Two
listeners, one the loyal James, and eight tellers! Some madness, some
midsummer. Dan began with Komachi and Shosho, who feature in more
than one Noh play as well as several wood-block prints, as a classic
pair of lovers. Komachi demanded that Shosho visit her for one
hundred nights in a row, before they could be married. [Normally only
three were required – and Komachi tended to dismiss her men after
one…] Shosho, who had a long way to walk and return, managed 99 –
but then weather and weariness took their toll, and he died on the
way…
Raph
introduced us to The Young King from Oscar Wilde’s The House of
Pomegranates, which you can find here
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/873/873-h/873-h.htm#page1
Janet
told us of Count Alaric and
his encounter with a fair maid of the fey on midsummer’s morning,
their marriage, and how he won her by renouncing her – no love
stronger than the love that wishes the lover’s happiness above its
own. The story comes from Barbara Leonie Picard, who
wrote her own fairy-tales, as well as re-telling them from many
traditions.
Maddie’s
offering came from Lisa Schneidau, its
message clear and important: if you ask, and are grateful, and take
no more than you need, then you will not fall into the trap of
compulsive behaviour – unlike the Greedy Farmer, who thought wild
strawberries were his right, and could not stop eating them until he
BURST!
Ian
created his own compelling tale out of the differing versions of No.
1 in the Child Ballads. On Midsummer’s Day, year by year, the Man
came, was made welcome, and vanished with each daughter as she became
a woman at 18. The youngest was resolved not to disappear in this
way, so armed herself against fairy enchantment with three small iron
horseshoes, and a wand of rowan all wrapped with red thread, so that,
although she followed him into the Fairy Mound [known, tellingly, as
The Clootie Stane, The Devil’s Stone] she was able to answer his
riddles and break his power and lead her sisters out to freedom –
though those women trapped there in the distant past could only
crumbled to dust, though at least their souls went free. Here are the original 5 versions, so you can see what skill he exercised https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Child%27s_Ballads/1
Paul
told the tale of Vasya Whitefeet, a pale-skinned Roma, born of a
settled family, who yearned for the wandering life that his parents
had deserted, resumed it in disguise, pretending to be a fool, but a
gifted musician, and used his skills to obtain a beautiful bride whom
he kept against the will of her father, before
the pair of them again went of them on the road.
Finally,
Mike told the Estonian legend of Koit and Æmarrik,
the Dawn and the Twilight, the two Immortals entrusted with the Light
of Heaven, its lighting and its extinguishing. Around Midsummer, in
the latitude of Estonia, they come together for a month, Æmarrik
taking it slowly, slowly from Koit, and not quite dowsing its fire,
then passing it slowly, slowly back to him, for him to light it. But
in that process, as their hands brushed one another, another fire was
ignited, in their touching fingers, in their watching eyes, and
warmth grew between them. Noticing this – for what can remain
hidden from the All-Seeing one? – the All-Father asked them if they
did not wish to marry? Together, as one, they both said No. Better
than always being together, they said, would be to have eleven months
of anticipation, and then one month on the edge of fulfilment. Thus
would Love last forever – even for Immortals. And that, of course,
is why the season of Midsummer is so full of magic. Here is the
story, in German, and in old-fashioned black-letter type
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