The Calennig Apple by Pamela Kavanagh

LOOKING back, I still have to wonder about what happened on that far-off first day in January. Were there really special powers at work, or was it all due to chance, a sequence of events that would have taken place anyway?

My twelfth birthday had just fallen. Twelve; old enough to be called upon by Mam to “make myself useful around the house”, but not old enough to have lost that tingle of excitement that comes at Yuletide and New Year, the latter known to us as Calennig.

Young enough, also, to take part in the ritual of the Calennig apple, a decoration that, according to Grandad, went back beyond living memory.

Made by the children during the last week of December, one was displayed in many a terraced window in our small Welsh town – an apple studded with cloves and sprigs of evergreen, propped on a wobbly tripod of hedgerow twigs.

The decoration was paraded around the houses on New Year’s Day, and greetings were given in return for money or good things to eat.

“Said to be a symbol of old magic, it is,” Grandad confided, with a cautious glance at the scullery where Mam was putting the breakfast porridge to steep for morning.

Not that Mam would have disapproved of such talk – very likely she harboured a belief in the old ways herself.

But these days it was not considered proper to indulge in bygone superstition and folklore. And being “proper” mattered, apparently.

Firelight flickered on Grandad’s wrinkled face. We had the place to ourselves. Da was away to the Red Dragon for a jar; my big brother Aled was loitering in the town square hoping for a word with Mair Morgan on her way home from the milliner’s where she was working late and Davy, the youngest at seven, had gone to bed.

“Tell me more,” I whispered, leaning closer on my wooden stool to catch Grandad’s lowered tones.

“It goes like this, Bethan,” he began. “My granddam – no arguing with that one, mind – swore that if you made a wish on the Calennig apple it would come true. As a girl she’d wished to be wed before the year was up, and it happened, see? Just like that.”

“Oh! Would it work for our Aled and Mair Morgan, do you think?” I asked breathlessly.

Grandad looked doubtful.

The charm was said to go back longer than anyone could recall. Would it work for me?

“Ah, well, you have me there, cariad,” he replied. There was a problem. Aled and Mair had been sweet on each other from childhood, and it was an ideal match but for one thing – finances.

Apprenticed to Mr Rhees the silversmith, Aled had a promising future ahead of him. Too far ahead, it seemed, for some. Since my brother clearly had prospects, his current wage was piteously low, and likely to remain so for quite some time.

Aled badly wanted to buy Mair something to mark his feelings for her, but lack of funds stood in the way.

“Can’t even afford a fairing from the pedlar, let alone the locket and chain Mair was looking at in the shop window,” Aled had confided to me a few days ago.

“By the time I’ve given Mam something towards the housekeeping and put money aside for a new pair of boots, there’s little left.

“Then there’s her da to cope with. Have his girl walk out with a penniless apprentice? Never!”

Mr Morgan and Da, both fuelled by strong liquor, had had words over it at the Red Dragon. Now adding to Aled’s woes was the fact that the two were no longer speaking.

“Men!” Mam had clucked. “Boys all their lives, the lot of them.”

There was little love lost between Mam and Mrs Morgan, either. Something to do with Mam getting voted on to the chapel committee when Mrs Morgan had wanted the place herself.

It all seemed a lot of tarradiddle to me, but then, at the tender age of twelve, what did I know?

What did remain clear was that something had to be done, and Grandad’s reminiscences about the Calennig apple seemed a likely source of help.

Next morning, I took Davy to one side.

“Davy, today we’re going to make the Calennig apple. Like we did last year, remember?”

Davy nodded solemnly.

“This time it’s extra special. We’re going to wish on it. We’re going to wish very hard indeed.” “Why’s that, then?” “Because Aled needs a bit of help. The important thing is, you’re not to tell anyone what we’ve wished for.”

“Why not?” “Because if you do, it won’t come true. Wishes must be kept secret. Promise me, Davy?”

“All right.” He shrugged. Perhaps the warning bells should have rung then. But at that stage my mind was full of other things, and my small brother’s indifference went unheeded.

Snowflakes floated in the air as we crossed the yard to the shed where the apples were stored. Inside, the tang of long-forgotten autumns lingered still.

“We need the biggest apple we can find.”

“And the rosiest,” Davy agreed.

I let him choose from the case of pippins, nestled in a soft bed of straw to keep them fresh. Then out we went to the orchard, where we cut three sticks from the rowan in the hedge. Rowan is said to be a tree of special properties, so it was a case of every bit helps.

Inside again, our cheeks glowing from the cold, we raided Mam’s shelf for the cloves and a brown jar of crushed cinnamon.

“We forgot the evergreen!” I tutted and sent Davy out once more into the snow to pick some sprigs. Of course he brought the wrong ones.

“That’s holly, it’s far too big. Fetch some box and be quick about it. We need to get the whole thing done and dusted while we have the place to ourselves.”

“What’s dusting got to do with it?”

“Oh, Davy. It’s just a way of saying finished. Now, away with you. The box bush is by the front wall. Right?”

He went, muttering under his breath about having a scold of a sister, and wondering why I wasn’t more like his best friend Gavin Evans’s twin, Siriol, all dimpled sweetness and light.

This time he got it right and we set to work, rolling the apple in spicy cinnamon before spearing it with cloves and leafy box.

With a length of thread from Mam’s needlework box, we constructed the tripod of rowan twigs. Holding my breath, I placed the apple on it.

It was a perfect fit. The kitchen door opened and Mam appeared, a basket of laundry on her hip. Her face lit up when she saw the apple.

“Oh, there’s lovely! Put it in the parlour window where it can be seen from the road. Wait, I’ll find you a candle to go on the top.”

It was a red candle, I was gratified to see. Red was sure to be more effective than ordinary white.

In the chilly parlour, where a fire was only lit for weddings, funerals and special days of the calendar, we made our wish. At least, I said the words and had Davy repeat them after me.

“Oh, magic apple, grant us this wish. Let this Calennig blessing bring us our heart’s desire. No barley-sugar sticks or gingerbread this time, mind.

“Copper coins and silver would be best, so Aled can buy Mair a trinket to show how much he loves her.”

“Shouldn’t we say please? Mam says it’s important to say please and thank you.”

“Go on, then. Say it and let’s be done. And remember, don’t breathe a word of this to anyone. Mind me, Davy!”

I didn’t mean to be so sharp. It was anxiety that charged my tongue, and I dropped my little brother a kiss on his chubby cheek to take the sting out of my words.

Davy mumbled a mannerly ending to our request and scampered off to warm himself by the kitchen fire. I lingered, willing the power to take effect. Begging it to, for Aled. Aled, my kindly big brother with rioting black curls, dreaming dark eyes and sensitive craftsman’s hands that could create beauty out of base metal.

Snow lay thickly on the ground when Davy and I trudged from door to door on that first day in January, singing the Calennig song and displaying the apple in our mittened hands.

Unhappily for us, our wish seemed to have gone slightly wrong, for though the welcome we received everywhere was manifold, the rewards were not.

The pennies were handed over, right enough, but that was all they were – a penny or two, and as little as a halfpenny or even a farthing on some doorsteps.

Home we plodded with our meagre takings, which amounted to one shilling and tuppence farthing on reckoning up in the privacy of my cold little bedroom.

“It’s not much. It hasn’t worked, has it?” Disappointment quavered in Davy’s voice.

“In a way it has. We were granted the money we asked for. There just isn’t enough of it,” I pointed out, in fairness to whatever ancient order might be hovering.

“Do you think we should go round the doors again?”

“Better not. It doesn’t do to upset the Fates. We made our wish in good faith. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Wishes are silly!” Davy ran from the room and went thumping down the stairs to play with his Christmas toy soldiers in the cosy warmth of the kitchen.

I gazed in woeful contemplation at the small pile of coins on the woven counterpane of my bed.

I lingered, willing the power to take effect. Begging it to, for Aled

Maybe my brother was right, and wishes had no place in our changing world.

But, oh, how much better a place it would be with a touch of old magic to help things along!

Later that morning, Davy went to play with his friend Gavin. When he came back he seemed to be avoiding me. This was not a good sign, and after I had set the table for our midday meal, I sought him out.

“Davy, what have you been up to?”

“Nothing,” he said stoutly, but would not meet my gaze.

“You’ve never told Gavin about the wish? Oh, Davy. Now there’s no chance at all for it to work!”

“There wasn’t anyway. We got some coins and that was it.”

His reasoning was justified, yet still some small glimmer of hope had burned fiercely inside me. Now, that also was fading.

Aled would never get the finance to buy Mair a love token, and she would think he no longer cared.

She might even look elsewhere for another boy to walk out with.

Mam called us for our meal, a Calennig speciality of roast loin of pork followed by plum pudding and a sweet, white sauce.

Afterwards, I was putting the finishing touches to the washing up when there was a tentative knock on the front door.

The menfolk had taken themselves off somewhere, and Mam was having a rare half hour with her feet up in the parlour, where for once a good fire blazed.

“I’ll go, Mam,” I called out, drying my hands on my apron as I went to answer the summons.

Imagine my surprise to see Mrs Morgan’s plump figure on the step.

“Bethan, good afternoon to you. Is your mam in,

cariad? I’d like a word with her.”

“Good afternoon, Mrs Morgan. Won’t you come in?”

Numb with shock, I showed her into the parlour and scuttled back to the confines of the scullery, wondering what this was all about.

Mair’s mam had never come here before. Why do so now?

I didn’t exactly mean to eavesdrop, but with Mrs Morgan having a rather strident voice and the parlour door being off the latch, I could not help overhearing what was said.

“Blessings of the season to you, Mrs Hughes,” Mair’s mam said.

“And to you, Mrs Morgan,” Mam replied, and followed it with the usual hospitable enquiry as to whether the caller would like some tea.

“I wouldn’t say no. Warm me up a bit, isn’t it? Colder than ever out there, it is. But there, you must be wondering why I’m here.” Mrs Morgan paused, evidently rustling up words.

Instead of closing the scullery door and getting on with my work, curiosity got the better of me and I crept closer to the parlour to see what Mair’s mam had to say.

“This morning I was crossing the town square and bumped into Mrs Evan Evans. Wife to Evan the Post, you know? Gavin and Siriol’s mam.”

“I see,” Mam said. More than likely Mam did not see any more than I did. I was, however, conscious of the first stirrings of unease.

“Mrs Evans was on a mission. A rather delicate one, as she put it. Apparently a little bird had whispered in her Gavin’s ear that your two youngest had gone round the houses with their Calennig apple, same as all the other children hereabouts.

“No, no, don’t be alarmed. There’s nothing wrong. Far from it. Your two, bless them, had made a Calennig wish, the way people did in days gone by.

“It was something about the need to receive pennies for their efforts rather than a toffee or a pastry treat.”

“They hankered after money?” Mam’s tone of displeasure turned my knees to jelly.

“No harm done,” Mrs Morgan assured Mam hastily. “It was innocent enough. They wanted to collect an adequate amount so they could give it to your Aled to buy our Mair a gift. Myself, I was touched by the gesture. So goodhearted and caring.

“It made me see the error of my own ways.” She drew a breath. “Mrs Hughes, I truly am ashamed of how I behaved when you were voted on to the chapel committee.

“You were obviously the better prospect of the two of us, and I’m sorry for what I said.

“Could I be forgiven, this being the start of a new year and everything? Let bygones be bygones?”

“Yes, I’d be pleased to,” Mam said, plainly astonished at the turn of events.

“There, then. I’ve told my Ivor he’s to make things up with your Twm, too. Grown men, scrapping like boys! Still, that’s men for you. Never grow up, do they?”

“I was saying the same thing myself the other day,” Mam agreed. “But there you are. We wouldn’t be without them, would we?” “No, indeed.”

There was another pause. “I must give you this,” Mrs Morgan said. “It’s what Mrs Evans passed on to me. She said to make sure your two received it.”

There was a chink of coins, and another exclamation from Mam. “How? Why . . .?” “Well, apparently the Calennig wish did not quite come up to expectations. Mrs Evans went round the houses again to bulk things up a little, so to speak. Could you pass the money on to your two?

“It’s up to you how you go about it. Myself, I’d be proud of a child who thought so much of her brother she would try anything to help him.”

In the stillness that followed, I could almost hear Mam’s mind ticking over. Children of hers, stooping to what amounted to begging around the houses? The shame of it!

Then again, it was done with the best of intentions.

Mrs Morgan cleared her throat.

“Goodness me, I’m parched with all this chat.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I’ll see if Bethan is making the tea,” Mam said, coming to her senses.

Stunned at the way things had turned out, I sped away to assemble a tray with the very best china and prepare the refreshments.

That evening, when I went up to bed, there on my pillow was a bulging purse of copper and silver.

Without even counting it, I added the rest of our Calennig offering and took the purse along to Aled, who was getting ready to go out.

“This is from Davy and me. We were given it for Calennig. It’s for you to get something for Mair. Happy New Year, Aled.”

I pushed the purse into his astonished hands and went to find Davy and tell him the glad news.

It ended well, of course it did.

Aled bought Mair the locket and chain she had so admired in Mr Rhees the silversmith’s window, with a promise to make her a diamond ring once his apprenticeship was done and his own business established.

Three years later, they were wed. Now, long married myself, with children and a string of grandchildren, the coming of Calennig stirs memories of the past.

Had the apple really granted our request, or was it chance that put things right between our warring families?

If Mair’s mam hadn’t come across Gavin Evans’s mam in the square on that snowy first day in January, would the magic have found some other way to grant our wish? Maybe.

As for Davy, I should have known he never could keep a secret as a child.

But in this particular matter, what a good thing that was. ■