Advent Book Quiz Day 20

Day twenty of our festive quiz

Feeling generous we'll give you a few clues about today's extract; it's a short story, set in Shetland, by an Orkney writer. We would like the author and the title of the short story, with a bonus point for the title of the volume in which the story was published. Post your answer as a comment. Closing date is 1st January and comments will not be published until the answers and winner are revealed on 3rd January. 

Don't forget to go back and catch up with any days you might have missed!

On the night of December the twentieth, I was privileged to witness the ceremony for the protection of children. 

A very old woman - the grandmother - in the house of the many children, bent with a candle over the various cribs, chanting in a low solemn voice: 

                                  Mary Midder, haad de hand
                                  Ower aboot for sleeping-band,
                                  Haad da lass and haad da wife, 
                                  Haad da bairn a' its life.
                                  Mary Midder, haad de hand
                                  Roond da infants o' oor land. 

The next day was Thomasmas, December the twenty-first. It was I noticed, a calm luminous day on the sea, 'as good a day for fishing as we're like to see this winter,' Williamson said. 

But not one boat put out with lines and bait. I visited Betsy's father and two brothers who sat smoking their pipes on a bench at the end of their house. They said nothing. They turned away from me. I think they are a little put out that their lass is so familiar with the son of the Hall. There is something, they consider, not right about that, something clean contrary to the social order. Betsy ought to know better. 

At sunset on the shortest day Betsy spoke the rhyme that prohibits all work whatsoever on Thomasmas Day:

                                   The very babe unborn
                                   Cries 'O dule! dule!'
                                   For the breaking o' Tammasmas Night
                                   Five nights afore Yule.

Three nights later, on Christmas Eve, I saw the old fiddler beside his barn lifting the upper quernstone from the lower stone and, slowly and solemnly, taking it inside. 

Then, crofter by crofter, the same piece of ritual was enacted: the stone that turned and ground the bread lifted and removed to a safe place. 

'For why?' said Betsy. 'For tonight is the night that the trows come and turn the wheel against the sun. And if that happens, the stones will be barren, there'll be no meal and bread next harvest, the countryside'll starve. And your father won't get a penny in rent ...' 

That same night Betsy took me to the house of the scolding wife and the man who had sold the sheep for drink in Scalloway. He did not behave like a wastrel in the little lamp-splashed room; he seemed like a celebrant in some ancient mystery. 

The wife brought out a basin and filled it with water. The man lifted three live embers from the fire and dropped them one by one from the tongs into the water, with small hissings and wisps of steam. Then he washed his hands and face in the singed water. His wife went through the same lustration. The three children dipped hands and faces and lifted them, streaming...Across the bed were laid out the clean clothes that ever member of the family would wear on Christmas morning. 

'And now,' said Betsy, 'I must hurry home. The same thing's to be done there, and in every house in Shetland... Be sure to be here in the morning, before sunrise.' In the late lingering twilight of Yule morning I stood at a corner of the barn of Scad. Betsy's father came out of the cottage, guided by a flickering candle in a stark shadowy holder; and he went slowly into the byre where the cow and the ox were stalled. I came quietly and stood in the open door, watching. Old Ollie seemed unaware of my presence. I saw, startled, that the candle holder was a cow's skull. Ollie spoke familiarly to the beasts, but in the old tongue I could not understand him, and the beasts mixed their lowings with his chant. I think he must have been telling them that Christ was born - now they had nothing to fear - the powers of evil could not touch any living creature on such a marvellous morning. The light flowering out of the skull was an extraordinary symbol. I stood there, deeply moved. 

Advent - 20th December

An extract from 'Yule' by George Mackay Brown:

We came at noon to the marked tree,
A grey gnarled column.
The sergeant shouted.Our axes flashed. They bit.
We struck out pieces of bark and bole.
We laboured like men in a siege, among whirls of snow,
But root was one with berry still
In the first red seepings of sunset.
                            In the village windows, that twilight,
Tinsel stars glittered.
There were chains of coloured tissue and paper lanterns.
Under the street lamp, chaste mouths.
Then the village slept, unblessed by the winter tree.

(in Winterfold by George Mackay Brown,  published by Chatto and Windus Ltd, London, 1976)

Photo courtesy of http://sianthom.blogspot.co.uk/

Advent - 19th December

There may not be monstrous Yule Cats on the prowl in Orkney but  Yule preparations in the islands were also concerned with warding off the unwelcome attention of malevolent spirits - in this case the trows. You can read more about the traditions surrounding Yule in the Northern Isles on the excellent Orkneyjar website.

Ernest Marwick tells of a specifically Stromness Yule custom in The Folklore of Orkney and Shetland: 

A Yearly tug-of-war, with the ultimate possession of a Yule tree as its object, took place in Stromness each Christmas Eve until 1936. A tree of some kind - for trees are scarce in the islands - was taken from a garden without the owner's knowledge and carried to the middle of the town. Chains or ropes were attached to it and a trial of strength began... there was a point of delimitation between Northenders and Southenders, and their ancient rivalry found expression in an attempt to drag the tree to a traditional goal well within the territory of the faction which proved most powerful. The contest was a robust, often turbulent one. As the route was skirted by the sea, the tree invariably ended its journey in the water, followed now and then by an over-zealous player.

You can read more about the Stromness Yule Tree on the Scapa Flow Landscape Partnership's website.

We would love to hear from anyone who may remember this custom, or  has heard stories about it - please share them in the comments below.

In the meantime we're going to stick to a chocolate Yule Log - though there may still be fighting over that!

Recipe for Yule log at http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3049/yule-chocolate-log

Advent - 18th December

Sometimes the Internet brings you something unexpected and the serendipity has to be shared. 

We were  thinking about Yule celebrations and also planning to tell you about our new Library Knitting Group when our author friend, the lovely V. M. Whitworth, alerted us to the wonderfully creepy Icelandic legend of the Yule Cat which manages to combine both.

A cautionary tale used to ensure everyone in Iceland worked extra hard at their knitting during the festive preparations, the fearsome Yule Cat was said to devour anyone not dressed from head to toe in new clothes at Christmas. 

We loved this enormous Yule Cat by Hugleikur Dagsson.

It may be too late for this year but come along to Yap and Yarn, starting in January, and you too can have a new knitted outfit for Christmas 2013, and avoid a visit from the Yule Cat :-)

Advent - 17th December

As we make our way towards the solstice, the dark days and cold weather draw us together as families and friends seeking warmth and companionship.

We love this extract from the poem 'The Fire' by Margaret Tait, which captures this need for light and warmth in the darkness.

Tending a fire
As a full-time occupation
Is a feminine contentment.
To watch the flames rise,
Hear the crackle
And judge the correct moment and the correct place
to add the next bit of fuel
Satisfies
Some ancient impulse.
Hearth-keeper,
I build a little flame
And keep it there, feed it, keep it going
To warm you all by and feed you and cheer you by
And cheer myself too,
Cheer the deepest comfortless dark in my own self.

(from 'The Fire' in origins and elements 1959)