Dartmoor: Wistman's Wood

We had a chance to visit Dartmoor again on our vacation in England a few weeks ago. The moor has a certain sombre feel to it, especially in foggy and rainy weather, and it's easy to imagine a wisthound or two lurking in the mist on days like this. We braved the rainy weather for a hike to Wistman's Wood from Princetown, as we had done the other walk on the abandoned railroad tracks on our last visit.   

It was a two kilometre walk to Two Bridges, where the trail to Wistman's Wood started. 

The beginning of the trail. Doesn't it look like it goes to Faerie?

Wistman's Wood is hundreds of years old. If you've been to Dartmoor you know that a lot of it is open moorland, and the sheep and Dartmoor ponies grazing and the long history of farming in the area have affected its ecology. This old wood probably survived because it's growing in rocky ground unsuitable for farming. 

The mossy trees do feel a bit ghostly, so I wasn't surprised to find out that there were legends about the wood. It is said that when darkness falls the devil's wisthounds hunt unweary travellers and drive them deeper into the woods never to be seen again.

Here's a poem V.I. Phillips wrote about the Wood:

Wistman's Wood

There's eeriness in Wistman's Wood,

Where stealthy shadows slowly creep

About the boles of moaning trees.

There's terror where the foaming stream

Streaks all the gorge with ghostly light,

And creaking willows toss their arms

Naked and lean against the flood.

There's mourning on the bleak hillside,

And grief in sodden cotton grass

Black bogs, and peewits fluttering.

There's mystery in great grim tors

All silent in the sobbing rain

Where in the shade of Windy Post

A whist hound's baying to the moon.

And yet the wailing wind is dear-

A child, untamed, of that great clan

Of ling and gorse and granite grey.

One with the old eternal hills,

One with the tender moorland sky,

One with the ancient loneliness

Where peat fires burned and loved ones lie.

V. I . Phillips

source: http://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/wist_verse.htm

Adventures in England Part 2: Tintagel, Portsmouth, and Downton Abbey

Here's part two of my travel journal.  You can read part one here.

I've wanted to visit Tintagel Castle ever since I read Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon. We has to take a train and two buses to get there, but it was worth it. This was the only sunny day of our trip, which made the day even more special. A word of warning: you need to climb a lot of stairs to get up to the castle, so take that into account if you're going. (Not a good place to go if you suffer from knee pain or arthritis. The only way down is those same stairs.)

There's not much left of the castle, but if you're like me, your imagination will fill in the rest.

Look at that view! The water was a gorgeous turquoise colour. 

This is Merlin's Cave, called that because of the stories that the sorcerer lived there once upon a time. It's not part of the official Tintagel site, so you can go see it for free if you don't want to climb up to the castle. It's mostly underwater at high tide, but you can walk through it at low tide. I got extra chills from this, because it reminded me of Susan Cooper's Over Sea, Under Stone, the first book in her The Dark is Rising series, a favourite of mine when growing up. 

Here's Portsmouth, which we used as a base to explore the surrounding area. I loved the old Victorian buildings here. 

This is the marina, with a super creepy statue of a Deep One, or something. Shadow over Portsmouth, anyone?

This is Highclere Castle, or Downton Abbey, as it's better known to fans of the series. Arriving at the castle was a surreal experience, like we were stepping into the TV show. They didn't allow photography inside, but it was beautiful, exactly what you'd expect it to be, but the building was very much smaller than it looks on TV. 

There was an unexpected Egyptology exhibition in the cellars, because the 5th Earl of Carnarvon discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun with the famous egyptologist Howard Carter in 1922. They had recreated the tomb in there, so it was pretty cool. 

Here's a shot of the farm where Lady Edith goes to visit Marigold. We also visited the village where they filmed the church scenes and the Crawley house scenes, but this post is getting a bit picture-heavy, so I'll end with this one.

Etymology Expeditions: The London Underground

The London Underground is the world's first underground railway. When it opened in 1863 it used steam locomotives and the carriages were gas lit. Can you imagine? It must have been pretty spooky down there. *Takes a break and furiously scribbles half-a-dozen horror story ideas into notebook*

Aaanyway, to get back to the point, I thought I'd try to find out something about the history of the station names, which I find completely fascinating. Let's crack open the ol' Wikipedia, shall we?

Blackfriars goes back to 1317. The word comes from the French frère meaning 'brother', from the Dominican friars and their black robes. Their priory was located in the area that's called Blackfriars nowadays.

Elephant&Castle. This one was a bit of a bummer. The name is derived from an old coaching in of that name. I did stumble on a fun tidbit in the coaching inn article on Wikipedia: "The Cock" and "The Bull" were two famous coaching inns along the old Roman road, where many tired travellers had a few pints and told tall tales. Thus we get the term "cock-and-bull story." Another origin might be a reference to Aesop's fables, and then the inns could have taken their names from the expression, maybe to encourage people to tell tall tales in their establishments.

Marylebone. The name comes from a parish church dedicated to St Mary, which was built on the bank of a small stream or "bourne," called Tyburn or Tybourne. So no bones involved at all? Bah!

Ravenscourt got its name from a guy who bought the manor and estate in the area, Thomas Corbett, who named it that because he had ravens on his coat of arms. (Narcissistic much?) It's also a pun on his name, because corbeau is French for "raven."

Seven Sisters apparently originates from seven elm trees planted in a circle around a walnut tree in an area called Page Green. No one knows exactly why they were planted, but there's some speculation that the place might have been a sacred grove or a pagan place of worship. Nowadays the trees are hornbeam, planted in a ceremony led by five families of seven sisters. That's kind of cool, I think.

Hope you enjoyed that. Do you have a favourite underground station in London? Where does its name come from?


Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackfriars,_London
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaching_inn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marylebone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters,_London

Adventures in England Part 1: Oxford

I just got back from a trip to England, so I thought I'd share some of the highlights with you.

Our first stop was Oxford, one of my favourite places in the entire world. 

I love these lanterns. They had battle-axes on the pole under the lights. 

I thought this was a lovely, picturesque alleyway, and snapped a photo. Then my husband looked it up in our travel guide, and turns out this was where all the ladies of the evening plied their trade in the 1300s. Back then it was called Gropecunt Lane.

Yup.

Seriously.

I sure can pick 'em, right?

Here's the main reason I fell in love with Oxford: the Bodleian, one of the oldest libraries in Europe. We took the tour again, and it's worth it just to get into the old library. The smell of old books is intoxicating. Yes, I'd like to live there. Maybe pull a Phantom of the Opera, and move into the passages below the libraries:) Okay, okay, maybe I'll just write a story, or something. I'm so jealous of the university students, who actually get to use the library and study in the Radliffe Camera.   

We also took a picnic cruise on the river Thames, which went down a length of the Isis, too. Did you know that the name Thames means 'dark water'? The name 'Isis' has nothing to do with the Egyptian goddess, the Oxonians just didn't want the word 'dark' in the name, so they dropped the 'Tham' part. (Originally it was Tamesis, Celtic for dark one according to the online etymology dictionary.)

We also saw Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" performed by the Globe Theatre on tour in the Bodleian Library courtyard. This was kind of funny, because the guide on the tour said that Sir Thomas Bodley, the man who built the library, despised Shakespeare and thought his plays were vulgar and low-brow. (The walls didn't quake or fall down, if you're wondering.)

I found out another fun tidbit about the play. In addition to the pun about 'nothing' and 'noting' (as in gossip), apparently the word "nothing" also referred to a lady's private parts in the 1500s. Oh, Shakespeare, there you go again.

Maybe Sir Bodley had a point?  

Anyway, a wonderful performance, especially the actor playing Benedick was great. I saw the production with David Tennant and thought that no one could do a better job, but this guy came close.