The midwinter mummers

I set off for Yagleah early this morning, accompanied by Brother Walter the hob. He was in fine spirits and entertained me royally by singing most of the way. The hob has spent many a midwinter and Christmas in the shadows beyond the fire in village huts and warriors' halls, listening to stories and songs. Over the years of his very long life he has learned many of them by heart and he now takes delight in sharing them with me. Some were in a language I did not recognise, but Brother Walter carefully explained the meaning behind each one to me. He is as learned as he is wise, and the best of companions.

To Brother Walter's delight, we came upon a group of mummers in Yagleah. They wore masks to disguise themselves, shaped like animal heads. There was a hare and a cockerel, a bull and a hawk. Their leader wore a fine set of antlers and led the singing in a deep voice that boomed across the snowy green. They danced and played the pipes and lute, and the villagers gathered to watch them and join in the merriment. The hob clapped and stamped his feet and capered in time to the tunes. He stayed safely out of sight behind a cart near the blacksmith's shed and I stood beneath an oak tree nearby to listen and nod along to the old familiar tunes. For a while, the biting cold and harshness of winter were forgotten and we shared a gladness of spitit that warmed us as surely as the brightest of fires.



The mummers' songs reminded me of Christmases past, when I was a boy growing up in my father's house on the High Street in Leicester. I remember standing in the churchyard of St Martin's, watching the miracle plays being performed on the back of wagons and carts. Ancient mysteries unfolded before my eyes, amongst the brightly coloured costumes and richly painted back cloths of distant lands. I saw dragons and angels, saints and kings and even God himself - though I knew him to be just an actor in robes of gold and a mask fashioned to look like the radiant sun. I can still recall the bitter chill of those far-off frosty days, and warming my hands at a brazier in a corner of the churchyard before we set off for home. I can still taste the honey-dipped apples bought from  sweetmeat sellers in the street and hear my father laugh as we watched an old man with two dancing dogs. They hopped and turned on their hind legs as the old man played a bone whistle. My father threw him a coin and I gave him my barely touched apple. He nodded and winked and shared it with his dogs.  

One year, a group of travelling mummers came to the town. The sang and played by the High Cross during the Wednesday market before Christmas. I listened then as I listened this morning, thrilled by a sense of wonder as I caught a glimpse of something ancient and profound beneath the words and music.

The first snow of winter

We woke this morning to a world made white with snow. It had fallen during the night, silent and soft, a winter ghost haunting the forest and fields. We stood and shivered in the cloister and gazed out at the garth. Snow garlanded the branches of the old walnut tree and buried the herb beds. Brother John could not resist walking from one side of the cloister to the other, just to see the prints of his boots in the snow. Later, as I went about my daily chores, I noticed another set of prints, small and hob-shaped, passing twice around the walnut tree and scampering off towards the north alley. A glance at the sky told me there would be more snow before long. I hope it falls before anyone notices the strange small footprints and wonder what creature made  them.





Summer's end







I set off this morning to walk to Bethlehem, the abbey's farm near Yagleah. It was a day of rich colours, as if some unseen hand had painted the leaves of the trees in the forest. The weather has been calm of late, but when the October wind blows, it will strip the trees of their rich garb. The wheel of the year will turn and once again, winter browns and greys will settle over the fields and woods, and if I am truthful, also in my heart.



Nine Men's Morris

These first few days of October are holding hard to the last warmth of late summer. We wake each morning to mist on the flood meadows beside the river. The grass is wet with dew when I walk through the vegetable garden to my workshop, and spiders' webs, as fine as spun silk, shine in the low sun. Tiny beads of dew catch the light and sparkle like a king's treasure which has been scattered across the ground in the early dawn. It soaks the hem of my habit but my boots, well rubbed with tallow, stay dry.



Sometimes, we find a few moments in the day to sit in the cloister and play the game of Nine Men's Morris. Many years ago, someone scratched a game board into a stone seat in the north alley. We use small river smoothed pebbles, collected near Sheep Brook ford, as gaming pieces. Some are black, some are milk white, and they are kept in a wooden box which old Brother Adam carved long ago.



The first day of September

There was a chill in the air this morning and a mist on the flood meadows. The year is on the turn and summer is slipping away. The hedgerows are full of the promise of abundant fruit and berries, and the first flush of scarlet and yellow is threading through the forest. The hob tells me he smells autumn in the air and feels the days shortening. But for now, while the sun is warm and the sky clear, we will work in the abbey gardens and sit for a while on the bench by the workshop door, to warm our bones.



Brother John

Brother John came to live at Crowfield Abbey at Midsummer. He brought with him youth and a pleasing nature, and the love of stories. In recent weeks, my joints have been troubling me and I have not been able to go out into the forest and fields as is my usual routine. Brother John has taken it upon himself to gather plants for me to use in my workshop, in my caudles and salves. He brings each basket full of roots, bark and leaves to me, along with stories he has gathered along the way from the people he meets.



I listen to his tales as I work, and Brother Walter the hob listens too, for Brother John is a fine storyteller. I suspect that Brother John knows the hob is there with us in the workshop. He has said nothing, so I cannot be sure, but from time to time his glance goes to the corner by the wood basket where the hob sits when we are not alone. One day soon, I will bring the hob out of hiding and let Brother John meet him. I think these two will get along well. Brother Walter has stories which the monk will never have heard before, tales of the fay and the Wildwood, strange and thrilling stories, filled with magic and darkness. I would like to think that after I have gone to my grave and the hob returns to the forest, as he surely will one day, the stories will live on in the hearts and minds of men through Brother John.

The listener at the door



The last few days have been windy and rainy. Doors and window shutters rattle as if unseen people are pushing at them, anxious to get into the abbey. Or perhaps they are trying to get out.







This windy weather has left the hob unsettled. Indeed, all of those who live here at Crowfield feel the same sense of restlessness. The fire in the warming room burns fitfully, more smoke than flame, and is miserly with its warmth. But it is the rattling of the doors in particular which makes Brother Walter nervous. He scurries past them as if frightened of what might be on the other side. I must confess, I have caught a little of his uneasy mood and find myself reluctant to open certain doors in the abbey.



This morning I found him hiding in a corner of my workshop, his fur bristling and his eyes wild. There was, he told me, someone outside the door last night. Someone who came and went, rattling the latch, scratching on the wood, and listening.

            'How do know that they were listening at the door?' I asked.
            The hob patted his head. 'I could feel it in here.'
            'Who was it, do you think?' I will admit, I was not sure I wanted to know the answer to this. The hob's eyes were as round as coins, more gold than green in the light from the fire. He shook his head and whispered, 'I don't know, but I think they were trying to find something that is lost and gone, though I don't know what that might be.'



Brother Walter and I busied ourselves in the workshop for the rest of the morning, but neither of us felt inclined to talk. I had the feeling that the hob was still listening for that hand at the door.

Perhaps, when the door rattles again, as it surely will, we should open it and see who is there.