Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
In the Witch Diaspora
On February Eve, we sing a song to honor the snowdrop (galanthus nivalis, "milk-flower of the snows"), first flower of Spring.
It's a simple song, simple-minded, even: a children's song. We've sung this song, or one like it, for hundreds—maybe thousands—of years, at this time in the year's turning, to honor the courage and the promise of the year's First Blooming.
Snowdrop, snowdrop, little drop of snow,
what will you do when the cold winds blow?
I'll hide my little head, and say:
Cold wind, cold wind, go away.
Here in the Witch diaspora, in the Midwest's Upper Mississippi Valley, we're still knee-deep in Winter. We'll see no snowdrops here for another two moons, maybe three.
But a world away, on the banks of another great river, the Severn, the snowdrops are blooming even as we sing.
These were the lands where, fourteen hundred years ago, a people not yet called the Witches—they knew themselves as the Hwicce—dwelt.
Snowdrop, snowdrop, dressed in green and white,
what will you do when the Sun shines bright?
I'll ring my little bell and sing:
Ring-a-ling, ding-a-ling, here comes Spring.
Here in the Witch diaspora we, their faraway children, do not forget.
Here in the heart of Winter, we remember the green lands of our birth, and the year's First Blooming.
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