No Pooka this year

 

It looks like the Pooka is not coming this year.

Some of you have been duped into thinking that (s)he comes at Halloween, the 31st October, but this is not so. The Feast of Samhain happens on the Full Moon closest to the mid date between the Autumn Equinox (21 September) and the Winter Solstice (21 December). That happens to be tomorrow night (8 November).

At Samhain, the Pooka comes and, in one sweep through the night, befouls all the blackberries and sweetens the rowan-berries.

As Halloween approached, I spied a large pigeon mounting a daily guard on our pyracantha berries. He was not eating them, because the Pooka had not yet sweetened them, but he was ready to fight off any competition as soon as they were sweetened. It did not occur to him that there were plenty of berries for everyone, because pigeons can't count. So he said to himself, "Piles of berries. All for me."

 Where is the pigeon now? He is gone! He knows now that the Pooka is not coming this year. And the berries will dry up and fall without ever sweetening.  It has something to do with the lack of frost.