The snow god

I used to love snow when I was a child. Who didn’t, in this country? Even today, I cannot stand the sanctimonious, hand-wringing announcements of snow bringing harm to the economy. We rarely had any snow to speak of in this corner of South West Wales, but back then, with our infrastructure crumbling under constant cuts, a light dusting of white meant two or three days of school and a joyful growth of snow men and vivid outbreaks of snowball fights in the freezing grey slush. However, I remember a time when it snowed for real. After going to bed, having see the weather forecast, I prayed for snow. Generally speaking, I don’t believe in God. But on that occasion, I prayed. The next morning, a few flakes of snow fell during our lunch break. We hardly dared hope. It didn’t seem real. It would never stick, we told ourselves, bearing in mind the hard rain that had fell that morning. But as we studiously ignored the teacher and looked entranced out the window, tiny lozenges of snow began to fall. Then the snow became thicker and thicker and changed to enormous, titanium white globules of heavy snow. They began to fall faster and faster, and the huge lawn out of the school began to be tinted white. The teacher could hardly keep order- ‘back to your seats’, she yelled among other thing. We couldn’t be held back though, and soon enough rumours began to circulate- ‘three days of snow’, ‘two feet of snow’, ‘they’re snowed under in England’. Less credible rumours began to make headway under the strain of expectation of being sent home- ‘a fortnight of snow’, ‘five yards of snow’, ‘they’ve even got snow in London’…

However, eventually the rumour spread that we were being sent home. The teachers resisted the clamour with all their might, but eventually there was no point denying anything- the whole of South West Wales was rapidly acquiring not a blanket but a duvet of pure white. Soon the news was announced for real- we were really being sent home, and we were to ask our parents to listen to the news on local radio the next morning for the announcements of school closures due to snow. My parents came to pick me up with my brother and sister. Snow had come!

The strangest part of the experience though, was a constant nagging feeling that the snow wouldn’t last. I forgot it for a while as the three of us put on red and blue overalls, built a giant snowman and generally frolicked in the wintery powder. A constant doubt began to creep in. The fact of the matter was that school was most likely out for the week, and we were assured of many snowball fights, sledging trips and possibly even a second snowman. But I remember looking out my window as I failed to sleep and gazing at the snow, willing it to fall, and at the same time experiencing an almost spiritual awe. There had been a short argument with my father who told me not to be so silly- “There must be two foot of it out there for god’s sake, it’ll still be there in the morning”. When I eventually climbed off the desk by my window and snuggled into the covers, though, I prayed for more snow.

I should be clear. Although I clasped my hands together in the approved school-morning-prayer manner, it was not the christian god- that massive beard in the sky- that I prayed to. At the age of 10, I had become a heathen and an idolator. Nor was it any of the norse gods I’d learned about in our lesson on the vikings in the first primary school I’d briefly attended. No, I prayed to a primal, atavistic bringer of snow, a powerful demiurge that brought the winter weather and kept us from having to go to school, for reasons best known to Him, Her, or Itself.

The next morning, Gethin- one of the village boys- came around to the house. He’d heard through the rumour mill that we had a sledge. Not a plastic fertiliser sack or a sheet of rusty corrugated iron- a real sledge. It was true. Our father had bought it a few years ago, when we had a little snow, as a christmas present. It had remained in the loft ever since, except for a brief outing where we tied the family labrador to it and were all, in turn, unceremoniously knocked off. The dog enjoyed it though.

So, along with a few village kids, my siblings and I set off for a snow-covered hill that Gethin knew was some one and a half to two miles to the North of the village. Along the way, the usual children’s chatter began to die down, and I made a fateful admission: “I prayed for snow last night you know”. It felt like confessing a terrible secret and there was a momentous pause while I waited for the cruel laughter that would inevitably followed. Then Gethin broke the silence: “Yeah, me too.” Then my brother said “I did as well. It must be worth a try”. It seemed absolutely everybody had been making his private devotions to our new god. It was generally agreed that “the god missus Davies at school believes in” was a stern yet somehow weak deity who could not possibly be responsible for the wealth of lush snow that had been gifted to us as a response to our worship. The giver of snow had to be a more powerful, fun-loving, generous spirit. Yet, even as we said that, we knew privately that there was a dark side to our new god. There had been the annoucements of accidents on the morning news, and we soon learnt that snow was not always entirely friendly as the sleigh always seemed to swerve at the foot of the hill and send us flying into the drifts.

We never had snow before or since like we had that year. The roads were virtually impassable for a fortnight. Huge sheets of snow would sometimes loosen and fall off the roof, resulting in a deafening rumble. Then the snow would be replaced nightly. We built a snowman that was over six foot tall. I remember refusing to go to bed on the first night as I was afraid I’d miss out on all the snow. But eventually, the snow thawed. Sad little piles of grey slush lay on the roadside for weeks, but eventually the fields were green again. As I got older, I half forgot about our snowgod. I would remember him from time to time, whenever little flakes of white began to fall, but I never spoke about him. I grew from a ten year old child into a teenager and the snow god was fogotten.