A Song for Yule's EveThe Ballad of Ranger Arvid

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It was the ranger Arvid
rode homeword through the hills
among the shadowy shiverleafs,
along the chiming hills.

The night wind whispered around him
with scent of brok and rue.
Both moons rode high above him
and hills aflash with dew.

And dreaming of that woman
who waited in the sun,
he stopped, amazed by starlight,
and so he was undone.

For there beneath a barrow
that bulked athwart a moon,
the Outling folk were dancing
in glass and golden shoon.

The Outling folk were dancing
like water, wind and fire
to frosty-ringing harpstrings,
and never did they tire.

To Arvid came she striding
from where she watched the dance,
the Queen of Air and Darkness,
with starlight in her glance.

With starlight, love, and terror
in her immortal eye,
the Queen of Air and Darkness
cried softly under sky:

"Light down, you ranger Arvid,
and join the Outling folk.
You need no more be human,
which is a heavy yoke."

He dared to give her answer:
"I may do naught but run.
A maiden waits me, dreaming
in lands beneath the sun.

And likewise wait me comrades
and tasks I would not shirk,
for what is Ranger Arvid
if he lays down his work?

So wreak your spells, you Outling,
and cast your wrath on me.
Though maybe you can slay me,
you'll not make me unfree."

The Queen of Air and Darkness
stood wrapped about with fear
and northlight-flares and beauty
he dared not look too near.

Until she laughed like harpsong
and said said to him in scorn:
"I do not need a magic
to make you always mourn.

I send you home with nothing
except your memory
of moonlight, Outling music,
night breezes, dew, and me.

And that will run behind you,
a shadow on the sun,
and that will lie beside you
when every day is done.

In work and play and friendship
your grief will strike you dumb
for thinking what you are - and -
what you might have become.

Your dull and foolish woman
treat kindly as you can.
Go home now, Ranger Arvid,
set free to be a man!"

In flickering and laughter
the Outling folk were gone.
He stood along by moonlight
and wept until the dawn.

Source: "The Queen of Air and Darkness"
by Poul Anderson, c1971

Yule's Eve: 21st DecemberThe Longest Night

Yule's Eve is the longest night of the year. I know most people put Midsummer's Eve as the night when fairies, sprites, pixies and other wee folk come out to play pranks and dance in the moonlight (and who am I to say they don't?); but I've always felt that fairy-land was somehow closest to ours during the Long Night. Something about the blue light of the moon, the ethereal frost and blowing mist, makes me think of the good folk.

Poul Anderson gives the best description of what I consider Yule's Eve in fairy-land as I've ever heard. From his short story, "Queen of Air and Darkness":

The last glow of the last sunset would linger until almost midwinter. But there would be no more day, and the northlands rejoiced. Blossoms opened, flamboyance on firethorn trees, steelflowers rising blue from the brok and rainplant that cloaked all hills, shy whiteness of kiss-me-never down in the dales. Flitteries darted among them on iridescent wings; a crownbuck shook his horns and bugled through warmth and flower odors. Between horizons the sky deepened from purple to sable. Both moons were aloft, nearly full, shining frosty on leaves and molten on waters. The shadows they made were blurred by an aurora, a great blowing curtain of light across half heaven. Behind it the earliest stars had come out.

I think I will welcome the Long Night with a glass (or two) of blackberry mead, and perhaps a nice cake...