A-Z Challenge 2013 - 'H' = Honeysuckle

My A-Z posts this year are based on my garden – flowers, animals, the birds and the bees, butterflies - with a bit of poetry thrown in. For some letters I am expecting to cheat somewhat – a sort of wish they were here.

H – Honeysuckle, Horse Chestnut, Hyacinth, Hydrangea, Heron

Good Lord, how sweetly smells the honeysuckle

In the hush’d night, as if the world were one

Of utter peace, and love, and gentleness.

Honeysuckle

  Now it’s time to cheat a bit and leave the village to visit a nearby wood

Horse Chestnuts (early stage of development)

  Under a spreading chestnut tree

The village smithy stands

Our hyacinths began, not in a wood but in a garden centre pot; they always turn out to be a different colour than we thought. Nevertheless -

Hyacinths blooming in the wood
Fragrantly they are bringing
A primal essence of spring

Hyacinths

And when we were given this plant its flowers were blue, they are different now as you can see

Hydrangeas

Several houses in the neighbourhood have ponds in their grounds which are visited by herons for a take-away. We often see them flying overhead – but not these from Portrack Nature Reserve,

Herons

 Mourn, sooty coots, and speckled teals,

Ye fisher herons, watching eels;

Poems:

• Honeysuckle – From Gareth and Lynette – Alfred Lord Tennyson
• The Village Blacksmith – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Spring Flowers –Hyacinths – Mary Havran
• Herons – Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson – Robert Burns

Poetry in Stamps

"All the world's a stage

And all the men and women merely players;"

This makes an introduction to Shakespeare. My first two stamps of a set of four issued in 1964 commemorate the Shakespeare Festival.

I know it's Spring but John Keats 'To Autumn' always sticks in my mind: "Seasons of mists and yellow fruitfuness"

Issued in 1971, the 150th anniversary of his death.

For William Wordsworth you may have expected daffodils but I prefer: "My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky:"

Grasmere - issued in 1970, the 200th anniversary of his birth.

I know it's only May but it's hard to better Burns:

"My love is like a red, red rose,

That's newly sprung in June"

Issued in 1996

Issued 1966

I even found Burns on a Russian stamp which I've copied from the internet:

And stamps for Alexander Pushkin and Alexander Blok

"Black night.
White snow.
The wind, the wind!
It will not let you go. The wind, the wind!
Through God's whole world it blows

The wind is weaving
The white snow.
Brother ice peeps from below
Stumbling and tumbling
Folk slip and fall.
God pity all!"

From Blok's 'The Twelve' (1918)

And finally a stamp of a poet and a diplomat from my Mexico page:

Amando Nervo (1870 -1919) is reputed to be the most noted Mexican poet of the 19th Century.

More poetry on stamps at Viridian's postcard blog

Ghost Writers

A-Z Challenge – ‘G’

If there was a list of ‘best’ ghost stories what would the list include? How far back would it go and what writers would appear? Is it the story or the writer that makes it the best?

Aeschylus’s 5^th century BC trilogy of plays includes one of the first ghosts to appear in fiction. Orestes is haunted by the Furies, called up by the ghost of his mother Clytaemestra whom Orestes had killed. Ghosts appear in Homer’s Odyssey and the Iliad, and haunted houses were described by Pliny and Lucian among others. But would these ancient writers and their stories appear among the ‘best?’

Famous ghosts from Shakespeare are the ghosts of Banquo in Macbeth and of Hamlet’s father, King Claudius. Now we’re faced with a dilemma. Is Shakespeare the ghost writer or is it the ghosts who are the best? Are the plays disqualified from our list because they are not ghost stories at all?

 Hamlet and his father's ghost

 A search of the internet reveals a list of fifteen famous ghost stories. However you may find that your favourite is not included; not surprising as this list was compiled in 1921. Blackwood, Andreyev, France, Poe, Machen and Maupassant are there but no Dickens or M R James.

Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Ligeia’ is regarded by some as the best story in any language where the dead wife comes triumphantly back to life though the body of Lady Rowena, the narrator’s second wife. However perhaps you prefer the words of dread and doom in ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ and the blood stained, enshrouded figure of Lady Madeline bringing about the death of her brother before the house is split asunder.

It is interesting to see Arthur Machen’s story, ‘The Bowmen,’ in the list. His WWI description of the British trenches under attack by an overwhelming German army is believed to have led to the legend of the Angels of Mons saving the day. In Machen’s story the ghostly saviours were bowmen from Agincourt. Despite Machen protests that his was a work of fiction, the legend of the appearance of angels at Mons has persisted in accounts of the war to end all wars.

Wilfred Owen is one of the poets renowned for WWI poetry. If we are to include poets in our list of the best we must include Owen and ‘I am the ghost of Shadwell Stair.’ There is no doubt that this poem has an eerie quality about it and it makes an ideal ghost story.

Paranormal accounts of ghostly armies seen on old battle fields are quite common. Walter de la Mare’s poem ‘The Song of Soldiers’ reflects this with the words, ‘Rank on rank of ghostly soldiers marching o'er the fen…’. However if haunted houses are your thing you need look no further than Longfellow’s ‘Haunted Houses’ beginning:

 ‘All houses wherein men have lived and died

Are haunted houses…’

Or is it Burns who takes the poetry medal for his Nannie in her cutty sark, securing as her prize the tail of Meg, Tam O’Shanter’s mare?

Not all writers, as we know full well, are successful at their art. Gaston Leroux’s work of fiction published in 1910 was a bit of a flop. Once the ‘Phantom of the Opera’ appeared as a film in 1925, Leroux’s story became a big hit and Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s more recent musical version is nothing less than a global phenomenon.

A story that has stood the test of time is that of Ichabod Crane being chased by the headless horseman in Washington Irving’s ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.’ However it is M R James who is regarded as the father of modern ghost stories. He has written some of the greatest and most influential ghost stories in the English language. Two of his most famous are ‘Casting the Runes’ and ‘Oh Whistle, and I’ll Come to You My Lad,’ both of which are included in his ‘Ghost Stories of An Antiquary.’

Stephen King’s writings have been influenced by M R James so it is only right that we include ‘The Shining’ in our list of the best. Young Danny Torrance’s sensitivity to supernatural forces and the sinister nature of the events in the Overlook Hotel make this one a must.

However we must include the story that is told and told again. Dicken’s ‘Christmas Carol’ has been said to teach us to be benevolent to our fellow men and that leading an immoral life can imprison you in a self-created hell in the afterlife.

 The Ghost of Christmas Present by John Leach, 1843

--- * --- * --- * ---

“From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggerty beasties

And things that go bump in the night

Good Lord, deliver us!”

The Voluptuous Witch

 

The Cutty Sark  posted by daily.postcard@gmail.com (Sheila) at A Postcard a Day  reminded me that I had written this for Yarm Writers Group in 2008

The Voluptuous Witch

"Every old woman with a wrinkled face, a furrowed brow, a hairy lip, a gobber tooth, a squint eye, a squeaking voice or scolding tongue, having a rugged coat on her back, a skull-cap on her head, a spindle in her hand and a dog or cat by her side, is not only suspect but pronounced for a witch."

So said John Gaule in his condemnation of Matthew Hopkins the infamous, self-styled "Witch-finder General" – who took his notorious business throughout East Anglia in the 1640's.

Nannie was not like that. She was winsome and walie; what we today would call voluptuous. She wore only a short shift made for her as a child from coarse Paisley linen and far too short to hide her modesty.

On a dark and stormy night after a day’s hard drinking a farmer left an inn on his faithful horse. The Scots would say he was fou or, perhaps you may prefer, he was three sheets into the wind. Along the way he came to an old churchyard just as the storm grew worse and lightning illuminated the scene. To the accompaniment of thunder the farmer saw that graves had opened up and coffins stood on end. Corpses held torches to light up the merriment that was taking place and which was presided over by the Devil.

Warlocks and witches danced hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys and reels. Amongst them, was the scantily clad Nannie, the voluptuous witch, lively and full of spirits. The bemused farmer watched her in awe and could not resist shouting out, “Well done.”

This was the cue for warlocks and witches, led by Nannie, to break off from their revelry and give chase to the farmer on his horse. Although initially rooted to the spot the farmer, fearing for his life, fled pursued by the horde. He urged his horse on towards a bridge over a river; he knew that if he could make it there the witches could not cross the running water and he would be safe.

He reached the bridge, but as he crossed Nannie reached out and grabbed his horse’s flowing tail. Fortunately for horse and man, the horse did not stop and Nannie was left holding the horse’s tail which she had pulled off.

The man lived on to farm and drink another day.

But what of Nannie? Her fame lives on in Scottish legend. In her short shift still holding the horse’s tail she became the inspiration for the figurehead of the fastest and most famous of all the world’s tea clippers.

Despite a disastrous fire in 2007 the clipper remains the only one surviving to this day. Its name is Cutty Sark.

The story of the farmer and Nannie in her cutty sark, the too short shift of coarse Paisley linen, was immortalized by Robert Burns in his famous poem Tam o’Shanter.

Pools of Gold

John Barton Watson, a poet from the Yorkshire Dales, has made several visits to Stockton Library's Books and Banter sessions.

I first listened to him early in 2008 when he explained the stories behind the poems in his collection 'Pools of Gold.' The poems in his book are illustrated by the water-colour paintings of the Wensleydale artist Walter Parker. The paintings bring the poems to life.

From High Tees, Stockton's Oxbridge School, Coverdale to Scarborough John's poems touched on areas well known to his audience. The collection ends with The Border Reivers and takes its title from this poem's last verse:

'Come on the wind when the days are long
And the sky's a saffron glow
Reflections dark in pools of gold
The ghosts of riders show.'

In September last year, John came back to read and explain the stories behind his favourite poems.

He linked the ghostly connections between Walter de la Mare's Someone ('Some one came knocking') with Nicholas Nye (the old donkey standing alone 'would brood like a ghost') and the Listeners ('Is there anybody there? said the Traveller').

From Betjeman John chose A Portrait of A Deaf Man (Betjeman's father was stone deaf), Felixstowe or The Last of Her Order (The nun left on her own after the death of the other nuns)and Slough ('Come friendly bombs, and fall on Slough'.

Everyone in the audience laughed during Jenny Joseph's Warning('When I am old woman I shall wear purple')but were more subdued listening to Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est.

John Watson finished his reading with Robert Burns. I never knew that the clipper, Cutty Sark, had a figurehead of a witch's hand holding a horse's tail. This is derived from Burn's Tam O' Shanter where Tam is chased by a witch wearing a short shirt (cutty sark). Witches cannot cross running water and as Tam rode over the Brig o' Doon the witch pulled off the horse's tail and was left with it in her hand as Tam and his horse Meg escaped.

This poetry session was one of the most popular of the year and a very entertaining hour and a half.