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.