Owls carrying milkberry vines, presumably for harvesting. Art from The Art of Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
The Milkberry Harvest Festival is a singularly Ga'Hoolian festival as the milkberry vines are only known to grow on the Great Tree. Milkberry vines are a very important part of the lives of the owls there as they make up a large part of their non-meat diet. Ripe berries are crushed and brewed into tea. They're also made into stews, cakes, and loaves of bread, and even dried and eaten as snacks. Even the names of the four seasons are named after the color of the milkberry vines. Autumn is the time of the copper-rose rain when the leaves are a copper-rose color, which is also when the milkberries are the ripest to pick. It is considered the grandest festival of the year and starts on the second equal night of the year, the autumnal equinox.
Celebrations[]
Illustration of the Dining Hollow, also from the art book
Led by the Ga'Hoolology ryb of the Great Tree, the festival consists of berry picking, singing, drinking, and dancing. Chaw practices and classes are cancelled for seven days and even daytime sleep is shortened. For the first three days, the berry-picking portion of the festival takes place as the owls harvest the berries and trim the vines. The real festivities begin on the third night wit ha banquet to celebrate a succesful harvest. It is known to last for the next three or four days. The Great Hollow is festooned with cut vines and berries, and candles make the entire tree glow. A huge assortment of milkberry treats are made and eaten. The rybs and other older owls tend to get tipsy on milkberry wine and berry mead. There are also a variety of dances danced. The "Glaucana" is a sweeping wing to wing stately waltz while the Glauc-Glauc was faster paced. It was described as having the steps "one two, glauc-glauc-glauc, then backward one two, glauc-glauc-glauc."
The owls try to forgo sleeping as much as possible during this week but with all the wine, mead, and dancing, a few inevitably pass out before the night ends.
- Dates
- September 22 (every year)
History[]
The Rescue[]
The festival is led by Dewlap, the Ga'Hoolology ryb at the time. The celebration begins with Madame Plonk and Dewlap singing the "Harvest Hymn" to the plucking of the harp played by the nest-maid snakes, before Bubo interrupts with a drinking song. During the festival, the Band, along with Eglantine, are planning to secretly escape to seek out the Rogue Smith of Silverveil to find information about Metal Beak and potentially learn about Ezylryb's disappearance. In order to do so, they must wait until everyone is too tipsy to notice them leave, and end up making their way out when the drunken owls were distracted by Madame Plonk, who had passed out, and the light of a comet passing by in the night.
Exile[]
The owls of the Great Tree simplify the Milkberry Harvest Festival in order to appease the Striga. The Striga objects to all things he considers "vanities", so because of the debt they owe him for saving Coryn and Soren from the assassination, they do away with the singing, dancing, decorations, and drinking. This distresses Blythe, who had been learning to sing with Madame Plonk, and was supposed to sing for the festival.
The War of the Ember[]
The book opens up with the next year's Harvest Festival celebration, Blythe singing the opening song for it, as well as some gadfeather tunes. She is said to have created a new, more modern style of music called R-and-H, which stands for "Rhythm and Hoots". Blythe also caused a change in the Harp Guild's style of plucking.