Hazleton Long Barrow
N.B. - BÎWO means ‘life’, WRAGÂ means ‘to create’ and LAGYÂNO means ‘shrine-keeper’ in Proto-Celtic. Please find out more about Proto-Celtic and those that have been working to recover this language here.
Biwa looked at her sisters over the body of their mother, mourning draping like a shroud about them all. Biwa had seen nineteen summers pass and felt grateful that her mother, Wraga, had lived long enough to know her grandchildren. Wraga had delighted in them, ready with a freshly made griddle-cake or even a bit of honeycomb in the summer, always a story ready, hovering at her lips, ready to be told again.
Both of Biwa’s sisters were younger than her. One had recently married and had moved to a village three miles north through the woods, close enough to still come by every couple of days. The other sister was married these past two years and had a rosy, healthy babe at her hip. Their aunt sat in the corner, even older than their mother. Wrinkled and weathered, her skin had darkened and roughened to the same colour and texture as oak bark, gnarled and tough.
Wraga lay next to the cold and lifeless hearth that she had tended so well and with such reverence during her life. She was a daweyo-woman, a hearth keeper, that tended the flames and the spark of memory of the ancestors, all of their toils and long, hard journeys that had brought them to this lush, green and fertile land. She looked on with a tender mix of grief and elation at her mother’s face, so peaceful in death, ready to move on to the next world and join the ancestors. The lines of worry and hard work had been smoothed away, leaving Wraga almost youthful, ageless.
Biwa and her sisters bathed their mother’s body, a great clay bowl sat with water drawn from the river with the blessing of the river spirit, in which sat the berries of the great yew tree, along with mugwort and meadowsweet, preparing Wraga for her journey to join the ancestors. She was bathed also in the light that swirled in through the open door, like mist on the woodland floor. It was cold and grey outside. It smelled like rain, but no drops had fallen yet, just a threatening heaviness in the sky. Biwa and her sisters chanted words as they cleansed their mother, words carried across mountains, rivers and oceans, words so archaic that their meaning had been lost, carried from their land and time; but not their intent. Their aunt sang too, cracked ancient voice lending a bridge between this world and the next.
After they had finished tenderly washing the body, the chant changed, split, wove and grew, and Biwa emptied a deerskin pouch into a shallow oak wood dish. A red powder filled the dish, like old blood and moorland riverbeds. The chant became blood and bone as the sisters mixed in water and their saliva, mixing the ochre into a paste, the blood of the land, of life, of death. They drew symbols on their mother’s skin, symbols that called to the ancestors, to the spirits of their people and the land to guide their mother’s soul home, to join with the ancestors that watched over them. The symbols told the story of Wraga’s life and her heart, her service to her family, her community and to the spirits. She was a hearth-woman, a mother, a wife, a widow, a maiden, a crone, a grandmother, a lover, a healer, a weaver of story, a carrier of song.
The sisters dressed their mother in her favourite dress, a deep blue of the cerulean summer sky, and Biwa unwrapped the shawl that lay about her own shoulders, and draped it over her mother’s instead. The shawl was the colour of the land, green and brown, trees and bark, grass and earth. Wooden bangles were pushed carefully onto the dead woman’s wrists and, with great reverence, her horse-leather pouch of herbs tied to her belt. The sisters sang their pride and grief, their aunt anchoring their words into the ground and into the lifeless hearth.
The sisters moved to the door. There, waiting was a lagyano-woman, the shrine keeper along with her young apprentice girl. The lagyano-woman was wreathed in rags and wore death as a mantle. Her wrists and ankles clacked with bones, her feet bare and blackened with moist earth. Her apprentice was veiled and dressed all in white, a slim ghost drifting silently behind death. In the lagyano-woman’s arms lay a big bundle, wrapped in a cream cloth. She carried it with gentleness and there was an air of heaviness about it that didn’t come from its weight.
Biwa nodded and they entered the cold house of the dead. Reverently they laid the bundle on the floor and unwrapped it, lifting folds of cloth to reveal yellowing bone and empty staring eye sockets. A cold chill ran through the house and the light seemed to dim even further, the sun passed from this world. The lagyano-woman raised the skulls of the ancestors and chanted as she laid them around the dead woman. There was also a pelvis, vertebrae, long bones, all laid and arranged according to the pattern that unfolded to the lagyano-woman.
The family of the dead woman stood in awe, quietly muttering the chants under their breath. The ancestors had journeyed down from their resting-place, the long barrow tomb where their mother would soon rest. Built in Biwa’s grandmother’s day, it had been a part of Biwa’s life growing up.
She had seen others welcomed into the tomb before, the remains of her grandmother and grandfather, other women and men resting there coming down to the settlement to welcome the newly dead, to show them the way home, the shadow path that led to the otherworld. But she had never seen this part of it, only the procession of the venerated bones around the village, the prayers and thanks whispered into the bundle, adding to its air of heaviness. Now she saw them, her ancestors, gathered here around her mother to take her home.
The lagyano-woman continued her chanting, her sacred calling and offering. Time became meaningless, and numbed to the cold and the loss, Biwa sank into a trance, still murmuring along with the lagyano-woman, the apprentice, her sisters and her aunt. Everything seemed grey and drained of colour, this house, so full of life and warmth and story, was now empty and dead.
Eventually the lagyano-woman stood and nodded, satisfied that the dead woman had been accepted by the ancestors. She and her apprentice gathered the treasured bones and wrapped them up again in their bundle, gently and lovingly, like a mother with her newborn. She stood and walked out of the doorway, where now waited the whole village.
Everyone carried something; a basket, a pot, a tray, a platter, and all were full. They carried food and water, herbs and wood, flowers and feathers. Biwa nodded at her brothers and her uncle, now they could enter the house, but only now. No man could see women’s death rites, it was forbidden, the secrets of the ancestors were to be kept. The brothers carried with them a long willow bed to carry their mother. Biwa’s uncle went to help their ancient aunt to stand and walk, her shale bracelets clattering as she shuffled out of the door. Together the siblings raised and lowered their mother onto her funeral bed, the willow bending and flexing to carry her light weight to its final resting-place. Biwa’s uncle came back in, and he, with his nephews, gripped the thick and sturdy leather straps on the willow bed and slowly picked up the dead woman, carrying her out of her house for the last time.
Biwa walked ahead, head thick with memories and tears. As the oldest, she would walk ahead of her mother, behind the lagyano-woman who held the ancestors that would guide them all in slow steps to the tomb. Biwa took a deep breath and in a voice that rang out clear as the river, sang the song of return. The rest of the village fell in behind her sisters, carrying their offerings. At the back stood the wise women, with rattle and drum, invoking and crying out in the wide, empty grey sky. Biwa sang and walked onwards, the procession following, feeling their weight anchor her to the land. The threatened rain started to fall gently and she felt it streak her face.
They wound their way slowly through the village, then out and around, visiting the wild shrines along their path. They asked for the blessings of the earth, the rocks, the water, the trees, the wolf, the bear, the deer, the heron, the horse. Slowly, slowly they gradually made their way through the day and to the tomb that waited expectantly, open and dark. Still singing, Biwa looked on as her brothers and uncle lowered her mother to the floor at the entrance, her sisters standing on the other side of the body. The moment her mother’s body touched the earth, a great silence rolled out, as loud and booming as thunder.
Everyone was drenched by now, and a wind whipped them in their loss. They came forward, one by one, to lay their offerings at the entrance, and to lay hands on the dead woman, whispering messages to carry to those on the other side. When the last person had stepped back, the lagyano-woman nodded and walked inside the tomb, its entrance a mouth waiting to swallow. Biwa bent down, picked up her mother with her sisters and the lagyano-apprentice and carried her mother inside. It was time to take her home.
The tomb was silent and carried the creeping cold of death. Eyes peered from the darkness, shining in the light of their breath. The ancestors waited in the deep stillness, a presence that chilled the women and yet made them feel truly safe. This was their land and their bones would rest here one day too, ensconced in the stone and earth of the land that they loved.
They took their mother to the same chamber that their grandmother lay in and rested her gently on the floor. They whispered their final words of farewell, as daughters to a mother, then stood and walked out, leaving her there in the embrace of death, without looking back. Their permitted time in this place was over.
Outside remained just the aunt and uncle and brothers, the rest had returned to the village in silence. The offerings lay about, in basket and pot and tray and platter, a testament to the honour and respect the village had for their daweyo-woman. Small burning stone lamps rested against the wall, sheltered from the rain, that would keep vigil and announce her arrival to the land of the ancestors.
Between them all on the ground lay her mother’s quernstone. Biwa had seen her mother use it her whole life, honouring it and feeding it regularly with herbs, river water and ashes. Her eldest brother had a big rock by his feet. Biwa nodded. He knelt in front of the quernstone and raised the rock over his head, and brought it down, hard and fast. Three times he raised the rock and then smashed it down into the quernstone, breaking it into pieces, this source of food and life.
Biwa bent and scooped the pieces into a basket left at the side for them. She picked it up and together they walked back to the village, slowly and silently in the still-falling rain. They moved between the houses and the raindrops, coming to their family’s pit. It had been here for as long as the tomb had, used by three generations now. It had a fresh hole dug into it, the shovel made from a cattle shoulder waiting at the side. The smell of the wet earth reached into Biwa’s lungs, the smell of decay and life.
They all took a piece of the quernstone, except for the aunt who by now could barely stand, and laid it in the pit, burying their mother’s hearth spirit with their family. Biwa took up the shovel and covered the quernstone over, burying it carefully so as not to disturb the pieces of stone. Then they stood together, a family in grief, sharing their pain and tears, as well as rejoicing for their mother’s spirit.
Biwa knew now that it was time, time for her to take her place. She didn’t feel ready, the knot of fear, doubt and grief filling her stomach, but she felt her mother at her shoulder, lending her strength. She took a deep breath and led the family back to the empty house, shaking the water from their soaked clothes as they entered.
Biwa knelt and cleared out the cold ashes from the hearth. There she laid new wood, gorse from the hills around that would burn with a fierce and joyful flame. Then she went to stand by the door and waited. Soon they appeared, friends and family with burning brands in their hands, and smiles on their faces. Biwa welcomed them in, gripping arms in greeting. Standing in a circle around the hearth, as one they bent and laid their brands in the waiting wood, returning light, warmth and life to the house.
The new daweyo-woman finally broke the silence that had been held all day, the only words that had been uttered were ones of ceremony, and gave a great ululation of triumph. People arrived with food and ale, and Biwa took her place by the hearth, knees fitting snugly into the grooves left by her mother. She reached into the pouch at her belt, and drew out a handful of fragrant herbs, scattering them on the fire. Noise of chatting and eating started to fill the house and to spill outside, but a hush came on as she spoke the ritual words that started a storytelling.
“Yesterday, as I walked with my grandmother, she told me of her grandmother…..”
© Elena Tornberg-Lennox 2022