My Ashen Faggot and Yule Log

[Never one to shy from traditions, even if they don't belong to me, this mid winter I seized the opportunity to make and burn an Ashen Faggot, as they where in the past burned in this area (on Dartmoor). I know that around here they where burnt on Christmas Eve, but as we where celebrating the winter solstice (and accompanying full moon and lunar eclipse) as well as Christmas I decided to take the tradition back a millennium or two.  

Here is a bit of documentation in the form of photographs of the process -

Selecting the willow from my garden - one year old whithies.

Nine willow witheys cut...

In search of an ash tree.

to the end of the garden

Finding an omen - a big wing print in the snow - most probably a buzzard?

The finished faggot - nine logs of ash from a single ash sapling, bound with nine willow witheys. By this time I was running a little late, so the witheys where not that tight. The cutting the ash had however made my finger bleed - which I always take as a good sign - if you cut a living tree and bleed a little it wont begrudge you and make you bleed a lot! To make the willow flexible, even in the cold, run each withey tight around your knee to gently ease it. Next year I will do a neater job.

Baring the modest sized Faggot to the fire. I got one funny look from a woman who has lived hear all her life - I think she might have known what it was, and I don't think she approved - maybe it was because it was not Christmas Eve...

Placing the faggot on the fire - The tradition is that you are supposed to drink a good quantity of Cider for every band that bursts - however I placed it in a hot part of the fire and we drank our cider pretty quickly - perhaps 10 minutes between the first and the last! We settled for a mouthful of hot Cider per withey. There is also a tradition of those who are unmarried picking a withies, and s/he who picks the band that bursts first will get married the soonest! Nobody was willing to risk it though!  The green ash burnt well and didn't spit or his as much as I thought it might.

The witheys burst...

My friend also added his "Yule Log" to the fire!  It struck me that this is like a peasant and a gentry version of the same tradition - in Devon "Christmas Blocks" are recorded in the big houses and faggot's among the more normal people.  I certainly felt it was a big celebration to allow ourselves to burn so much wood at a time. A big sacrifice to the turning year.  

It was a good solstice night - personal spells where done by one friend, others gave songs and music, another friend did an incantation, we drank cider, exchanged news and best wishes and most of all sat in the slumbering lungs of winter and rekindled our spirits (and a fire!) to welcome in a new year. Christmas was good in a family homely way, but it was the solstice this year that held the magic for me. Another friend who was snowed into her house remarked to me later that this was the first year that her teenage children had really got what her traditional solstice feast was about, how vital (in all senses) the sun is to life, and how profound the turning year can be....

Just as a matter of interest I do not wish readers of this blog to think of me as Pagan, or Christian, or really as an Atheist.  Please take this blog in the spirit of complete non-partisan folklore exploration.

Next tradition I hope to try is Wassailing my apple trees on the 16th of January...]