September

Epstein's St. Michael, Coventry Cathedral

         September. A great time of year. I was out walking today, in the sun, but seeing  dead seed-heads, and blackberries, and the leaves turning colour. I enjoyed the mad whippets' account of rambling and brambling (I didn't know whippets were so fond of blackberries.)

       September's big day is the 29th, which is Michaelmas, the feast of Heaven's Captain, Saint Michael, the warrior Archangel, who doesn't mess about with turning the other cheek, but adopts a more robust approach to defending us from Darkness and Evil, with a spear. Somebody's got to do it. You can imagine him tapping his fingers and sighing a lot through those long meetings in Heaven.
          I've always had a fondness for St Michael, probably because I suspect Him of being someone pagan, thinly disguised.
          His feast day is one of the four quarter days, which mark the turnings of the year, and which were always celebrated with feasts and fairs. And there was never any pretence that Michael had ever been human, as there was with, say, Saint Christopher or Saint Bridget. Michael was always supernatural, an Archangel, no less.

St Michael by Raphael

          He is the patron saint of horses and horsemen.  Hmm.  Horses were sacred to the Norse God Freyr (who was also a young warrior, often identified with Christ in the early years of Northern Christianity. 'Freyr' is a title, not a name: it means 'Lord', and there was some confusion about which Lord the Christians were talking about.) Horses also seem to have been venerated by the people we loosely call 'the Celts'.
         Michael is usually represented with a lance or spear - often with the Devil stuck on the other end of it. Again, hmm. A spear was the symbol of the Norse God Odin, but a better match is probably the God who survives in the old Irish stories, Lugh of the Spear.
          Did Michael find a welcome and lasting place in British tradition because there was an empty niche - very suitable for a Saint - waiting for Him?  The Church might say there was only one God, but was there a collective sigh of relief when Michael turned up? Oh, there He is. Been wondering where He'd got to.

Michael's daisies

         And then, He has Michaelmas Daisies. I've always loved them.

    But Old Michaelmas Day - before the calendar was changed - was October 10th. I hope the whippets avoid blackberrying on that day and after because - so I was told - the Devil will come and hold the branches down for them to reach. No good ever comes of accepting help from Old Nick.
          Another version is that He makes it His personal mission to spit on each and every blackberry left on the bushes on October 10th. A doddle, I suppose, when you are the great Lord of Evil. And being poked with a spear every September must make you crotchety.

Icon of St. Michael, patron of horses

          As a child, I was never told why Old Nick had such a spite against blackberries - I assumed it was all part of his general grudge against the world - but it seems that when He was thrown out of Heaven, He fell into a blackberry patch. I can see how that would put you off them.
         Happy Michaelmas! And I hope you have a jug of michaelmas daisies.
          And here's a suitably supernatural Blott... Cover Brother Andrew dropped by my house today, just as I downloaded this week's Blott, but fought off all attempts to show it to him, because he wanted to see it for the first time, in its proper place, at the end of this blog in the early hours of Saturday morning.
          I love this Blott - but I want to see Demon Lord Ashteroth again!

SPEAKING OF SEVERED HEADS...

'Head and Tales' by Susan Price. Rough of cover art Andrew Price

          Introducing my next venture into independent publishing: HEAD AND TALES, one of my collections of retold folk-stories.

           The collection was inspired by a story I found in IRISH FOLK TALES, edited by Henry Glassie, and published by Penguin Folklore Library in 1985.

          I have read and loved folklore since a child, and was well aware that the severed head has a special significance in Celtic-Nordic folklore. Two examples are the severed head of Mimir which, in Norse Myth, is kept beside the spring at the foot of the World Tree, and gives advice to Odin when he needs it; and the head of Bran, from Welsh legend, which continues to entertain and advise his followers after Bran’s death.

          In IRISH FOLK TALES I came across a story, collected in Kerry in 1945, called ‘The Grave of His Fathers.’ It tells of a young man who travels, with a friend, to Northern Ireland to find work. While there he takes sick. He feels that he’s dying, and his dying wish is to have his head cut off and carried home, so it can be buried ‘in my own churchyard.’

          The friend duly returns the severed head to its home village, and the rest of the story tells how, as the funeral procession is approaching the graveyard, they see another procession coming and – as was the custom, the story says – the funeral parties race to see which will have the honour of holding their ceremony first. The other party wins but, as it reaches the graveyard wall, it vanishes.

          The party who’ve come to bury the head are disconcerted, but nevertheless hold their funeral. Some time later another man of the family dies, and they reopen the family grave – but instead of the single coffin they’re expecting, find two. Inside one coffin is a bodiless head; in the other a headless body. So the ‘ghost funeral’ at last makes sense; and the lad who died away from home rests whole and entire in the grave of his fathers.

          I enjoyed the story, but was particularly struck by how, even in 1945, a severed head was given such importance. It is, after all, his head that the man feels must rest in his own country and not, say, his heart.

The well at the world's end - another wise severed head

          I felt that, perhaps, something had been lost from this story – that if it had been told at another time, the head, unable to rest, would have talked to its friend as he carried it home. When I looked up the story for these notes, I found my own pencilled scribble at the bottom of the page: ‘The basis of a story? The head carried from place to place, solving problems, being prophetic?’ (I always make notes to self in the form of questions, to remind me that I don’t have to be restricted by first thoughts.)

          At the same time I’d been reading about the traditions of story-telling, how stories have often been thought of as spells of a kind. The Irish Bards were said to be able to compose such scathing satires that their words raised blisters on the faces of their subjects. Words have power. Stories have power. So some stories were only to be told at weddings, others only at funerals, still others at christenings.

          These ideas underlie several of my collections of retold folk-tales, such as TELLING TALES. They are certainly present in HEAD AND TALES, where, in the framing story, the father’s head, carried by his children, guides, encourages, defends, consoles – and all with stories.
          All the head's stories will, soon, be available as an e-book.

          And, oh, go on - if you liked this even a bit, give us a tweet!

          And now - Blott!

          Hope that's not one of my books...
                   Visit my website at http://www.susanpriceauthor.com/
                        I'm also one of the Electric Authors!