Jula er til for lesing, og mange av de sterkeste julefornemmelsene mine er knyttet opp mot bøker. Desember kommer for eksempel alltid til å ha et skinn av Ilon Wiklands lys-og-mørke-mettede illustrasjoner fra Magnus, Lindberg og hesten Mari.



Så jeg må begynne med en bok. Dette utdraget fra Susan Coopers The Dark Is Rising har nesten alt som skal til for at det skal bli jul. Snø! Frost som klistrer neseborene dine sammen! Engelsk landsby, saksisk kirke! Og mange av de aller nydeligste julesangene som finnes. Så la oss starte desember med carol singing.

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It was very dark by the time they left; the sky had not cleared, and no moon nor even a single star glimmered through the black night. The lantern that Robin carried on a pole cast a glittering circle of light on the snow, but each of them had a candle in one coat pocket just the same. When they reached the Manor, old Miss Greythorne would insist on their coming in and standing in her great stone-floored entrance hall with all the lights turned out, each holding up a lighted candle while they sang. The air was freezing, and their breath clouded out thick and white. Now and then a stray snowflake drifted down from the sky, and Will thought of the fat lady in the bus and her predictions. Barbara and Mary were chattering away as cosily as if they were sitting at home, but behind the chatter the footsteps of all the group rang out cold and hard on the snow-caked road. Will was happy, snug in the thought of Christmas and the pleasure of carol-singing; he walked along in a contented dreamy state, clutching the big collecting-box they carried in aid of Huntercombe’s small, ancient, famous and rapidly crumbling Saxon church. Then, there ahead of them was Dawsons’ Farm with a large bunch of the many-berried holly nailed above the back door, and the carol-singing had begun. On through the village they sang: “Nowell” for the rector;



“God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” for jolly Mr Hutton, the enormous businessman in the new mock-Tudor house at the end of the village, who always looked as though he were resting very merry indeed;



“Once in Royal David’s City” for Mrs Pettigrew, the widowed postmistress, who dyed her hair with tea-leaves and kept a small limp dog which looked like a skein of grey wool.



They sang “Adeste Fideles” in Latin and “Les Anges dans nos Campagnes” in French for tiny Miss Bell, the retired village schoolmistress, who had taught every one of them how to read and write, add and subtract, talk and think, before they went on to other schools elsewhere.





And little Miss Bell said huskily, “Beautiful, beautiful,” put some coins that they knew she could not afford into the collecting box, gave each of them a hug, and — “Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!” — they were off to the next house on the list.

[…]

Someone at the back of the hall turned out the lights, leaving the long room lit only by the group of flickering flames in their hands. There was the soft tap of a foot; then they began with the sweet, soft lullaby carol, “Lullay lullay, thou little tiny child . . .” ending it with a last wordless verse played only by Paul.



The clear, husky sound of the flute fell through the air like bars of light and filled Will with a strange aching longing, a sense of something waiting far off, that he could not understand. Then for contrast they sang “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen;” then “The Holly and the Ivy.”



And then they were back at “Good King Wenceslas,” always a grand finale for Miss Greythorne, and always making Will sorry for Paul, who had once observed that this carol was so totally unsuited to his kind of music that it must have been written by someone who despised the flute.



But it was fun being the page, trying to make his voice so exactly match James’s that the two of them together sounded like one boy.

Sire, he lives a good league hence . . . . . .

and Will thought: we’re really doing well this time, I’d swear James wasn’t singing at all if

. . . Underneath the mountain . . . . . .

if it weren’t for the fact that his mouth’s moving

. . . Right against the forest fence. . . . . .

and he glanced through the gloom as he sang, and saw, with a shock as brutal as if someone had thumped him in the stomach, that in fact James’s mouth was not moving, nor was any other part of James, nor of Robin or Mary or any of the Stantons. They stood there immobile, all of them, caught out of Time, as the Walker had stood in Oldway Lane when the girl of the Dark enchanted him.