My fight against ‘real life’ Dementors.

“If the book is good enough, it will always find an agent and a publisher.”

My mother reading a bedtime story to my little brothers

I spoke yesterday with a friend who had just attended a lunch with a literary agent. He was looking forward to this lunch – expecting an enlightening insight into the world of books and writing that he so loves. He emerged from the lunch utterly disillusioned. ‘Arrogant’, ‘pretentious’, ‘condescending’, were just a few of the adjectives involved. But it was that one sentence that stuck in his mind.

“If the book is good enough, it will always find an agent and a publisher.”

I read something similar recently, online ; a comment by a published author of little renown (and even less talent, judging by the ‘look inside’ portion of one of his books on Amazon), who was lucky enough to have been trying to break into writing back in the early 1990s, in the days before Amazon, Kindle, and the collapse of traditional publishing. His sneering, supercilious attitude didn’t stop there. People are apparently wasting their time and money self publishing, and are all deluded fools, like those tone deaf, talentless hopefuls on shows like the X factor, “My Gran says I sound just like Elvis.”
I bit my typing finger to stop myself responding. There was no point.

Fortunately for my friend, there were other writers at the lunch, one of whom reassured him afterwards, “Don’t worry. It’s always like this. You get used to it, and learn to just ignore it.”

Why do I say fortunately? Surely it’s better for someone to know that they’re deluded, and for them to stop wasting time writing drivel. Not to mention that about half of self published writers earn less than $500 a year and a quarter of books fail even to cover the cost of production. Add to that the fact that apparently 81% of Americans feel that they ‘have a book in them’ (though only 15% regularly read books), and you have a recipe for certain disappointment, don’t you?

Well…

Consider this.  In the US, publishers have stated that they are already publishing too much. The biggest put all their resources into approximately 20 top sellers each year. The rest have to sink or swim on their own. Publishers are running scared. Taking on a new name is a risk, so safer to stay with the tried and tested. (This is why so many of the books today, apparently written by authors such as James Patterson are actually ghosted.)

Meanwhile, in the UK, very few (any?) mainstream publishers now accept submissions from anyone but agents.

So, back to the agent. The leading UK literary agents take on a couple of new authors each year. They receive thousands of manuscripts. This works out as a ‘success rate’ of less than 0.1%…

With no money to be made from selling books any longer, both publishers and agents have had to look to alternatives. Ah ha! The mugs who actually write them!
“Come! Pay me gold for my editing services!” cry the agents. “Then you will have a more pristine package to present for rejection.”

“Come! Pay me gold for my creative writing course!” cry the publishers. “Then we will send you a personalised rejection letter.”

Creative writing course… It is certainly true that many people have no idea how to write. But I know unpublished writers who have won international writing and journalism prizes, people with 1st class degrees in English from top universities, people who do know how to write. For a few pounds they can buy a book on the nuts and bolts of novel writing. To refuse to even look at their submissions until they have handed over money (which they may not have) and attended an ‘in house’ course, takes arrogance and short-sightedness to a whole new level.

What’s more, if you can’t write, a ‘one size fits all’, writing by numbers, correspondence course is not suddenly going to turn you into the next Shakespeare (how on earth did he write those plays before Creative Writing 101?)

Bad luck for today’s aspiring new authors…but is that all?

No.

Because, however bad it is in the adult book world, not only is it worse with children’s books, but the implications of what is happening are far more profound and grave.

Last weekend, there was an article in the Sunday Times entitled ‘Celebrity writers of children’s books edge out talent.’ The article spelt out how ‘thousands’ of gifted children’s writers were struggling to get into print because publishers and bookshops wanted books by celebrities such as Frank Lampard, Katie Price and Holly Willoughby, even though these were ‘the literary equivalent of lift music’. Everything is geared towards big ad campaigns and TV shows.
The author GP Taylor (Shadowmancer, Mariah Mundi) has his first big feature film coming out in October, but has turned his back on children’s writing, “I don’t stand a cat in hell’s chance of getting published any more. I have three big films coming out and no children’s publishing deal.”

Random House, meanwhile, defend their publication of books by Katie Price on the grounds that “If they introduce some children to the enjoyment of reading, then this can only be a positive thing.”

Really?….So it isn’t what you read so much as the fact that you are reading that is important. Imagine if a junk food manufacturer justified squeezing out all the producers of healthy, natural food on the grounds, “If it introduces children to the enjoyment of eating, then this can only be a positive thing.”

This may sound alarmist. After all, hasn’t the internet brought the world of books into every home? Children don’t have to read condescending, dumbed down pulp, written by people who assume that all children are stupid, interested only in celebrities and vapid pop culture. They could choose to download the same books we read as children. Except… many of these are now out of print. They certainly don’t appear on the shelves of bookshops – too old-fashioned, and not enough room anyway, amongst all those Top Gear annuals, and ‘Barbie’s Sparkly Vampire Pop Star Lover’ series.

Publishers think they know their market. So sure are they about this that they make such declarations as “There is a gap in the market for character driven fiction in the 7-9 year old boys’ segment.” But perhaps they don’t know it as well as they think they do. Children, after all, are reading less and less.

A National Literacy Trust study conducted last year showed only 3 out of 10 children and teenagers reading daily, down from 4 out of 10 in 2005. 17% said that they would be embarrassed if a friend saw them with a book, and even magazine and comic reading has dropped significantly. Perhaps some of those wonderful new books being written by unpublished authors might hold the keys needed to unlock the treasure chest of reading for a whole generation of children.

Would Harry Potter be published today? It’s not ‘original’. In fact it’s a series that follows a classic model… just the sort of thing that today’s achingly trendy media-bots would disdain. What’s more, even 16 years ago, when the publishing industry was far more open to new authors, JK Rowling struggled to find anyone to take it on and received numerous rejections (how well the publishers knew their market!)

Which brings me back to the issue of self-publishing.

I self-published my first book. I had dreamt a whole series of five books one night, and had written the first one with an almost constant smile on my face. I loved it. It was a book I knew that the child me would have loved too; one of those books where closing the cover on the final word is only the beginning of the adventure. It wasn’t about money, or recognition; it was about writing the story that was pouring out of my pen, about passing on the magic.

Eagerly, I sent off submissions to agents and publishers. I imagined children transported into the world of my book; a world of nature magic, Tree Spirits, wonder and intrigue… And then the rejection letters arrived. I felt utterly crushed and demoralised. Was my beautiful book so ugly? I read it through again and again, edited, re-edited, re-wrote huge chunks… and re-submitted. “Not for us”, “Not taking on new clients”, etc. At this point, I nearly did what that agent at the lunch, and the supercilious, mediocre author would have had me do. Forget it.

But I couldn’t. That story felt to me like a gift that I had been given. To just forget it, would have been to throw it back in the face of the ‘Story Spirits’. Besides which, no matter how crushed I felt, deep down I believed in it. So I self-published, and in so doing, finally got my book ‘out there’ to the people it was written for – not the agents or publishers, or adults…or me, but children.

Very soon, I got my first feedback… from a young girl whose grandparents had given her the book, and who loved it ‘sooooooooooo’ much that she had convinced her teacher to read it to her class in school. More followed. Emails demanding to know when the next instalment would be out; a message from a mother whose daughter had chosen ‘The Spirit of the Greenwood’ as her favourite ever book (supplanting ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ -hurray! ); a teenage brother and sister who had nearly come to blows over who got to read a sequel first, when they received it for Christmas…
But best of all, I received one email, which on its own, was reason enough to self-publish a book – A  girl in rural New Zealand, having read the whole series, had decided to enter an international young writer contest, and to become a writer.

Remember that statistic, ‘81% of Americans ‘have a book in them’? In the article in which it’s quoted, the implication is that most people are deluded in thinking that they should write a book. “Stick to the day job” is the sub-text. What surprises me, is that ONLY 81% think that they have a book in them. Everyone has stories waiting to be told and the world of the imagination is boundless.

If the gift of that special story comes to you, write it! If just one other person reads it and enjoys it, or is touched by it, it’s worth it. I recently read a short story written nearly a century ago by my grandfather. Quite possibly, it has lain unread all this time. Yet now, long after his death, his words, his thoughts crystallised on paper, have come alive for his grand-daughter.

And if people don’t write for fear of failure? Or if they listen to the nay sayers, and believe that because an agent or publisher says “not for us”, then it’s not good enough… how many thousands of wonderful, precious and unique stories will never get written?

How dare these condescending snobs try to steal the stories from the world!

SIN

 

Oak tree sprouting from acorn

SIN…Seasonal Introversion Normality.
Not like SAD, because it’s not a disorder (I suspect many of you have just stopped reading…”How disappointing! I thought this was going to be x-rated!”)

I am an introvert. According to those online survey things, I fall off the end of the introvert/extrovert  bell curve. This is NOT a bad thing, despite what society as a whole seems to believe.

We live in a world where extroversion is encouraged and rewarded. The child who prefers to sit and read alone rather than ‘joining in’ is labelled as odd and bullied, often overtly by peers, but also more subtly by adults. Those phrases like “living in a dream world”, “away with the fairies”, whilst on the surface innocuous enough, are said so often with an undercurrent of criticism. Why aren’t you out there joining clubs, making friends, pushing yourself forward? Because if you don’t, you will never ‘get anywhere’ in life.

And on one level , this is true. Who are the people held up as successful? Actors, performers, politicians, business leaders… people who push themselves forward, people with loud voices.  Our world is run by extroverts.  They control  politics, the media, religion (you don’t become arch-bishop by being a shy, retiring introvert), the economy, the armed forces , the arts (think of all that networking and mutual back scratching).  Loud mouths get funding, pushy people get promotions, the thicker the skin the higher you fly.
I wonder what the world would be like if they stopped shouting and listened to what the introverts have to say, if decisions were made based on considered thinking, and not because they sounded good and would make you more popular with your friends…

Another frequent criticism of introverts, is that we are so wrapped up in our “own little worlds”, that we don’t care about anyone else.  In my experience, it’s more often quite the opposite. Extreme extroverts (like many politicians) spend their  time projecting themselves out, thrusting themselves and their opinions on to the world at large. Extroversion is defined as “the act, state, or habit of being predominantly concerned with and obtaining gratification from what is outside the self”.
If you never look inwards, never explore your own inner world, how can you connect with the inner world of other people? How can you truly empathise?

Imagine if introversion was respected in childhood. Imagine if instead of constantly trying to get introverts to ‘come out of themselves’, extroverts were encouraged to ‘go into themselves’. Imagine if some of those political and business leaders could understand and empathise with the inner worlds of other people…

Which brings me back to SIN.

One of the biggest problems I have with socialising and going into places filled with people is that I feel utterly drained and exhausted by the experience. Not surprising really… According to numerous sources, extroverts tend to be energised when around other people, whilst introverts are “easily overwhelmed by too much stimulation from social gatherings and engagement,”. There is a theory that extroverts take energy from others, whereas introverts give it.

Fortunately, I live in a forest in the deepest countryside. No people, no traffic, just Nature. I don’t have to don my protective socialising armour. I’m sure an extrovert would be bored stiff within a day or two here. No parties, no concerts, no pub, no shops, no chit-chat. Would they notice the new buds on a tree, sit and listen to the birdsong, wander in the woods with no ‘goal’, just feeling utter, blissful content at being there?
Most people feel happier when it’s sunny. But many also live in an artificial man-made world. Electric lights, constant central heating or air conditioning mean people don’t live their lives to the rhythm of Nature. And life doesn’t change so very much from winter to summer. The inside of a supermarket or an office or a hospital remains the same.

But in the country, it’s different. Winter is cruel, bleak, hard. Beautiful too, in it’s own way, but it’s a time when Mother Earth draws inwards…It’s her introverted time; her time to look inwards, to nurture her inner Earth and the seeds lying sleeping beneath the surface, that will burst into new life in spring.

When you live within Nature, Nature lives within you. And as without, so within.
Every winter, Persephone is in the Underworld, and I draw in to my inner world. This isn’t depression. There’s no misery, no unhappiness, just  natural ‘Seasonal Introversion Normality’. It’s not a time of gloomy navel gazing, but a time to nurture the inner seeds.
Unsurprisingly, in a world ruled by extroverts, people champion ‘EXperience’. How many times have you seen those lists of ‘things I want to do (experience) before I die’, heard people say what they have learnt from experience? It’s all about DOING and experiencing, and getting ‘out there’.
I think there should be a new word. ‘Inperience’. A word that recognises the value of inner journeys, of dreaming, of imagination; a word that describes the worlds to which the reader of a good book is transported.
Our world needs introverts and inperiences just as much as extroverts and experiences, in the same way that it needs winter as much as it needs summer.

Stealing futures and stealing dreams

A very disturbing article beamed its way across the internet to me today; A survey of UK 15-16 year olds, showing that with an average reading age of 10-11, many can’t understand their GCSE exam papers…
Yet, at the same time, there are parents boasting about how their 10-11 year old children are so grown up and advanced that they no longer read children’s books.

I find both of these facts desperately sad.

In the first case, these children are being robbed of the most essential tool they need to navigate the human world. Leaving a person semi-literate at best, is akin to deliberately disabling them. On one level, it deprives them of innumerable opportunities, jobs they can never do, paths they can never follow.
But it goes far deeper than that. It disenfranchises people. Recently the news has reported the story of Malala Yousufzai, the 15 year old girl shot for fighting to get an education and access to knowledge; a girl the same age as the teenagers in this survey. In its own way, the UK education system is creating a Western version of the powerless, vulnerable underclass.

I have frequently seen and heard disparaging comments about reading, and books, whether it’s the ‘losers read’ sort of mockery from someone who thinks that life is just about going out and getting drunk with mates, or the ‘you think you’re better than me’ type comment from the person with a chip on his shoulder, or the ‘I don’t need to read, because I already know everything worth knowing’ attitude.

People fear the unknown. That’s where the monsters are. And ignorance breeds fear. What is it that you might have learnt through reading that they don’t know about?
What indeed. You’re not just dependent on the television to tell you what is happening in the world around you. You don’t only hear the views and thoughts of your immediate friends and family. Through reading, you see through the eyes of others; people from very different backgrounds, from other countries, other times; people who hold different values to you. And your eyes are opened to the universe of potential, what could be, what dreams you could aspire to for yourself and for the world.

Which leads me to the issue of ‘childrens books’, and the ‘too grown up’ children.
I love children’s books. I loved them as a child. I love them as an adult.

The Earthsea trilogy, The Dark is Rising series, The Princess and the Goblin, The Phoenix and the Carpet, The Moondial, The Children of Green Knowe, The Secret Garden, The Magic Faraway Tree, Stig of the Dump, The Borrowers, Tom’s Midnight Garden, The Narnia series, Wind in the Willows, Watership Down, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Children of the New Forest, Heidi, The Jungle Book, Moonfleet, The Hobbit……… just to name a few….

They are books filled with beauty, wonder, magic…wisdom… and the keys to the boundless realm of the imagination. It seems to me sad beyond words for a child to ‘grow out’ of these things…ever.
Why would a 10 year old want to be reading about ‘adult’ issues? Money, power, sex, politics…

Pushing a child to discard children’s books, as immature or silly, isn’t as far removed as it might seem, from depriving them of books entirely, through illiteracy. Yes, they still have all those career paths open to them. Yes, they still have access to knowledge. But, to steal the magic from their lives at such an early age, is a cruel thing.

Children’s books lead into adult books anyway. I read adult books when I was 10. But the complexities, sophistry and projection of adult concerns and neuroses, the limited nature of the adult perception of reality, was countered by the infinite wonders in the realms of the children’s books.
In their pages, the most fantastic dreams come true, everything is possible, and the world is so much more than a mundane, grey place of daily grind, disappointed hopes and narrow horizons.

Good children’s books touch truths far greater than most adult books.And with very few exceptions, when I look back on the books I remember best, those which have brought me the most delight, which have most influenced my life, and which have sung loudest to my soul, it has been children’s books.

 

On drunken goats

Tis the season of the drunken goat.
For weeks the cider apple trees hung heavy with their fruity delights, boughs just out of reach of the greedy goats who live in the orchard. But now the apples have started to fall.
As well as the orchard, the goats have 3 acres of wildflower meadows, which you might think, in summer, would be like a human living with an ‘all you can eat’ gourmet restaurant in the kitchen. But no. Apparently this is not enough for 5 goats. The first thud of an apple on to the ground marked a greed fuelled frenzy, worse than humans queueing for a new phone.
« Apple! Apple! Apple! »
Pushing, trampling, shoving, butting: « Maaaaaaaaaaa, I NEED that apple! Maaaaaaa! I cannot live without that apple! I have always dreamt of an apple like that. My life will be over if that apple is not MINE! »

But over time things changed. There were many apples littering the ground. Apples had become boring.

« Apple. Yawwwwwwn. Been there, done apples. Pfffft. »

Until… something magical happened.
« Apple…Sigh. I suppose I have to eat it. I won’t like it, but since you, two-legged one, won’t give me carrots, if I don’t eat it, I’ll probably starve to death. SIGH again (and bigger this time). »
Goat rolls apple into mouth with a long-suffering expression, tail hanging low, ‘sheep-style’…
But then…

« Oh…Oooooooohhhh…Ahhhhhh… » Wide beatific, goatish smile. The apples are fermenting.

Drunken goats, like drunken humans don’t all fall into one category.
Bazil, my horizontally laid back Rasta-goat, becomes Mr. Chatty and Opinionated. Lazy days chewing Armorican carrots and dozing amongst buttercups and dandelions are forgotten, as he attempts to share his views on everything from the latest in fleece shearing styles to the effects of climate change on water levels in his drinking pond.
Molly and Daisy, by contrast, are merry drunks. They dance horn in horn, tunelessly singing ‘Mrs McGinty’s Goat’ and giggling uproariously at secret in-jokes, to which the other goats are not privy.
Dixie is a show off drunk.

« Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! » as he balances precariously on a rocky pinnacle.

« LOOOOOOK at MEEEEEEE » as he attempts to mimic Moroccan climbing goats by leaping on top of his manger.

« MEEEEEEEEE! » as he gets his head stuck trying to squeeze through a space in the fence that can just about accommodate a cat…

And Muppet…Queen Muppet, the elderly matriarch…She is a bellicose drunk.

« What? What? Do you have a problem? » She gallops up fiercely to poor giggling Molly, her own daughter, and butts her.
« And you? What are you looking at? » Dixie gets pushed off his balancing rock.

Then she spots an apple tree. It’s giving her a funny look.

BUTT! She charges it head on. BUTT!

« Apologise! » She glares at the offending apple tree. « Or you’ll be sorry. »
The apple tree drops an apple by way of apology and Muppet is appeased.

One would think that being drunk all day, at some point a hangover would kick in. But this doesn’t seem to be the case (lesson in this?) Each morning, I find the goats still drunk, having continued to gorge on fermenting apples all night, and then swigged a hair of the dog (or ‘fleece of the goat’ as it’s known in goatish flocks) at dawn. No ill effects appear to be felt…even after head butting apple trees…

And… one final observation… They are not just drunk. They are DRUNKS.

Many apples lie on the ground. Some are fresh and crisp, the sort of apples that only a couple of weeks ago they would have savoured. But now these are discarded. Long noses are turned up in disdain as they root out the most rotten ones…those with the highest alcohol content.

A day will come when the drunken season is over, when the last of the apples has rotted too far. But maybe…if they’re lucky, there could still be a few liberty caps growing in the orchard…

Dionysos was raised in the form of a goat after all……..

A tale of two fairies Part 2…and a dragon.

Inside the cave of La Fée Gisèle (and face in the rock…)

My closest neighbour, Couesnon, is a fairy, and, as far as such things are possible or sensible, I count her a friend. She watches over my home from her rocky domain to the North.
Through the forest to the West, however, are fairies less well known to me, Gisèle and Mélusine.

The beautiful Gisèle, ‘fairy of the heather’, can be seen on warm autumn nights, sitting atop her rocky abode, combing her hair by the light of the full moon. She is known as a protector of travellers, just so long as you approach her with due respect and correct fairy ‘etiquette’ (more about this in another blog.)

But venturing into the forest on such nights, hoping to catch sight of her, is a perilous thing to do… After midnight, just one step off the path and you will meet the ‘Big Nanny Goat’ walking on her hindlegs. A few…very few, who have met her, survived by running for their life. But others have been lost in the forest and fallen to their doom in bottomless chasms!
Also unwise, is a visit to her home during a storm, since the Wild Hunt rampages through the forest under her leadership, on stormy nights.
Different legends accord different names to the Wild Hunt in this part of the forest. « La Chasse Hellequin » is one…
Hellequin is a stock character in French passion plays, a black-faced emissary of the devil who roams the countryside with a group of demons, chasing the souls of evil people to hell. (He is possibly the predecessor of Harlequin, with his traditional red and black mask).
Hellequin is also the leader of ‘la Mesnée d’Hellequin ‘ (the household of Hellequin), and in this case, the name is thought to be related to the Old English Herla, a character often identified with Woden.

Other names here are ‘La Chasse Artus’ and ‘La Chasse Herpine’. Artus is King Arthur, and across much of Brittany, he is said to lead the hunt.
Herpine…? Not a name I’ve heard before, or can find referred to anywhere else, but it has a distinctly serpentine sound to it… or dragon-esque perhaps…
If you’re foolish enough to be out on such a night, a few shots into the air might help keep the hunt away, but if you do meet them, never, ever try to shoo them away with the fateful words « pars en la chasse! »…Beaten to a pulp is the best you could hope for if you did! If you’re polite and very lucky, you might escape with the gift of copious amounts of rat corpse morsels!!! Hmmmm…. In some parts of the world, the Wild Hunt rewards those who help it with gold…

Another side of Gisèle is shown in the following tale.
Once upon a time, long ago, not far from the cave of Gisèle, was a hovel, inhabited by a poor peasant with a kind heart. One winter’s night there was a knock at his door. Standing outside was a hungry, miserable fairy. She asked permission to come in and heat up some soup.
The peasant invited her in and gave her the only tureen. Delicious soup! The most delicious that the poor peasant and his family had ever tasted, but despite their hunger, they shared it generously with the fairy.
As thanks for their hospitality, she cast a spell upon the tureen, instructing the family always to use it to make soup at night. She couldn’t give them palaces and gold, but what she could do was give the tureen the power to wake everyone in the house very early, and for all animals and people to always achieve the equivalent of 4 days work in just 3 days.
Over time, the hovel became a farm, the farm became a manor, the manor became a château and all prospered. The master of the château planted beech trees in the forest, in gratitude.
But then in 1793, bad days came. The revolutionaries knocked at the door when the lord was off fighting for his King. A loyal servant refused entry and was killed, and the soldiers stormed into the château destroying everything…including the tureen.
The ‘Big Nanny Goat’ mentioned earlier, now haunts the forest beneath those same ancient beech trees…

Another fairy…or rather a mermaid, lives in a sacred spring (known for its healing powers since Roman times), just below the cave of Gisèle. Her name is Mélusine de Poitou, a spirit of fresh water, who has a fish tail and wings.
Long ago, Raymond de Poitou came across her in the forest and proposed marriage. She agreed on condition that he must never enter her chamber on a Saturday. He broke the promise and saw her in the form of part-woman part-serpent. She forgave him, but later during a disagreement, he called her a serpent in front of his court. She instantly turned into a Dragon, gave him two magic rings and then flew off never to return…

Coming soon…The fairies return!

A tale of two fairies: Part One.

The Magical Forest is a place steeped in legends; a land of enchantment, of magical fountains and mysterious lakes, standing stones and dolmens, fairies, giants, sorcerors and druids. This is the home of Viviane, the enchantress, the Lady of the Lake, the realm of Merlin and Morgan le Fey…

The little village I live nearest to, was known as an outpost of paganism, long after the rest of France was converted to Christianity. The situation was so dire, that a priory was built in the C13th, by the Knights Hospitaller, on the site of an old pagan shrine and healing spring, in an attempt to save the ‘credulous’ and ‘primitive’ people. I now live in the remnants of that priory.

Overlooking my house to the North, stands a huge and mysterious granite rock, known to be the domain of a Fairy Queen named Quasnon (or Couesnon). Hidden in her chamber, and guarded by black, hairy dwarves, lie inestimable treasures.
Many locals, over the centuries, have encountered these dwarves near the rocks on the night of the full moon, and although unpredictable and mischievous, they can be helpful, some carrying messages across great distances, ‘faster than the wind’ (this in the days before telephones…), some plaiting horses manes, others sweeping your house by night, or preparing cream for your breakfast.

Even better, if, for example, a ploughman happened to need a team of oxen to work his fields the next day, he would go to the foot of the rock at dusk and ask for « two oxen capable of doing four days work in a day, for tomorrow ». The next day at dawn, a team of black oxen would be waiting already yoked. He must, however, give them names or they would be wild and unruly!
At the end of the day, they would return to the rock. But the ploughman must remember to put 5 coins in the little bowl hanging from the yoke…

As for the fairies…Couesnon their Queen helps those who have lost something. Utter the words, « Ah, si j’avais celui des fées de la Roche ! » (Oh, if only I had that which the fairies of the Rock have!) and the wish would be granted!

 

One day, a peasant named Lormière, on his way to work bringing in the harvest, met upon the road a sorceror who was known to have dealings with the devil and to work enchantments and other ‘marvels’. He mocked Lormière for working so hard for nothing, when under the Rock lay a treasure so valuable that he would never have to work again if he were to find it. All he had to do was wait for nightfall, and not be afraid of anything that he might see.

Lormière didn’t believe him, and forgot all about this strange meeting. A year later, however, in the same spot, he once again encountered this sorceror. This time, he was convinced.
That night, at the right time, he set to work, digging beneath the rock. He dug so hard and so well, that eventually, he succeeded in finding the treasure of silver. Overcome with joy, suddenly he saw a three footed hare sitting upon the rock that was balanced above the treasure and was afraid… Since then, no one has ever seen the treasure.
Poor Lormière! Believing that the fairies would bring their silver out every Christmas at midnight, to ‘air’ it, he decided to seize it for himself. But this time, he found it guarded by two fierce dogs. Baring their teeth, they tried to devour him. He ran for his life!

 

In another tale of Couesnon and her court, a fairy came calling on a woman, living nearby and spent the long winter nights with her, keeping her company whilst her husband was away. She would come in each evening, through the chimney, settle into the corner and watch her. The woman grew increasingly tired of her fairy visitor, and together with her husband concocted a plan to get rid of her.
One evening, the husband dressed in the clothes of his wife and took her place at the fireside, pretending to spin. And so it was… That night,the fairy came down the chimney as usual. She looked at the spinning wheel, turning as usual, but producing no thread…In a low voice, she whispered: « The Beautiful one of the evenings, turned and fed her spinning wheel and on the spindle appeared a thread, but this one turns and feeds the spinning wheel, but on the spindle nothing appears. »

The pretend spinner leapt to his feet and demanded the name of the fairy. « I am called Me-Myself » she replied.
In the same moment, the master of the house threw fire on the fairy. She fled up the chimney crying out « I’m burning! I’m burning! »

Since that time, no one has ever seen fairies again here.

Or have they…? Coming up: Part 2. ‘The return of the Fairies’

 

 

Come, follow me into the woods today…

Come, follow me into the woods today…Come, follow me into the woods to play…

Some people are social creatures. What makes them happy is the company of other humans. Others are not. Inspector Morse described himself as « not a joining things sort of person ». I know the feeling.
As I child, I lived in the country, surrounded by woods. In those woods, I was euphorically happy – free to roam where I wanted, in a world unbounded by the strictures of humans with blinkered , monochrome vision. And they weren’t ‘just’ woods. They were fantastic lands, where fairytales and myths came alive…They were jungles, alien planets, coral reefs on the sea bed even. They were the past and the future, a timeless realm of magic and wonder.

My friends were the trees and nature, the spirits of the woods, characters from books and from the boundless universe of the imagination.

I was never bored in the woods. How could I possibly be bored? There weren’t enough hours in the day to fit in all the adventures, to ‘live’ all the stories jostling to be the one claiming today as its own.

Some days, though, were different…more ‘still’. The woods felt as though they were waiting for me to join them. It was no longer my imagination conjuring worlds…It was no longer me, the ‘creator god’ of my own reality. I would climb up into my favourite tree, a graceful, pollarded beech, and sit on the ‘floor’ formed by the pollarding, surrounded by branches reaching skywards, my back against the smooth bark, and breathe in the woods…the scents, the sounds, the colours…
I hear the deep, earthy, alto song of the beech, and close my eyes to listen…She sings of the Otherworld, of a time before time. She sings of the Spirits of the woods, of Mother Earth, of a profound, immanent, numinous magic.

Schoolfriends spent their teen years wanting to escape the countryside, longing for the excitement of the city. Life was about parties, friends, clubs…boyfriends. Not me. All I ever wanted to do was get out of the stygian prison of school and back into my woods.

Every tree holds a different tale within its memory. You can read about them in books, study their correspondences and attributes. But in the same way that you could never really know how it feels to be in love without having experienced it, or what a rose smells like, or how summer rain feels on your face, you can’t really know a tree without truly ‘knowing’ it…embracing it, becoming one with it…listening to its song.
And the song of the beech has a verse that I haven’t yet mentioned; a verse that sings of ancient wisdom passed on, a paean to Hermes and Thoth, gods of writing. The Anglo-Saxon word for beech was ‘boc’…What does that sound like?…Book!
It’s a tree of both the Air element and the Earth element, and a tree that is connected to the idea of bringing the airy inspiration of words into earthy, grounded manifestation as writing in books. But not just any books…Beech tree books touch a deep, ancient wisdom. They bring written form to archetypal truths.

There was a connection between those ‘different’ days in the woods and my normal wood days. The worlds of my imagination were not just fleeting phantasms. They were/are in many ways more ‘real’ than any of those parties or shopping trips, more ‘real’ than the food I ate or the clothes on my back.

All of those time-bound things were transitory. Most are now long forgotten…A few remain as memories, but filed away in the archives of my past. The experiences I had all contributed their part to me today, but one day, this me will be dead.
The realm of the mythical, however, that boundless universe into which I plunged in the woods, never dies. It’s there, just as real, vibrant and spellbinding today as it was when I was a child, and it will still be there a thousand years from now…
When I write, the alchemy of Mother Beech inspires me. Her branches reach up into that magical realm, and bring down to earth stories, as the pen touches the page and transforms imagination into books.

So…

Come, follow me into the woods today, In realms of magic and wonder to play…

Mugged by a goat for a lollipop

Dixie-Goat winking at me

Yesterday evening, I was mugged by a goat for a lollipop.
Not what you and I might call a lollipop, admittedly, but in the world of goats, it was a lollipop, and an exceptionally delicious one at that – A mineral lick! – A stone full of all sorts of goatish delights, and a highly prized object if you’re a goat.

I tried to sneak into their field with it. I know my goats, and know them to be greedy (one in particular…), so waited until they were out of sight behind some trees and rocks. All was peaceful. A dove cooed softly from the branches of an apple tree. A gentle breeze stroked the leaves. Very carefully, I lifted the chain from the gate and eased it open. I crept in. All was still calm. I felt rather pleased with my sneaky success as I placed the mineral lick on the ground and began to cut it out of its wrapper…

« BADABOOM BADABOOM BADABOOM BADABOOM » The sound of thundering hooves, galloping across the orchard behind me.

« Maaa Maaaaaaaa Maaaaaaaaa MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA  Lollipop! LOOOLLIPOP! »

« No! Wait! Wait! » I call out in vain, as I scramble to pull off the last of the wrapper.

But my goats have been transformed into five horned and hooved Usain Bolts. They arrive in a greedy mass of hot bodies, stamping feet and hard horns.

« STOP! » I use my fiercest voice. I am meant to be the head goat around here after all.

« Maahaahahahah » They laugh as one.

I grab the plastic wrapper, (if I leave it, I know they’ll eat it) and pulling horns and pushing bodies, manage to escape the melée. The gate is only a few yards away…

A few yards too far. « Oooph » I am butted…

« Maahaahaaahaaahaaaaa! » The goats roar with laughter.

I spin round. Standing in front of me, with a huge grin on his face, is Dixie-goat, the naughtiest goat I have ever known.

« What do you think you’re doing? » I glare fiercely. « That hurt! »

« Maahaahaahaahaa! » The rest of the goats are ignoring their mineral lick now and instead enjoying the entertainment.

« Pfft! » Dixie snorts with derision.

« You won’t be getting another mineral lick, if that’s how you say thank you! »

Dixie turns his head to one side and surveys me with a haughty expression. « I believe you. NOT! Maaaahaaahaaahaahaa! » He steps back and rears up. « Play with me! » he commands.

I back away. « Remember last year? Remember the morning I found you dangling upside down trapped by your hind leg in the fence wire? Who was it that rescued you?» I try another tack. « And when you were a little kid, who made sure that you got food when the big goats bullied you? » I continue to back away.

Dixie eyes me skeptically. « You two legs talk a lot of silly nonsense! »

« Daisy looks like she’s enjoying that mineral lick. » I change tack again, staring very blatantly across at the other goats.

Dixie stops in his tracks, all thoughts of butting games forgotten.

« MINE! Maaa-ine! MAAAA-ine! »

There is one thing that trumps playing – FOOD! And if someone else is eating it, he wants it.

The other goats scatter as he charges back over to the ‘lollipop’, bleating indignantly. I escape.

This morning, I look over my shoulder in the mirror – One perfect, blue, horn-shaped bruise…A butt on the butt. Mugged by a goat for a lollipop…

Bells, banshees, birds and bees…and the song of the Earth

Here in the depths of Armorica, I can usually hear no manmade sound; no cars, no overhead planes. But this morning, one sound carried through the forest – bells, ringing out from a distant village.

I stop to listen… The bells sing in antiphony with the forest, deep golden notes answer the silvery arpeggios of song birds and the mellifluous amber hum of bees. They sing a timeless song of the sacred, bells and birds and bees.

There are bells in the city too…of course! And birds and even bees. But how often do people stop to listen to their song? How easy is it to hear above the constant background din?
On the rare occasions that a human is brave enough to venture here (‘Danger Dragons’ sign on the gate is there for a reason…), one of the first things that they comment on is how quiet it is here. Quiet?! It’s not quiet. Even in the depths of midwinter, on the coldest, bleakest of nights, there are owls calling to the shadows, the blood-curdling cry of a vixen, the answering bark of her mate… and there are sounds I’ve heard nowhere else, unearthly cries like banshees keening over the corpse of summer past.

But I know what people mean when they say that it’s quiet. Something is missing. Something that is so ubiquitous, that for most people, even living in the countryside, it has become a sound that they filter out of their consciousness – A constant low level hum, like white noise. Distant traffic, invisible planes, power lines… It’s probably there now, behind the surface sounds of your life, but it’s only when it’s not there that you realise that maybe life on Earth didn’t always sound like that.

In the years that I lived in central London, I didn’t notice it. How could I? There was never any moment when I wasn’t bombarded by a cacophany. Humans are adaptable. I adapted. I slept through car alarms, police sirens… Yet now, I find even a small town overwhelming. But I hear things now that once I wouldn’t have noticed; the unusual song of a migrant bird, the sound of rain approaching across the forest, the footfall of a deer, the grunt of a boar in the undergrowth, the change in the alarm calls of birds as a danger approaches and recedes.

The same is true with smells. I take a visitor into the forest. Fox! The scent of fox is overpowering. A little further on, a pole cat has marked his territory. A subtle hint of wild rose, the rich loamy tang of mushrooms… My visitor with a nose accustomed to petrol fumes, curry houses, antiseptic cleaning products, human chemical perfumes, smells nothing.

I stop to listen to the bells, ringing out as they have done for over a millenium, my ears hearing the same music as the ears of the monks who lived here 700 years ago.

I listen to the deep silence behind their song, the same deep silence as ears heard long before the monks arrived, long before humans arrived…The veil of time dissolves.

I lie down in the long grass, one ear to the ground, and listen. Above, the forest sings on. Below, I hear another song – a creaking, sighing, whispering song; invisible life beneath the soil, moving, growing; I hear the Earth breathing, hear her heartbeat. Above and below, inside and outside, forest, bells, Earth and me…What a beautiful song Mother Earth sings when you listen.

Henbane Hendragon, warrior hen… and the magic of a deer.

This morning my cat was chased by a hen. Not a large, ferocious looking fiendish hen, but a fluffy and very pretty little red hen. The name of the cat will be withheld to protect her reputation. The name of the hen however… Henbane Hendragon, wild hen of the Western Reaches, intrepid pioneer and explorer of lands never before seen by poultry eyes.
Whilst her fellow flock-mates are happy to spend their days gossiping together within the bounds of their orchard, Henbane hears the call of the wild.

Every morning, after a quick social breakfast, she is off, flying over 8 feet of deer fencing, to spend her day roaming the forest, following her beak wherever it may lead her. And every dusk, she is back, ready to settle back into the hennish evening routine…gossip, mutual preening, more gossip, a few squabbly pecks, politics, food, who’s been flirting with King Cockerel, who ate more than her share of grain…Henbane clucks. She knows the right noises to make. But only one small red ear is listening. Little do they know the adventures she has had… the things she has seen…Little do they know the magic and wonder, the thrilling terror and the secret delights of the wild forest beyond the fence…

My cat flees up a tree. She doesn’t want hassle with a hen. Sharp beaks and sharp tongues are not for her. She likes hens. She also likes mice. Yes, she eats them, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t like them. She watches them eat from her food bowl with a benevolent, approving smile…

I leave my cat and hen to their own devices and set off with the dogs on their morning walk. The forest hums a gentle, early morning summer tune; waking crickets, woodpigeons, arpeggios of blackbirds and thrushes, and… Something moves in the undergrowth ahead! Something big.

My dogs are transformed. No longer waggy tailed, loll-tongued puppies, but full grown wolves…Noses hard to the ground…PREY…

A red deer hind emerges from amongst the trees, on the path ahead of me. She stops. Dogs head off blindly in the opposite direction!!! She canters off, back into the forest.

The Deer… This is not the stag that so many know, but the hind. A creature of grace and beauty, gentleness and poise…An animal who symbolically connects to the wild forest, to sacred and magical places; whose magic calls to you to release the trappings of the material world and go deeper into that forest…

Today is the full moon, and a full moon conjunct the asteroid Cyrene. In Greek mythology, one of her epithets is ‘deer chasing, second Artemis’.

I turn to leave and a memory stops me in my tracks.

Two and a half years ago, in this same place, I found a young deer, who had been chased by hounds into my pond. She was exhausted, shivering and terrified. Where I live used to be a deer farm, so it’s surrounded by deer fence. Somehow she had got in, but not the hounds. However, getting in was one thing, getting out another.
Something shifted… I turned away and walked back to the house…fast…, found some serious wire cutters and returned with them. Everything calm…focused…I cut a big hole in the deer fence.

I go back to the pond.
I can see the little deer is weak. I step down into the pond, I wade in deeper. Only, it isn’t ‘I’.
The month is February, but I feel no cold water, and as I approach the deer, there isn’t the slightest question in my head. Infact there is no human ‘chatter chatter’ in my head at all. Nothing beyond what I’m doing now. I reach out and pick up the deer. She feels lighter than a cat! And she doesn’t struggle. She lets me pick her up, lets me carry her out of the pond, across to the hole I’ve cut in the fence.

I lay her down on the other side and walk away. All I feel is a profound, soul-knowing love.

Half an hour later, I return. She’s gone. Run back into the forest. Alive. Free.

Maybe she returned today…Maybe she has met Henbane…Maybe there is so much more to Nature than humans believe… (to be continued…)