![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hedgebird posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
sutcliff_spaceYou may have read that Rosemary Sutcliff was born on December 14th and sure, that is factually true. But according to her godson Anthony Lawton, she liked to celebrate her birthday on June 23rd, which was her mother Nessie's birthday.
It's also Midsummer's Eve to the traditional British date of Midsummer's Day or St. John's Day on June 24th. Midsummer's Eve is a fairy time in several of Sutcliff's books: either there are eldritch goings-on, or people have special powers (like Nessie) because it's their birthday.
There are more books with events at Midsummer, but these are ones where a) the setting uses the modern-ish calendar, so we can be pretty sure it means June 23rd and not the eve of the actual summer solstice, and b) magic occurs.
The Queen Elizabeth Story (1950)
This children's novel opens on its heroine Perdita's eighth birthday, Midsummer's Eve 1569. Because she was born on the magic date, Perdita can see fairies, who show up to offer her a birthday wish that will be granted in one year's time. Read the first two chapters here!
You see, Perdita was born just as the brass-faced clock in the Rector’s study struck half-past eleven on Midsummer’s Eve; and as everyone knows – or if they do not, they ought to – anyone born on Midsummer’s Eve, especially towards midnight, will be sure to see fairies – at any rate until the day they get married, and perhaps all their lives.
The Armourer's House (1951)
In this children's novel, young heroine Tamsyn and her cousins meet the Wise Woman Tiffany Simcock in her fairy garden outside London on Midsummer's Eve 1534. Like Perdita, Tiffany can see the "Pharisees" thanks to her birthday. She also gives Tamsyn a bulb that, when it flowers at Christmas, will bring her her heart's desire.
"Ai-ee, I can see them," replied the Wise Woman. "I was born on Midsummer's Eve, and so was my mother before me, and the first thing I ever mind seeing was the Proud People hovering against the moon, and their eyes like sparks, and their wings pearled by the moonshine. Them as flies in the sunshine, and them as comes with the moon, and them as flitters in the twilight betwixt and between; old Tiffany knows them all, and they knows old Tiffany."
Read more here
"A House with Glass Windows" in We Lived in Drumfyvie (1975)
We Lived in Drumfyvie is a collection of linked stories set throughout the history of a Scottish town. In "A House with Glass Windows", the building of a mansion requires rerouting a stream that arises from the local fairy mound, and the carpenter predicts the fairies will take revenge. On the completion date, Midsummer's Eve 1563, his niece Nannie has to save the owners' little son from sleepwalking off the misty roof of the garden house by the burn, getting concussed herself in the process.
If Long Jock had the right of it, the Fairy Kind had begun to collect payment, that Midsummer's Eve. And as I made my way home, I wondered would they be satisfied, or come again for the full price. Ritchie? Or Nannie? Or whom?
As we learn in the following story "Witch Hunt!", Nannie never entirely recovers.
Bonnie Dundee (1983)
In chapter 8 of this YA historical novel, love interest Darklis Ruthven, a girl of Traveller heritage who claims kinship to witches and fairies, has a vision of danger to her best friend while sitting at dusk in an elder tree called the Dark Lady, overhanging a pool called her Looking-glass, on Midsummer's Eve 1684.
"Would you be one of the People of Peace, then?" I said, speaking the first thing that came into my head, and using the name that I had heard Amryclose use for the Faery kind. "You perched up there in an eldern tree on Saint John's Eve and all?"
Read more here
The Roundabout Horse (1986)
This is one of the picture books with fantasy themes Sutcliff wrote late in her career. On the young heroine Jenny's sixth birthday, the magic of Midsummer's Eve allows her to speak with her beloved elder-wood carousel horse Sunflower, and for him to transform into a real pony when he thinks she's in mortal danger.
Jenny had been born on Midsummer's Eve, very late. And of all the times in the year, Midsummer's Eve is the time that belongs to the Fairies. It is a magic time to be born, and so she was not quite like other little girls.
They found that because it was Midsummer's Eve and beginning to get dark and magical, they could talk to each other.
Any other Midsummer magic you can think of, readers?
It's also Midsummer's Eve to the traditional British date of Midsummer's Day or St. John's Day on June 24th. Midsummer's Eve is a fairy time in several of Sutcliff's books: either there are eldritch goings-on, or people have special powers (like Nessie) because it's their birthday.
There are more books with events at Midsummer, but these are ones where a) the setting uses the modern-ish calendar, so we can be pretty sure it means June 23rd and not the eve of the actual summer solstice, and b) magic occurs.
The Queen Elizabeth Story (1950)
This children's novel opens on its heroine Perdita's eighth birthday, Midsummer's Eve 1569. Because she was born on the magic date, Perdita can see fairies, who show up to offer her a birthday wish that will be granted in one year's time. Read the first two chapters here!
You see, Perdita was born just as the brass-faced clock in the Rector’s study struck half-past eleven on Midsummer’s Eve; and as everyone knows – or if they do not, they ought to – anyone born on Midsummer’s Eve, especially towards midnight, will be sure to see fairies – at any rate until the day they get married, and perhaps all their lives.
The Armourer's House (1951)
In this children's novel, young heroine Tamsyn and her cousins meet the Wise Woman Tiffany Simcock in her fairy garden outside London on Midsummer's Eve 1534. Like Perdita, Tiffany can see the "Pharisees" thanks to her birthday. She also gives Tamsyn a bulb that, when it flowers at Christmas, will bring her her heart's desire.
"Ai-ee, I can see them," replied the Wise Woman. "I was born on Midsummer's Eve, and so was my mother before me, and the first thing I ever mind seeing was the Proud People hovering against the moon, and their eyes like sparks, and their wings pearled by the moonshine. Them as flies in the sunshine, and them as comes with the moon, and them as flitters in the twilight betwixt and between; old Tiffany knows them all, and they knows old Tiffany."
Read more here
"A House with Glass Windows" in We Lived in Drumfyvie (1975)
We Lived in Drumfyvie is a collection of linked stories set throughout the history of a Scottish town. In "A House with Glass Windows", the building of a mansion requires rerouting a stream that arises from the local fairy mound, and the carpenter predicts the fairies will take revenge. On the completion date, Midsummer's Eve 1563, his niece Nannie has to save the owners' little son from sleepwalking off the misty roof of the garden house by the burn, getting concussed herself in the process.
If Long Jock had the right of it, the Fairy Kind had begun to collect payment, that Midsummer's Eve. And as I made my way home, I wondered would they be satisfied, or come again for the full price. Ritchie? Or Nannie? Or whom?
As we learn in the following story "Witch Hunt!", Nannie never entirely recovers.
Bonnie Dundee (1983)
In chapter 8 of this YA historical novel, love interest Darklis Ruthven, a girl of Traveller heritage who claims kinship to witches and fairies, has a vision of danger to her best friend while sitting at dusk in an elder tree called the Dark Lady, overhanging a pool called her Looking-glass, on Midsummer's Eve 1684.
"Would you be one of the People of Peace, then?" I said, speaking the first thing that came into my head, and using the name that I had heard Amryclose use for the Faery kind. "You perched up there in an eldern tree on Saint John's Eve and all?"
Read more here
The Roundabout Horse (1986)
This is one of the picture books with fantasy themes Sutcliff wrote late in her career. On the young heroine Jenny's sixth birthday, the magic of Midsummer's Eve allows her to speak with her beloved elder-wood carousel horse Sunflower, and for him to transform into a real pony when he thinks she's in mortal danger.
Jenny had been born on Midsummer's Eve, very late. And of all the times in the year, Midsummer's Eve is the time that belongs to the Fairies. It is a magic time to be born, and so she was not quite like other little girls.
They found that because it was Midsummer's Eve and beginning to get dark and magical, they could talk to each other.
Any other Midsummer magic you can think of, readers?
no subject
Date: 2021-06-23 06:13 pm (UTC)That's awesome! :) Great to know!
no subject
Date: 2021-06-24 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-24 08:41 pm (UTC)