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chisel. 
    On the woodland floor, the badgers emerged from their setts by evening, to begin their growling and fighting. Below the earth, their mates were birthing their young. Spring was on its return. All the animals were pairing. In the trees, the squirrels chased each other in wild circles, flagging their tails and crying loud sounds. As I walked across the yard, I could smell fox scats along the hedges of the orchard and worried for my chickens. The reynards were now back about their business. 
    The year, it seemed, had turned. 
    Overnight the Mary’s Tapers and Lent Lilies had nudged their way up through the hard earth. Sometimes the Lilies all come up blind without a flower in sight, only a mass of greenery but, this morning, their firm green tips were pointing upwards to the sky, like the spears of a Holy army. 
    Before the good Priest’s sermon, sweet Alford and I had gathered flowers and herbs from the woodland floor. Dog’s mercury, violets, gorse and primroses. Winter aconite, alder, cyclamen and celandine. On top of our load, we carried in a bowl of pristine white petals from the Mary’s Tapers flowering beneath the oak trees beyond the village common. With their procession to the altar, all malevolence and evil was banished from thereabouts for then and, God help us we prayed, evermore. 
    But with the ending of Peter Lock’s sermon and lessons, his own jubilation was tempered by caution and warning.
    â€˜I hope you’ve revered this Candlemas,’ he said, ‘for this is the last time you’ll know it like this. No more candles… that’s if we get to honour it at all.’ 
    Our congregation was silenced, broken then by the voice of one man, Woodbine, our carpenter.
    â€˜What festival will Candlemas be, Father, without the burning of tallows?’
    â€˜A poorer one for that,’ replied the priest.
    â€˜Then we shan’t abide it,’ said Woodbine.
    â€˜But abide it you must. The Council’s Law is Holy Law, whether they be right or wrong.’
    â€˜But candles is for Candlemas, as Christ is for Christmas.’ 
    We nodded our heads, as though we chanted nostrums.
    And yet we were all fearful that father Lock was right. No one dared to speak against these strange and wicked changes. It was only Woodbine who showed his courage. A forester himself, he was built like an ancient oak, solid and firm-rooted. He was as reliable in both his work and his resolve, as oak timbers are for building. Upon the labours and faith of such men, the reputation of our shire’s been built. He stood from the crowd, as a model tree stands proud from a hedgerow, strong, unshakeable. Even his face, tanned from years of handling bark, was deep-grained with wrinkles and furrows. Yet his eyes shone out from the hollow of their sockets, like an owl’s great eyes from its moonlit nest. And there was as much common sense in those eyes as ever could be credited to an owl. Woodbine talked little but, when he did, it was always worth listening. His hands were also true. He could strike a full-swung axe blindfold through the thinnest of twigs, his aim was that accurate.
    When the good priest’s sermon was over, we carried the greenery away from the church in our wooden trugs. We were blessed to sweep the congregation floor and strew perfumed violets on the ground, where before only rank, decayed rushes had lain, crushed flat beneath our peoples’ devout feet. 
    Yet, however sweet the air had been made to smell, the congregation left the church that day in muttered gossip.
    Although the weather, it seemed, had turned on that auspicious day, such signs don’t augur well for the coming times. I had the old rhyme ringing round my head as I made my way back home. If Candlemas Day be fair and bright, Winter will have another flight: If Candlemas Day be shower and rain, Winter is gone and won’t come again . The beat of the rhyme, if not its