A Midwinter Night’s Dream

Every year, on the last day before Christmas break, the priest comes to speak to the kindergarten through eighth grade students. He reminds us that we put our faith in the crucified God, not in lesser spirits. He says that “the saints have no business with other spirits,” and that during midwinter it is especially important to hold our salvation in our hearts. We all know what spirits he is talking about. He never says the word “fairy”; he knows he doesn’t have to.

My classmates roll their eyes and snigger: now that we are sixth graders, we are too sophisticated for such things. Some of them are thinking, Only two more years, then we don’t have to hear this again. The priest doesn’t notice: he is pleading with us more than usual this year, holding forth the word of truth. He warns us to take heed, and not to be careless.

The last day of school is Christmas Eve this year, a vaguery of the calendar that never ceases to feel like someone somewhere is being petty. Trudging home through the gloriously deep, fresh snow that is still falling, I watch the people around me. They carry large bags full of Christmas delights, greet one another warmly, and work to reveal which mounds hide cars. They are bundled up tight, but I know that around each of those necks hangs an iron cross, blessed by the priest and given to every child at Baptism. Most of the younger adults feel awkward about it, hiding them under their shirts and refusing to talk about them: but they wear them. The older adults say it’s to ward off the Good Folk. This makes the others very quiet and uncomfortable. The older children figure they’re too afraid to contradict their elders, even though they think it’s foolishness. The younger children take this as proof that the adults are hiding awful stories reserved for an older audience.

I generally fall somewhere between the two groups: I do not share the skepticism of my peers, but at the same time I have never seen any evidence that the fairy world is real; or, if it is real, that it is anything for us to worry about.

Once home, Christmas Eve asserts itself. My mother puts a bird, masterfully dressed, into the oven while my father brings out the boxes of the Christmas decorations. Holiday music loops while we convert the tree from its Advent austerity to its Christmas glory. About the time we get to placing the angel on top, that bird is starting to smell really amazing. But its time has not yet come.

It’s dark by the time we head out to the Christmas Eve service: my favorite because our church wears darkness and candlelight so well. The priest’s whole being glows tonight, as if he is standing in the light of a different world. The homily warns us to beware of tricks and pagan rites, to stand firm until the morning, when salvation will once again be spread abroad across the earth. We sing Hodie Christus Natus Est. After church, I see her: a very pretty girl whose name I don’t know. I don’t know if she is new, or my eyes are; I only know that the church feels a little less complete when she isn’t there. She sees me looking at her and smiles: a first.

Back at home, fortified with the body of Christ, we are met with a truly incredible smell upon entering. The feast is laid on the table, and then nothing matters but eating for several minutes, all conversation suspended in obedience to the urgency of our hunger. After dinner, we all have the hot drink we like most while opening stockings. My younger brother keeps gazing longingly at the presents, but they will remain a mystery as impenetrable as the human heart until morning.The compline bell rings at nine. They don’t usually ring the hours at the church past compline, but on Christmas Eve, they always ring the midnight hour. Every child in town lies awake in bed straining to catch that sound, because we know what it means: it means that it is Christmas, whatever the adults say. We may not be able to spring out of bed and rush the present-tree, but that knowledge warms us right down to our toes and banishes the demons of night. No one can fall asleep before the bells ring; few can stay awake once they have.

That night, my mother tucks me in because, this one night of the year, I still allow it. As she does, she says the Thing. She has said it to me every night for as long as I can remember, and I have it on good authority that she has been saying it to me since before I was born:

“Fairy promises are half truths; God’s love and mine are the whole truth.”

I tell her I love her, and then she turns off the light and closes my door.

The room is immediately transformed into a dreamscape in the light of the moon through the window. I’ve left the curtains open so I can watch the snow fall. One particular snowflake catches my eye: it is darting back and forth playfully in blatant disregard of the will of the wind, which is driving all the others steadfastly westward. As I watch, it stops suddenly, and I can’t help feeling that it has noticed me watching. It zooms purposefully towards me. I barely have time to wonder what it will look like when it strikes the window before it arrives. But it doesn’t mind the window at all, continuing into the room as if the glass weren’t there. I notice two things right away. The first is that it has brought all the cold of the night with it, and the second is the woman.

She is tall: so tall I wonder that the ceiling isn’t too low for her. Her skin is pale, almost like marble; and yet there is a warmth of life to it. Well, not warmth, exactly, because nothing about that woman, in her austere coldness, is warm. But there is no doubting the vitality of that skin. Her hair, so pale a blonde as to be almost white, hangs to the floor in a great, wavy cascade. Her dress is simple and close fitting, glittering with what look like tiny diamonds. Over this a sheer mantle drapes her shoulders and clings to her arms, and on her head sits a crown of icicles. All of this I notice only after the first shock wears off: for from my first sight of her, I was filled with the overpowering and suffocating sense of the realness of her. It was as if her very existence were a burden I could only just bear.

She says my name in a voice like a distant harp carried on the winter wind, and that word draws my eyes to hers. They are deep blue, and I know that I could lose myself in them if I want, never to return, and think myself happy. She notices this, and smiles slightly. There is something in that smile that unnerves me. “How would you like to come and see Fairyland with me?” she asks, holding out her hand.

The saints have no business with other spirits. Oh, but father, if you could only see the magnificent glory of her! It is as if every desire my heart ever conceived has been incarnated in that frozen perfection. I rise and reach for her hand, but she pulls it back sharply.

“You cannot bring that into my realm,” she says icily, pointing at the iron cross around my neck.

And then I know that she is the Fairy Queen herself, and some part of my mind awakenes to my danger. But it is too small a part to overrule the flood of desires she has awakened in me; or else I am too unwilling to listen to it. I remove the cross from my neck and set it on my nightstand. The look on her face is something like triumph, and it makes me long even more for the mysteries of her realm. She holds out her hand again, and this time I take it.

I was expecting to feel a sensation of speed, a sudden rush as we launched out the window and into the full fury of the winter snow. But there is none of that. There is no motion at all. I just took her hand, and we are suddenly somewhere else: that is how close we are to Fairyland all the time. But I don’t have time to think about that, because I am too busy trying to take it all in.

We are standing in a clearing in a winter forest. The trees, all leafless, are covered in a thick coating of ice that makes them seem to be made more of crystal than wood. Deep snow is underfoot, undisturbed by any print of man or beast. I can hear a roaring nearby, and know that the broad stream that hurries past us, nestled down in steep banks, must be fed by a waterfall. Bright red and purple fish leap out of the water, catching flashing insects.

“We haven’t much time,” the Fairy Queen says. “I have so much I want you to see before the Choosing. Come.”

Her eyes twinkled, and then we are in a wide ravine, sheer walls rising on either side of us. But it is hot: bubbling springs are dotted throughout the floor of the valley, sending up waves of steam that smell of the warmed wine my mom and dad always drink on Christmas Eve. There are trees here, and they are in full leaf, laden with fruits such as I have never dreamed: great big globes of gold and silver, bright bunches of berries shining with an inner light, and fantastical knobbly shapes that I somehow know will be filled with flesh so tender it would melt in your mouth. A bird is singing somewhere, and its song is like the memory of every good thing.

I long to reach out and taste, but before I can she had flicks her wrist, and we are standing on top of a great mountain, staring down at a vast landscape. It looks like a tapestry, for every place is diverse: all four seasons are present, and spread out in a patchwork that respects no order. There are deserts of sand as fine as confectioner’s sugar, jungles where trees of prodigal oranges and yellows twist round one another in Gothic shapes, and plains where herds of centaurs sweep across purple grass that heaves up and down like a sea. I see a lake of bronze, rivers of gold, and geysers that spout flowers. One area is a vast sea of stars over which unicorns race, looking for all the world as if they are flying.

There is more: everywhere one looks is a new marvel. But my memory cannot hold it all, just as my sight grew tired of seeing before my desire to see all had been quenched.

“Behold my realm,” she says. “And now, dear boy, is the Choosing. Here, on Midwinter’s Night, I offer you the chance to join my court. Forsake the land of men and join me as a fairy prince, and you shall spend your days exploring the inexhaustible wonders of the Realm Eternal. And in time, when you have grown to your fullness, you will be not only a prince, but I shall take you for my own and you shall be my king.”

As she says this, she grows brighter. Her beauty shines like a hurt, a treasure for which one would sell all the world. Here is everything that mattered; here is all delight. Forsake the world of men? What a small price to pay! For what did they have that this realm did not have in plenty, and of much better sort? What fool would, for love of native rivers, reject rivers of gold? Everywhere I look, I see the promise that I would not miss what in any rate I did not own; I was but a sojourner in the world of men, but here I would be a lord. The land pulsed with the joy of it.

Fairy promises are half truths. The words come to me unbidden, called up from that deep chamber in my heart where my mother had stored them through years of repeating. “Look deeper,” they plead. “Read the fine print.” I look upon the queen again. What isn’t she telling me? There is an eager, pleading look upon her face, like a woman who has her heart in her hands and is begging you not to crush it. But there is something fierce in her look, as well, something predatory. This is no love-sick maiden: this is a thing of wildness, looking to trap a new toy.

With that, a sea of images arise: my mother and father, and how heartbroken they would be if I never returned; my little brother, confused and frustrated, wondering why I had abandoned him; growing up and learning my place in the world; the girl at church, and what could be.

“No,” I say. “I have business with the world of men, and there I will stay.”

The queen’s face is instantly terrible. “Foolish boy! Do you deny me in the full flush of my power? The Choosing is done. I have chosen you, and here you shall remain!”

“You can’t take me by force,” I stammer. “I’ve been baptized!”

“But not confirmed. The promise made over you, not yet your own, cannot constrain me on Midwinter’s night!” I feel her power, a terrible hunger, invading my mind, filling my heart and crowding in on my senses. I try to force her out, to hold on to myself, but I cannot. 

Dong!

What is that? I have heard something like that before. It comes again…if only I could remember! It comes again, and now I know: it is the church bell, ringing midnight. All of a sudden, I feel her power ebbing, and I can see again, and think straight.

“It’s Christmas,” I say to her. And I began to sing Hodie Christus Natus Est. Her face twists in rage, and she becomes a creature of nightmare, surrounded by fangs and darkness. She reaches out for me, and I take a step back, crossing myself.

I awake with a start, sitting up in bed, covered in sweat. I look to my nightstand and grab my cross, putting it around my neck as fast as I can. As the familiar weight settles to my chest, the last vestiges of panic fade away.

That morning, amid the wreckage of Christmas joy, I told my parents that I was ready to begin preparing for confirmation.

The featured image is courtesy of Lancia E. Smith and is used with her glad permission for Cultivating.

Junius Johnson

Junius Johnson is a scholar in the fields of historical and philosophical theology and has published four books in those areas. He is also a lover of story, passionate about beauty and the imagination, a seeker of wonder, a musician, and a deeply flawed sinner daily leaning on the grace of God in Christ. A lover of the Middle Ages, he especially loves to be transported to other worlds via fantasy, science fiction, and young adult literature. He teaches online enrichment courses for both children and adults in literature, theology, and Latin through Junius Johnson Academics.

www.juniusjohnson.com/