Halcyon Days
Now, here is an idea that seems to have forgotten its roots entirely. In our times, “halcyon days” refers to a golden past, a time when everything was wonderful. Sometimes it just means “youth” with overtones of innocence and insouciance. But this name has nothing to do with nostalgia. In fact, it’s an allusion to a very sad tale from Greek myth, a classical just-so story explaining fair weather around the solstice.
In the story of Ceyx and Alcyone, both are transformed by their undying love into kingfishers. Alcyone is the daughter of the winds. Every year, her father calms the winds over the Mediterranean while Alcyone sits on her nest. But this isn’t a happy tale. She is a bird because she committed suicide after losing her dear husband to shipwreck.
This rather dark story with the marginally happy ending does describe Mediterranean weather around the solstice. Midwinter is a time of slack. The changes in temperature and pressure that drove autumn storms have subsided, and they don’t pick up again until the days are noticeably lengthened. The occasional winter storm finds its way from the North over the mountains, but most days the weather is monotonously still, sunny, and cool. Good for nesting birds, but not much else. No wind means no sailing, for one thing.
If they thought the becalmed sea was a “golden” time, the story they chose sure doesn’t reflect that belief. There isn’t anything happy about Alcyone except that she gets to be undisturbed — as a bird, not as a woman. So I don’t really understand how we slather her name on our rose-colored memories.
But then, we also name those who go seeking adventure and working great feats in the service of mankind “heroes” — after the goddess of matrimony, child-birth and home-life, Hera. So we clearly have translation issues…
In any case, the ten or twelve or fourteen days around the solstice are named the Halcyon Days. The Old Farmer’s Almanac says that golden period of slack begins today. It seems perfectly in accord with the day and the weather to curl up with a good book and nest for the next two weeks or so.
A story for the Halcyon Days…
I wrote this over twenty years ago. It goes with my Midwinter story collection… There were publishing aspirations once upon a time, but I think I’d rather just share them. Though if someone wants to illustrate them… Anyway, here is my story of Ceyx and Alcyone.
Ceyx and Alcyone
Ceyx was the son of Lucifer, the Morning Star, and he was king in Thessaly. He was married to Alcyone, daughter of Aeolus, King of the Winds. They loved each other above all else and could not bear seperation. But on a time Ceyx was obliged to travel over the seas to consult the oracle. Alcyone was distraught, daughter of the winds that she was. She knew the destructive power that the winds could unleash upon the waves. She begged Ceyx to send others in his place, or at least take her with him on the voyage.
Ceyx, then, was also moved to tears, for he returned her great love in equal measure. But Ceyx could not entrust his duty as king to his noblemen. Nor would he willingly cause Alcyone to face the perils of the high seas. So he boarded ship alone and set sail. Alcyone watched from the beach with a leaden heart as her love drifted out of the harbor. She remained there, cold on the sands, long after the ship was beyond mortal sight.
That very night Alcyone’s fears were proven true. A raging storm broke over the ship. The red lightening set fire to the masts; the wind tore the sails and set the waves pounding; the rain came down in rivers, overwhelming Ceyx’s ship. Every man aboard was mad with terror, every man but one. Ceyx was at peace, calmly facing his own death, knowing that he had saved his beloved Alcyone from such a fate. He uttered her name as a final prayer as the waves crashed down and smashed his ship into oblivion.
Alcyone waited with as much patience as she could summon for Ceyx to return. As the days passed she sighed often and prayed unceasingly, to Hera most of all, patroness of all devoted wives. Hera heard her prayers, but the great Lady also beheld the destruction of Ceyx and knew Alcyone’s prayers were futile. Nothing would bring him back from the realm of Hera’s dark brother. So she thought to gently bring grave tidings to Alcyone in a dream.
Hera sent Hermes to Hypnos with the request that he wash Alcyone in sweet sleep and then send his children to relate the tale. Hypnos’s son, Morpheus, could assume the shapes of men in dreams. He was sent by his father to Alcyone in the shape of Ceyx, robed in seaweeds and dripping salt water on the floor.
“My dear wife,” said the shadow of Alcyone’s dearest. “My dear wife, await my return no more. I am gone forever under the seas. Await me no more, but shed salt tears in my memory. Never will I return. There is no hope. Now is the time to grieve. Farewell, my love.”
Alcyone, in her sleep, moaned and reached out her arms to embrace her husband, but he was gone. She woke with tears already coursing down her fair cheeks, knowing that her dream spoke the truth. Her dear Ceyx was dead. She no longer cared for life, so much did she long to be near him once more.
Before the dawn, she rose and made for the same strand where she had watched Ceyx sail away. Dully she gazed on the grey waters as the sky turned from slate to gold. As the sun rose, the waters were made into rippling light. All but one small patch far out on the harbor.
Alcyone watched this blot of darkness, and it seemed that it was drifting toward her. When it was still far out she realized it was a dead body, its face hanging down into the sparkling waters. With wide eyes she gazed transfixed as it came closer and closer, till finally it came to rest on the sand. A great wave, pushed on a sudden strong wind, turned the body, and there she beheld the face of her dead love.
She cried out in anguish. But the great wave carried both her and her husband’s body away from the beach. And suddenly she found that she was above the waters, riding on the winds. She looked to her hands and saw bright feathers. She looked to the terrible body and saw that it was gone. Instead, she found her lover’s eyes set in the body of a noble kingfisher. They flew to a perch of seaweed, tossed by the waves, and great was the joy that they shared at being reunited. Never would they part again.
For because of their pure devotion, the Gods took pity on Ceyx and Alcyone and turned the both of them into kingfishers. They live together happily on the seas to this day. And each year at Midwinter there are seven days when the winds are restrained by Alcyone’s father and the seas are smooth as glass. For on those days, Alcyone sits on her brood, and her father will not disturb her watery nest until her children take wing.
Hanukkah
Tonight is also the first night of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights. This holiday commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in the time of the Maccabees, the 2nd century BCE. The name means dedication, however the modern focus of the festival is on the lighting the menorah candles.
This is a minor observance in the Jewish calendar. There is a somewhat apocryphal tale of a single day’s measure of lamp oil burning for a miraculous eight days, allowing time to press new oil. But there is little else written about this miracle and the holiday that grew from it. It seems that the festival that became Hanukkah may have begun as a delayed Festival of the Booths (Sukkot) when Jerusalem was regained.
In most of the Jewish world, Hanukkah is a quiet family holiday. There are no strictures or rules as there are for the Sabbath and “Sabbath-like” holy days. The center of the observation is to light the menorah candle at sundown each evening for eight nights. It is also traditional to eat oily foods like latkes and sufganiyot (a pastry somewhat like a jelly donut). Song and games are also customary. In Jewish-American families, under the influence of Christmas, it has also become common to give gifts.
I don’t typically celebrate Hanukkah because I’m not Jewish, though I do often make latkes and applesauce around the solstice, and light is the main theme of my Midwinter holidays. I’ve also been on the look-out for a moose menorah for decades. And when the kids were little, I would buy chocolate gelt from the neighborhood chocolatier, Theobroma. Because any excuse for chocolate…
In any case, I feel there is always room in the ritual year for more celebration. And if you do observe this holiday, I wish you a very happy Hanukkah and a peaceful Festival of Lights!
©Elizabeth Anker 2025
By My Solitary Hearth 