Samhain - Raging against the dying of the Light

As the last embers of the Wicker Man burn out, and the hi-viz of the last Beaker Person is doused with water before he sustains any more fire damage, we can look back on another exciting Samhain.

I use the word Samhain, of course, not because it is the authentic Beaker word for the festival, but because we have no idea what the Beaker People would have called it. However I should point out that, being an Irish word, Samhain is not pronounced as it is written. It is actually pronounced "Halloween". I hope I've cleared up some confusion there.

But today, in a manner that won't send me screaming into the woods again, we fought back against the dying of the light. Like the folk of Egdon on Bonfire Night, we shake our fists at the night and say, "over our dead bodies". So we lit our wicca man, we bowled blazing tar barrels across the orchard (only losing three apple trees this year, and the extra light is always welcome), we pushed a blazing rowing boat out across the duck pond (unfortunately thereby singeing Duckhenge) and, a day early since it happens that this year Halloween is the day before 1 November, we lit the first wave of Xmas Bling. Nothing too religious - no Santas or reindeer or penguins, just some tasteful strings of white lights and the 45 foot illuminated trilithon.  And then we took the patched-up dragon from the St George re-creation this morning, soaked it in petrol and set it alight.  It's fair to say we've not generated so much light in Husborne Crawley since last time the Moot House caught fire.

The autumn fogs are another hazard of this time of year, of course. But I can't help thinking that, on this occasion, we may have caused it ourselves. After all, there's only so many particulates you can kick into the atmosphere without causing a general smogginess.

And we had a nice little dance in a circle around the sundial - anti-clockwise, as the clocks went back last night. While playing Enya's "Caribbean Blue", which to be honest didn't seem to have much to do with anything, but at least it's atmospheric.
I'm not sure why, but it's always good to dance around the sundial occasionally. Maybe it's the sight of all the traditional Hi Viz that takes you back to prehistoric times, when the original Beaker Folk would dance a lot quicker in case they were caught by a polar bear or something.
But all in all, I had a great time. And we've only got 5 days till we can do it all again on Bonfire Night.

Which is just as well, as I can't help but notice, as the lights of the Thousand Punkies die out across the estate, that the dark is creeping back in again...