Round the Herne

On Friday last week some friends came over for an old fashioned midwinter's evening of mulled cider, nibbles, log fire, candlelight, and reading ghost stories. Of the couple I read, one was a short story by Saki - recorded here because I like it and it saves me from having to think of anything original (besides, it's about wolves).

Here are three poems for the midwinter season.One is my own and the other two were written by Hilary Llewellyn-Williams and Cathal O'Searcaigh. Ignore the wincing, I've done my back in somehow and it's driving me to distraction.

I posted a written version of the Grandfather Frost poem last December, but hadn't performed it anywhere till Pooka's Pageant a few weeks ago in Ipswich. This poem is in a metre of my own devising and acts as a whimsical response to the familiar Night Before Christmas-style poems that are popular at this time of year. It combines elements from Russian and Slavic paganism (where Ded Moroz, Grandfather Frost, is a prominent archaic figure who brings in the winter snows) with a nod or two to William Joyce's children's fiction. I seldom write poems or tell stories for children (all the adverts on TV keep telling me to keep away from children, so I do), but this is one of the rare occasions when I've produced something vaguely suitable.