Poem/Drabble - "The Horn Dance"

[green-maia.livejournal.com]

Title: Maia
Author: The Horn Dance
Length: 100 words
Rating G
Disclaimer I own nothing.



"The Horn Dance" takes place in the Gifts-verse AU. It is a 100-word poem/drabble in which William dances as the Man-Woman in the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance at Christmas Revels in New York City in December 2040.


Christmas Revels:

Christmas Revels is a celebration of the winter solstice in traditional folk music, dance, and ritual. I wrote about it on LJ here.

A tradition at Revels is the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance.

The Christmas Revels CD describes it like this:

"The dance begins here in the distance; the dancers slowly draw near, then dance away again. Imagine a dim light, with six mysterious figures each holding high the massive horns of a reindeer. Their dance, still performed every year in the Staffordshire village of Abbots Bromley, links with the archetypal figure of the horned man in many cultures, and is one of the most important survivals of magico-religious ceremony in England. Nominally it derives from a fertility ritual performed for good luck in hunting the stag, but its deeper roots link--through the Hobby-Horse, Fool, and Man-Woman characters which have over the years danced beside the horned men--with the general "guising" performed throughout the ancient winter season of revels from All Souls' Day to Twelfth Night."

But that description doesn't quite do the dance justice.

The music is a single recorder, a haunting melody. The dancers are six figures clothed in black, all holding antlers to their heads, and also, dancers representing the Hobby-Horse, the Fool, the Man-Woman, and the Boy Archer. The music begins softly, far away in the darkened theater, and then the dancers process in, dance their ancient spiral dance upon the stage, weaving in and out, moving in a spiral pattern, sometimes single-file, sometimes two lines facing each other, sometimes each antlered figure meeting another and gently touching horns. And then, they recess, the music getting softer and softer, fading into the distance, so you wonder that they were there at all...perhaps it was a dream.


The Gifts-verse AU:

"The Horn Dance" takes place in the Gifts-verse AU. In the Gifts-verse AU, Spike was resurrected as a human after dying in "Chosen" in 2003 (so the 5th season of Angel never happened). After becoming human again, Spike went back to the name William and did not contact any of the Scoobies.
Five years later, in June 2008, Dawn accidentally met William-formerly-Spike in New York City. A few weeks later, William and Buffy were also reunited. Buffy and William were married in August 2009.
Many years later there was a series of catastrophic events involving the Key; Buffy, Dawn, and Dawn's husband all died. William survived,
and raised both his & Buffy's children and Dawn & her husband's children alone.


The Horn Dance:

"The Horn Dance" takes place in December, 2040. In the Gifts-verse AU, William was born in 1854, so in 2040 he has been in the world for 186 years, and his human body is 63 years old.

In "The Horn Dance," William is dancing as the Man-Woman in the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance at Christmas Revels in New York City. Dawn's son Jonah, whom William raised after the death of Dawn and her husband, is 12 years old and dancing as the Boy Archer.








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The Horn Dance

The predator in the dark dream-years
had been as much female as male
the child before the beast as much girl as boy
the man since partly woman
so right then
he danced as Man-Woman
though other masks as well
Boy Archer Hobby-Horse Antlered Ones prey too
Fool he had always been it seemed
as they wove around each other
in and out came together fell apart
line and circle line again
each silent figure bore many faces
his own everyone he had ever fought
everyone he had ever eaten everyone he had ever fed
everyone he had ever loved








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(First posted on my livejournal here.)