Service of Ceremonial Solstice Sunset

Hymn: Ring out Solstice Bells 

Archdruid: As the sun sets over the woods of Woburn Abbey, let us proclaim our Solstice Lament.

All: Raise your banners high / Don't die, Sun, don't die. 

Archdruid: Ah no, it's gone.

All: Raise your banners high / Goodbye, Sun, goodbye.

Archdruid: At this death of the year, the sun returns to its long rest. / The earth shudders, the flustercock* heads to its nest.

All: It is the end of times. It is the start of times.

Archdruid: Raise your seasonal mistletoe

All: And snog the next person in the row?

Archdruid: No.

All: Thank goodness for that.

Archdruid: Let us take a moment to mark the passing of this solar year. We have travelled round the sun 4.6 billion times.

Burton: That's quite a round number. Shouldn't we have had a bit more of a party?

Archdruid: It's an approximation.

Young Keith: Any chance of a pint?

Archdruid: The ancient Beaker People gathered at their stone circles today. Feasted on their slaughtered pigs and called on the sun to return.

Young Keith: But they probably had a jar of mead?

Archdruid: A beaker, you mean?

Young Keith: Good point.

Archdruid: But not till they'd lit the Wicker Person.

Hymn: It's the End of the World as we Know it

The Beaker Folk may bump into each other in the dark, as they return to the Great House.

* ancient Bedfordshire word for a male pheasant, which I just made up