Story for the Day: The Purpose of Gods' Day
The beginning to Favour of the Gods, out this week. Enjoy!
Every
Gods’ Day morning, when those who can submit to being frightened awake by the
skree of starlings and the loom of early morning light pervading open windows,
Frewyns from Westren to Diras congregate in their public squares, drawn thither
by the plangent call of church bells, to be wished into artlessness and out of
reason, corralled into chancels and crowded into naves, for the chance of
hearing a few pretty words by unhandsome men about the Gods and Their Honoured
Merits. A few hours of monotonous drintling from the Good Book is enough to
incite the usual questions of, “Why did I get up this early?” and “Won’t the
High Brother get on with it?” and “Sister Aoie sure lookin’ ripe th’day. Wouldn’t
say no to a ploughin’, aye?” and after the sermon is given and the congregation
proves to have gloried in its wake with languid “Onne Bennath Aconna,” everyone
is suddenly up, hastening from the pews to the cenation prepared at the back of
the church, where the civility and forbearance employed during service must be
practiced at the table: the poor and unfortunate are invited to the banquet
first, as is dictated in the Good Book, as it was when the Gods’ children
brought libations to their patron God before the Great Abandonment. Some
approach the table and sit down, others are already seated, more interested in
staving off hunger than they are in hearing the Many Blessings of Diras
repeated twice over, and others, too diffident to come on their own, wait with
the rest of the congregation and approach within the secrecy of numbers. The
congregation descends upon the table, the brose and brined meats are divested
amongst the crowd, tipples of wine and ale are given out, the bread is sliced
and passed round, someone disclaims about there being not enough salt in the
butter, someone else asks whether there are any more moon cakes left, another
voice shouts at Dimmeadh for having aet all the pear pies, and the usual
raillery endures: the girls flock in bouquets around the handsome High
Brothers, men cluster together to scheme about which girl has the most precious
assets to plunder, women form designs on whose son is getting married to whose
daughter, whilst the older men slip away to the local tavern, leaving the crones
to mill about the churchyard, to form their sewing circles and exchange morsels
of slander collected from their time well-spent in the pews, their scandalous
coven deliciating over speculation as to which of the grimsirs around the
village is going to die next. Children are always given a pass when it comes to
sitting for sermon: anyone younger than what the age of knowing better implies
is allowed to be out of doors after stories from the brothers and sisters in the
adjoining orphanage are over, to be allowed the command of the garden and the
yard, where their loud tones might get lost in the public square, where baked
apples and chocolate tarts are giving away, where vulturous vendors lurk in
wait, mantling over their carts and circling the square, their goods ready and
waiting for the escaping hordes, especially those who would rather buy
chocolate buns and maple snow from their stalls than give two copper to the collection
plate.
This was Frewyn’s weekly ritual: where mothers were
charmed out of their change by children determined to ruin their dinners, where
farmers gathered and gabbered over the crops and cows, where old women met to
discuss the latest acquirements in ailments, where the Gods assembled and
looked on, still listening to songs and prayers glorifying their Names, still
interested in the lives of their children, still conscious for their wellbeing,
still anxious for their success. The Redemancy of the Gods, all that was Unseen
but deeply Felt, all that was Incomprehensible to one and Life to the other,
was not a reward bestowed by systematically held belief; it was a birthright,
an inheritance granted to those who warranted the Unmitigated Affection of
Their Creators. The Gods might not be permitted to appear to their Children in
the bustling setting of a square, but they could visit and did visit in an
ethereal way, and they showed themselves more in the blessings they gave and
the prayers they answered than they did in the sermon blaring out from the
chancel of a church.
Those who would claim to know the Will of the Gods, those
who believe in the sale of Divine Splendour, much like the Karnwyl branch of
the Frewyn Church tree, have no idea of Godly Favour: a thought or a prayer is
enough to garner the attention of a God who would not be severed from his children,
but contributions are graciously accepted by those with pining and penitent
hearts, and while the Gods had been forced to leave their children on the
physical plane by the command of Diras, they were forever watching from the
Realm, the transcendental space between Consciousness and Reverie, where all
etheria of Creation reside. There they remained, observing and superintending,
wanting to interfere but being compelled to refrain, maintaining the
reverential relationship, commanding no respect beyond what the remembrance of
their patron God could promise, for unlike what Frewyns were told at church, the
Gods were rather indifferent to devotion and much rather preferred the
unconditional appreciation of the willingly enamoured than the dalliance of a
Gods’ Day visit.
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