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“I should add, however, that, particularly on the occasion of Samhain, bonfires were lit with the express intention of scaring away the demonic forces of winter, and we know that, at Bealltainn in Scotland, offerings of baked custard were made within the last hundred and seventy years to the eponymous spirits of wild animals which were particularly prone to prey upon the flocks - the eagle, the crow, and the fox, among others. Indeed, at these seasons all supernatural beings were held in peculiar dread. It seems by no means improbable that these circumstances reveal conditions arising out of a later solar pagan worship in respect of which the cult of fairy was relatively greatly more ancient, and perhaps held to be somewhat inimical.”
― Lewis Spence, British Fairy Origins

“The festival of the summer solstice speaks of love and light, of freedom and generosity of spirit. It is a beautiful time of year where vibrant flowers whisper to us with scented breath, forests and woodlands hang heavy in the summer’s heat and our souls become enchanted with midsummer magic.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“Nothing is ever lost as time passes, it merely metamorphoses into something as wonderful or, in some cases, into something even better than before.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“We too can begin a new life, one that brings satisfaction and enrichment, whether this is by singing, dancing, running through the waves, walking barefoot on the grass or making love under the stars. Perhaps your dreams are greater than this, or perhaps more conservative, but whatever they are, Beltane is a wonderful time for expressing who you truly are.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“At Bealltainn, or May Day, every effort was made to scare away the fairies, who were particularly dreaded at this season. In the West Highlands charms were used to avert their influence. In the Isle of Man the gorse was set alight to keep them at a distance. In some parts of Ireland the house was sprinkled with holy water to ward off fairy influence. These are only a mere handful out of the large number of references available, but they seem to me to reveal an effort to avoid the attentions of discredited deities on occasions of festival once sacred to them. The gods duly return at the appointed season, but instead of being received with adoration, they are rebuffed by the descendants of their former worshippers, who have embraced a faith which regards them as demons.

In like manner the fairies in Ireland were chased away from the midsummer bonfires by casting fire at them. At the first approach of summer, the fairy folk of Scotland were wont to hold a "Rade," or ceremonial ride on horseback, when they were liable to tread down the growing grain.”
― Lewis Spence, British Fairy Origins

“The summer solstice is a time for strength and vitality for action and movement.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“There is a delightful story which tells of Eostre finding an injured bird on the ground and, in order to save its life, she transformed it into a hare. The transformation however was incomplete and, although the bird looked like a hare, it still retained the ability to lay eggs. Regardless of this slight mishap, the hare was so grateful for the goddess saving her life that on Eostre’s festival the hare would lay eggs, decorate them and leave them as a token of thanks. In Germany today, many young children still believe that their Easter eggs are laid and delivered by the Easter hare.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“We sang, we danced, we talked, we laughed, we ate, we drank, but most of all we shared our contributions and I learned, that Lughnasadh night, that true gifts come from the heart and not necessarily from the purse.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“The festival of the spring equinox speaks of freshness and youth, of excitement and endless possibilities. Nature begins to quicken and early flowers open to the warmth of the strengthening sun, bringing the colours of lemon and yellow into our lives on the wings of a March wind.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“Tea was the order of the day, neat for the hardened drinker or containing a tot of whiskey for those who liked it watered down! Throughout the afternoon, the wonderful aroma of rosemary wafted throughout the cottage and I later discovered that Mrs Darley sprinkled the dried herb on her grill pan and, with the grill on a low heat, it scented the whole cottage, bringing a feeling of warmth and security to us all.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“The word ‘equinoxâ€� simply means ‘of equal lengthâ€� and refers to the twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of darkness at this point in the year. It was originally thought to stem from two Latin words aequus meaning equal and nox meaning night. The word ‘Vernalâ€�, as this equinox is often called, is derived from the Latin word vernus meaning ‘of springâ€�.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“I nodded, appreciating the wisdom of her words.‘Yellow is the colour of early spring,â€� she said, ‘just look at your garden!â€� She gestured towards the borders, which were full of primulas, crocuses and daffodils. ‘The most cheerful of colours,â€� she continued, ‘almost reflective in its nature and it is of course the colour of the mind.â€�
‘That’s why we surround ourselves with it!â€� laughed Phyllis, ‘in the hope that its properties will rub off.’‘Nonsense dear,â€� said Mrs Darley dismissively, ‘Yellow light simply encourages us to think more positively. It lifts our spirits and raises our self-esteem in time for summer.’I immediately made a mental note to surround myself with the colour of the season and, like Phyllis, hoped that some of its properties would rub off on me.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“Legend has it that during the festival of Eostre, all fires had to be extinguished in the Goddessâ€� honour and could only be relit from a sacred flame in the centre of the village. The new fire was seen as a symbol of sacredness and purity, something which everyone wanted to bring into their homes at such a lovely time of year when everything was fresh and new.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“Strange as it may seem, the association of eggs and bunnies at Easter time are actually connected and, to discover more, we must once again turn our attention to the Saxon fertility Goddess, Eostre.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“The Green Man has also become synonymous with Cernunnos, the Celtic horned God, often portrayed in Celtic art as part man, part stag, who roams the greenwood wild and free. He is a character of strength and power, but often sadly mistaken for the devil by the Christian fraternity due to his horned appearance.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“The farm labourers employed to harvest the corn often displayed a real fear of cutting the last sheaf, due to the fact that they felt they were slaying the spirit of the corn.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“The position of sun and moon on the Feast of Beltane" is one, with a list if two hundred paired figures laid out beneath. Similar tables existed for Hogmanay and Midsummer's Day, and Samhainn, the Feast of All Hallows. The ancient feasts of fire and sun, and Beltane's sun would rise tomorrow.”
― Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber

“Where Ostara is the time of light’s arrival, Beltane is what grows from its warmth.”
― S. Kelley Harrell, M. Div., Runic Book of Days: A Guide to Living the Annual Cycle of Rune Magick

“Cleansing and clearing are two words which suit the essence of Imbolc, as this is February, the Roman month of purification. This can be a cleansing of the self, in undertaking a good ‘detoxâ€�, or a clearing and cleansing of the home, in keeping with the tradition of spring-cleaning.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“Legend tells us that the High King of Tara, who ruled supreme over all the Kings of Ireland, looked out from his castle one day during the festival of Eostre and saw a fire blazing away on a far hillside. Furious with this obvious disregard for the law, for which the penalty was death, he sent out soldiers to arrest the guilty party. When the soldiers arrived at the hillside they found St Patrick, the patron Saint of Ireland, piling wood onto his fire and immediately seized him. Standing before the King he was asked why he disobeyed the law, and he explained that his fire was a sign that Christ had risen from the dead and was the light of the world. The King so admired Patrick’s courage that he forgave him and became a convert to Christianity!”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“The festival of Lughnasadh speaks of fullness and bounty of richness and sacrifice. As cornfields ripple in the late summer breeze and whisper golden promises of the grain harvest to come, we know deep within our psyche that the darkness is but a heartbeat away.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“Mrs Darley, I noticed, always had her corn dolly amidst an arrangement of cornflowers and poppies (albeit they were artificial!). The corn, I was to later understand, represented the God, the red poppies his sacrificial blood and the blue cornflowers his death and this is something I still adhere to today.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“Saturday morning brought an Imbolc gift of thick fog, as our select company of three set off onto the rain-sodden moor. ‘Here we are,â€� said Mrs Darley, as the well appeared before us after a ten minute climb. She immediately began to unwrap a joint offering from Phyllis and herself of an ivy swag interwoven with white ribbons and laid it across the lintel of the well. I followed suit but with a far more modest bunch of pine branches and silver honesty.
‘Drinks, dear?â€� Mrs Darley looked at Phyllis, who right on cue produced three paper cups from her bag and filled them with whiskey from a hip flask.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“Horned humans are not unknown to medical science as there is a rare skin disease, which goes by the name of ‘Cornu Cutaneumâ€�, a cutaneous growth, which resembles a horn and grows from the scalp.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“The spring equinox celebration included a dawn trip to the nearby Rillaton Barrow, a Bronze Age burial mound high up on the Cheesewring Moor, with its entrance facing directly east.
‘A great archaeological find, dear,� Mrs Darley informed me, rather breathlessly, as we climbed up to the entrance. ‘A skeleton, dagger and gold cup were all found here. However, the gold cup ended up in the royal bathroom for some considerable time until the death of George V and now stands in the British Museum, although you can see a copy of it in Truro if you wish. Come,� she said, patting the top of the lintel, ‘we’ll sit here a while and wait for the sun.�
The sun duly arrived in all its spring glory over the eastern horizon, bringing a golden glow to the swathes of mist, which hung in the fields between Dartmoor and Bodmin.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“In Cornwall, the long poles which marked the boundaries of the tin mines were crowned with St John’s Wort to ensure protection for the mine and its workers.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“In times when the grain was harvested by hand, many traditions and superstitions grew up around this important event.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“Making corn dollies under the watchful eye of Mrs Darley was an absolute must for all of us living in the tiny Cornish hamlet on Bodmin Moor.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“The Old Cornwall Society decided during the 1920s to revive the custom of lighting fires along the Cornish peninsula, beginning in the east and moving westward as dusk approached. It is a custom which continues today and, when watched from a distance, still has the power to evoke in anyone who observes this ritual a deep connection with the earth and the ancestors.”
― Carole Carlton, Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year

“Beltane, man! It’s, uh . . . Irish, I think. But even better than Paddy’s Day. It’s like Mardi Gras meets Halloween!”
― Cliff Jones Jr., Dreck