I have dipped one toe into my first gentle forage of the year; gathering Alexanders leaves from the hedgehermitage garden to make a flavoured gin; so easy that even I can emerge from my end of winter nesting to make it happen.
Foraging is perhaps my favourite thing to do; it is mindful, creative, it helps me care for my body (both because it involves walking & because it offers me healthy things to eat), but most of all because it creates a relationship & an intimacy with the land and the plant people, especially those close to home.
But I must admit that part of me resists foraging at all because, once I put my foot on the helter skelter ride of gathering, time becomes a different thing. I am a terrible procrastinator but there is very little room for doing-it-tomorrow with plants. They move so quickly from one stage to another that the prized petal, leaf, seed, or berry, can be gone before I've even picked up my foraging basket. So much longing waiting for their return, so much sitting with patience waiting for the right time, and then whoosh and they're gone! It really gets me in touch with what's real, and with what endures for all its ephemeral cycles.
There have been years when I've missed the spring cleavers, most of the nettle seeds, the rowan berries, & I dream of them all winter and still regret not being braver, or more present, or less world weary. But, when it works, it is also precious to live by something other than chronos, the worldly time of clocks & four walls; to step into the flow of kairos, the sacred time of sunlight, moon cycles, seasons, & the ebb & flow of growth. To be swept along by the generous tide of green is a gift to be cherished.
Alexanders, also known as black lovage, wild celery, & horse parsley, are almost ever-present in our garden but they are particularly lovely in the spring when their young leaves are pulsating with new growth and, a little later, when their green-gold flower heads are beginning to open. I also love them in the winter when they turn to dry stalks topped with shiny black seed heads.
Alexanders seedheads
They look beautiful and the tiny birds love to use them as perches. They are all leaves at the moment though and have almost entirely obliterated our garden bench!
The Romans called this stately green being 'Parsley of Alexandria' & introduced it to Britain as a pot-herb where it has thrived, particularly on the coast, which is why we have so many here. Although it was brought here primarily as food (its flowers can be steamed or eaten raw in salads, & its sprouts, buds, & tops blanched all year round, together with its spring stalks, its black seeds can be ground & used like pepper) it has been used as medicine since ancient times & was eventually planted in medieval infirmary gardens. It can still be found growing in monastic ruins. Originally, it is native to wild Macedonia, the birth place of Alexander the Great.
A possible over-abundance of Alexanders in the hedgehermitage garden
As a medicinal herb the juice of Alexanders' roots & seeds have been used on cuts & wounds, & its bruised leaves used to stop bleeding. Its seeds soaked in wine were used to stimulate menstrual bleeding, & its leaves eaten against scurvy. The leaves were also said to 'sharpen the appetite'. That it helped with digestion was one reason for its inclusion, with nettles & watercress, in 'Lenten pottage', a gruel eaten in Ireland during Lent up until the 18th C, which was believed to ease the 'viscous humours' gathered in the stomach through the over-consumption of fish.
And so I pottered with my basket in the garden collecting Alexanders; they are wild & so to me that definitely counts as foraging. And we have SO many this year that gathering some feels essential! It is important though to be sure of identifying Alexanders correctly, as they are a member of the Umbellifer family which includes the highly poisonous Hemlock Water-Dropwort, although that is always found growing close to water. But there are others, like Hemlock, which it might be confused with. As I say, foraging builds relationship and the deeper that relationship is the better our ability to identify plants from their sisters.
Gathering these Alexanders I had to be particularly mindful as this year many of the plants have rust fungus (Alexanders rust, Puccinia smyrnii), which I celebrate as a being but don't really want in my gin.
Alexanders rust fungus
I was pleased with the leaves I did find though, & I feel more connected to the garden after the long winter months.
Having gathered the leaves, I carefully checked & washed them before slightly crushing the stalks (a bit of guesswork there but they smell lovely).
I then packed them loosely into a mason jar which I topped up with gin. You can also add sugar for sweetness at this point but I felt that I wanted to keep the pure flavour of the Alexanders as we move into spring. I'll leave them for three weeks or so & then strain them. I'm hoping that it will make a delicious spring tipple. So exciting!
Solid Dennis helped with my Alexanders gin making too, although to be honest his attention span wasn't all that...
To read more about Alexanders & using them to flavour gin pop to these links:
This week I made my annual snowdrop pilgrimage; my fourth, to the Church of St Mary Magdalene on the North Downs, having been told about it by my church friend Audrey. She is almost 90 now & too frail to make her way there so I always make sure to think of her when I go.
The snowdrop church is in the village of Denton, halfway between Folkestone & Canterbury. The church & the village are mentioned in the Domesday Book. Denton is tiny, just a few houses with a population of less than 200. There are no shops now but there are traces of what once was in 'Bakery Cottage' & 'Dairy Farmhouse', & they have a fox weathervane.
Sadly a major A road goes right through it, which can be rather frightening, but you can still feel the presence of an ancient community there. They have a big village hall, a bus stop filled with local notices, & with a wooden plaque which proudly declares that Denton was named 'best kept village' in 1958. It is all rather lovely.
Lavender Cottage
I felt slightly nervous as, knowing that we were going to have a storm this weekend, I decided to go to the church a week or so earlier than usual & feared that the snowdrops might not yet be out, but I needn't have worried as I soon found a beautiful clump of snowdrops by a village bench.
I must admit to feeling rather reassured by how few wildflowers were flowering in the village. It is lovely to see them but so often these days they seem so very out of season, although I celebrate their opportunism & the blessing they provide for early foraging bees. This week though all I found was red deadnettle, groundsel, a few already opened daffodils, a clump of candlemas bells, crocuses, lesser celandines, the glossy leaves of cuckoo-pint, & of course the snowdrops. All seemed perfectly as it should be. It was deeply soothing.
Red Deadnettle
Groundsel
And Denton does seem slightly obsessed with foxes! They have a fox weathervane on the tiny village green, a fox statue on the roof of the pub, & two fox heads gaze out from the roof of the gate lodge at the turning to the church. If the word Imbolc does mean 'in the belly' then it not only refers to pregnant ewes but also to foxes, who will soon be giving birth to their cubs. So much is held in perfect grace in the belly of the year as the season turns.
On we go!
Denton's church was built in the 13th Century, with probable Saxon foundations, & is dedicated to St Mary Magdalene. To reach it you have to walk part of the way down the drive of the manor house & then across the fields.
Imagine how many people have walked this way over the church's 800 year history, & still do. It moves me every time I go there. I can almost see wedding & funeral processions making their way across the fields, Easter bonnets & Christmas candles.
Even if we don't practice this particular religion, these ancient places hold us in a web of familiarity & belonging that it is impossible to overestimate. These are the threads & the stars we navigate by, echoed in the design of the starry church gate. These are the places where our ancestors walked.
But the snowdrops were what I had come for. Such symbols of coming spring & fragile~strong saints of hope. Legend says that they were Eve's favourite flower, having been breathed into life from a snowflake by an angel when Eve thought that her first winter after leaving Eden would never end.
And the snowdrops were beautiful. It seemed that there were fewer than in previous years; snowdrops thrive after a cold winter & this one has been warm, but still a delicate white-petalled tide was washing across the graveyard and was shimmering in the pale winter sun.
Many of the crocuses weren't yet out, & the primroses were all leaves & no buds, although I have seen both here by the sea in increasing profusion. It can be colder on the top of the chalk hills. Things are different there.
But I did find the first traces of open blossom, & felt that I could trace the path of the elusive winter sun & its blanketing cloud and shadow, which had allowed the light to kiss the trees but not quite reach the earth; not yet.
The first Cherry Plum blossom
I do so love these edge-of-spring sunshine days, & where better to spend them than surrounded by bare winter fields in a little country churchyard awash with snowdrops, the first crocuses and cherry plum blossoms, glossy cuckoo-pint, & the feeling of Life on the rise?
I felt blessed by the opportunity.
Crocuses
Crocuses
Cuckoo-pint leaves
And I even found one little Lesser Celandine shining brightly amongst the dead leaves.
Lesser Celandine
I love too the feeling of ever-growing relationship with a patch of land. This place speaks to me in the most subtle of ways & I know that I haven't yet begun to even scratch the surface of the poetry and prayer it holds. I hope that, in time, it will open to me.
I know that once it entrusted me with a recently dead mistlethrush, who I took time to lay to rest in my favourite corner of the churchyard & to scatter with flowers. I felt that to be invited into the dreaming of the land's dead was a privilege ~ a first glimpse under the surface of the everyday. Secret intimacies.
I am thinking of travelling to the churchyard once every month to record a year of its changes. Like all relationships, coming to know the land takes time and effort.
Going into the Magdalene church, which was surrounded by a fairy ring of spring flowers, there are many examples of medieval graffiti carved in the moon-milk stone around the door.
These are prayers, demon traps, crosses, charms, & sometimes curses. The lost voices and concerns of the ordinary people who walked this way. I find them fascinating and touching too. Inside the church is tiny, dark, damp, but peaceful beneath the yew trees.
Such a blessing that it's open all the time, with several services each month. The foundations of the church are Saxon. There is one tiny piece of medieval stained glass, depicting the head of Christ. So beautiful. So very old.
Medieval stained glass, Denton church
Sometimes the church is filled with light and colour, cast from the stained glass windows. On this day it was gloomy inside but each window ledge had on it a bunch of bright daffodils in a vase and there were t-light holders everywhere. It was clear that there had been recent candlelit services, which would be so beautiful in such an intimate little church.
As ever, it was a joy to spend time at the Magdalene church, and I did so love the snowdrops.
They are the most meaningful of flowers; not native wildflowers at all but garden escapees first introduced to the British Isles in the 16th Century and not recorded as naturalised until 1770. And yet we have embraced these tenacious little flowers as our own in a way that we have not found ourselves able to do with other non-natives, whether plant, animal, or human. Certainly it will become more and more important to explore the shadows in the depths of our collective psyche in the months and years to come. It has been suggested that the mysterious magical herb 'moly', which appears in Homer's Odyssey, is a snowdrop. It is this herb that helps to combat Circe's poison. Perhaps the snowdrop sea that's washing across our land in these first post-Brexit weeks will combat some of our own. I am a great believer in right-timing and I have no doubt that Brexit's Imbolc Eve date happened in order to help us find the medicine to alleviate its worst manifestations.
In other lighter news, I discovered yesterday that there is a species of snowdrop called a 'Tubby Merlin', & that if nothing else is reason enough to seek them out. I will look forward to making my pilgrimage to them next year.
On Friday, 10th January 2020, on a full moon night during an eclipse, I fulfilled a long-held wish to experience the Mari Lwyd. I am, of course, besotted and utterly enchanted by her.
Although the Mari Lwyd is traditionally a Midwinter or New Year wassailing custom found mostly in Glamorgan, South Wales, this one was travelling through the streets of Kings Cross in London.
London Welsh Centre Mari Lwyd poster 2020
That might seem incongruous, but it's in the nature of our folk customs, and folk music, to adapt to the place they find themselves in, and in so many ways that is their work; to root us in both familiar, and unfamiliar, territory. The London Mari provided a perfect example of this as the majority of the songs we sang were in Welsh and we were surrounded by Welsh speakers; remaking the ground.
Our folk traditions are not as fragile as we might sometimes suppose them to be. I think of them as a stream which, if forced underground, seeks a weakness on the surface through which it can bubble up, in a different form if they must And there is always a weakness where an attempt is made to subdue living water.
In Welsh tradition, where so many streams of living water are free flowing, groups would travel from house to house with the Mari Lwyd, a horse’s skull mounted on a pole and carried by someone covered in a white cloth decorated with bells, ribbons, and flowers.
The ‘hooded animal’ tradition is found in many parts of Britain. Indeed there is a similar custom to the Mari Lwyd here in my area of Kent called ‘hoodening’, or the ‘hooden horse’. The hooden horse similarly goes from house to house, or from pub to pub, but here the 'horse's head' is made of wood. At each stop the hoodeners would perform a type of mummer's play with a theme of death and resurrection; a welcome reminder in the depths of winter that life would soon return.
In both hoodening and Mari Lwyd traditions, and in similar ones throughout the British Isles, these travelling groups would demand entry to a house through song. In the case of the Mari this would take the form of an, often insulting, rhyming 'battle', or debate, known
as pwnco.
Mari Lwyd 'call and response', pre-1918, Wikimedia
The Mari having sung to come in, the inhabitants of the house were expected to deny entry with their own answering song. This would continue, either until those taking part ran out of verses made up on the spot or couldn't remember any more of the traditional verses. The householders then (hopefully) relented and the Mari Lwyd would be granted entry.
For the verses sung by the London Mari Lwyd visit caneuongwerin.wordpress.com ~ scroll down for the English translation. On entry, we sang, 'The Mari's Triumphant Song' in both Welsh and English;
Oh goodly people of the family, Will you come to the light so boldly To see the Wassail without fear? There's none like her around here. She is an orchard of flowers, In her livery of colours, And her brilliant ribbons, bright and gay, Tied in knots they give her powers. Our mare is brisk and holy, And thousands think her worthy Of praise, for she is made of that Which cannot be broken fairly. And now I'll end my singing, It's time to start my drinking, And a happy New Year to all of you, And to all the world good living.
Once inside, the Mari's carriers would be rewarded with food and drink; so many of our Midwinter customs are rooted in this sharing with those who have little. In return the Mari offered merrymaking, luck in the year to come, and might confer a house blessing, 'bendith Duw', as part of her song of thanks and farewell (similar perhaps to the Scottish New Year tradition of 'first-footing').
The custom was given various names; Old Horse in North-east England, Old Ball in North-west England, but ‘Mari Lwyd’ is the most ubiquitous. Folklorist Iorwerth C. Peate believed that 'Mari Lwyd' should be translated as ‘Holy Mary’. However, there is little evidence for the use of ‘Mari’ for ‘Mary’ in Wales prior to the Protestant Reformation. As ‘llwyd’ translates as ‘grey’ (with 'lwyd' as the feminine form), it is thought more likely that her name means ‘Grey Mare’. This would echo hooded horse traditions in Ireland and the Isle of Mann, which in those tongues are named ‘Láir Bhán’ and the ‘Laare Vane’, both translating as ‘white mare’. Interestingly, a white horse was once considered a symbol of death in both England and Germany.
The earliest recording of the Mari Lwyd tradition comes from J. Evans' ‘A Tour through Part of North Wales, in the year 1798, and at Other Times’. However, many have suggested a pre-Christian origin for our wild bone mare. In July 2019 I went along to a talk on the Kent hooden horse by my old folklore teacher, Dr Geoff Doel. He talked a lot about the possible age of our 'hobby horse' traditions, saying that, although the hooden horse isn't mentioned until the 18th Century, the Mari Lwyd is likely to be 14th Century or earlier.
Dr Dole also mentioned that, although the notion has become unfashionable, the hooden horse and similar traditions may have their roots in pre-Christian death and resurrection myths; bearing in mind that, like the seasons, Christianity is also based in death and resurrection. However, the dating of folk traditions is notoriously difficult because often only scant records are kept; people are just 'doing what tbey do', and the tradition itself changes and adapts so often, one melting into the other. We might instead think of them as a river with many branching tributaries.
Despite the challenges of dating it's interesting to note that, in 690, Archbishop of Canterbury Theodore, issued the 'Liber Penitentialis'; a list of ecclesiastical laws, in which he condemned the practice of those who, "on the kalends of January clothe themselves with the skin of cattle and carry heads of animals", directing that those who did should be subject to three years of penance. There are similar claims that St Augustine condemned the "filthy practice of dressing up like a horse or a stag" in the 5th Century, and that the church authorities in Scotland made a comparable warning.
This despite, or maybe due to, the fact that there is a Christian festival celebrating the horse, the Feast of the Ass. Mainly celebrated in France & dating back to at least the 11th Century, this feast day was said to commemorate the role of donkeys in the Flight into Egypt, but was also associated with the Feast of Fools.
Celebrated on 14th January, the Feast of the Ass involved a girl and a child being led through the village on a donkey, which would then stand beside the church altar during Mass. At the end of the service, rather than saying 'Amen', the priest would bray three times! In its older manifestation the feast also included a type of mummer's play, during which a number of prophets testified to the birth of the Holy Child as the Messiah. And this play also often included a wooden hobby horse who protests to the Angel Gabriel about the cruelty of his rider.
We might also reflect upon the story of Palm Sunday, where Jesus rides into Jerusalem on an ass, and so risks ridicule from those who consider it far too humble a mode of transport for the 'King of Kings'. This is once again an example of Jesus 'Turning the World Upside Down'; challenging our preconceptions of power, and particularly those who consider hierarchy and power imbalance the natural order.
The Feast of the Ass was suppressed by the Church in the late 15th Century, along with the Feast of Fools which similarly turned the social order on its head. The early church challenged entrenched religious, and secular, power ~ until it was accepted by the Roman Empire and began to do exactly the opposite. This tension between upholding the status quo and dismantling it has continued ever since. We see it in the actions of American Evangelical Christians who overwhelmingly support Donald Trump, contrasted with those Christians who speak out against war and stand at the border in solidarity with migrants and refugees. We see it in the Church of England allowing their premises to host the meetings of arms traders, contrasted with those who stand outside protesting that hypocrisy.
The Mari Lwyd too holds this tension, dancing on the dangerous edge between 'life-giving' and 'death-giving'; she is the bone sister draped in flowers.
I must admit that I had no idea how it would feel to be in her presence, whether terrifying or comforting, or merely interesting as an example of our folk history. I certainly wasn't prepared for the familiarity, playfulness, and absolute sweetness of her, or for how wildly alive she was, despite being made of bones. No wonder that, in this world of opposites, the Mari Lwyd resonates more and more strongly.
Vernon Watkins' 1941 poem, 'Ballad of the Mari Lwyd', speaks of this tension;
Mari Lwyd, Horse of Frost, Star-horse, and White Horse of the Sea, is carried to us. The Dead return. Those Exiles carry her, they who seem holy and have put on corruption, they who seem corrupt and have put on holiness. They strain against the door. They strain towards the fire which fosters and warms the Living. The Living, who have cast them out, from their own fear, from their own fear of themselves, into the outer loneliness of death, rejected them, and cast them out forever. The Living cringe and warm themselves at the fire, shrinking from that loneliness, that singleness of heart. The Living are defended by the rich warmth of the flames which keeps that loneliness out. Terrified, they hear the Dead tapping at the panes; then they rise up, armed with the warmth of firelight, and the condition of scorn. It is New Year's Night. Midnight is burning like a taper. In an hour, in less than an hour, it will be blown out. It is the moment of conscience. The living moment. The dead moment. Listen.
There follows almost twenty pages of verses with alternating voices as the Mari demands to come in and is denied;
There were jumping sausages, roasting pies, And long loaves in the bin. And a stump of Caerphilly to rest our eyes, And a barrel rolling in. But dry as the grave from Gruffydd Bryn We are come without one rest; And now you must let our Mari in: She must inspire your feast.
That the horse was deeply significant, practically and spiritually, to our ancestors is certain. We were following and hunting wild horses as long as 700,000 years ago, and living with them domestically from approximately 2,500 BCE. In Bronze and Iron Age Britain the horse was central to 'Celtic' spirituality. For example, the Uffington White Horse chalk figure in Wiltshire may be up to 3,000 years old. The horse is literally carved into the memory of the land. Whether this is linked to the Mari Lwyd is anyone’s guess. As with so many things in our mist-covered land, she is a mystery that we must feel the truth of for ourselves.
Storyteller, Hugh Lupton, tells us that the tradition of the Mari Lwyd is rooted in the tale that the Mari Lwyd was cast out of the Bethlehem stable on a cold winter’s night to make room for Mary to give birth to the Christ child, and that ever since she has roamed the world as a wraith looking for somewhere to give birth to her foal. This is a sad tale indeed.
MARI LWYD
The Hodening Hoss, the Marbury Dun, Old Bone-face the deathless am I, Heavy with foal two thousand years, Bridled with sorrow,
Saddled with fear, I canter through pastures of tremble and quake, I gallop the track between sleep and awake Seeking the deep of welcome And stint for my tears. Let me in! The Mare-headed Queen, the Mari-Lwyd, I was mother of all the herds. Ten thousand years my shining foals, Bridled with starlight,
Saddled with gold,
Leapt the divide between living and dead, Quickened the year with each toss of the head, Galloped the deep of beauty
And never grew old. Let me in!
But Mother of God, the Mary Mild, The pregnant Maiden came, Bursting with Jehovah seed She entered my stable And cried out her need. With ropes I was dragged from the birthing straw, Aching with foal I was heaved to the door, Swapping warmth for bitter weather And birth of a rival creed. Let me in! And now I am nightmare, I am rattling womb, The Uffington wraith I've become, Forced into darkness you've made me a fiend, Bridled with shadow,
Saddled with scream, From window to window traversing the night, My face in your glass in a shudder of light, Seeking that deep of welcome
Befitting a Queen. Let me in once again, Let me in!
(Hugh Lupton)
I don't believe that Mary, who was herself a refugee, would have denied anyone, particularly a birthing mother, room but this is a reminder of how much there is to be mended between those of different spiritual paths. Often, in following the folklore of our land, we might find common threads.
The Mari is a liminal being, a dweller in the in-between places; inner/outer, personal/communal. There are so many shut out in our world, so many denied, and so many parts of ourselves that we would rather forget; we might consider why, and how we could do better, as the Mari taps at the edge of our conscious and conscience to be let in. If we and our society were stripped bare would we be ashamed of what we see?
And the Mari Lwyd, or at least a horse's skull, does force us to confront our collective shame, particularly in relation to the scapegoating of women, but also the ways in which we force so many to conform; in North Wales in the 1800s, a custom known as 'giving a skull' took place. This involved placing a horse, or donkey's, skull over a woman's door on May Day as a sign of contempt for supposed transgression of the social norms. This echoes the charivari folk tradition during which a mock parade, accompanied by discordant music such as the banging of pots and pans, would move through a village to express disapproval of various types of violation of shared communal values. At best, this was a way to ensure community cohesion (often the transgressor would be represented by an effigy and would themselves join in with ribald mockery of the stand-in). Such practices could also be used against those who, for example, blocked footpaths, prevented traditional gleaning, or profiteered at times of poor harvests. But, at worst, they were also a form of vigilantism & could be used to control those who were different. Shame, both collective and personal, can be such a dangerous edge. And what we bury and refuse to acknowledge is the most dangerous of all.
Thank goodness then for the Mari Lwyd, who comes at a time when we and nature are stripped to the bone, revealed. She draws us to the edge of our collective and personal shame, with the thrill of fright and laughter to soften our journey. She enlivens the parts of us that we might have feared were cold and dead, and not only that; she dances with them.
Shame and guilt are such difficult emotions. Often we see them as the end of a journey; that just feeling them is proof that we are 'good'. But, if we are wise, they are just the beginning. The bone mare keeps our guilt and shame in motion with her clattering dance; motion that will leave them in clear view to be healed and for change and justice to come in their place.
Tonight, as I was considering how to end this piece of writing, which I must admit has been a struggle ~ how do you pin down the meaning of such an edge dwelling being? ~ I visited Twitter and saw these words from Dr Janet Lees (used with permission); "Blessed are the Latch Lifters, the stable door is never closed to them". The Mari is a true Latch-Lifter; opening the door to our secret and hidden wounds, demanding that they be given room to mend. Our bone sister truly does bring the wildest and starriest of blessings.
