Late into the night, when the fire finally began to die and the villagers were completely spent, the elder gave a signal and the music stopped. Slowly, with great reverence, a member from each family came forward and took a burning branch from the dwindling fire. Then, torches held aloft, everyone returned to their homes, to relight their hearth fires from the sacred flame of Beltane.

Sending Tad home to get some sleep, the elder sat down beside what was left of the fire and watched it, as the stars moved slowly overhead, until only glowing embers remained. He scooped those final vestiges of the fire into a wide clay bowl and carried them through the darkness, up the hill to The Watcher. He then sprinkled the ash and the last of the embers around the base of the stone, as a final offering to the gods that had allowed him to see yet another season come to pass. Waiting until all of the glowing embers had turned as dark as the surrounding earth, he turned his back on the Sentinels and headed home.

The morrow would bring May Day and he must get some rest before setting out to find a proper May Pole for the festival. He looked up to the clear, cloudless sky; a dark blanket, teeming with stars and nodded. It would be good day.

The Beginning