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| The village green |
I’m just
back from a trip into the future. Time
travel made easy….a train journey to Kent where everything is about two
weeks ahead of us, two weeks greener, more in leaf and flower.
A typical
English village, a village green, a pub, and a church with a peal of bells, an
alien sound to the Scottish ear accustomed to the solitary tone of the
Presbyterian summons, yet so pleasing when carried on the warm, evening air. A church with a Norman arch and gargoyles and an ancient yew, what could be more English?
Unfamiliar yet comfortably familiar to anyone who has read a book through
the countless celebrations of English village life from Agatha Christie’s Miss
Marple and H.E. Bates’ Larkin family to poets such as Clare, Gray, and Hardy. Strange how you only know a place or a time from someone else’s description.
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| Pink Wood Sorrel |
The
bluebell woods, English bluebells, wild hyacinths, not the Scottish harebell,
were out in profusion. Ours haven’t a petal to be seen yet. Wood sorrel and ransomes were in bloom and, along the edge
of a stream, high up, I saw great clumps of mistletoe but,alas, no golden sickle was
to hand.
Feeling all
druidical, we went to Hastings
to see the slaying of the Jack in the Green.
A modern take on the old folk custom of releasing the spirit of summer
from the Jack, the winter form of the Green Man After much celebration, the Jack is carried to the dais accompanied
by drummers beating out a crescendo and, after the dancers have encircled him,
he is slain and the leaves distributed to the crowd so summer can begin All great fun. but maybe an undercurrent of the Rite of Spring and a more demanding sacrifice in the long ago times.
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| Jack in the Green |
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| Slaying the Jack |
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| The Morris Men |
Welcoming the summer, fertility, warmth and greenery is a universal theme throughout the northern climes.
Mistletoe, morris-men and maypoles. We're all pagans underneath and it is so much more fun!
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