Stay On The Paths, Don't Follow The Lights

Stay on the paths, don't follow the lights

After several accidents, two disappearances and a suspected changling incident, Greyfairs Kirk have asked us to warn tourists against trying to take pictures with any Will-O-the-wisps seen in the Kirkyard.

The land remembers

in 19th century Edinburgh Nor Loch was drained, forming what is now Prince's Street Gardens. But the land remembers.

On a dreich day, take a smooth river stone and stand on one of the paths at the top of the park. Rub the stone between your fingers and take deep breaths, focusing on the cool, fresh smells of the rain. As the petrichor fills your nostrils, imagine your toes sinking into silky smooth loch mud.

On the right day, at the right time, the loch will reply. Slowly, the traffic noise will fade away, to be replaced by the crystalline chiming of rain on still water and the high forlorn cries of oyster catchers.

If you're brave, walk deeper into the park, feeling the slow powerful pull of the dark cold waters around your legs. Be careful to keep yourself anchored, or you may find yourself compelled to go deeper, and be carried willingly eastward towards the sea.

Wandering and forgetting

Sometimes, on the edge of the Wild Places, you might see strangers that look like people you once knew.

Those who followed the horns of the hunt or the forest paths and chose never to return.

A garland of Forget-me-not can bring them back to themselves, for a time.

But know that no one ever truly returns, and always the call of the Wild will be stronger in the end.

The age old advice on laying unquiet spirits to rest is to bury them at a distant crossroad. The problem is, that this advice is strictly short term. Over a long enough timeline villages shudder and stretch and become towns, towns shrink and grow with the tides, and a lonely crossroads deep in the woods becomes a corner on a bustling city street.

But where the forest fell, the spirit endures. Commuters accumulate in drifts on its pavements, to be swept over the road like leaves in wind at the changing of the lights. Street sweepers come in the night, snuffling through the gutters like boar in search of worms. It swapped tree roots for water mains, a network of copper xylem reaching ecstatically up towards the sky.

Once supplicants would visit the crossroads in darkness to exorcise wishes they couldn't say in the light. Now every day the spirit hears the wants of a hundred hundred people. Their tithes paid in split coffee and wind-caught crisps, penance done in silent contemplation of the traffic lights, pilgrimages carried out in business hours only.

The forest was torture for the spirit, trapped forever with its past. In the city it finds solace in roar of the crowds; voices become babble become noise, meaning is lost and with it identity. Now it is at peace, made anew each day at 0700 and losing itself in the crash of the shutters at closing time. Umbrellas open like mushrooms with the rain, and the spirit rejoices in their transience.

The herder held their crook up in thanks to the driver who had patiently waited for them and their flock to make it through the intersection. The trouble with both herd animals and wandering spirits was that they tended to cling to their habits harder than most, and little things like the passage of time or traffic did not interest them in the slightest. Herding ghost sheep, however worthwhile the promise of their delicate and fluffy ephemeral fleeces was, tended to thus be an exercise in both repetition and situational awareness for any shepherd trying to keep them.

A City Shrine

The age old advice on laying unquiet spirits to rest is to bury their bodies at a distant crossroad. The problem with this advice, is that it's strictly short term.

Over a long enough timeline villages shudder and stretch and become towns, towns shrink and grow with the tides, and a lonely crossroads deep in the woods becomes a corner on a bustling city street. But where the forest fell, the spirit endures.

Commuters accumulate in drifts on its pavements, to be swept over the road at the changing of the lights like leaves in wind. Street sweepers come in the night, snuffling through the gutters like boar in search of worms. Water mains branch and grow like tree roots, a network of copper xylem reaching ecstatically up towards the sky.

Once supplicants would visit the crossroads in darkness, to exorcise wishes they couldn't express in the light. Now every day the spirit hears the wants of a hundred hundred people. Their tithes paid in split coffee and wind-caught crisps, penance done in silent contemplation of the traffic lights, pilgrimages carried out in business hours only.

The quiet of the forest was torture for the spirit, trapped forever with its thoughts. In the city it finds solace in roar of the crowds; voices become babble, become noise, meaning is lost and with it identity. Now it is at peace, made anew each day at 0700 and losing itself in the crash of the shutters at closing time. Umbrellas open like mushrooms with the rain, and the spirit rejoices in their transience.

Have you ever seen a beautiful face in a crowd, with teeth just a little too sharp?

Have you ever heard a song in the night, calling to you out of the dark?