The Victorian Ghost Club

~Stave Two: Benefacting a Banefyre

Upon exchanging the customary pleasantries, Silas beseeched if we'd like to accompany him to the river, for a bonfire of sorts, to celebrate our first, and potentially his last, day at university. We all agreed, and set off campus to find a suitable scene for our Dionysian escapade. The clement autumnal weather had developed into a pall inclement, cumulonimbus clouds wisping wordlessly in the deep sky above. A pea souper hung threateningly on the horizon, reminiscent of the Spartans descending on the Persians in the Battle of Thermopylae.

"Aye, I know of an unmitigated spot on the bank to throw a proper benjo. We'll almost be able to feel the shrimp from this patch!" Felix piped, skipping merrily ahead as though he were a primary schoolboy fetching his sack of marbles from the neighborhood ruffians.

"Shall we stop at the oyster bar to pick up some pints? It is champagne weather, after all," Oscar inquired, gesturing at the increasingly menacing sky.

As we wended one's way to the oyster bar, I gathered some arbitrary bits of my peers' lives. Felix's family owned a grand country estate outside of the city, filled with exotic arbor fields in which he meditated ("The influence of breathing on mind-life has been too little considered"). Oscar's father was a doctor who financially supported all of his misgivings, which Oscar took the full advantage of. Silas was rather quiet during our ambling, especially compared to his exuberant outburst in the dorm, but we coaxed from him that his parents are inn-keepers, and he grew up riding the transient horses they tended to at the inn. I was quite curious how the son of inn-keepers may afford tuition at Trinity, but I inquired no further.

We soon arrived at the oyster bar, and Oscar hobbled in to accrue our bounty ("We're certainly a pack of nose-baggers, aye?" Oscar chortled). We then set off to our ignis ossium. I was secretly quite excited to partake in a bonfire celebration.

During a recess of our afternoonified korero, I voiced my helluo librorum-esque thoughts, "In reading John Mirk's Liber Festivalis, I chanced upon the discovery of the "bonfire" etymology. In Middle English, the term literally means "fire of bones."

"Aye, but it's a tad speculative hybrid of languages," Felix chimed. "Why would the French word bon be joined with the Anglo-Saxon fire?"

Silas piped up a bit during this parley. "My thoughts exactly, good chirk. Why, the phrase should be boonfyre, or in the very least banefyre!"

"Aye, that makes common sense! We spell bone as bane often, as it's aesthetically more pleasing to our drums," Oscar added, proving to be the peripheral of the group.

I was tickled with this sagacious conversation, and agreed whole-heartedly with their credence. We arrived at an embankment and proceeded to clamor down the steep macadam to the tributary below. Oscar let out a whooping holler and galloped as a fresh foal would stagger to its mother, to the water's edge. Felix followed suit in the style of a tempest sprite hopping amongst the foliage. The two coltishly waded in the shallow. Silas and I stood back, preparing a suitable banefyre for the lot.

As we gathered loose kindling and rubble for the fire, Silas spoke of his topical worries, caused by the bear incident in the dorms.

"I'll be honest with you, chum, I do not know what possessed me to pull such a prank. While I admire Lord Byron to the deepest end, and I was quite enamored by the chance to attend his alma mater, I should have known better than to squander my chance here."

"If you don't mind my asking," I began, hesitant to inquire about personal matters, "How is it that you are able to afford tuition?" I quickly went on to explain my situation, to ease the tension of such a socially inept catechize. "My pa is a book clerk, you see, and the only way I'm able to attend is by the benefice of my great-uncle's estate."