Beltane 3

Ascending the long grey hump of hill, past the quiet old thatched houses, past the pig-pens full of muck and iron gates where tired old farmers stomp their boots. It feels like a Sunday, sleepy, warm, old ladies in front of TV after dinner, watching Antiques Roadshow. Or something much older past the old stone, thatched roofs, and polite curtains, only suggestive of silence, stoked fires, and wood beams. But then, passing by a corner where two buildings part, M and Charles see briefly but tantalisingly, a large clearing or yard beyond, where a great many people are gathered and from which the sounds of music and celebration ooze lazily forth, mixing like honey with the still Sunday air. "There are people listening to country n western music in there" is M's first reaction, as they hear the whining violins and mellow tones of fluted song, rise up, yellowish and sodden, as if from the earth itself. Charles and M tut a little at the eccentricities of these country bumpkins as they walk on, a little confused at what they had seen.

They saw what could only be an old-style celebration, a clan gathering, a rodeo, a Celtic feast-day. They saw folks arriving in brown stetsons and check shirts, like travellers or gypsies from bright-painted wagons. They saw men with golden hair braided in two tough, long plaits, muscular torsos gleaming with sweat, singing what seemed to be sorrowful battle-songs, preparing like Celts of old for sacrifice or battle. Somewhere fires blaze, there are pearly kings and fat morris dancers inside, as well as people who seem to be decked out in what looks like Welsh or Dutch national costume, while all along the sweet, sentiment-laden country music swills lazily around the yard. It is like a sorrowful Brueghel scene scattered with golden sunshine, all in slowmotion, swept with sweat and tears, like a great pagan festival, like a lamenting Beltane carried out by a few tired individuals...