holly

Our holly is loaded with scarlet berries. A sign of a hard winter, they say, the berries and the flocks of waxwings burring across from Russia, into Scotland and East Anglia.

Our holly is full of berries, I answered Molster’s coo at the tremble of white lights tacked across nextdoor’s house.

We stepped into the sharp, dragon breath dark and her voice rose:

Now the holly bears a berry as white as the milk,
And Mary bore Jesus, who was wrapped up in silk:
And Mary bore Jesus Christ our Saviour for to be,
And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly

Now the holly bears a berry as green as the grass,
And Mary bore Jesus, who died on the cross:
And Mary bore Jesus Christ our Saviour for to be,
And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly

Now the holly bears a berry as black as the coal,
And Mary bore Jesus, who died for us all:
And Mary bore Jesus Christ our Saviour for to be,
And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly

Now the holly bears a berry as blood it is red,
Then trust we our Saviour, who rose from the dead:
And Mary bore Jesus Christ our Saviour for to be,
And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly.

She sang it through as we walked along the path to Brownies. I was silent. I had no idea she knew it.

We heard the song last December, in the grand hall of a medieval castle. A Yule concert we’d been invited to by a friend from long, long ago. There were fires in the hearths, and just the right instruments and people that, if you scrunched up your eyes and forgot the mulled wine was non-alcoholic and in plastic cups, the borders between hither and yon could shimmer like heat haze.

Every now and then, when the false barriers between then and now are lifted, when a toll is not demanded, when the dark allows, we can feel how it was when the stories of Jesus first touched Britain. When there was no We Are Right And You Are Wrong, when the hope in a man who wanted good could build a church which the Green Man would guard. When the potent totems of Mary and her son were evergreen.

I like to believe.