The Pendle Press - A Dispatch from the Chronicler

The village will light its fire tonight.

We will not.

The guild keeps no bonfire on Sankt Hans Eve. We keep no revelry, no singing in the square, no effigy carried through the streets. These are not our customs and they have not been since 1536, when the last fire the merchants stood beside burned for reasons that were not celebration.

On this night, the guild lights one candle.

We speak four names aloud.

Rowan. Blair. Clotho. Nyx.

We do not explain to whom we speak them. We do not need to.

The village will celebrate and they are right to celebrate. There is nothing wrong with joy in midsummer, with children and singing and the long golden light. We hold no quarrel with any of it.

We simply remember differently.

The candle burns until dawn. It always has.