The Six Sisters

The solstice brings me new forms of artistic expression.

I've been inspired by Sally, and Liz's work on the Celtic Year Exhibition book, and a conversation with Lori (who's a visual artist and who'll be sharing the stage with me, Sally and Liz at a Words & Ideas event - where we talk about mixing art forms - as part of the Coleford Festival of Words) and by a brief chat with the organiser of a book-making workshop in Abergavenny (that me and Sally were going to attend but which has had to be called off unfortunately).

Anyways, all of this has inspired me to start developing my own book around the theme of duality of rivers. The theme's pertinent to the places that I've lived because I realised that everywhere I've made a home there've been two rivers nearby.

I've started drafting ideas for tales related to these rivers.

This morning I've written this one for the Stour, for the time I lived in Ashford in Kent.

Fi
xx

The Six Sisters

Once upon a warm June midnight, six sisters met up.
This was the first time that they'd been all together since they were infants.
All had important work to do independently, apart, for they were water-sprites.
But they missed each other.
They had missed each other for a very long time.
Eventually, they'd sent and received word between them that a coming-together was much overdue.

They chose midsummer's eve as the date for their meeting up.
They were filled with excitement about seeing each other, so full of excitement in fact that they forgot to choose a place for their meeting.

So when midsummer's eve came around, the sisters independently, apart, decided they'd just have to trust on instinct, set out in what felt was the best direction, and hope that they'd find their way to each other, sooner or later.

Being water-sprites, wherever their feet touched the ground, water sprang up, and so they travelled by spring and brook, by pond and well.

Their paths meandered here and meandered there until the sisters had covered between them sixty miles of watercourse.

And miracle of solstice miracles, at the very last moment of Midsummer's Eve, in the grounds of Christchurch Priory, the six sisters met up.

What a party they had, with their dancing and singing and feasting!

Their exuberance was such that by the time the new day was at its height the sprites had sprung a mighty river.
The sprites named the river the Stour, which means the strong, powerful one.
And the Divine Celeste, entertained and uplifted by the sprites' joy gave a blessing to the river and filled it and its banks with all manner of vegetation and wildlife.

The sprites were grateful to the Divine Celeste and made up songs about the river's abundance to show their appreciation.

The White-legged Damsel fly, the Stone-Bach and Pike,
the Scarce Chaser Dragonfly, Barbel and Perch,
the Yellow Water Lily, Gadwall and Dace,
Savis Warbler, and Shoveller, Bittern and Sundew,
The Soft Hornwort and Asphodel.

All of them were celebrated.

And although the sprites had to go back to their work, independently and apart, from that Mid summer's eve onward, they would regularly make their way to and fro along the streams and the river that they'd created to visit with each other.

And every summer solstice the river would ring with the sounds of the six sisters' partying.