Bounty of berries shows Holly King wears the crown
THE idea of the four seasons in Britain may seem sacrosanct but centuries ago, following in the Norse tradition, the year was actually divided up into two halves.
People spoke not of how many years they had lived, but how many winters they had survived.
The 12th century poem The Owl and the Nightingale, for example, was one of our earliest written texts and symbolised the annual struggle between summer and winter.
And then there is the mythical tale of the Oak King and the Holly King. Theirs is an annual and everlasting battle. Each spring the Oak King is reborn and gains his strength over the course of the summer until the autumn equinox and his leaves start to fall to the ground.
At this stage the Holly King seizes the crown and reigns throughout the darkest days of winter.
This week, in particular, feels as if it is one in which the Holly King has triumphed. For the leaves are mouldering on the floor and the trees and shrubs are alive with red berries.
I have never seen so many berries in the hawthorn outside my house, while the yew trees in the nearby churchyard are filled with scarlet splodges.
I have started to notice the joyous birds of winter descending for the feast – redwings, brambling and fieldfare will all soon, I hope, settle in my neighbourhood and strip the branches bare.
I have never seen that most prized of winter visitors – the waxwing – but they have been known to swoop in on the rowan trees opposite a nearby branch of Tesco, so I always keep my eyes peeled.
As long and bleak as the winters can be, I like this idea of opposing halves of the year and can see why it appealed to our ancestors.
It teaches us, I suppose, that nothing lasts in perpetuity, be it darkness, or light.