All the Earth was dressed in green as the Sun strode his highest road of all. Oak and ash, and alder and willow and hazel and hawthorn were heavy of leaf and dight in the deep dark greens of Summer. Forget-me-nots and orchids bejewelled the waun, and the fields were aglow with ox-eye daisies and bird's-foot trefoil and ragged robin, and everywhere the rippling waving grasses. Oh the grasses! Bronzy brome, and purple-fruiting Yorkshire fog, cock's foot and crested dog's tail and bright green timothy and on and away to the distant spreading hedgerows through the swaying mist of the meadow grasses and fescues and their subtle shades of green and purple and their hidden hum of insects doing what insects do: whispering, chirruping, seducing and ravishing the soul in that ancient and beloved magic that we call Midsummer. And here we were gathered for love and for lust of the Horned One and the Green Lady, and in awe of the Mighty Sun!
There was Rhona, in especially high spirits with Arthur back now from his work overseas. There were Elen and Huw, and Gwen and Owen, arriving on the heels of Idris and Merian. Coll, Liz and Judy were here too, and Joe and Kathy, and Cindy with Steve and Dick, and four people new to the form of our rites, but they'd certainly done their homework, and a good deal more besides! But for all that, there's a chasm between study and meeting the gods face to face in a green field beneath Sun or Moon! They were Alun and Lynwen from Glamorgan and Jean and Jamie from across the Cheviots, all the way down from just south of the Great Glen.
Some had arrived a day or two before, especially those who came from afar, and everyone was gathered together in Rhona and Arthur's big room to put the final pieces together as a lovely afternoon merged into a dreamy magical evening that even the Sun seemed loath to abandon as he lingered in the north-west hills and painted the sky in amber and red and the colours that only the faerie have all the names of.
Who would bear the kachina of the Green Lady and the Horned God, and the Sun? Idris was the Sun in May and he seemed empowered with the kachina still and all thought we couldn't have chosen better. But Idris turned to Arthur, now again with Rhona who had borne so lovingly, and so magically, the kachina of the Earth-mother in Yule and Imbolg alike, but Arthur said him nay: "No Idris, let me feel the Sun and the wind and the rain of my own land again for a bit or the kachina'll fit me like a new pair of shoes! Besides, man, I missed you more than enough in the accounts I've been reading, so my vote's going for you!" And whether for the force of that or memories of the maytide or the shape of subtle things, they all said aye to that.
Who now for the Green Lady? There were Merian and Judy both well capable and equally loved and someone suggested a choice of straws to decide it, but Judy shook her head. "Perhaps next year, unless comes one with magic more than Merian or me. For myself, I knew Merian as the May Queen herself in the May, and in my soul now, as the magic of Midsummer gathers around us, I see her still in my mind's eye" (Judy stopped momentarily to brush a tear from her eye) "as that same enigmatic Lady grown to beautiful maturity as the Queen of all magic and our Green Lady of Midsummer." Merian bowed her head, whether in embarrassment or in reverence it would be a hard thing to tell, and she got up from her place and went over to Judy and kissed her, and their arms about each other spoke a glyph that had no need of words.
"And who will be the Horned God?" asked Arthur. "Not me!" flashed Coll with unexpected alacrity and a twinkle in his eye and a momentary flick of his head, and for all he'd borne the horns in the May there were more than a few now who were thinking him rather more deferent than somewhat. But eye contact had it, and he'd locked eyes with Jamie, who was new to most of the group, and new to the meetings withal, though he'd shown an enviable way with words in the few months that had slipped by since he had come to know us. All eyes turned to Jamie. And Jamie's eyes turned to the floor.
"Do you think you could handle it, Jamie?" asked Idris.
"Aye," said Jamie.
"Can you play a pipe," asked Arthur, "a flageolet, a flute...?"
"Och, aye," said Jamie. Jean gave him a dig in the ribs. "I ha'e ma pipes in the boot o' the car," said Jamie, in the same tone of voice you might use to say "I think it's going to rain."
"Diawl, man, bring them in!" exclaimed Owen, addressing Jamie all unthinkingly with the epithet that history had confered upon the bearer of the horns. So he went out and came back with a bulging bag and Jean went with him and brought in a couple of flageolets too.
Will you give us a tune?" said Steve, his eye on the big bulging bag.
"Och, they're a wee bit loud in the house," said Jamie, but he picked up a flageolet and Cindy and Dick couldn't resist getting up in the middle of the circle and dancing a jig! And Jamie's face, crafty, with a look you wouldn't forget if you'd seen it, almost seemed to say "I told you so!" And if there were any eyes then that weren't laughing, then it wasn't a meeting of ours they were at!
So we got down to talking after that as we put the final shapes upon the green magic, and supper and, come the small hours, we spread our beds about the floor and dreamed of the green, green magic that had twined its tendrils about our hearts.
Morning came and with it a golden Sun, and breakfast was soon among remembered things. People were taking out several long low benchlike tables, and a green cloth to spread upon them and then packets, and dishes, tantalizingly covered, that Rhona and Arthur had prepared in the days before with lots of help from Liz and Coll and Judy. Jamie and Merian had been out in the field of Dwy Nant for half an hour or so with a flageolet and a fiddle for a work that needed final shaping to the magic of the Lady and the Horns and the bulging bag had gone out there too, and now they were back among us and doffing their workaday clothes and the Sun and the Horns and the Green Lady were taking form before us! And there was a feeling in the air that if you'd a mind to count the people there, you'd be sure to miss one of them in the count, or another one of them, or another...
We went out of the door at 1 o'clock by the Greenwich clock which is fiction for midday at Greenwich in the Summer, and truth for a quarter still to go to the highest stride of the Sun here in the Cambrian hills of the West.
The Sun went before us, confident, magnificent, a golden crown upon his head and a fiery orange tunic with a golden yellow sunblaze at his chest. A strong dark belt he had about his waist, the more to highlight his splendour, and pointed about with metal studs in gold and silver for the fiery heat and blazing light he shed upon our beloved Earth. Golden wrist-bands adorned his arms, a red cloak at his back, and a fiery spear he bore in his hand. And the spear glowed red at the heel and brighter up the shaft through orange and up into yellow-pale to climax in gleaming white-hot radiance at the fiery tip. Magnificent strode Pahh the Mighty before us!
And we followed in his footsteps, mostly bare of foot for the feel of the Earth, and dressed in casual clothes, albeit redolent of summer days and with a deal more green and brown and russet than you'd expect to see in people whose thoughts were not the thoughts that stirred down deep inside us. And there were the Horned One and the Green Lady... Now it wouldn't be true to say they came behind or went in front nor true that they came by the side. And it wouldn't be untrue either... some of the time... Ah, they were laughing! And catching at people's hands, and pulling them round and round till they were mazed where they were going and laughing their heads off. And the Wild Queen Mab and her lover, the wild, wild Brirn laughing like Summer weather!
We traversed the field of Rhaeadr and got down to the stream somehow and the Sun had gone over into Dwy Nant and the Green Lady and the Horned God stood athwart the stream and barred the way. Well, no, it wasn't that they were barring the way; it just looked somehow if they were, or if they would do, or if they knew something that we didn't... Who'd risk going over first?
The Horned God sat down on a rock, a picture of patience... Shaggy haired he was, a glint in his eye, dappled sunlight drifting on his horns, inscrutable... Oak and alder, holly and ivy, cast their shade. The Green Lady was beautiful! She stood there barefoot on a rock in the shady stream in a gorgeous gown that draped her green as the rye grass growing and a shining silver crown she had upon her head, with thirteen points, and studded round about with thirteen gems of sparkling green, and a train, diaphanous as a mist it was, drifted from her shoulders down her shapely back. She smiled, and straightened a wisp of hair between the horns of the One on the rock. She was beautiful! She was ravishing! Moments came and went, seeming to drag their feet... Eventually Lynwen, more bold than the rest for standing near the back perhaps, asked:
"Er... can we come across?"
"What will ye give me?" flashed back the Horned One like a streak of lightning in a hurry.
Puzzlement... muttering... murmuring... and then at last a burst of sunshine:
"A kiss!" exulted Lynwen, eyes bright as rainbows and with a clap of her hands. And the Horned One rose up and Lynwen went into the stream and she got a kiss she'll remember and the Horns got no whit less from Lynwen's eager lips.
Alun, emboldened, stepped forward out of the middle and again the Horned One demanded:
"What will ye give me?" Alun was startled, dismayed, verging on panic, fully expecting now the challenge to have come from the Green Lady!
"What will you have?" stammered Alun with reckless haste and all forethought and caution chased right out of his mind.
"A verse to ma Lady before the night is done," said the master rhymster with a glint in his eye and a quirk of his inscrutable face. Alun look worried as a rabbit with the fox in the field as he went into the stream but the Green Lady took him in her arms and kissed him full passionately for his impetuosity and whispered something in his ear. And what was in that whisper was this: that she'd lend him her help if he need it (though that we only learned later under the stars).
Arthur went next into the stream and the Green Lady gave him challenge and he offered her a kiss and a cuddle and he got both from the Lady and a look and a longing from Queen Mab that brought tears of ancient memory to his eyes. And then went Coll, and Owen offered her a verse that earned him a kiss and a spell in those lovely green arms, and then went Idris to the Lady, and Judy to the Horned One... and so one by one we all passed through the running water and into the field of Dwy Nant. And far in the south on a green mound stood the Sun with his fiery spear in his hand before him, and high in the Midsummer sky rode the blazing Midsummer God on high.
The long low makeshift tables were in the middle of the field just north, this side, of the ring of stones, laden with covered delights. The Sun came northward up the field to meet us as we made our way toward him and Jean produced a flageolet from somewhere about her and stepped out to the side and played a tune that all but set the trees adancing! And then the Sun stood before us! And the tune changed and we all sang together:
A SONG FOR MIDSUMMER
Cold Winter now is long forgotten
Springtime she came and chased our fears away.
Summer is come and the Sun in his reigning
Dances with Mab on Midsummer's day.
Sing us a song of my Lord and Lady
Sing us a song on Midsummer's day
Sing us a song of my Lord and Lady
On Midsummer's night we'll sing it again.
Born shining child on a winter's morning,
Grew as a youth chasing North wind away.
He placed the horns on lustful Brirn;
Brirn and Mab danced with us in May.
Tell us a tale of our Lord and Lady
Tell us a tale on Midsummer's day
Tell us a tale of our Lord and Lady
On Midsummer's night we'll tell it again.
Now proud Pahh is grown to his fullness,
Proudly he walks on Midsummer's day.
Proudly he shines on Mab our Lady,
Proudly we sing and we dance for them.
Dance us a dance of our Lord and Lady
Dance us a dance on Midsummer's day
Dance us a dance of our Lord and Lady
On Midsummer's night we'll dance it again.
We'll sing and we'll tell of the Earth our Lady
We'll sing and we'll tell of the Sun our Lord
On Midsummer's day with the Sun at his highest
On Midsummer's night we'll dance till dawn.
The Sun, smiling all over his face, walked then to the southern end of where the feast was laid out on the tables and placed his fiery spear at the table's end. And the Horned One and the Green Lady... Where had they'd gone? Way over there they were now in the distance, by the straggly hedgerow in the west where the other stream flows down from the hills before it joins the stream we'd crossed. And what were they doing, there in the long waving grass? There! Where the heat haze shimmered! A dance it was! Hand-to-hand and round about and times the Horned One danced on two legs and times he danced on four and the Green Lady had doffed her silver crown and her grass-green royal robe and her hair flowed wild about her. A wispy green no more substantial than the filmy ferns she wore about her. Ravishing she danced, naked save for that filmy green... and that wild Beast there to do her favour did she say him aye. And the grasses whispered "aye" and "aye" and "aye" again...
Where was I? Where am I? Oh yes! The Sun is among us now in his glory and we gather round him (I wonder what that faerie pair are up to now?) and he takes us about the field and hedgerows and talks to us of the trees and the flowers and the ferns and the mosses and the fungi and their colours and their forms and their parts and their intriguing symmetries of form and how they make their seeds and their spores and Alun and Gwen and Cindy and Steve are deep in discussion with him and with each other and we look at the little froghoppers and Elen has a world of words to say about these lovely little creatures, and the Horned One and the Green Lady are among us... and they've kidnapped Cindy! One to each arm and she's away! "Let her go," says the Sun, and she seems in no way reluctant and vanishes in the long and faraway grasses and cries of... No! Oh no, no! That's not terror! That's a different kind of a noise entirely! And bye and bye she's wandering back, starry-eyed, and they've swooped into the midst of us and Arthur's whisked away! And the Sun's speaking of tree rings, and Huw engages us with the architecture of the caddis fly larvae and we're all wondering if it's our turn next, but the Horned One is at the tables, lifting the covers and peeping underneath. And he exposes a luscious plate of gorgeous red tarts. And off he is with them like a hare in the grass to his Lady - the whole plateful! And we give chase, but he's got a good start on us and he's on one knee now before his Lady with the plate held up before her and her fingers lift a dainty from the plate while we stand there astounded. And another goes into his own eager mouth!
"What's going on you... you... er, your majesties?" asks Liz, her voice an extraordinary mixture of reverence, sarcasm and awe.
"Only tasting!" says the Horned One.
"Exquisite!" says Queen Mab, licking her fingers and wiping them sensually in the grass. "Say my appreciation and the faerie love to Rhona and to those she had about her," and she handed the plate to Liz who wasn't sure whether she was expected to take one too or convey the plate back to the table. And the Queen smiled. And the Horned God made a crooked face, and laughed! And they danced away into the long and misty grasses.
"Well, of all the nerve!" laughed Liz, but she was very, very careful indeed as she put the plate back into its place on the festive table, for it carried now a blessing that neither silver nor gold nor gems could buy!
Confusion reigned and the people wondering what to do and the Sun was laughing his head off and the Horned One was well away, over there in the west, and down in the grass with the Green Lady.
The Sun had taken up his radiant spear in his hand and Rhona turned to meet him and he takes her hand and they begin to walk round the tables whereon the feast is awaiting our later attention and all eyes are on the Sun and the Earth.
And then! With startling suddeness, with no anticipation at all, the note comes leaping out of the west! A wild thing, old, ancient, like a thing you remembered from long, long before you learned to breathe, and a cadence joins it that wraps its tendrils about your heart and drives shivers along your spine and seats itself where your own soul was e'er so little while ago there seated. The Horned One has taken up the pipes and we are lost! And the Green Lady, her hair blowing wild and nought but a gossamer green gown to clothe her is running, skipping, dancing into our midst! Oh, the skirl of the pipes! And the whirling of the Lady! And she's in the very midst of us and takes a man to herself, Joe it is, and they're dancing like no-one has danced before! And we're all dancing to that mad, mad, magical music and Mab of the Faerie is changing partners and the pipes are weaving tendrils about us and the bounds of the field are no more real than a faerie mist and there really is only me, and my partner, and the Green Lady, lover and partner to one and all. What tune is that? The Brown-haired Maiden'? Again and again and the partners change, and he's changed the melody now and the steps are quicker and Time himself has lost his way in the spell. Who's that dancing with Kathy? It looks like... it is! It is! It's the Horned One! So who's... And the tempo has changed again, slow now, as though we have all eternity to dance away. It's a piobaireachd, but who... It's Jean! Jean has taken the pipes up and, oh, she'd pull the heart out of you! Something about a Rowan Tree' I think is the name of the Lament. A lament? Well, what would you call a thing that pulls you to pieces and you don't even want to be put back together again! Timeless, like the sound of the sea, the twitter of hedgerows, like the hum of the grasses, the love call of the wild things. And it stops, quite suddenly, as the pipes do. And the Horned One and the Green Lady look each other in the eyes, and touch hand to hand, and what they said, the one to the other by that, I know not, and if they told me, I'm sure I would know not still!
Well, we sat down in the grass after that and Jean wandered back among us to expressions of appreciation and a few expressions of incredulity from those who thought that, er... well, anyhow, they didn't think that anymore!
Ten minutes... fifteen minutes? We'd got our breath back now and our souls back from wherever it was they'd gone off to, so we picked ourselves up out of the grass and the Sun was among us and he took us over to where the feast was laid upon the makeshift benchlike tables and he took all the wrappings away and exposed a spread that called in the oldest language of all! There were sandwiches of many kinds, some with pickles in and some without, and meats and cheeses in variety, and pickles in dishes with a spoon in, and salads in bowls and dishes, with plates to heap it onto. There were jellies in red and orange and yellow and trifles with cherries on top and sprinkled about with pieces of peach and apricot and fruits from faraway places. There were luscious buns. And there were cakes: little knobbly round ones with sultanas inside and chunks cut out of big ones with fruit and cherries in their depths and chocolate ones all gooey cut in wedge-shaped slices. There were apple pies and treacle tarts and a plate of red... no, two plates... no, three, of round red tarts! And there were drinks in bottles and drinks to mix with water and biscuits on plates and biscuits in wrappers. And there was a huge orange flan filled with jelly and apricots and pieces of peach that looked like the Midsummer Sun himself! And all you had to do was put down your hand and take up whatever you... Now I wonder which one of those plates down there with the red tarts is the one with the faerie spell? Ah well! Isn't that the way of it!
We sat in the grass with our bountiful haul from the table, and we talked and we laughed as the Midsummer Sun strode the blue road above, and the birds gathered the crumbs and moths and butterflies were dancing on the drifting grasses and beetles were scuttling on the earth in their beautiful carapaces subtly glinting in shades of rose and green and brown and jet.
After what seemed a long, long time, albeit short in the going, the Horned One put a pipe to his lips, sitting crossed-legged in the grass, and after a lazy preamble the sounds floated over the field of the song we recognised as The Wilderness Queen' and the Green Lady rose up out of the grass, regal again and right comely and her silver crown and its thirteen gems asparkle upon her head, and the Horned One rose up and the melody faded into the grass as he went to her calling, and they made their way back to the stream and we lost them where alder and willow and hazel and blackthorn stood by the way.
We gathered up all the things then (much less than we'd taken out!) under the efficient organisation of the Sun and brought them all, benches as well, back indoors. Jamie and Merian with help from Dick, Joe, Elen and Steve were taking out some little lamps and wires and bits and pieces while the rest of us, all but Alun, helped Rhona and Arthur prepare our evening meal for later... much later! Alun went upstairs by himself for awhile for he'd a thing to do before the night was out. And we talked about things that pagan people talk about: of the rite we'd just all been a part of, and about the part we'd yet to enact as the shadows gathered round and the sounds of the little people of the day melted slowly, imperceptibly, into the quiet of the Midsummer night. Alun looked down from the stairs after half an hour or it might been an hour (time is a deceptive thing) and: "Mab..." It was barely a whisper and the Green Lady went up to him, and came down anon with a smile on her face that's nice to see on a Lady's face. And she went up to him again a little later for ten minutes or so and they came down together then and Alun looked well contented and the Green Lady settled onto the floor by the Horned One and their eyes met and something passed between them that had no need of words. And we all talked together then and laughed, and tried to look up an interesting beetle in a book, and shared a few songs and music. Ah, it was a good roast dinner then! And a ginger pudding to follow! And it had a spicy sauce with syrup and lemon to go with it.
And the hour hand climbed up the face of the clock... And the hour of the midnight tryst drew nigh!
Three quarters, perhaps an hour, to go to deepest black, which in Midsummer is not truly black at all... The Green Lady in her royal robe of the rye-grass green dight her in her cloak whose hue was dark as the deep dark forest glade, and set her silver crown of thirteen sparkling gems upon her head and bore in her hand her wand of the hawthorn tree. And the Horned One wore a shaggy look and his eyes seemed full of the dark. And they went out together into the night and we let them go till twenty minutes had followed behind them, and then we too stepped out into the night and closed the door behind us and the grass and the dew were beneath our feet and the Midsummer sky was the infinite deep far above. There were torches, but not for now. The minutes took the dark away with them as we made our way down to the shadowy ford between the trees. Vega, sparkling emerald gem of the Lyre, gleamed high in the zenith while eastward, Cygnus winged his way on the silver path of the Milky Way. The Northern Crown was twinkling in the black and westerly golden Arcturus and in the south Antares, the sparkling ruby gem of the Scorpion, gleamed barely above the tree tops and visible at no other time at all but in these magical weeks about Midsummer. Dewy grass beneath us, the jewelled sky above, and before us... music! Faintly at first through the trees, sweetly... eeriely!
Coll crossed first into Dwy Nant. And stopped! Cindy almost bumped into him and made a noise in her throat there's no way to spell, but the meaning of it was wonder, and ancient knowing, and longing, and things on the very edge of memory... And we all stood there on the threshold of Dwy Nant, spellbound!
There were little lights about on poles. The Horned One was sitting on an old fallen tree trunk with a pipe to his lips and the notes were of tunes that we knew and loved and when he'd played a verse the pipe would fall silent, in expectation... And the Green Lady, seated there a little way from him and half turned toward him where he was seated, put bow to her fiddle and, oh! It wasn't the same tune she played. It wasn't a tune at all! Not in that kind of a way of speaking. It was talking! But not in a language of words, not words of a mortal folk, and it was the glamour of Faerie it had in it. And when the fiddle had spoken the Horned One would pick up his pipe and the next verse would float upon the air, sweetly, like butterflies flitting over flowers, like birdsong from the leaves, and when he'd played his verse and the sound of the pipe had faded into the night, that Faerie Lady would take up her fiddle again and the tears would start in your eyes and you'd wonder how you could ever have forgotten...
We approached, with wonder, with longing, and seated ourselves down in the grass before the Lord and Lady of Faerie and their eyes spoke their welcome while the pipe and the fiddle spoke of things that are old as time. And the Lady set her fiddle aside and the Horned One pushed his pipe into somewhere about his shaggy form. And Coll and Judy and Arthur and Cindy were in frank tears for the enigmatic rapture of that aweful earthly beauty.
"Ye're right welcome to the Green Court!" said the Horned One.
And the Green Lady made a glyph with her hawthorn wand: "Our glamour be upon you now this Midsummer's Night." And we were sitting in the grass now before them, beside them, and they down among us and we were part of the shadowy field, bounded by the dark and roofed by the Midsummer stars.
"Ye've a word for ma Lady," said the Horned One to Alun, and his face in the little lights bore a merry look.
"I have," said Alun.
"Say it to me, Alun, my Love," said the Green Lady. Alun took out a piece of paper and moved to a spot where a lamp cast a little light.
"I've called it:"
For The Green Lady
My love wears a green, green gown,
All hemmed with the twilight glow.
She calls! Ah, she calls where the Sun goes down!
'Tis there! Oh 'tis there that I fain would go!
O Mab of the woodland free!
O Queen of the ancient fern!
Fell Queen, 'tis a thief thou art willed to be
Of hearts! O Sweet Mab 'tis for thee I yearn.
A myriad loves to hand
To court thee where'er thou go,
Thy glamour enfolds all thy green, green land
Where leaves shade above, and the moss below.
Where Moon or where stars shine o'er,
In Sun or in shade thy fane.
Where runs wily fox, where the red stags roar,
I'll know thee, I'll come to thee, e'er again!
To court thee, O Lady Green,
What boon would'st thou ask of me?
'Tis known! Aye, 'tis given, O Faerie Queen:
Thy love shall remain ever wild and free!
The Horned One's face bore a merry look as he sought the Green Lady's eyes and her eyes were already speaking him the lean of her pagan heart. And she laid her wand in the greensward and opened her arms to Alun. And Alun, as if in a dream, was drawn into the spell of those enchanting green-clad arms...
Then Cindy read us a story she'd gathered from a book of old tales, and when the words had found their ways down into the crevices of our souls, Jean made a melody with her flageolet, and the Green Lady rose from her seat and the Horned One rose up and we made two rings, one inside the other, the men and the Horned One in the outer ring and the women and the Green Lady inside. And we danced, with our feet or with our arms and hand to hand, and when the music came again to where it had begun, the outer circle moved and different hands were in our own and ours in different hands.
We sat down for awhile then in a ring, and anon the Horned One rose up and sat again on the log and his Queen beside him on her greenwood throne, and he put his pipe to his lips and we all sang together:
THE WILDERNESS QUEEN
(1)
Queen Mab is of the forest (2) Enchantress, fair and comely,
And her lover is to hand. Oh! With every swain she'll lie!
The passion's on the Goddess More wild a Queen, more lovely,
And her lust is on the land. Ne'er shall lust 'neath summer sky!
And tall the trees are standing She's had her ardent lover;
And the scent she's cast around. All her ardent love he knew
The blossoms they're expanding And, dancing with another,
And the tendrils binding round. Oh! She's had the other too!
(3)
And lovers ten and twenty, (4) The oak he'll be the stouter
Lovers clad in brown and green, And the grass shall grace the lea.
And lovers more a plenty The lust she'll have about her!
Come with flowers to woo the Queen. And the passion wild and free!
Her sparkling eyes will bring them For Mab is fast a twirling,
Over bough and under branch. And her green skirts spread around,
And oh! the love that's in them! In passion high and whirling
And the lust that's in the dance! And her feet on hallowed ground.
(5)
Oh come thou wild and passioned!
Come thou bull and roaring stag,
And stallion, fiery fashioned,
To the Queen, the Wild Queen, Mab,
The Queen who wed the thunder,
Made a Summer all of song,
Queen Mab of love and wonder
And of lust the Summer long!
The Lady's face was radiant, speaking the passion of her heart. "Oh my People! Let the bellbine, the honeysuckle, the ivy, speak the tryst that shall bind us forever in enchantment. Aye, and in the love that is wild and free!" Oh, we loved the Wild Queen then!
"But sing for me my own song," she said, she pleaded, she yearned, "Oh sing for my Lusty Lord, for my every Lord..." and she settled herself on her greenwood throne of the ancient log and the Green Lady took up her fiddle and Jean took up the pipe, and it had the voice of the chanter.
And we sang for her. The melody was insistent, pleading, demanding. But the chorus, introduced with the briefest hint from that dreadful fiddle... oh! It was eerie... It took a hold of you by the guts and swept you up into the very whirlwind of the Lady's passion! Oh, but I lie! That were but a breeze in retrospect! As the last word rose to crescendo, the Green Lady worked the fiddle like a fiddle had never been worked else, and it rose to a wailing, howling moan of such intricate and heart-rending earthly beauty that you would all but weep for the ecstacy of the passion of a Goddess. And the next verse... and its weird, eerie chorus... and that rising wail again, reaching down into the depths of your very soul:
God of the Wilderness
I call to thee, Red One, from fern and tree.
Thou brag'st, antlers high, of thy precious bag.
For thee I am calling! For thee! 'Tis thee!
I'll have thee my Love, Mighty Lord, Dread Stag!
I'll show thee a cavern all dewy dark;
A forest I'll take thee down deep inside.
Oh, come to me, Wild One! Oh Hark! Oh Hark!
The Wind's in the trees and I'll ride! I'll ride!
The Wind's in the trees and I'll ride!
Thou Otter and Badger, thou Slinky Stoat,
And thou, Mighty Bull, with thy hoard beneath,
And thou of the crags, oh my Sure-foot Goat,
I'll know ye, I'll love ye, from crag to heath.
I'll show thee a cavern all dewy dark.....
And thou of the wilderness, swift in chase,
Thou side-stepping wise one, my Canny Hare,
I call to thee, speed thee! Oh speed thy pace!
Where rush stems lie over I make my lair.
I'll show thee a cavern all dewy dark.....
Oh fly to me, Pretty One, dight in gems!
'Tis here by the green stilly pool I fly,
By sweet-smelling reeds, by the long cool stems,
O Love, wilt thou come to me bye and bye?
I'll show thee a cavern all dewy dark.....
O seed of the Oak tree, O seed of Pine,
O gift of the toadstool, O mist of fern,
I'll dance for ye round in a strange design:
I'll dance for ye! Oh! 'Tis for ye I yearn!
I'll show thee a cavern all dewy dark;
A forest I'll take thee down deep inside.
Oh, come to me, Wild One! Oh Hark! Oh Hark!
The Wind's in the trees and I'll ride! I'll ride!
The Wind's in the trees and I'll ride!
When it was over, the Green Lady went to the Horned One and as their lips were pressed together, each to the other, they made a glyph there under the stars beautiful to behold.
We sat in the quiet after that for a few minutes, in the Green Court, under the vast dome of the sky, till the night flow again into our hearts. Then quietly, gently, the Green Lady and the Horned One came down from those ancient logs and sat there in the grass among us. When the quiet had settled around us, Owen, with a little light, read to us an intricate and enthralling story of magic and enchantment that he'd wrought of his own inexhaustible soul. And we sat there under the stars for a little while longer, in the quiet, in the dark, our hands linked one to another in the tanglewise knot, thinking nothing, feeling more than any words could say.
Slowly we made our way back across the field, under the stars, and over the shadowed stream, and the Lady and the Horned One came behind.
No comments:
Post a Comment