Refreshed by landscape and folk tale

Hello from another UK Bank Holiday weekend – in May we do have something of an over-provision of them, especially if, as this year, Easter is late. There’ll be another one in a couple of weeks time. When you live in a seaside town then you become acutely aware of bank holidays so that you can plan accordingly. The beach is crowded, the town is full of visitors, the shops busy, the car park impossible, the roads awash with caravans and camper vans that are too big for our banked lanes. But, tourism is good for our little economy so it doesn’t do to grumble too much. After all, our countryside is so beautiful, and our beaches so pleasant, that we must expect to share them. So holiday times we have learned to stay home, get those jobs done that you don’t want to do in the week because you want to go out, and enjoy the garden.

Last week we took advantage of glorious weather to make a trip to Dartmoor. It’s not too far from us, about 30 miles at the nearest point, and it’s one of my favourite places on earth, so a few times a year we pack up lunch, drinks, walking shoes, hats and sunscreen and head off for a day. We started off at Hay Tor and walked up the long incline to the rocks, the ground springy with the grazed turf, the grey, granite shapes rising above us, sharply drawn against a blue, blue sky.

In days past we would have scrambled up the rocks to survey the glorious view around us, but not these days. We walked past the rocks and on to Saddle Tor. Saddle Tor has a wide turf avenue between its rocky outcrops and the view from there is superb on a clear day – over the lower slopes and across to the high moor spreading on the horizon. It’s like being on top of the world. We heard (and saw) so many skylarks, singing their way up into the blue until almost out of sight, and then plunging down again, and we had the good fortune to hear and see a Wheatear perched on the top of a gorse bush making its ‘tic, tic’ call before disappearing in a swoop and a flash of its white rump.

On the lower ground between the two tors we came across this beautiful little pool. Bounded by sedges and soft turf, the water was as clear as the day, tinted peaty brown, and moved by sparkling ripples in the breeze. It was a beautiful space, the edges marked with the hoof prints of wild ponies, water boatmen skating on the surface. Just a small pool of moor water, but holding the wind and the sky and the world in it, in quiet ease.

I knelt to take this picture, to better catch the ripples, on what felt to my hand like dry turf. The weight of my knee drew water up immediately and I got up with two very wet patches on my jeans. In places, the moor has dangerous bog and miry ground that needs expertise to navigate, and even here in this quiet place just a few hundred metres from the road, the ground is wetter than you might think. Just a little way away from ‘our’ magical pool there was a patch of very soft, wet ground - a warning, of sorts, that the moor is not predictable and should be treated with respect.

After a couple of hours of walking we returned to the car and drove down to Widecombe-in-the-Moor for non-flask coffee. Widecombe is a tiny village, with an unexpectedly large church crowned with a tower that is a landmark on this part of the moor; but we came to see the massive horse-chestnut tree that shades the village green. It was looking truly beautiful in the sun, its candles tinted with yellow and pink. Later that day I learned something new about horse-chestnut bloom: I posted a note showing one of the flowers with the pink and yellow marks and the ever brilliant

Melissa Harrison

informed me that the pink tints appear when each single floret has been pollinated. Isn’t that wonderful? Nature in its cleverness. We also dropped in to the church and were impressed to find it still had the base of its 15th century screen, complete with fading pictures of saints, some with their faces scratched out, no doubt by various ‘reformers’ who saw beauty/imagery as sinful. We identified St Sebastian who is shown in his martyrdom in the left hand panel of the picture below.

Widecombe is probably best known for its titular Fair, held each year in September, and the folk song that goes with it, which includes the lines:

Tom Pearse, Tom Pearse lend me your grey mare

All along, down along, out along lea,

For I want to go to Widecombe Fair,

With Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davy, Dan’l Whiddon, Harry Hawke, old Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all, old Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all.

and here they all are, on the back of said grey mare as an automaton carved in the nineteen fifties and kept in the church. We spent a little while trying to remember the name of each figure, but couldn’t make seven. On the way home A suddenly exclaimed ‘Dan’l Whiddon!’ and the sextet was complete. I, being the pedantic that I am, thought it should actually be an octet, because surely there is the chap making the request of Tom Pearse too? Aha, who is he? And why is he neither named nor pictured? We had a lovely day out. We were knackered afterwards but it was worth it.

Sticking with the folk song/folk tale them, I’ve been reading

Dr Sharon Blackie

’s book of short stories ‘Foxfire, Wolfskin”. It’s a collection of re-imagined folk tales telling of ancient, powerful, super-natural women who have created and protected the land through hundreds of years. The writing is wonderful: earthy, imaginative, rooted in the old tales of shape-shifting, faery-world women who hold their men close but their animals and land closer. Here are women of seal, hare and fox, of white cattle, wolfskin and seaweed hair; all brought alive and as real as any woman you know. I loved it and shall read more of her work. I love the idea of power lying in the land and in the natural world, and that we have only to reach out with respect to feel its sustenance and life through our own bodies. I was certainly aware of something of that feeling walking on the moor - fresh, clear air, the permanency of the granite rock, the grounding through the turf - revitalised and renewed for another day.

And on that rather esoteric note I shall leave you for another week. Take care and I’ll write soon. x