Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
The King is Dead
The Yule Log is ash now, its ancient work accomplished.
I kneel on the hearth and sift the ash with my fingers, seeking the last charred remnants.
From such bits of last year's Log, I kindled this fire on Midwinter's Eve. Stalwart, this Yule's Log burned for nearly two full days.
I knew the tree that it came from. Five years ago, on Midsummer's Day, a massive line of thunderstorms crashed through the city, leaving hundreds of broken trees in its wake. From one such, an elegant silver maple across the street—seventy-five years old, if a day—this log was cut. Since when it has dried on the front porch, awaiting its sacred work.
I close the damper and wrap the handful of charcoal in an old, stained piece of silk, stowing the packet in a canvas bag that once held brown basmati rice. There on the back stairs, beneath the bronze Green Man mask, the fragments will await next Yule, warding the house until then (it is said) from fire and lightning-strike.
What remains of the ashes will eventually go onto the garden to fertilize next year's harvest. Meanwhile, next Yule's Log—a stout balk from a gnarled old mulberry tree in a neighbor's yard—waits on the front porch, drying.
The King is dead, I say as I rise.
Long live the King.
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