Samhain and the Space between the Worlds - Holly Race

When I was ten (a very, very long time ago), my parents took me for a ride on Midsummer's Eve. My pony, an ageing but sprightly, speckled creature called Cobweb, was my best friend and one of my favourite pastimes was making up adventures for us to go on.

On this Midsummer's Eve, my parents told me that the fairies had heard of how wonderful Cobweb was, and left a present for us. I just had to canter up this hill and keep a close eye on the ground. Far from the main road, canopied by oaks and birches, Barrington Hill was a magical place for me anyway, but never more so than at that moment. That evening, as Cobweb and I cantered up the path, I dutifully kept my eyes peeled for signs of fairies.

Was that gold dust on the ground, or just the sunlight playing through the leaves?

What's that up ahead, on the side of the path? A tree trunk... but what's on it?

I slowed Cobweb to a halt and stared at the trunk. On it, amidst flurries of gold dust, was a tiny, golden horseshoe. A fairy horseshoe.

I can see now that it's plastic, but at the time it felt like fairy gold!

The horseshoe lives in a book of memories about Cobweb, but the item itself isn't what's important. I still vividly remember the heat of the evening sun on my back, and the way it sent its shimmer through the trees so that I felt as though I was riding through haze. It was a Midsummer feeling - that feeling that true magic is not far away, if only we could lift the veil between the worlds.

In a few days time, Samhain will be upon us. Pronounced Sauw-en, it's an old Pagan festival marking the start of Winter, and traditionally it is one of the times when the barriers between our world and the 'otherworld' are at their thinnest. Over the centuries Samhain has been amalgamated into All Hallow's Eve, and then into Halloween. Our calendars are peppered with the ancient ruins of pagan festivities. Some, like Samhain, have been commercialised. Some have been picked apart and used to create new celebrations, like Ostara - now Easter. Some remain only as a feeling - a change of mood as the nights close in or grow longer - like Beltane, which marks the beginning of Summer.

In my book, Midnight's Twins, the knights' calendars are still governed by these old dates. Samhain has particular meaning for me now because it is the day when new knights - and my main characters - are called to the otherworld, Annwn. Samhain is the start of my story, and Beltane marks the end of the book.

But really, we all tell stories at these times of year, don't we, in our different ways? Maybe we go out looking for pumpkins, or read ghost stories under the covers. In Iceland, 'jolabokaflod' is the simply excellent tradition of gifting books on Christmas Eve, then reading them through the night. One of Shakespeare's most loved plays is set at Midsummer, when the fairies come to the woods outside Athens to wreak havoc with mortals.

Maybe we're still trying to make sense of the changing of the seasons, in the same way that the Greeks told the myth of Demeter, Persephone and Hades to explain the oncoming of Winter and the dying of the crops. We may on an intellectual level understand that the rotation of the earth relative to the sun is what causes the seasons. On a primal level, though, we still fall back on old stories and superstitions as the smell in the air changes and our moods shift.

Cobweb inspired so many of my stories, both as a child and an adult.

Or perhaps we truly are sensing the fragility of the fabric between the worlds, and the stories at these times of year are summoning ghosts from beyond the veil. For me, I'll keep chasing those fairy horses.

Things to do while spirits, ghouls and old gods walk the earth - by Lu Hersey

October 31st is the ancient Celtic fire festival of Samhain, now celebrated as Halloween, but a seasonal festival that predates Christianity. Most of the main pagan festivals were brought into the Christian calendar to entice people into the church, and the feast of Samhain became All Hallows Tide - but remained a time of year associated with spirits and death. It's a few days when the barriers between worlds are at thought to be at their thinnest, the dead can return from their graves and spirits and old gods walk the earth. 

Witches, Goblins & Ghouls - illustration by Arthur Rackham 1907

The festival celebrates the end of summer, when the last of the harvest comes in, and it's a good time to set goals for the future. Right up until Victorian times people celebrated with ritual fires and beacons lit on hilltops for the purification of the land, blowing their horns and circle dancing around Hallow fires. The bravest leapt through the flames or walked over the embers - or got drunk and set off on wild hunts to sabotage other people's beacons and fires, returning with burning peats fixed like pennants on the top of sticks. In Wales, as the fires died down, everyone fled back down the hill to escape the hwch ddu gwta, the tailless Black Sow, one of the terrors abroad on Halloween - and there are many of them lurking in our folklore that date well back into prehistory. 

Samhain was also the turning of the year, as the Celtic new year started as the harvest ended. Because the veil between worlds is at its thinnest, it was (and still is) considered a good time for any kind of divination for the year ahead. (If you're at all superstitious, some of the following rites are quite scary and probably best avoided!) 

A tradition in Wales and Scotland was to mark a white stone and throw it into the Hallow Fire (embers in your bbq bowl, fire or wood burner would probably work if you want to risk it). In the morning people went to look for their stone - if it was in tact, they'd be safe for the following year. If it was cracked, lost, had inexplicably moved or had a footprint near it, it foretold an early death. (See what I mean? You'll probably be fine whatever happens to your blooming stone, and if not, do you really want to know?)

Many other Halloween traditions are ancient divination rites, once taken very seriously. One involved courting couples placing two hazel or chestnuts in the embers to roast - if they cooked well, it foretold a happy marriage, but if they burnt or exploded, the marriage was doomed. Another was to find the initial of your future partner's name (my grandmother actually used to do this with me) by peeling an apple carefully, all in one strip, and throwing the peel over your left shoulder. It invariably falls in the shape of a letter... (though trying this several times with my grandmother over the years, I found that your partner is almost certain to have a name starting with S, C or possibly a lower case E, P or D if you squint or look at it upside down) 

Apples feature in many Halloween rites

Another apple rite is to stand in front of a mirror at midnight, with one candle lit, eating an apple with one hand and brushing your hair with the other. The form of your future husband or wife should appear over your left shoulder. Frankly if a shadowy figure appears over your left shoulder at midnight, you're more likely to choke on the apple or run screaming - but apparently this was a common practice and taken very seriously. A variation is to cut the apple into nine pieces, eat eight of them with your back to the mirror and then chuck the ninth piece over your left shoulder - if you turn quickly enough you might catch a glimpse of your future partner in the mirror. 

A widely practised Hallow-tide rite was to melt a lump of lead in a spoon and drop the melted lead into cold water - the molten lead forms the shape of your future partner's trade. (This probably takes a leap of faith - a bit like reading tea leaves or coffee bubbles. Otherwise everyone would be partnered with a shapeless blob. However it probably works very well if you're looking for the clues to your new manuscript...)

Okay, last one for now - and keep the fire hydrant handy. This is a divination game for a group of people to find portends for the year ahead. Place 12 candles on the floor in a circle. Each candle represents one month of the year, so starting in November (remember Samhain is the start of the Celtic year), the players take it in turns to leap over each candle, one month at a time. If the candle falls over or goes out with all the activity, it doesn't bode well for that particular month - but if it stays alight, the month will be good. 

Witches and their familiars - illustration by Arthur Rackham, 1907

If you want to try any of the above, good luck. You're more likely to be busy dealing with small people dressing up as ghosts and witches and eating too many sweets. Probably simpler to spend some quiet time casting off all the negatives from the past year and setting your goals for the year ahead. A bit like New Year's Eve. Because once upon a time, that's what it was. 

Lu Hersey

Twitter: @LuWrites

Web: http://luhersey.com/

A life in a biscuit tin - by Lu Hersey

It’s coming up to Samhain, the Celtic fire festival that marks the end of harvest and the start of the dark half of the year. A time of bonfires. A time to remember your ancestors and to honour death.

With the dry weather ending, I decided to rescue a few things that had been dumped in the garage when I moved here, including an old biscuit tin I thought was full of holiday snaps I needed to sort through. But it wasn’t.

It turned out to be a tin full of my grandmother’s memories. All the things she’d kept with her, even when she went into the nursing home. A tin filled with photos, recipes, addresses, postcards and letters, marking all the major events and things that mattered to her over her 100 years of life.

It’s strange to look through someone else’s life in a biscuit tin. It feels voyeuristic, reading personal things that don’t belong to you. Yet somehow they’re a part of my life too. Part of the family history.

My grandmother came to live with us when I was about 7, and she was the closest thing I had to a sister, even though she was 85 (she had my mother when she was nearly 50. She thought she just had wind, but it turned out to be a baby). 

Grandma always wore a hat

Grandma and I shared the back seat of the car on journeys. Sometimes we squabbled like sisters. We even shared hotel rooms on holidays (I swear she kept her corsets on ALL THE TIME). She always had a supply of fluff covered Fox’s Glacier mints at the bottom of her copious black handbag to give me to stop me feeling car sick. She was happy to play I spy for much longer than my parents ever would. She told me stories of life back in Yorkshire when she was a girl, almost on a tape loop, the same family stories cropping up time and time again. It was only later I found out the things that she didn’t speak of – the child she lost. The passing of her 13 siblings. The death of her husband, my grandfather.  

But all the memories were in the tin. A black-edged card for Bessie, the daughter who died aged only two. Photos and letters from her siblings, all older than her, most of whom where long gone by the time I was born. The cards and bereavement letters she kept when her husband died, along with his life-saving medals (he was a superintendent at the local swimming baths) and a dried rose from her wedding day. Family recipes in a little recipe book, written in her copperplate writing, learnt before she left school at twelve to work in the mill. An address book filled with the names and places of people who are no longer with us, many I recognised from the tales of her childhood back in Yorkshire. Her hat pins - it was very rare she went out without a hat.

As I put everything back in the tin, I thought about what I’d want to keep with me. How would my tin be different from hers?

No wedding photos. Photos of my children, definitely. And grandchildren if I ever have any. Photos of my parents and grandparents, yes. Photos of my cat - yes (Grandma had several of her favourite cat in the tin – his name was Nobby. I know that even though I never met him.) No recipes – I find them online. But what else? I’d probably keep a Neolithic grinding stone I was given as a child. Some special shells found on a beach years ago with my mother. Some tiny stalactites I found deep in a cave. A set of runes. Some sea glass… my grandmother called them jewels. I still can't find sea glass without hearing her in my head saying, ‘Ooo, you've found diamonds and emeralds! Marvellous!’ 

Would I put in copies of books I’ve written? I’m not sure I’d want to read them again. Yet Mamwyn in Deep Water is based on my grandmother – okay, Grandma wasn’t a selkie, but the way Mamwyn talks is how she talked. Writing Mamwyn was my way of keeping her alive. 

So here’s a seasonal exercise to mark time passing. To honour death – and life – at Samhain. Imagine you have a biscuit tin (maybe even buy a biscuit tin and eat the contents while you think about this). What memories do you want to keep with you? Which ancestors and descendants do you want to remember? When you come to the end of your life, what do you think will still be important to you?

Lu Hersey

luhersey.com

@LuWrites