StormborneLore

Tag: Winter solstice

  • Drax Stormborne: The Night of Hollow Fires

    Drax Stormborne: The Night of Hollow Fires

    Pennocrucium was dying.The fort that once rang with steel and Latin orders now lay quiet under a bruised evening sky. The last of the Roman banners hung in the wet like torn skin. The gold stitching dull and heavy with rain.

    Fires in the watchtowers had burned down to ash. Barracks stood open. Doors unbarred.No sentries.No horn.No empire.Drax stood in the centre of the courtyard, gloved hands behind his back, cloak dark with rain.

    He could still see where the eagle standard had stood, planted in the earth like a promise. He had bled beneath that symbol. Killed beneath it. Buried men beneath it.

    Defended it long after others began to whisper that Rome no longer had the strength to defend itself.Now the standard lay in the mud.He let out a slow breath.

    “This is how it ends,” he said quietly. “Not with fire. With retreat.”A few of his men were still with him. Not many. Veterans. The ones too loyal or too stubborn to walk away until ordered.

    “Praefect,” Maren said, stepping to his side. Rain had plastered the boy’s hair to his face, and his jaw worked the way it always did . When he was circling fear and pretending not to feel it. “The last wagons are packed. They’re taking the southern road to Viroconium before dark.”

    “Good,” Drax said. His voice stayed even. He didn’t look at his son. “They’ll be safer south.”Maren hesitated.

    “What about us? Us.Not the cohort. Not the banner. Us.” Drax let the word settle in his chest.

    “We’re not going south,” he said.Maren swallowed.

    “Are we going after them?”

    “No,” Drax said. “We’re going home.”The boy didn’t answer, but he understood. Drax saw it in the way the tension left his shoulders and something else took its place.

    Not ease. Something older. Something like hunger.Thunder rolled low over the Chase.Beyond the walls, the land lay open and dark. The tree line a ragged edge against a sky. That hadn’t decided yet if it meant to rain or break clear. Mist gathered low over the fields in pale bands.

    The air smelled of smoke from scattered farmsteads and peat fires. The smoke that drifted up on this night, every year, since before Rome ever named this place.

    Spirit night.Nos Galan Gaeaf.The first night of winter. Drax looked north, toward the low hills and the mist and the deep-breathing dark of the land that raised him.

    “Home,” he said.Then he walked into the new winter.

    © 2025 E. L. Hewitt / StormborneLore. All rights reserved. Unauthorized copying or reproduction of this work is prohibited.

    To read more about Drax please see The Chronicles of Drax

  • Galan Gaeaf Celebrations: History and Superstitions

    Galan Gaeaf Celebrations: History and Superstitions

    Nos Galan Gaeaf Hapus

    During Roman Britain, people celebrated a festival very like Samhain it was called Galan Gaeaf.


    When the Romans invaded England, they began to see its celebrations blend with their own traditions:

    Feralia a Roman festival to honour the dead, sharing the same reverence for ancestors.

    Pomona a Roman celebration for the goddess of fruit and trees. which gave rise to the tradition of bobbing for apples.

    Galan Gaeaf is an Ysbrydnos a spirit night. when the veil between worlds thins and spirits walk the earth.
    The term first appears in literature as Kalan Gayaf. In the laws of Hywel Dda, and is related to Kalan Gwav.


    In Christian tradition, it became All Saints’ Day, but for those who still celebrate Calan Gaeaf. It remains the first day of winter a time of endings, beginnings, and remembrance.

    Let us not forget our past our warriors, our farmers, and the land itself that gives us life.

    Ancient Traditions

    As a harvest festival, farmers would leave a patch of uncut straw. Then race to see who can cut it fastest. The stalks were twisted into a mare, the Caseg Fedi.


    One man would try to sneak it out in his clothes. If successful, he was rewarded; if caught, he was mocked.

    Another tradition, Coelcerth, saw a great fire built. Each person placed a stone marked with their name into the flames. If any name-stone was missing by morning, it was said that person would die within the year.


    Imagine the chill of dawn as people searched the ashes for their stones!

    Then there was the terror of Y Hwch Ddu Gwta. The black sow without a tail and her companion, a headless woman who roamed the countryside. The only safe place on Galan Gaeaf night was by a roaring hearth indoors.

    Superstitions were everywhere:
    Touching or smelling ground ivy was said to make you see witches in your dreams.


    Boys would cut ten ivy leaves, discard one, and sleep with the rest beneath their pillows to glimpse the future.


    Girls grew a rose around a hoop, slipped through it three times. cut the bloom, and placed it under their pillow to dream of their future husband.

    It was also said that if a woman darkened her room on Hallowe’en night and looked into a mirror. Her future husband’s face would behind her.
    But if she saw a skull, it meant she would die before the year’s end.

    In Staffordshire, a local variation involved lighting a bonfire and throwing in white stones . If the stones burned away, it was said to foretell death within a year.

    Food and Feasting

    Food is central to the celebration. While I don’t make the traditional Stwmp Naw Rhyw. a dish of nine vegetables I make my own variation using mixed vegetables and meat.

    There’s little real difference between the Irish Gaelic Samhain and the Welsh Calan Gaeaf.


    Each marks the turn of the year the death of one cycle and the birth of another.


    Over time, every culture left its mark: the Anglo-Saxons with Blōdmonath (“blood month”). Later Christian festivals layered upon the old ones.

    The Borderlands of Cheslyn Hay

    I was born in a small village called Cheslyn Hay, in South Staffordshire. WHhich I think is about five miles from what the Norse called the Danelaw, the frontier lands.


    Before the Romans came, much of Staffordshire and indeed much of England was part of ancient Welsh territory.
    Though little is known of this period, imagination helps fill the gaps between the facts.

    The Danelaw was established after the Treaty of Wedmore (878 CE). Between King Alfred of Wessex and the Viking leader Guthrum.

    It divided England roughly from London northwards, trailing the Thames, through Bedfordshire, along Watling Street (A5), and up toward Chester.

    Watling Street the old Roman road that passes through Wall (near Lichfield). Gailey was often described as the de facto border between Mercia (to the west) and the Danelaw (to the east).

    Cheslyn Hay lies just west of Watling Street, near Cannock and Walsall. Placing it right on the edge of Mercian territory within sight of Danelaw lands.
    Because of that proximity, the area would have been influenced by both sides.


    Norse trade routes and settlers passed nearby, along Watling Street and the River Trent.


    Villages like Wyrley, Penkridge, and Landywood show both Old English and Celtic/Norse roots.

    It’s easy to imagine that my ancestors have traded or farmed alongside Norse settlers. after all, many Vikings were farmers too.


    Part of my family came from Compton and Tettenhall Wood. Where a local battle is still spoken of today; the other side from Walsall.


    Archaeological finds near Stafford and Lichfield suggest Viking artefacts and burial mounds, linking the landscape to that history.

    So while Cheslyn Hay wasn’t technically within the Danelaw. It stood upon the Mercian frontier what I like to call “the Border of the Ring” . where Saxon, Norse, and Brythonic traditions once met and mingled.

    My Celebration Tonight

    As I live in a flat, I’ll light a single candle instead of a bonfire. Cook a small feast vegetables and pork with a potato topping.


    For pudding, I’ll have blueberries, strawberries, and banana with an oat topping and warm custard.


    I’ll raise a glass to my ancestors and set a place at the table for any who wish to join.

    Thank you for reading.
    Nos Galan Gaeaf Hapus