Chapter 2 – Eostre Morning.
8 years old.
It was cold and something was biting me. I slapped at the flea that was on my neck and rose up to my knees in the straw, but Bran wasn't there. Only Mother, asleep with my brother Alec curled up into her side.
Without waking them I crawled from the pile of straw and slipped outside, past the curtain blocking the door. Outside it was grey, the sun still not risen, and I picked some straw out of my hair as I coughed in the morning air.
There was a noise at the edge of the clearing and Bran loped out, coming towards me with his funny lopsided walk. The wolfhound had something in his mouth and he dropped it at my feet as I leaned against his furry shoulder, grateful for his warmth. He'd given me the remains of a fox. It was only the head and spine and tail, he must have scavenged it rather than killed it, and I patted his nose and said thank you but gave it back to him. Mother and Alec and I couldn't eat that.
Bran crunched the bones happily, and then ran after me as I headed off into the forest. It was the spring feast day, and it was my task to collect the flowers for the ritual. It was still mostly dark as I slipped silently through the trees, but I wasn't afraid. I had Bran, and I could never get lost in the forest. I knew all the paths and the hidden places, all the trees and hills and dips, and even in the pre-dawn darkness I knew I'd be able to find the early blossoms I needed.
Bran slunk along beside me. He was a rangy dog, grey with black markings, like the hounds at the manor house. I believed he had been one of theirs once, but he became mine the day I hauled the half-grown puppy from the river. He had been almost dead from a combination of his time in the river and the loss of blood from his broken and mangled leg, but I had carried him home to Mother anyway. She tied his muzzle closed, cut off the maimed leg and then cauterised and bandaged the stump. We didn't know if he'd live or die, but he was tough and strong and before we knew it he was hopping around our clearing on his three remaining legs. He became an expert scavenger and was even able to hunt on his three legs, at least enough to keep himself fed and occasionally even giving us something to add to the stew pot.
I found the wildflowers I was looking for and collected them in the basket, until the pile grew so high that the blossoms overflowed. The stars were beginning to fade and so I ran back to the hut, anxious not to be late.
Alec was milking the goat, and I was glad that I had been spared that chore. The nanny goat was a good milker, but she was mean and cantankerous for all that and I avoided her as much as I could. She accepted Alec's hands on her much more easily than mine.
Mother was by the fire, and she smiled at me and called me to come sit beside her. She was weaving vines into braided circles for our wreaths, and she smiled again as I showed her my flowers. She demonstrated how to thread the flower stems into the wreaths and then I took over, turning the green leafed wreaths into beautiful, flower-bedecked crowns. Three of them, one for Mother, one for Alec, and one for me.
The three of us were the only ones who would celebrate the spring feast in the sacred place with the ritual and the offerings for Eostre that day. Mother had said that it wasn't always that way, and that when she was a very little girl there were others who kept the old ways and worshipped the old gods. But they died, or turned to the new church, and then it was only us.
Everyone else in the village would be in the Christian church for their paschal services that Eostre's day. I didn't know what they did there, but I didn't understand how they could celebrate the spring in a small, dark building instead of outside where you could see it in every bud and blade of grass, and breathe in the goddess with the very air.
While I finished making the flower wreaths, Mother collected the offerings. The best of the flowers I collected had been kept aside for one, and then there was a bowl of the fresh goat milk and some of the little round cakes that Mother had baked the previous day. Looking at them made me hungry, and I knew we'd have less bread to eat that day because of them. Flour was scarce at the end of winter and we hadn't had much to trade. I watched Mother gather the little cakes and sighed.
Mother knew what I was thinking, because as she wrapped the cakes in a cloth and dropped them into the front of her tunic, she laughed at me. "Don't fret Janey. Eostre is the goddess of spring, and soon there will be so much growing to eat that you'll get quite fat."
That was probably true. Mother and Alec and I had been turning over the soil for the garden since the frost left, and the goat was starting to fill out which meant more milk. Winter was always a hungry time, and things were easier when the days began to grow longer.
Mother put the wreath of flowers on my head. Some of the ends of the vines caught in the snarls in my hair and I yelped, but she ignored me and then went and did the same to Alec before she put on her own flowers.
Mother looked beautiful. As a child I thought that this was just what Eostre herself must look like, with Mother's long fair hair and blue eyes, and the little dimples in her cheeks. Her tunic was as old and dirty as mine, but Mother always stood up straight and walked like a queen. I hugged her impulsively, and she patted my head and straightened up my flowers.
"Come along my little blossoms, it's time to go to the sacred spring."
The three of us, and Bran, were only a little procession, but we tried to do the Goddess honour. Mother sang as we walked and Alec and I both took a turn with the flute. We had been practising all winter, but it sounded different played out in the forest as we made the long trek through the pre-dawn light to the spring.
We got there in time for the dawn. The sacred spring, with the water icy and still beneath the ferns, was just as it always had been. Even in the hottest summer the water there never dried up and the ground around was always mossy and green and damp. There was a flat stone by the water for our altar, and I brushed it clear of dirt, ready for the offerings.
"Thank you Janey," Mother said, "Ready?"
Alec and I nodded, and Mother led us around the spring in a circle. Seven times, the magic number. Then we faced the dawn, and Mother held our hands and said, her voice high and strong, "The Goddess of dawn sends her maidens before her as heralds to announce the coming of the light. There in the East the light grows as the miracle approaches. Eostre, bring the light. Eostre, bring the day. Eostre bring the spring!"
We waited, standing in a circle with our hands clasped, as the sky lightened. Then the sun broke over the horizon and the water of the sacred spring began to glitter, and Mother smiled at us, a smile like the dawn as it made her face brighten.
"Come little ones," she said happily. "It's time to lay our offerings at the feet of the goddess in praise and entreaty."
Mother gave Alec the bowl of milk he'd collected, and took the bread she'd baked for herself. I had the flowers I had collected, and for a moment I held them close to my face to breathe in the scent. Then, one by one, we knelt by the altar at the spring that had always been dedicated to the goddess, and laid down our gifts.
"We hail the Goddess of spring,
of vibrancy, of stirring bounty,
of the waking earth
that readies itself for the seed.
We hail the Goddess of sunshine,
and cycles and changes,
and all good and terrifying things.
We pray for fertility in our works,
of minds, and hearts, and hands.
We pray for blessings,
and the gifts
of hope's manifestation.
We hail the Goddess of Spring
as her bounty covers the land,
Eostre, be thou praised."
There was dancing then, because Eostre day was a celebration after all, and Mother hugged and kissed us until Alec and I were breathless with laughter. After a long, dark winter the arrival of spring was something to celebrate.
Then Mother told us to wait a little at the spring while she went home ahead of us to prepare a special Eostre breakfast. Eggs, she told us in a conspiratorial whisper, and even though I knew she had stolen them and could have lost a hand for her thievery I couldn't stop my glee. I was hungry, and eggs were a rare treat since our last hen had stopped laying.
Mother laid her flower crown at the foot of the altar before she went, and Alec grimaced as he took his off and it pulled at his hair. I kept mine on as I knelt at the side of the spring and leaned over it, trying to see my reflection in the water. I hadn't seen how I looked for a long time.
Alec knelt beside me, his reflection joining mine. "We still look the same," he commented. "Do you think we always will?"
"Not when we're grown up," I said after a moment's thought. "You'll grow a beard."
Alec laughed. "You might too," he said teasingly, before he screamed as I pushed against his neck and shoved his head towards the water. His scream disappeared in a rush of bubbles as his face broke the surface of the spring, and I laughed and released him.
"You…!" Alec grabbed me and tried to push me towards the spring, but I rolled away and then we were wrestling, laughing and shouting as we both tried to gain the upper hand.
Not only did we look the same, we were the same height and weight and our wrestling matches could go on forever But this one stopped abruptly when we heard Bran howl. It was a wild, terrified sound that made the hairs on my neck stand up, and then it dropped down to cowed whimper as Bran streaked past us and away down the path, faster than I knew his three legs could carry him.
"What's wrong?" Alec gasped, shocked. "He's never…"
His words faded, as the sounds of a light, tinkling laugh floated through the clearing. As one Alec and I turned and looked up to see two strangers standing at the tree line and watching us. We scrambled to our feet and I instinctively clutched Alec's hand tightly, staring at those men whose like I had never seen before.
I don't like them. I'm frightened.
A/N –
*Galina Krasskova
There's very little information about the rituals and beliefs of the pagan Saxons. Parts of the little there is have also had their accuracy and authenticity questioned, including that worship and belief in Eostre, the spring Goddess. Due to all that I've had to make this ritual up, using bits and pieces from similar social groups of the time (there are similarities with the Norse and Germanic gods worshipped by pagans in those cultures) and some of the modern pagan practices. I hope it reads okay, and I also hope that I haven't offended anyone with my lack of knowledge on this subject. I mean no disrespect.