Summon the Sun!

These recitations were made in the mid-1990s for a variety of midwinter festivities, including a Christmas Revels-inspired folk theatre show in Minneapolis, MN that I wrote and directed for Tapestry Folk Dance Center. Thanks to all the ensembles who spoke these words to life.

Star Stories came on a frosty night after a wassailing party, standing in a dirt driveway with the ridges of the frozen earth beneath my boots. The Winter Women explores the female face of midwinter tradition deep beneath Santa Claus. The Trolls of Christmas is a calling-on for border morris, that wildest of English ritual dances. Summoning the Sun circles the world of solstice and midwinter customs for a spoken chorus. Lord of Misrule returns us to merry England with the King and Queen of that crack in the calendar, the Twelve Days of Christmas. The Apple Tree Man is my setting of a traditional Somerset tale to the tune of The Apple Tree Wassail, beloved of our annual wassail party where we wassail our own fruit trees.

Over the years these pieces have found favor farther than I would have thought possible from my obscure website. I pass them on to you with the hope that they may become part of your midwinter traditions.

Lynn Noel

December 2020