An Adventure at Kidwelly

Intrepid Reader,

I had the fortune to be browsing a couple of books that time and ability prevent me yet from restoring, including a completely battered and ruined copy of The Book of South Wales, a tourist guide printed in the 1840s, and, if its condition is anything to go by, a companion on a vast sum of Welsh holidays. It was on one of my own holidays in that perfect country that I came across the book, tucked behind a number of others in a shop crammed to the rafters with old volumes. Missing the entire binding, pages grubby, with some missing and others detached, even the few pounds I paid for it may have been more than it was worth – but the content of it is indeed priceless.

I thought, kind reader, that I would be merry enough hereabouts to share a wonderful passage, which just happens to describe one of my favourites of those famous Welsh fortresses.

Had in about the year 1845

   Now to the Castle! The person to whom the key is entrusted lived out of the town, and although sent for, did not make his appearance. It was the grey of the evening. As we walked below the walls, and lamented the injuries sustained by the great gateway – now blocked up – Dr Johnson’s observation to Boswell came into our mind, that “one of the Castles in Wales would contain all that he had seen in Scotland.” The situation of the fortress was admirably chosen, the Gwendraeth forming a sort of natural moat round two sides. We gazed upwards to the graceful ruin of the Early English Chapel, which breaks the line of defence to the east; we admired the union of elegance with massiveness – walls which seem to bid defiance to time, pierced with light trefoil-headed windows.

   Then, the towers. There are four round towers, each the size of a donjon, besides the enormous towers which flank the chief entrance. A half moon cast an exquisite light over the stately ruin, as we stood at the northern end, where a modern gate, 25 feet high, has been placed to shut out intrud-ers. This obstacle excited our ar-dour. We scaled it, and entered the court yard, the extent of which was not visible through the gloom. Bats whizzed about, and two white owls, disturbed by our presence, flapped across us, sailing up and down in the moonshine over the ramparts, and whooping mournfully. We went stealthily onward through this court into another, from which it is divided by a tower and walls of great strength. The hour – the death-like stillness – the solitude – the darksomeness and depth – the fear of falling into some yawning dungeon (we narrowly escaped one) were indescribably thrilling.

   We started. Two large white objects moved from us, in the dim and spectral light… bah! They are only horses. What a moment for a superstitious man! Another court; divided, too, by towers and walls more ponderous than those we had left behind. So the garrison had three strings to their bow – a succession of defences of immense strength. And, now regardless of danger, as if under the impulse of a spell, we found our way up broken staircases and winding passages – explored the interior of the great gateway towers, lighted with loop-holes, through which the moon cast rays that far surpassed the best effects of Cattermole. As hour passed we knew not how.

   The increased elevation of the moon gave distinctness to the outlines, which looked under that light gigantic beyond anything we had ever recollected in military architecture. – We once more scaled the gates, sauntered long on the pleasaunce on the northern side – once the resort of courtly dames and highborn cavaliers – and departed with the conviction that justice has not yet been done by pen or pencil to Kidwelly.

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Some Poetry

Able Reader,

I’m in the middle of putting together a little post on a funny stick found on Danbury Hill about 250 years ago. Until then, permit me to present these honest lines upon this concourse of internet, one hundred years after Verdun.

It was the early springtime,
The woodlark charmed the east,
A sunrise spoke in earnest
To lands of man and beast.
From sickles to the plough-horse
From the summit to the grave,
Here they speak of other lads,
And each one true and brave.

True and brave are those lads still,
Though sickles rust alone,
They do not need a plough-horse
In lands of earth and bone.
Those rusted tools are tended now
By us, with humble pride,
Who live beyond those forefathers
Who for our freedom died.

Adieu, dear reader.

Hunting for Elf Shot

Complete* Reader,

Most weekends I go out for a good long walk around the woods, especially during the winter when they’re quiet and the atmosphere is crisp and dramatic. Living on top of an ironage hill fort, with bronze age and earlier earthworks in the woods around it, I often find myself picking up worked flints – blades, scrapers, and arrowheads. I would even kindly admit, with complete acceptance of my failure at understanding fashion for some years now, that for a brief while when I was in Aberystwyth I had a Mesolithic arrowhead hung on a leather necklace round my neck, which I’d put together after finding the arrowhead on a Welsh hill.

I’d always thought that our modern affection for these beautiful flint tools was a product of our advancing understanding of history and science over the last two hundred years, which had proved these were not chance broken stones, but in fact the work of people who had lived thousands and thousands of years ago. How wrong I was.

In fact, people have been finding worked flints on the ground for as long as history can remember, and for centuries there were far more fantastic legends surrounding them than just a tale of some five-thousand year old hunting party.

Some ‘Elf Shot’ of my own, the furthest right arrow head having lost its right-hand side

In pagan Scandinavia over a thousand years ago they were referred to as Thunderstones, and supposedly were the remains of thunderbolts fallen to earth. There they were worshipped as family Gods, and well after the Christian conversion of that country they were still seen as a protector against thunder storms.

The church quickly caught onto this worryingly pagan practice, and at least by the 11th century were spreading their own story that these worked flints were the left over weapons of angels that had fallen to earth when they drove the Devil out of heaven. Elsewhere in Europe and even beyond they are believed to have healing or protective properties, seen tokens of luck, and even supposedly to protect the carrier against witchcraft.

It is this protection against witchcraft that brings me on to British folklore around these flints, and the tale of Elf Shot.

For an unknown reason, even Roman Britons had a fascination with flints, and they occasionally turn up in burial urns. The British legend surrounding these stones, however, dates from a little later – with the excellent people who brought in the birth of our Britain – the Saxons.

Earliest written evidence of the story is found in the Wið færstice, a fragmentary Saxon medical text written some hundred years before the Norman conquest, it names the flints as the arrows of Elves, invisible creatures who follow people around and at any moment fire an arrow at them, causing severe pain. This was used to explain the cause of arthritis, aching joints, and other odd pains that people may have felt.

To ward off this pain, then, a person would have to go out and find a piece of Elf Shot and wear it – remaining archaeological evidence suggests as a pendant – which would deflect any further elf arrows. The original date of this legend is unclear, but a viking pendant found in the UK is one of the oldest extant examples of a piece of Elf Shot that someone has worn, and likely dates no earlier than the 9th century.

It is possible, then, that this practice of wearing elf shot to ward off pain is somehow descended from an earlier Scandinavian tradition brought over by the vikings. Later on in the legend’s history in Britain, wearing Elf Shot was seen as a protection against witchcraft in general, elves traditionally being one of the most mischievous magical creatures around according to British folklore.

A load more elf shot, although this lot I didn’t find locally**

The practice was still going on in more rural parts of Britain well into the 17th century, and it wasn’t until the mid-18th century when examples of Native American stone weapons were brought back to Europe that a connection began to be made between the stones and possibly an origin in earlier civilizations. With the church strongly against this view, since it would suggest that the world was older than the bible claimed, it did not gain much popular notoriety, and it wasn’t until at last in 1847 that a book was finally published proposing the idea, and, after significant opposition, the myth of thunderstones and Elf Shot finally vanished into the dusts of disproved myth at the end of the 19th century.

Have no fear, though, kind reader – for though the legend may have quietly fallen out of our folklore, you can still happily wander the fields and hillsides and pick up the flint tools that have fascinated mankind for well over a thousand years, and will certainly continue to be beautiful objects for millennia to come.

Adieu, dearest reader!

*if inaccurate, try checking lost property.

** All out of context of any archaeological layers, of course

Some Nonsense

I must be more ill than I thought; rather oddly I have no memory of having written this blog post. I just found it open on my laptop when I turned it on.

Well-rallied Reader,

Allow me to present three poems that I am pleased and displeased with, since it is surely important to sometimes share poetry that one believes to be terrible, with the hope that one is wrong.

A Hunting Trip

The water was quiet and winter was red:
We’d all gone out hunting and killed uncle Fred,
He liked dressing up and his eyesight t’weren’t good
Which caused merry chaos on ent’ring the wood
Since out he came jumping, confusing the scene,
Still wearing his rabbit ears from Halloween.
Oh what a commotion, you would not believe,
Aunt Mable was crying so she had to leave.
We covered the mess up and buried the gun,
Cremated that uncle, and dad’s on the run.

 

A Quiet Poem

The long earned grave, the sum of men,
That pit of dirt cries out again;
I hear it by the crooked trees,
On the hill it wakes the leaves.
Dawn provokes it, dusk the same,
In both Death plays his waiting game.

So breed up wealth, take coin and stone,
And build a fortress of your own,
Watch out, since stone and rock will fade,
And dust will show the choice you’ve made:
These pennies each are earned with breath –
What fortunes rise that outlive death?

That wealth or lands escape the grave
Is true, since dead men aren’t their slave:
They, wiser than us living fools,
Have no need of gold and jewels
And leave them for us living men
To fight over, and lose again.

 

Poem Writ When (clearly) Ill

I thought I saw an octopus –
That was a great surprise –
It seemed to have a dozen legs
And half as many eyes
I stooped a bit to take a look
And measured its great size;
“That’s not an octopus”, I said
“It’s three dogs in disguise.”

A Very Red Binding

Significantly Concussed Reader,

Try carrying a thicker umbrella next time.

I’d completely forgotten about this grand binding I produced a few months ago – my first ever commission to produce a binding, rather than just dabbling around adding leather to my own books.

It ended up being a bordering-on-gothic binding, in a vaguely fifteenth century style with added brass. Allow me then, good reader, to present it hereabouts:

A very medieval looking recipe book

It followed the style of a paneled binding, with the centre panel decorated geometrically with ‘hidden’ initials.

Oh look, it’s slightly closer up

Also, kind reader, I’ve been dabbling again in my rather dull attempts at poetry. So, with my apologies for its quality, I’ll end this post on that.

One Day I Wandered

One day I wandered
Out of the age long day,
Beyond the hedgerows and cottage doors,
To where night had plummeted,
Whole and heavy
Under rust-tempered scarlet clouds.
Amber cushions fading from the treetops.
A scattering of quiet stars
Pale and inoffensive
Drifted beyond the grey mantle,
A firmament of sleepy ash
All quiet to the whispering hills.
The solitude and consolation of the dark,
The brambles, thick with secrets and thorns,
And the wild hillsides
Fled into the distant, visionless hue;
Waiting like stone giants
For one moment hidden from every eye.
Until day falls among tumbled hedgerows
Tottered down cottages,
Lighting again the steep of the sky,
And disturbing my perfect peace
And the dull quiet of famous night.

Until another welcome day, dearest reader, adieu!

Bramble’s Edge & Another Poem

My Very Favourite Reader,

Allow these humbly presented lines to be a brief addition to this meddling blog. I have half a dozen finished bindings yet to blog about, and easily another half a dozen projects on the go. Consider this, therefore, honest procrastination.

Untitled Lines

A vast synod of buildings
Gathered, high shouldered hulks of commerce,
An overture of concrete corners
And ribbons of glass
Wrapped around the skyline.
A hundred thousand square
Pearl-black eyes,
Calm but unquiet;
An unnerving display
Between the air and the machines
Churning on resolute,
The profit and memorial
Of a million hours.

The solitude of granite and steel
Never looked so self-assured.

From the Bramble’s Edge, February 2016

Here and there the bitter vale
Choked upon the northward gale,
And all across the frost filled lands
Oak trees held up silver hands.

The church was silhouette and gloom,
Bell chimes haunting winter’s tomb,
The ribbon-twisted, calfskin sky
Wove thick around the earth and I.

And textured woods of ice and grey
Made out the heaven twisted way
Of upturned roots, and storm-rent boughs,
The proof of all the new year rows.

But propped against the distant air
Far I spy it pure and fair:
Winter’s beauty resting tall,
Till spring will come and cure it all.

Regrettably, kind reader, I must leave off there.