Autumn is welcomed across England as the leaves finally begin to turn and summer souls are laid to rest until the seasons shift once more. For now though, there are things occurring in the world that can only happen around this time, when the barriers between the living and the dead are at their thinnest and we use celebrations as an excuse to appease them, keeping them in their realm for another year at most.
As is commonplace for England, the smallest villages have their own unique celebrations and customs. For example in Hither Pipage they cut down exactly thirty six birch trees and have them thinly sliced so that they can all be slotted together to form a symbolic hut where, for the month of October, they all bring a single flower each day to slide between the wood. At the end of it the hut resembles an enormous bouquet and is then burnt so that the dead receive the flowers in the afterlife.
Not everywhere is so quaint though, using the prime example of Old Replade and their "flayed minikins",as they are locally known. A flayed minikin is a kind of straw doll with a strip of the maker's flesh sewn along the front like an apron. Traditionally the flayed skin is only taken once every twenty years and those under the age of eighteen are allowed to substitute their skin for pigskin.
The minikins are then strung over a series of communal back garden bonfires and left to smoke until all the leaves from the village square's thousand year old oak tree are gone. It's meant to ensure a warm and forgiving winter, you see.
Though they aren't the only ones who practice old traditions in the hopes of an easier life, they are one of the few who use their own skin to do so. Others like Water Pollton use crows wings as a necklace until they get the year's first snow or the spring's first buds, whichever comes first. Nowadays of course, its harder for them to catch and kill their own crows, the buggers know which places are safest for them and have all but moved out of the area completely.
Ordering in taxidermied wings is fast becoming their only option, that or the alternative of infant toes. The principle connecting the two is that both birds and babies aren't seen to be capable of thinking bad thoughts and are thus the best things to use to attract good things to your life.
And so England welcomes autumn in the usual way - with oddities, rituals and a little bit of blood just for luck.
As is commonplace for England, the smallest villages have their own unique celebrations and customs. For example in Hither Pipage they cut down exactly thirty six birch trees and have them thinly sliced so that they can all be slotted together to form a symbolic hut where, for the month of October, they all bring a single flower each day to slide between the wood. At the end of it the hut resembles an enormous bouquet and is then burnt so that the dead receive the flowers in the afterlife.
Not everywhere is so quaint though, using the prime example of Old Replade and their "flayed minikins",as they are locally known. A flayed minikin is a kind of straw doll with a strip of the maker's flesh sewn along the front like an apron. Traditionally the flayed skin is only taken once every twenty years and those under the age of eighteen are allowed to substitute their skin for pigskin.
The minikins are then strung over a series of communal back garden bonfires and left to smoke until all the leaves from the village square's thousand year old oak tree are gone. It's meant to ensure a warm and forgiving winter, you see.
Though they aren't the only ones who practice old traditions in the hopes of an easier life, they are one of the few who use their own skin to do so. Others like Water Pollton use crows wings as a necklace until they get the year's first snow or the spring's first buds, whichever comes first. Nowadays of course, its harder for them to catch and kill their own crows, the buggers know which places are safest for them and have all but moved out of the area completely.
Ordering in taxidermied wings is fast becoming their only option, that or the alternative of infant toes. The principle connecting the two is that both birds and babies aren't seen to be capable of thinking bad thoughts and are thus the best things to use to attract good things to your life.
And so England welcomes autumn in the usual way - with oddities, rituals and a little bit of blood just for luck.
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