Tag: Mr G

Going Cuckoo

Photo from Marsden Cuckoo Festival by Kate.

The photograph above was sent by my friend Gill who received it from her friend Kate. It is a picture taken at the Marsden Cuckoo Festival which was held last weekend.

Marsden is in West Yorkshire near Huddersfield and the Cuckoo is welcomed back after its time of hibernation in warmer climes. Marsden is a village set in the steep-sided Pennine valley. It is within the National Trust’s Marsden Moor Estate.
The Festival includes a colourful procession, craft fair, Maypole and Morris dancing. There is even duck races. The highlight is the  Cuckoo Parade which by tradition takes place on the last Saturday of April. Local residents walk in procession down the high street waving coloured ribbons and handmade puppets. The parade is accompanied by musicians and dancers. It’s a unique experience!

The model of the Cuckoo in the photo is part of the welcome to the Cuckoo returning  to us as a herald of Spring.

The story of the reason for the Festival is part of Marsden’s folklore.

Signs of Spring chasing away a long harsh winter has always been important for people living in the Pennine hills. As I spent my childhood and teenage years on the other side of the Pennine Hills from Marsden I can remember the difficult winters all too well. When the snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils appeared, then we knew Spring had arrived.
Another sign, of course, is the sound of the first Cuckoo.
In the Marsden story, a cuckoo took up residence in a field, or in other versions, in a tree or even down a chimney. Whatever version is correct, the result involved residents in trying to capture the bird so that Spring would remain. The field wall was built higher, or a circle of stone was built around the tree or extra height was built onto the chimney! Whatever, the bird escaped anyway, mocking them all with its call – which was proof that this herald of Spring was still doing its job.
Other stories were  invented in other places and nearby Austwick claims to be the first to tell the tale. Rural rivalry in these matters is very strong!
The Festival continues to celebrate the event.
Of course, Marsden was not alone in celebrating the ‘first’ cuckoo of Spring. There is a custom that people who think they heard the first cuckoo in Spring every year, send a letter to the Times Newspaper. This is duly printed and the readers breathe a sigh of relief that Spring is now officially here.

Historically, the sound of the first Cuckoo is attributed to St. Tiburtius who was a Christian Martyr in Rome and who was beheaded about 286AD. His feast day was April 14th (now moved to August).
St Tiburtius doesn’t seem to have anything to do with a cuckoo. It’s just that tradition has it that in England the bird dutifully arrives on his feast day having made the journey from North Africa. A little rhyme was penned by Rudyard Kipling to note this:
Cuckoo, bring your song here!
Warrant, Act and Summons, please,
For Spring to pass along here!

The arrival of the Cuckoo is usually first in the Channel Islands and then there is a northward flight. Whilst Marsden keep its important festivity, there are other places with their own traditions southward.

It’s stay in England is at least until St. John the Baptist’s day on June 24th but other dates are later including into August. A rhyme about this is:

In April I open my bill
In May I sing night and day
In June I change my tune
In July far far I fly
In August away I must

A sidelight to this is that the rhyme inspired Paul Simon to use it in what is the shortest song on the album he wrote with Art Garfunkel, The Sound of Silence.
The song is April Come she will, and it is believed that Paul Simon was influenced by a girl he met in England in 1964, who recited the song. He thought that this song of Nature was a useful metaphor for the changing moods of a girlfriend. The lyrics can work the other way and tell us something of the Cuckoo’s life.

April, come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain
May, she will stay
Resting in my arms again
June, she’ll change her tune
In restless walks she’ll prowl the night

July, she will fly
And give no warning to her flight
August, die she must
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold
September, I remember
A love once new has now grown old                          

It is possible that the Cuckoo has no idea of the role we have given it as herald of Spring but then we should remember that it is a creature of God’s own making and maybe, just maybe, God has given it a special role to help his poor humans cheer up as the season of new growth and life and love shows itself. It is after all, Eastertide.

[Mr G ]

Cuckoo in flight going out to sea (Photo from bird forum)

# April Come she will lyrics © 1965 Words and Music by Paul Simon

#There is a rather beautiful poem, The  Cuckoo, by the 19th century poet, John Clare.

#Thanks to the people of Marsden for information about their unique festival.

#P.S. Don’t forget to plant your potatoes! If you discover why send me a note on
geoffrey_connor@priest.com. You never know, I might send you a bag of crisps.

Love came down (Christina Rossetti)

Lambs discovering the joy of sunbathing! Photo from the Lake District from my friend Gill Henwood

The Church of England commemorates Christina Rossetti today.
She is known particularly as a poet and probably more popularly as the author of the Christmas carol, In the bleak Mid-winter. Tunes by Gustav Holst and Harold Darke have helped to build its reputation. No Christmas carol service would be complete without it though it has a somewhat fanciful beginning. In the bleak-midwinter, frosty winds made moan, earth was hard as iron, water like a stone  and then follows a reference to snow falling on snow.
That doesn’t quite fit in with the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem in the warmer climes of the Middle East but the carol was written for people who live in the Northern Hemisphere. In these parts the idea of a cold winter is not difficult to imagine though the hope for snow may remain just that!
The carol raises other questions but it is probably the final verse which has the greatest appeal, for both children and adults.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am? —
If I were a Shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my part, —
Yet what I can I give Him, —
Give my heart.

The idea of giving oneself to God at Christmas, who gave Himself to us in the Incarnation, is, after all, a response to an amazing action of God to bring salvation to His world.
Christina recognizes this action of God as an act of pure Love.
In another Christmas Carol, Love came down at Christmas, she ponders on this theme of Love in a deeper, spiritual way.

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, love divine;
Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,
Love shall be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and to all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign.

It is not as well-known as In the bleak midwinter, though the poem was set as the text for the BBC Radio 3 Carol Competition in 2022 and so got a lot of air time on the Radio. The winning tune was, to my mind, both memorable and beautiful. I think Christina, with a life steeped in a loving experience of God expressed in poetry, might have approved.

She was born in 1830 and died at the age of 64. Her brother was the Pre-Raphaelite painter, Dante Gabriel Rosetti and she became steeped in the theological movement which was associated with this – the Anglo-Catholic expression of worship and prayer. This had led her on a journey from Evangelicalism. Her elder sister took this a bit further by becoming an Anglican nun!
Many of her poems were mainly religious though some were born out of sadness of love that was never quite fulfilled in human terms. She did, however, compose poems for children, including a very popular one, Goblin Market, about two sisters who were tempted by forbidden fruit sold by Goblin merchants and what follows as a result!  Christina denied this was a poem for children and, indeed, many modern commentators point out adult themes to which it alludes. She did, however, write genuine poems for children.
She also wrote a book, Called to be Saints, which she subtitled ‘the Minor Festivals Devotionally Studied, which explored those saints in the Anglican calendar which were overlooked  at the time. She provided a devotional reflection on each one in a poetic way which reflected the depth of her faith.

Today she has her own place in the Anglican Calendar and a greater recognition of someone who in her lifetime dealt with unrequited love and quite debilitating illness and yet with faith. She gave us poetic reflections for our own life’s journey which also reflect a love of God that produced a rich harvest.

Some of her poetry celebrated the world around her and the photo by Gill Henwood of lambs taking their ease in the Lake District, which heads this article, drew me to a verse in one of Christina’s poems, The Milking Maid …

The year stood at its equinox,
  And bluff the North was blowing.
A bleat of lambs came from the flocks,
  Green hardy things were growing.
I met a maid with shining locks,
  Where milky kine were lowing.

[MrG 27th April 2024]

Good Lord, I ask much of Thee,
But most I ask to love Thee;
Kind Lord, be mindful of me,
Love me, and make me love Thee.

(Christina Rossetti from Jesus,do I love thee?)

The Sun Dances

Sunrise on Easter Morning in the Lake District. Photographed by my friend, Gill Henwood.

The dancing Sun on Easter Morn
Some while ago, I came across a film made by an English visual artist, Tacita Dean. It was of a sunset filmed off the coast of Madagascar. It’s purpose was to catch the final ray of the sun as it disappeared over the horizon. The final ray is not red or orange but green and it lasts for less than a second. It has been described as a green flash, which occurs more commonly at sunset is a phenomenon in which part of the sun can be observed suddenly and briefly changing colour. It usually lasts only a second or two — which is why it is referred a flash — as the sun changes from red or orange at sunset, for example. The green flash is viewable because refraction bends the light of the sun. 

Tacita Dean managed to capture this moment and the flash is just visible. Mostly it has eluded her attempts to film it but then, just once, she was rewarded. She described the filming as an act of looking. It’s about faith and belief in what you see.

Remembering the film and what Tacita said, brought to mind the story of the sun’s action on another occasion at the other end of the day—the dawn on Easter morning.

There is an old Irish and Gaelic belief that when the Sun rises on Easter morning, it dances with joy that the Saviour has risen.
A version of this was recorded by Andrew Carmichael in his monumental work Carmina Gadelica. A woman, he met, in the Outer Hebrides, Barbara Macphie, describes her experience: She tells of climbing the highest hill on Easter morn and seeing the sun dancing in delight:
“The glorious gold-bright sun was rising on the crests of the great hills, and it was changing colour—green, purple, red, blood-red, intense white, and gold-white, like the glory of the God of the elements to the children of men. It was dancing up and down in exultation at the joyous resurrection of the beloved Saviour of victory. To be thus privileged, a person must ascend to the top of the highest hill before sunrise and believe that the God who makes the small blade of grass to grow is the same God who makes the large, massive sun to move.”

This belief is widely held in Ireland but it is a much wider custom than that.
In the Middle Ages it was held that at the hour of sunrise, this legend was fulfilled when the sun was said to make ‘Three cheerful jumps” as it rose from the sky. This was said to be in honour of Christ’s Resurrection. Some even suggested that the rays penetrating the clouds were the angels, dancing for joy.
I read somewhere that some people would put a pan of water in the east window and so watch the dancing sun mirrored in it.

Sir John Suckling. An English poet of the 17th century refers to this in his Ballad upon a Wedding.
In a very long poem, one stanza reads:

Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice, stole in and out,
As if they fear’d the light:
But oh! she dances such a way
No sun upon an Easter-day
Is half so fine a sight.

Resurrection morning customs are still common in parts of Europe, America and until this year, in Bethlehem.
No doubt some so-called rational thinking people may suggest that this is fanciful but we need to remember that God communicates Himself to us in many ways and through many mediums. 
We just have to have faith and belief in what we see.

Closing our minds and our hearts to such religious insights and experiences might well result in our missing the many splendoured thing which God wants to show us if we but look with the eyes of faith.
As Frances Thompson puts it in a cautionary note in his poem, In no strange land;

The angels keep their ancient places;—
Turn but a stone and start a wing!
’Tis ye, ’tis your estrangèd faces,
That miss the many-splendoured thing.

[Mr G]

++ The versions of the two poems are those by the Poetry Society.
Barbara Macphies’ words are those recorded by Alexander Carmichael in his Carmina Gadelica

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