familytreehouse.co.uk

Archive for December, 2009

he Shortest Day
By Susan Cooper

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us – listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

Popularity: 2% [?]

Portmeirion is an “Italianate” resort village in Gwynedd, on the coast of Snowdonia in Wales. Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, was Portmeirion’s designer. The village is located in the community of Penrhyndeudraeth, on the estuary of the River Dwyryd, 2 miles (3.2 km) south east of Porthmadog,

Portmeirion has served as a location for films and television shows, most famously serving as the Village in The Prisoner.

Williams-Ellis designed and constructed the village between 1925 and 1975. He incorporated fragments of demolished buildings, including works by a number of other architects. Portmeirion’s architectural and fanciful nostalgia have been noted as an influence on the development of postmodernism in architecture in the late twentieth century.

The main building of the hotel, which in 2009/10 has its incurvilinear entrance lobby rebuilt having been destroyed in a fire in 1981. It was not rebuilt when the hotel reopened in 1988.

Clough Williams-Ellis’ bigorapher and Architectural Historian Richard Haslam has advised on several aspects of the project including floor finishes and authentic detailing.
source : http://www.portmeirion-village.com/content.php?nID=8;ID=189;lID=1;offset=

and the cottages called “White Horses”, “Mermaid” and “The Salutation” had been a private estate called Aber Iâ (Welsh: Ice estuary), developed in the 1850s, itself on the site of a foundry and boatyard which was active in the late 18th century. Williams-Ellis changed the name, which he interpreted as “frozen mouth”, to Portmeirion – Port to place it on the coast, Meirion from the county of Merioneth / Meirionydd in which it then lay.[2]. The very minor remains of a mediaeval castle (known variously as Castell Deudraeth, Castell Gwain Goch and Castell Aber Iau) are in the woods just outside the village, recorded by Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales) in 1188.

In 1931 Williams-Ellis bought from his uncle, Sir Osmund Williams, Bt, the Victorian castellated mansion Castell Deudraeth with the intention of incorporating it into the Portmeirion hotel complex but the intervention of the war and other problems prevented this. Williams-Ellis had always considered the Castell to be “the largest and most imposing single building on the Portmeirion Estate” and sought ways to incorporate it. Eventually, with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the European Regional Development Fund as well as the Wales Tourist Board, his original aims were achieved and Castell Deudraeth was opened as an 11 bedroom hotel and restaurant on August 20, 2001 by Welsh opera singer Bryn Terfel.

The grounds contain an important collection of rhododendrons and other exotic plants in a wild-garden setting which was begun before Williams-Ellis’ time by the previous owner George Henry Caton Haigh and has continued to be developed since his death.

Popularity: 2% [?]

“Frosty the snowman was a jolly happy soul,
With a corncob pipe and a button nose
and two eyes made out of coal.
Frosty the snowman is a fairy tale, they say,
He was made of snow but the children
know how he came to life one day.”
- Christmas Carol

Popularity: 2% [?]

“The Holly King, represents the Death aspect of the God at this time of year; and the Oak King, represents the opposite aspect of Rebirth (these roles are reversed at Midsummer). This can be likened to the Divine Child’s birth. The myth of the Holly King/Oak King probably originated from the Druids to whom these two trees were highly sacred. The Oak King (God of the Waxing Year) kills the Holly King (God of the Waning Year) at Yule (the Winter Solstice). The Oak King then reigns supreme until Litha (the Summer Solstice) when the two battle again, this time with the Holly King victorious. Examples of the Holly King’s image can be seen in our modern Santa Claus.”
- Yule and Its Lore

“Good King Wenceslas last looked out,
On the feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even.
Brightly shone the moon that night
Though the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight
Gathering winter fuel.”
- Christmas Carol

Popularity: 2% [?]

“God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December.”
- J. M. Barrie

Popularity: 3% [?]