravan.

‘Well, I went over to the yard, and his missus said she couldn’t say for certain whether he’d do it but she’d ask. Sure enough, that evening he chugged into the field on a digger and we got the grave dug. There’s a willow tree in the field, lovely sheltered spot, and on a hot day I’d often find my horse there under its shade, looking across to me as I arrived. That’s where she’s resting now, facing me as I open the gate. Matty was lovely, got her on the hoist and lowered her so gently, so respectfully.’

‘Will you get another horse?’

‘Oh no, I couldn’t do that now, it wouldn’t be fair at my age.’

We next saw Martin the day after Boxing Day, another cold one. The familiar brown beanie pulled down to his eyebrows is so much a part of him that somehow I can’t get used to seeing that gleaming crown when he’s in his car with the heater turned up to the max. He wound down the window in acknowledgement of our arrival and we passed through a mince pie and the customary coffee to be poured into his big yellow mug where, as usual, it made hardly any impression.

‘How are you, Martin?’

‘Well, you know. Up and down. A bit low today. Boxing Day yesterday, and I’d have had my horse on the cart, trotting around the villages. And my niece came over all yo-ho-ho and left these - he indicated a cardboard box on the floor, seemingly overflowing with presents and food offerings - but I hadn’t the heart, not at all.’

Empty field; empty stable. 20 January 2026

He looked glum, as well he might. My heart ached. Why had it had to happen at this time of year, during the dark days? No reason to get up early to check that all was well at the field before making sure of the same over at the canal. And, with any luck, initiating the first chat of the day. No reason, either, to head back to the stable at twilight to see to his horse. In the summer he can only have spent a few hours a day at his bungalow, most of them asleep. But what now?

The news gradually filtered through to canal regulars, and during our next visit I noticed swimmers, model boaters and dog walkers quietly coming up to Martin and telling him how sorry they were for his loss. Everyone who knew Martin, knew about his horse.

I haven’t liked to ask Martin again how he feels about finding a new companion with whom to share his life. The canal is a lot, but it’s not Bella, his soulmate. No other horse could be.

But …. if you happen to be looking for very best possible home for an elderly horse to live out their days, please can you pop down to the canal and tell its fairy guardian that you know he is the very person for the job? Don’t take no for an answer, will you? It might just be what’s needed to get our elvish friend twinkling again. Perhaps you’ll even catch him dancing round his walking stick.

That is, if he’s not waving it in the air for emphasis as he relates his tales one more time to some unsuspecting newcomer to his realm.

Martin’s realm

Until next time.

With love, Imogen x

PS: I shall leave the final goodbye to the Old Glory Mollyman who we found ourselves following in Whittlesea, his clattering jig dolls entering the spirit of the dance as he prepared to perform outside the next Straw Bear venue.

Old Glory Mollyman on the move at the Whittlesea Straw Bear Festival, 17 January 2026