THE BOND OF HONOUR
Preface
Tony: In the Rite of the May in 1974 Bob Crossman, with the lust of the Summer in his loins, took the Queen of the May in her sacred ring, and all in love and lust she gave him of her maiden passion. And there for the love he knew he pledged himself to her alike in Winter as in Summer, and he swore he’d come again in to her in the dark tryst to be with her in her sorrow and her emptiness. But when she was a haggard wraith of her summer joy and her leaves were falling all about her, he broke his pledge and he left her bereft. For that, he was cursed for seven years that he know the loneliness of the Goddess he forsook, and he was summoned to come again when the seven years had passed to the rite of the Withered Goddess.
We held the rite on Saturday 14 November 1981 in the field of Dwy Nant in Can y Lloer and the people who came were: Bob Crossman, Pat, Kevin, Greg, Duncan, Gordon and myself. Grahame, who said he would come, wrote a letter which arrived on the morning of the rite, saying: “I will not be down on Saturday after all. I have caught my annual dose of flu by the feel of it and I don’t feel like a long ride in the cold.” (It should be noted that Grahame was a novice).
The room was hung with black draperies, dark as a starless night, and with bits of black rags, like cobwebs that had caught more time than they could hold, or like the weeds of one who had done with wearing them. On one wall against the blackness, was the slender Moon in white, and she waxed in one crescent and she waned in the other. And where she waxed were the names of Pat, Michael, Richard, Greg, Tony, Jan, Chris Taylor and George; and where she wasted, there hung the names of Frank, Kevin and David Stacey. At one end of the room and facing the table was another chair and over it, the withered branch of an ancient elder tree. And down one side of the room was a settee, and the fire had the fourth side.
Greg: And so seven years had passed and I was at Selene for the seventh rite of Samhain since the tryst was broken to see it made whole again. As we worked through the tasks of the day expectation built up inside me, as indeed it had, in a quieter way, throughout this last Summer of Bob’s banishment. As we waited, at last, for Duncan to return from the station with Bob, I felt slightly anxious. Would he come? If he did would the ordeal of the indictment show that he was truly repentent? These were not great worries for I was sure in my heart that all would be well. But when at about 7 o’clock I heard Duncan’s car outside and sat in my place to wait, the final seconds seemed like minutes before Duncan came in with Bob. My heart lifted then and it was all I could do to keep my face impassive.
Tony: There were no greetings exhanged. We took our places. I sat behind the table, and Pat and Gordon on either side. Bob, with no word from us and as if the Goddess had guided him, sat himself down beneath the elder tree. Duncan, Greg and Kevin sat at the side on the settee.
We, who had summoned the defiler to the Court of the Goddess, gathered in a ring, and the defiler without, and I spoke these words to the Goddess:
When the quiet had taken our words away with her, we sat in the places appointed, and I explained the procedure we would follow: An account would be read out to the meeting of the giving of the pledge, its breaking, and all that happened in consequence in the period of seven years. If anyone wished to query a point, make a further accusation, contest an accusation or for any other reason wished to interrupt proceedings, they were entitled to do so by placing a piece of the dull blue paper provided on the floor in front of them, whereupon the reader would stop at the next convenient juncture. If the matter was urgent however immediate verbal interruption would be acceptable.
I began the reading. Then Pat took my place behind the table and continued, after which Gordon took Pat’s place and continued until after three and a half hours we took a break during which we refreshed ourselves with some bread and water, and Kevin went out to put a light to the fire in the field so that it would be an old fire that we would go to later in the night. After the interval we returned to our labour for another hour and a half. Neither Bob nor his accusers felt the need at any point to avail themselves of the option to interrupt.
Bob: This is going to be difficult cos so much has happened to me on the night of Saturnsdaeg 14 November 1981, that ‘tis highly doubtful if everything is remembered. No way would I have missed this meeting with the Lady in her darkness and sorrow for I would not have been able to live with myself, never mind the effect on all the others bound up in this particular rite of Samhain.
On arrival we went straight into the background of why we were gathered on this occasion, I in the dock, Tony at the bench with Pat and Gordon in front of the table, to my right and left respectively. All the written material had been collated by Tony and the three of them in turn read out the long and lengthy indictment against me; nothing was omitted. Many were the emotions aroused in Tony, Pat and myself, and in part from Kevin and Greg (It must be borne in mind that both Gordon and Duncan joined the Pagan Movement when the beginnings were so to say in the past history of the Movement and only had written words to go on). Once during the lengthy reading of this document we paused to partake of a simple meal of brown bread and water, during which little was said. After everyone had consumed enough of this fare to their satisfaction we resumed the sitting until all the relevant material had been read out. At certain points Greg was asked to read out a certain letter of his relating to The Broken Promise’ and Kevin was questioned about a statement he once made. Gordon was in the chair when that part of the reading concerned with the indictment reached its conclusion, at which point he asked all present one after the other if they had any further charges to bring against me, and in this he included himself. All answered that they had not.
Greg: Many hours passed as the indictment was read and my feelings ebbed and flowed from joy to sadness as they were tossed on seas of bitter-sweet memory and down to troughs of dullness and tedium. In particular I experienced a sharp pain of sadness as I relived the first of those seven years. As Tony read some parts of the narrative it was too much for him and my heart went out to him as tears filled his eyes and for a time prevented him from reading any further. His grief was a grief borne of love, and of awe, and it seemed that through him the Goddess spoke her own grief, so that it touched the hearts of us all. When at last the indictment was at an end, and we heard of the final deed Bob did for us before his exile came to an end, I felt then for him both joy and sandness that he should be so repentant, and that he was now among us and resolved to right the wrong he had done.
After the reading was completed we prepared ourselves and stepped out into the night, and what became of us then we’ll recount after we’ve presented the account of the seven years past .............
These events are recorded in two lengthy documents
Tony: In the Rite of the May in 1974 Bob Crossman, with the lust of the Summer in his loins, took the Queen of the May in her sacred ring, and all in love and lust she gave him of her maiden passion. And there for the love he knew he pledged himself to her alike in Winter as in Summer, and he swore he’d come again in to her in the dark tryst to be with her in her sorrow and her emptiness. But when she was a haggard wraith of her summer joy and her leaves were falling all about her, he broke his pledge and he left her bereft. For that, he was cursed for seven years that he know the loneliness of the Goddess he forsook, and he was summoned to come again when the seven years had passed to the rite of the Withered Goddess.
We held the rite on Saturday 14 November 1981 in the field of Dwy Nant in Can y Lloer and the people who came were: Bob Crossman, Pat, Kevin, Greg, Duncan, Gordon and myself. Grahame, who said he would come, wrote a letter which arrived on the morning of the rite, saying: “I will not be down on Saturday after all. I have caught my annual dose of flu by the feel of it and I don’t feel like a long ride in the cold.” (It should be noted that Grahame was a novice).
The room was hung with black draperies, dark as a starless night, and with bits of black rags, like cobwebs that had caught more time than they could hold, or like the weeds of one who had done with wearing them. On one wall against the blackness, was the slender Moon in white, and she waxed in one crescent and she waned in the other. And where she waxed were the names of Pat, Michael, Richard, Greg, Tony, Jan, Chris Taylor and George; and where she wasted, there hung the names of Frank, Kevin and David Stacey. At one end of the room and facing the table was another chair and over it, the withered branch of an ancient elder tree. And down one side of the room was a settee, and the fire had the fourth side.
Greg: And so seven years had passed and I was at Selene for the seventh rite of Samhain since the tryst was broken to see it made whole again. As we worked through the tasks of the day expectation built up inside me, as indeed it had, in a quieter way, throughout this last Summer of Bob’s banishment. As we waited, at last, for Duncan to return from the station with Bob, I felt slightly anxious. Would he come? If he did would the ordeal of the indictment show that he was truly repentent? These were not great worries for I was sure in my heart that all would be well. But when at about 7 o’clock I heard Duncan’s car outside and sat in my place to wait, the final seconds seemed like minutes before Duncan came in with Bob. My heart lifted then and it was all I could do to keep my face impassive.
Tony: There were no greetings exhanged. We took our places. I sat behind the table, and Pat and Gordon on either side. Bob, with no word from us and as if the Goddess had guided him, sat himself down beneath the elder tree. Duncan, Greg and Kevin sat at the side on the settee.
We, who had summoned the defiler to the Court of the Goddess, gathered in a ring, and the defiler without, and I spoke these words to the Goddess:
We bring thee, Mab, the one who
forsook thee.
May thy wound grow whole,
Thy knights grow resolute,
And the Shadow never look on our backs. “
We stood in the quiet a while, and then Bob, who stood without the ring, said:
“ Lady, I stand before thee as I should have done
those seven years ago, and now I am here
to make right the wrong done to thee as thou see fit.
May thy wound grow whole,
Thy knights grow resolute,
And the Shadow never look on our backs. “
We stood in the quiet a while, and then Bob, who stood without the ring, said:
“ Lady, I stand before thee as I should have done
those seven years ago, and now I am here
to make right the wrong done to thee as thou see fit.
When the quiet had taken our words away with her, we sat in the places appointed, and I explained the procedure we would follow: An account would be read out to the meeting of the giving of the pledge, its breaking, and all that happened in consequence in the period of seven years. If anyone wished to query a point, make a further accusation, contest an accusation or for any other reason wished to interrupt proceedings, they were entitled to do so by placing a piece of the dull blue paper provided on the floor in front of them, whereupon the reader would stop at the next convenient juncture. If the matter was urgent however immediate verbal interruption would be acceptable.
I began the reading. Then Pat took my place behind the table and continued, after which Gordon took Pat’s place and continued until after three and a half hours we took a break during which we refreshed ourselves with some bread and water, and Kevin went out to put a light to the fire in the field so that it would be an old fire that we would go to later in the night. After the interval we returned to our labour for another hour and a half. Neither Bob nor his accusers felt the need at any point to avail themselves of the option to interrupt.
Bob: This is going to be difficult cos so much has happened to me on the night of Saturnsdaeg 14 November 1981, that ‘tis highly doubtful if everything is remembered. No way would I have missed this meeting with the Lady in her darkness and sorrow for I would not have been able to live with myself, never mind the effect on all the others bound up in this particular rite of Samhain.
On arrival we went straight into the background of why we were gathered on this occasion, I in the dock, Tony at the bench with Pat and Gordon in front of the table, to my right and left respectively. All the written material had been collated by Tony and the three of them in turn read out the long and lengthy indictment against me; nothing was omitted. Many were the emotions aroused in Tony, Pat and myself, and in part from Kevin and Greg (It must be borne in mind that both Gordon and Duncan joined the Pagan Movement when the beginnings were so to say in the past history of the Movement and only had written words to go on). Once during the lengthy reading of this document we paused to partake of a simple meal of brown bread and water, during which little was said. After everyone had consumed enough of this fare to their satisfaction we resumed the sitting until all the relevant material had been read out. At certain points Greg was asked to read out a certain letter of his relating to The Broken Promise’ and Kevin was questioned about a statement he once made. Gordon was in the chair when that part of the reading concerned with the indictment reached its conclusion, at which point he asked all present one after the other if they had any further charges to bring against me, and in this he included himself. All answered that they had not.
Greg: Many hours passed as the indictment was read and my feelings ebbed and flowed from joy to sadness as they were tossed on seas of bitter-sweet memory and down to troughs of dullness and tedium. In particular I experienced a sharp pain of sadness as I relived the first of those seven years. As Tony read some parts of the narrative it was too much for him and my heart went out to him as tears filled his eyes and for a time prevented him from reading any further. His grief was a grief borne of love, and of awe, and it seemed that through him the Goddess spoke her own grief, so that it touched the hearts of us all. When at last the indictment was at an end, and we heard of the final deed Bob did for us before his exile came to an end, I felt then for him both joy and sandness that he should be so repentant, and that he was now among us and resolved to right the wrong he had done.
After the reading was completed we prepared ourselves and stepped out into the night, and what became of us then we’ll recount after we’ve presented the account of the seven years past .............
These events are recorded in two lengthy documents