Moondance of Stonewylde (20 page)

‘Your turn now, my lad! Who’s the lucky maiden?’

But Yul merely coloured and turned his head away, and Maizie realised perhaps this wasn’t a good topic to pursue. Maybe he’d been rejected, she speculated.

The Hallfolk sat together in a large group, not mixing much with the Villagers. Most of them had only come for the picnic lunch, sent up for them by Marigold and the kitchen staff, and hadn’t taken part in the morning’s reaping. Yul noticed the funny old man Sylvie had been with in the pub the week before; normally he never remembered the Hallfolk who came and went at each festival. The professor saw him watching and raised his panama in greeting. Yul nodded back, rather pleased to have been acknowledged so politely by a member of the Hallfolk.

Magus sat on a large rug with the Corn Mother, a special feast spread out before them. Yul knew that Magus tried to alternate the May Queen at Beltane, Corn Mother at Lammas, and Bright Maiden at Imbolc with girls from the Hall and the Village. He recognised Wren as one of Holly’s silly crowd and scowled. Magus was making a fuss of her, feeding her titbits from the delicious picnic. Yul’s stomach clenched with anger as he watched Magus in the distance, laughing and teasing the girl. Where was Sylvie? Why wasn’t she here too, enjoying this glorious day? He was sure it was Magus’ fault.

When the picnic was over, everything was packed up and carried back down to the Village. The Hallfolk left too and then the large farm carts arrived, pulled by the shire horses. Their manes and tails too were plaited and be-ribboned for the special occasion, their bridles and harnesses decorated. They trundled across the Lammas Field and men with pitchforks tossed the sheaves into the carts. It had been a long, hot summer and the wheat was dry enough for the Lammas threshing. Some years it wasn’t, and this part of the ritual would be abandoned as the stooks remained in the field to ripen and dry out.

Yul worked with the men, flicking the sheaves expertly into the waiting cart with his pronged pitchfork, and then moving on to the next stook. A great buzzard perched on the gatepost watching the proceedings with golden eyes, his beautiful tawny feathers glowing in the blaze of the sun. Finally all the sheaves were loaded and the carts rolled towards the gate, heading back down the track to the Village. The buzzard launched himself from the post, the clumsy flapping of his immense wings belying the grace of his high altitude flying. Yul trudged with the men behind the carts, pitchforks over their shoulders, and felt quite light-headed from the cider.

Back in the Village the newly harvested wheat was taken to the Great Barn. Every year the women hoped the wheat wouldn’t be dry enough for the threshing to happen, for they needed time to clean the Barn and lay out the food and drink for the evening.
But this year there wasn’t a cloud in the hot sky and the threshing went ahead. It was another ritual that echoed the farming customs of their ancestors; before mechanisation, all grain had been separated from its stalk in this laborious way.

The men split themselves into teams of four, with four youngsters to help. Each man had a flail made from two pieces of wood joined with a leather hinge. The handle was made of strong ash and the beating piece was holly, which didn’t split. Yul had helped cut the wood to make these tools himself. Each team had their own patch on the clean flagstone floor of the Barn, and several sheaves of wheat. The sheaves were loosened and then beaten with the flails, the team working in a peal, one after the other thrashing the wheat as it lay on the ground. As the grain became separated from the stalks, the youngsters would run in and pull away the straw, shaking it well to dislodge any remaining seeds. Then they would scoop up the grain into a pile to be put into a waiting sack. It was a fiercely-fought competition to see which team could fill their sack first, and the winners each received a specially brewed bottle of Lammas Mead.

Yul was delighted to be included in a team of men to thresh; last year he’d been one of the boys scooping up the grain from the stone floor. The competition began amidst much wild yelling and whooping. The Barn was alive with noisy beating as the wooden flails hit the stalks and stone, and the shouts and encouragement of the boisterous men. The musicians played lively tunes and the dust rose in the air, golden in the shafts of sunlight and dancing with motes of husk. Slowly each team’s sack of grain grew fuller until finally there was a triumphant shout and Edward, having inspected the sack to ensure it really was full to bursting, called a halt and announced the winners.

More cider was consumed to slake the latest raging thirsts, and then each team carried their sack on the strongest man’s back down to the mill. The grain would be ground into flour at the old watermill where all the cereals were still milled under the ancient quern stone. The resulting flour from the afternoon’s hand-threshing was given to the bakers that evening, and over-night
they produced Lammas rolls in the shape of a plait, dusted with poppy seeds. They baked enough for every single person in the community, to be eaten the following morning for breakfast on the Green with butter and honey or new strawberry jam. This bread, when it was made from the hand-reaped and threshed Lammas wheat, was considered to hold almost magical properties; it was even customary to make a wish whilst eating it.

After this, the crowd of men and lads who’d taken part in the threshing would traditionally strip off and jump in the river near the mill. This was an expedient custom as there wasn’t enough hot water at the Bath House for everyone to wash away the day’s sweat. Although he was embarrassed, Yul thought his back was now probably alright to expose. So he joined in and tugged off his clothes, running and jumping into the river and the mill pond with everyone else, splashing about and making a great deal of noise. Nobody said anything but he felt the stares, and several times looked up to catch the expression on people’s faces before they turned away. Everyone in the Village knew about the beating in the stone byre because Alwyn had boasted of it to anyone who’d listen. Yul was very pleased that Magus wasn’t around to add to his humiliation. In fact there were very few Hallfolk about, which was a relief. He could imagine what Holly and her friends would’ve said.

After swimming in the river and cooling off, most of them went home for a rest before the evening’s events. Everyone was exhausted after the reaping and threshing and the women were busy cleaning the Barn and preparing the feast for tonight. Yul trooped back from the mill to the Village Green, but when he got there he decided not to go home, where he knew it’d be noisy with his six siblings running around. Instead he flung himself down in the cool shade of the yew tree and lay thinking.

The thick dark branches almost blocked out the sky and it was very quiet under the canopy. Yul felt at once peaceful and yet stimulated. There was a strong aura of magic here and it wasn’t just the memory of his and Sylvie’s first kiss. He could sense something else, something magical that was part of Stonewylde’s
supernatural aspect and linked to the Earth Magic, the Moon Goddess and the Green Man. He felt its presence strongly today at this primeval festival, under the ancient tree of regeneration.

Yul closed his eyes and slowly drifted off to sleep, soothed by the enchantment of the yew. His young, strong body relaxed from the hard labour of the day as his soul danced in the magic permeating the woodland temple. Professor Siskin, sitting on a bench outside the Jack in the Green sipping cider, had seen Yul disappear under the spreading boughs of the yew. He nodded wisely, his heart more gladdened than it had been for many years. This was as it should be; the magic calls to its own.

W
ren looked solemn and more than a little nervous as she stood on the Altar Stone in the Stone Circle. Her robes were green and gold, and on her blond head she wore a huge crown of woven cereals and poppies, radiating out like the sun’s rays. She cradled the Corn Spirit dolly, a great spiralling neck of woven and plaited stalks almost phallic in shape, with a thick fan of wheat ears at one end, tied with red, gold and green ribbons. It was massive, longer than her arm, and heavy. The Corn Spirit lived in this dolly, safely housed now that the cereal harvest was under way. Wren held it rather gingerly but with a sense of grandeur, much to the amusement of her friends who stood amongst the crowds trying to catch her eye. Miranda watched her sourly, and smiled when a Village woman standing nearby let out a chuckle.

‘That maid looks terrified of ‘un,’ she said. ‘Does she think ‘twill turn and bite her?’

‘’Tis not the dolly she should be fretting about!’ said another. ‘Maybe it’s put her mind to what else she’ll be dealing with later on tonight?’

They laughed at this, and Hazel, on Miranda’s other side, diverted her attention from their ribaldry.

‘Incredibly intricate, isn’t it?’

‘The corn dolly? Yes, and I hear she had to make the whole thing this afternoon?’

‘That’s the idea, though I doubt Wren actually did much of it
herself. The Village women are far better at the old crafts. It really is beautiful – such a shame it’s burned.’

‘What a waste, all that effort up in flames,’ agreed Miranda.

‘Not tonight of course. It’ll live in the rafters of the Great Barn for the next six months.’

‘You’d think Wren would hold on to it as a keepsake of her special day.’

‘Oh no, that wouldn’t be allowed!’ laughed Hazel. ‘That’s the whole point – its ashes are ploughed back into the Lammas Field to return the Corn Spirit to the land at Imbolc.’

‘Imbolc – when my baby’s due!’

‘It’s all very symbolic and primeval.’

But Miranda wasn’t really listening, and Hazel joined her in gazing at the man standing on the Stone, holding everyone in his thrall.

Magus was magnificent as he led the chanting in golden robes that gleamed in the fierce flames of the bonfire. The sparks flew skyward as the people sang and Yul resented him bitterly, standing there glittering with bright energy and looking so pleased with himself. It was almost dark now, the sun having set, and Yul’s stomach churned with excitement at his bold plan for the evening. If all went right, he’d be holding Sylvie in his arms very soon. At this wonderful thought a great thrill of anticipation pulsed through his body.

The ceremony continued and then came the sharing of mead and cakes. Yul made sure he was up near the front of the queue. This part of the ritual took ages, especially with all the extra visitors about. Even when the communion was over there was still the corn dolly drama to be enacted, with the Corn Mother and Corn Spirit and all the children. And after that, the procession down the Long Walk back to the Great Barn for feasting and dancing whilst the Rite of Adulthood took place up here. Nobody would miss him for quite a while if he were to leave early, but he knew he must first go up to the altar and receive the cake and mead. Magus might be looking out for him and notice his absence otherwise.

Yul bowed his head to Magus, glorious in his beautiful robes with the massive barley, corn and wheat crown adding to his stature. Magus looked down on Yul and smiled in satisfaction. It was rather amusing that not so long ago he’d actually perceived this boy, dressed in a simple tunic like all the other children, to be a threat. At the last ceremony Yul had confounded him by appearing on the top of the Solstice Fire with the crow on his shoulder, and the boy’s clumsiness had made him drop the torch. But since then everything had changed. True, he’d felt an ebbing of the power he received at the Altar Stone. In fact tonight at sunset and the lighting of the Lammas fire, when normally he’d have received the Earth Magic, he’d felt nothing at all. But that was more than compensated for by the new energy he was getting from the round stone up at Mooncliffe and his supply of moon stone eggs. It was a different sort of energy, more thrilling and quicksilver than the deep, throbbing green Earth Magic.

Magus felt like a squirrel with a vast hoard of acorns stored up for winter, but best of all, his supply of eggs was a renewable resource. At the next Moon Fullness Sylvie would perform for him once again and he could drain her special energy every single month. It was evolution, he’d decided, when trying to understand why the Earth Magic no longer blessed him. He now had the moon magic instead and Sylvie was the catalyst for this evolution.

He watched as Clip ladled the measure of mead into the boy’s open mouth, feeling a great bursting of power as Yul swallowed and bowed. He’d well and truly crushed this impudent upstart, and it felt good to see him lowering his head in complete subservience. Yul was unaware of this, keeping his face down to hide his euphoria as the power sizzled from the Altar Stone, finding its way to him even though he wasn’t even touching it. In the flickering firelight Magus failed to notice the green flash as the energy merged with its host. Yul’s almost daily visits up here, as Mother Heggy had advised, had strengthened his connection with the energy spirals. The Earth Magic now sought him out whenever he was nearby.

He relished the strong mead and the spreading heat as it hit his insides. As Yul held out his cupped hands to receive the ceremony cake he looked up, and in that split second caught Magus’ eye. He felt another rush of exultation as the Earth Magic throbbed inside him. His cool grey gaze carried unmistakable challenge. He suppressed a grin as he saw the arrogance in Magus’ black gaze turn to surprise and then anger as he read the look in Yul’s eyes.

The fight’s not over yet. You haven’t beaten me and you never will.

Yul shuffled along in the massive queue away from the Altar Stone and then slipped out of the Circle through the throngs of people. He stuffed the cake in his pocket for later, knowing he’d need his wits about him. Still wearing his green and gold Lammas tunic with barley woven into his hair, he ran as fast as a leaf in the wind up to the Hall. Harold had told him which was Sylvie’s wing, and of the fortuitous outside door and staircase leading straight up to her bedroom. He’d already visited at night to locate it and Harold had assured him the door was never locked. He’d seen Miranda at the Stone Circle looking enthralled at the celebration, so knew he was safe from bumping into her.