Will you visit the woods this Autumn?
To stand under a rustling canopy, inhaling musky earth and woodsmoke, is to feel Autumn’s cloak gather about your shoulders, a cloak embroidered with acorn caps and rusky seedlings. The river murmurs of the spirit who once haunted its mossy banks and the stars stitch tales of the old gods upon the inky sky.
I have always been an Autumn lover. The hustle and bustle of summer fades as the leaves turn, and it’s in the dark half of the year where I find my creativity again, like a squirrel digging up its hazelnut stash.
And yet, I used to feel a slight panic when October’s russet patina gilded the woods. Autumn is a fleeting season and I felt under pressure to capture every golden moment before winter’s icy winds whipped them away.
But the rush to record every starry copper leaf, every globe of bright rowan, every wisp of mist, left me drained and ultimately, unsatisfied. In trying to capture the beauty of the season it slipped through my fingers.
(By capture I mean ticking off every Autumn ‘must-do’ and somehow preserving them in perfectly styled yet spontaneous Instagram pictures).
This year, guided by a need for calm, I’m making an effort to slow down. Autumn will dance in and out of my life in a burnished swirl, and next year She’ll return, fingertips stained with blackberry juice, ready to bestow Her magic again. Part of Autumn’s special glow lies in how quickly it fades. I don’t want to waste my favourite season by worrying about the wrong things.
Slowing helps me appreciate that the true delights of autumn are unedited and unorchestrated. The dawn croak of crows visiting my window, for example. Or the radiant harvest moon glinting like a newly-minted coin above the rooftops, its light beaming through the shutters onto my face with maddening brightness.
As an aside, one of my favourite words in Gaelic is the word for moon: gealach. It literally means ‘big, round white thing’, which befits the moon’s pearly lustre at this time of year!
On my walks, I pluck brambles from the hedgerow, crushing their tart sweetness against the roof of my mouth and pretending that the inky stains they leave on my fingertips are from furiously scribbling a novel the old-fashioned way - by hand and candlelight.
Folklore advises to pick blackberries before Michaelmas, otherwise, you risk eating berries cursed with the Devil’s spit. The story goes that when Lucifer was cast from heaven by the Archangel Michael, he landed in a thorny bramble bush. Apparently, he still holds a grudge, therefore the wise gather the last of their blackberries today!
One autumn marvel I simply can’t walk by without whipping out my phone to record is a merry toadstool or frilly-skirted cluster of fungus. Subterranean and secretive, the equinox heralds their mass exodus above ground, where they magically bubble up from their subterranean depths, glistening wetly in mossy glades or appearing between damp fissures of rotting bark.
The Gaelic name for a mushroom is balgan-buachar, which translates to ‘filth-bubble’. The grim name speaks to their sinister side, fattened on decay and sometimes toxic enough to put you eternally to rest.
Autumn whispers enchantments to those who stop and listen…
The owls were women, once. Magical women who prayed for deliverance from a frost-mantled giantess.
The Erl-King stalks the amber wood in his nettle cloak. An amulet of rowan berries will protect you.
Pockets full of chestnuts bring luck (and repel moths).
If you’ve ever shed your pelt and pressed bare shoulder to moss, you’ll understand. A breathing, beating presence answers your caress. Spring’s blooms (save valiant aster) may be sleeping but the trees are awake. It’s not yet the most ghostly quiet time of year, and their bronze crowns will hold court over the wood for a few more weeks.
While the leaves cling on I’ll be a frequent visitor to the woods. Lingering to absorb, not record, every enchanting detail.
This week’s letter is a day early because I’m adventuring to the Isle of Skye, where I’ll be reunited with my love. I also had to warn you about the blackberries!
As I’m taking a break there won’t be a letter next week. They’ll resume again when I return, with autumn tales from The Misty Isle…
As always, thank you for reading xx
my instagram (more words + found fairy footage)
Enjoy your journey to Skye, Kate. Autumn is my favorite, too, and I think I'll call mushrooms filth-bubbles from now on. :)
I’m glad you are enjoying autumn at a slower pace this year. It’s so easy to get caught in the “must share, must do” mindset. Usually by now I would have gone to pick apples from a local farm but I’m allowing some traditions to fizzle out this year as my body needs rest. If it doesn’t happen this year, it’s okay. I love the Gaelic words you share too. Have a lovely holiday, dear!