Samhain

Mrs Fox had been collecting for quite a while. She had spotted fabrics, cushions, drapes, and finally, just when she felt time pressing against her long furry red neck, she saw it.

A tall, elegant, worn but loved, old pine rocking chair. ‘Perfect!’ thought Mrs Fox, and she immediately set off to collect it, her mud spattered little red car winding its way through the narrow lanes. Mrs Fox hummed to herself. It seemed to her that all was in order, and the celebrations for Samhain were almost complete.

Stiffening her back, she lifted the chair carefully down the steps of the farmhouse that it had spent its first decades in. She gently leaned it against her shoulder, thinking of all the stories that the chair had already heard, been a part of sharing, with so many people already. Mrs Fox made a mental note to consider the stories already held within the chair, once she had settled it in the Samhain bell tent this afternoon.

The chair sat, contemplative, amongst the piles of cushions and blankets that had been stacked ready for the gathering.

A fire globe had been lit, the woodstove in the bell tent was glowing with warmth, the chatter of guests settling down after their warm supper in the Foxes’ kitchen hummed around inside the drapes of the bell tent. Flags made from fabrics that the Foxes had collected over the past months were strung around the walls of the tent, adding to the celebratory atmosphere.

A nod to Hallowe’en, a bowl full of chocolate eyeballs, skeletons and pumpkins sat expectantly on the drilled pie-crust table that surrounded the central pole.

Mrs Fox slid her gaze over the piles of cushions, and her guests lying amongst them. What a wonderful collection of people, she thought, smiling into the eyes of those looking up. How utterly marvellous for us to be able to be here, to share our stories, from such different places in both time and geography.

The drapes around the door hung together, the standard lamp’s dim light hovered over the tall storytelling chair, and our first narrator stepped forwards….

Mrs Fox settled back. "Oh yes,” she thought, “this is good,” and she closed her eyes to listen to the undulating tones of the first story of many that night…