Even Ronald Hutton opined that as long as there have been human beings, there will have been a marking of the Winter Solstice by way of feast, celebration and ritual. That's continuity enough for most of us, but in the Folk Era there has always been a far darker dreaming afoot which, no doubt much affrighted by the state of The Modern World, seeks comfort in a Folk Past replete with Symbolism, Archetypes, Allegory. All these are seen to hint at a Primal Lore that whilst being largely Lost or Forgotton is nevertheless embodied in Custom, Rite, Seasonal Usage, Ballad and Folk Song - up to (and including) certain carols.

Whenever I've been involved with The Boars Head, it's been as a Medieval piece. My favourite was always The Boar's head First (Porkington (!) Mss #10, ab. 1460-70). I don't think I've ever met anyone in Medieval Circles who claimed it was pagan though, save in the Huttonesque sense that the Solstice has always been a good excuse for an All You Can Eat Buffet. The impulse endures: my wife reported on her way to work this morning at half-eight that the ASDA roundabout was already pretty choked up... Hey, hey hey! But as one who spends too much of his free time immersed in medieval imagery in wood and stone and vellum, I can say that to be able to sing these words from 1460 is a veritable salve to my antiquarian soul.   

The images of The Holly and the Ivy act as poetic signifiers which take on very different meanings in Modern Times. They spark in the brains of (certain) Folkies and (most) Pagans and other right thinking souls who are rightly aghast at the state of our once glorious green & pleasant countryside. Modern Paganism is unfortunate in that it is made up of Intuitive Souls who nevertheless crave Prescriptive Absolutes. That they get this fix through the conceit of Folklore (a product of Victorian Imperialist Paternalism justly anathema to most free-thinking Pagans) is ironic to say the least. Even today I know many good Folky Pagans (certainly in Weirdlore circles & the old Woven Wheat Whispers / John Barleycorn Reborn* scene) who take The Golden Bough very seriously indeed; who still assume there is a 'lost' meaning underlying 'folklore' which is darkly esoteric and quite possibly hold the key to our ultimate salvation. Hell, even Kipling was enchanted by such notions and gave Modern Paganism some of its finest songs; Robert Graves likewise.

This impulse is, I think, essentially positive. In reality Pagan Imagery is intuited by those for whom there is a continuity, Huttonesque and otherwise. Humanity is continuous, there's no doubting that, and whilst things change, the reasons for doing them stay much the same. Anyone who is moved to sing a ballad or a traditional song engages in an act of essential communion with the same impulse that draws Pagans to Stone Circles and Green Men. No one knows for sure what purpose Green Men and Stone Circles served, yet both act as a fertile catalysts for much creative speculation which is the essence of modern Paganism.

Way back in my own Pagan Daze, I rewrote The Holly and the Ivy to reflect something of its 'inner-Pagan soul' - and emphasised this by setting it to the melody of Searching for Lambs (the mid-winter associations of which are deeply personal: I first heard it on Times and Traditions for Dulcimer which my brother gave for Xmas 1976!). I still dig it out most years and last year my wife added a vocal harmony & guitar part which we now use as the basis of a festive improv which invariable forms part of our sets at this time of year, by way of a pondering, or a meditation on the enduring appeal of such Pagan Imagery...

http://soundcloud.com/winterflora/the-holly-bears-the-crown-lnyd

* Volume Four coming soon!