Welcome Yule!

 

art by Anyi Despacho


For many years I have loved the series by Susan Cooper … can't remember the name... but my favorite book is The Dark is Rising. Some English children edge into a world of fantasy and folklore around the Arthurian legends.  Part of it is about the Solstice. The following passage isn't from that book, but it's a lovely passage:



"So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive,
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - Listen!!
All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This shortest day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, fest, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!!"
-   Susan Cooper, The Shortest Day

 

 

About The Dark is Rising and list of books in this series:

 

Fire on the mountain shall find the harp of gold

Played to wake the Sleepers, oldest of the old;

Power from the green witch, lost beneath the sea;

All shall find the light at last, silver on the tree.

 

When young Will Stanton discovers he has come of age as the lastborn of the Old Ones, the immortal keepers of the force of the Light, he is swept up in the age-old struggle between the powers of Light and Dark. The battles against the last dreadful rising of the Dark are waged across time in the most ancient myth-haunted places of England and Wales. Will, his ageless master Merriman, and their allies and adversaries—human and mythic alike—seek the objects of power that will tip the uncertain balance of good and evil that exists throughout the world and within the mind of man.

 

The five-book cycle, a classic work of children’s literature, is deeply rooted in the rich heritage of Arthurian legend and Celtic mythology.

 

“The mounting excitement of the narrative is well-matched by the strength of the writing, which can be as rich and as eloquent as a Beethoven symphony. Full of symbolism and allegory, the story and its implications are nevertheless clear, comprehensible, and enormously exhilarating.” — Ethel Heins, The Horn Book

 

BOOKS IN THIS SEQUENCE

 Book 1: Over Sea, Under Stone

Book 2: The Dark is Rising

 Book 3: Greenwitch

 Book 4: The Grey King

Book 5: Silver on the Tree