Christine Onward’s MAGICAL JOURNEYS, exhibition at Gloucester Gallery — childhood

NIGHTS OF MAGIC, a story from Transylvania 0

The story of NIGHTS OF MAGIC happened a long, long time ago in the mountains of far away Transylvania.

It begins with the uncle, who asks his son to watch for the boar and chase it away in case it comes too close to the sheep during the night. 

I want to go too but they laugh. The night is long and dark in the mountains. The boars have to be chased away, sometimes through thick shrubbery and tall grass. But even so, I still join the uncle's son, my cousin, into the conquest of the dark. 

We sit out there in the night, in the tall grass, watching the huge moon above and the clouds sliding slowly on her pale face. 

Cousin tells stories about devils, cursing wanderers in the woods and calling out their names, and stories about dark shadows eating your dreams while still alive...

In the middle of this storytelling the boar arrives. It draws close, rustling through the corn field. Closer, closer... it is now almost in sight. The heaving monster breathes out in fog... 

Cousin starts shouting. I start shouting too, mostly to scare the shadows praying on my hidden dreams. 

And all around us on peaks of other hills, other cousins, other 'me's' start shouting too. It works, the boar is now out of everyone's sight! 

And then we sleep in a hut covered in branches. We sleep on hay, still smelling of summer flowers. The sheepskins keep us warm in the cold night until the morning light. 

.......... When I woke up the next day, the dreams were still there...and so was the moon from the previous night.

And even now, if I close my eyes, the moon is still there ... as it is in all my paintings from then on.