Ivoria: Of Midsummer Magic
Mum's family came from the country. The farmhouse and craggy sheep pasture on the incline up to Tempest Reach had been in her family for more generations than people could remember. She'd met my father at the first fleece market after he'd come back from the war, and they were married the following spring.She moved up to the city, but never forgot where she'd come from. Every Midsummer, she'd pack up the family so we could head out to the country for the summer fires.
As a young child, I looked forward to these trips. The chance to get out of crowded Market Square and play outside, seeing my cousins, my aunts and uncle. Gran and Grampa.Even the year one of the older boys burned his trousers jumping a bonfire was not an entirely unpleasant one to remember. We danced around the firepits at night, and made straw dolls, flower chains, friendship bracelets out of roving. The adults drank light summer ale and traded gossip and put us to work getting wool ready for the markets.
I remember my Gran spinning in the evenings as the air started to cool. She barely topped some of us older children in height, but her hands were rough and strong, and could work a distaff and spindle almost without ceasing. Her voice was wavery like a reed instrument, but clear enough, and she'd hum and sing to herself while she worked. Below or above the sounds of the fires in the fields, Dad and Grampa's constant arguing of politics and trade. Spinning songs and waulking songs. Charms for stopping hail and bringing rain, and for keeping the flames burning well past all of our bedtimes. Mum knew them too, at least a few of them. Only in the city, they were basting and hemming tunes, and lullabies for pleasant dreams.
It wasn't until later that I began to see the touch of ritual in the things she did. In song and distaff. Low magic, was what my Master called it. Hedge wizardry and peasant superstition. As I grew older, I started to dread those summer excursions. I hated the heat and the country air, my poor and provincial relatives and their funny manners. The further I progressed in my apprenticeship, the less I wanted to do with the world I'd come from.
And maybe I was too harsh and proud. When I think back on home tonight, at the height of the Midsummer Festival in Teldrassil, it's not sanctum and study that stick out the most clearly to me. It's not really my Master's world, and the high, arcane places I longed to walk.
It's bonfires. And spinning. And Gran's voice, pushing through the night air like a needle through cloth.
((For the Gilneas Knitting Circle [And Tea-rrorist Society] ))