The Summer Solstice

June 21, 2014June 26, 2018 / F.T. McKinstry

Rose Moon is a traditional name given to a full moon in Midsummer.

The son of the King of the Moy in Midsummer
Found a girl in the greenwood;
She gave him black fruit from thornbushes.
She gave him an armful of strawberries on rushes…
— From Myles Dillon, Early Irish Literature

Rosa rugosa

In ancient times the sun played a divine role, being the source of life and the origin of the festivals that mark the quadrants of the year. On the summer solstice the sun is at its peak before its descent into darkness. In the north where I live, the longest day has a visceral quality. The mountains and valleys are lush and teeming with life that seems to sigh as the day turns, bringing a sense of completion. Before long the afternoon shadows will lengthen, the leaves will fly and the nights will grow cold as the sun withdraws for another winter.

I keep part of the sun in my heart on this day so that in winter, when it’s twenty-five below zero and the sun feels like it’s in another dimension (when it shines at all), I have hope.

The power of the seasons fascinates me and finds its way into my stories. The warmth and power of Midsummer has a special place in The Winged Hunter, Book Three in the Chronicles of Ealiron. This story revolves around a wizard’s hall called Muin in the heart Loralin Forest. The Hall of Muin is a Sun Key, or solsaefil in the wizard’s tongue. The design of the hall, including its layout and the placement of crystals in odd locations, uses the Waeltower, a tall, faceted garnet tower that focuses earth energy, to direct the light of the sun into geometric patterns that illuminate physical locations. The Sun Key marks seasonal events such as solstices and equinoxes.

On one particular Midsummer night, the summer solstice aligns with the Rose Moon and this opens a portal to the Old One, a primordial goddess of nature, life, death, and transformation. By the power of the Sun Key, a gate is projected into the woods on the south side of the hall. It is said that what happens there depends on the heart of the perceiver. Midsummer corresponds to the maternal aspect of the Old One, she who nurtures, grows, gives birth. Gardens bloom and flourish. In this story everyone has something to hide and something to heal, and the Rose Moon illuminates the landscape to powerful, transformative and devastating ends.

For more information about this and other wizardly things, check out Chronicles of Ealiron, Terms and Places.

The Winged Hunter, Book Three in the Chronicles of Ealiron.

Tansel is a gardener with a healer’s hand. Fey, they call her.
Her aunt, a dabbler in hedge witchery, calls her cursed.
To the most powerful wizards in the land, she is an enigma.

The Maiden

September 16, 2013September 22, 2013 / F.T. McKinstry

By sun and stone, by fog and sky,
By night the winds come singing;
By dawn the robin’s joyful cry
Shall join the bluebells ringing.
Fair, the Maiden’s feet upon the dew.

From out the fields of amber green,
Beneath the low sky raining,
A wily stag her heart to tame,
Her wildness changed to yearning.
Breathlessly, the violets face the sun.

Columbine, to draw her near,
Goldenrod, to find her;
Myrtle blossoms she holds dear,
Hawthorn blooms will bind her.
Velvet red, the petals of the rose.

When the sun’s crown rules the skies,
Grapes ripening on the vine;
The stag shall look with longing eyes
Towards the harvest time.
Fear not, the twilight’s strange disquietude.

The raven does not mourn the night,
Nor wolves the kill’s last breath;
The owl, she revels in her flight,
The stag, his ancient death.
Tears of blood fall sweet upon the stone.

The Origin

April 12, 2013January 2, 2017 / F.T. McKinstry

Things aren’t always what they seem. Perception creates reality. But there are rules, such as the linear progression of seasons or the natural and unquestioned confidence one has in the solidity of things. One woodsman falls in love…and the rules change.

Excerpt

He had built this path to the top of the hill where he had first seen her. She had appeared over the grass like a sunrise, walking slowly, her eyes as dark as the night with a tawny star in the depths, her skin the color of the earth and her hair a tangle of moss and roots, reddish and wild, like her. Together they had planted a grove, when the meadow rippled in the wind and birds fluttered and chirruped among the brush and flowers. They had dug the holes for the trees with their bare hands and gently placed the seedlings in. They had smoothed the path by walking to the stream with a fat clay jug, returning to the grove and watering each tree with a jugful, one at a time.

She sang to the trees, the dark-skinned girl. He remembered her voice, rich and full of subtleties, as she stood in the sun with her brown breasts bared and her arms and fingers splayed like the branches of an ash, her voice spiraling into the sky. Underneath the warm green moss, silence loves the water, she would sing. High above the cool blue wind, sunlight loves the air.

He had lain with her, and made her a woman.

He did not yet understand what she had made of him.

“The Origin” originally appeared in Aoife’s Kiss, Issue 21.

This story is included in Wizards, Woods and Gods, a collection of twelve dark fantasy tales exploring the mysteries of the Otherworld through tree and animal lore, magic, cosmos, love, war and mysticism.