Sunday 17 March 2024

A miniature world

I was walking the dog yesteday and as I passed by the old barn that acts as the village council building I spotted a concrete and aggregate bollard that Nature is slowly overhelming.

Photographed from above it looked like a miniature green world.

Life finds a way.


 

Saturday 16 March 2024

An encounter with a Red Kite

Red Kites are big birds of prey. And, around this area of the Chiltern Hills, they're as common as pigeons. To what can we attribute their success? Well, for starters, they're not really hunters like their cousins the buzzard, the sparrowhawk and the kestrel. They're scavengers, which is why you'll see hordes of them following the plough on farmers' fields. Worms are easy pickings. And the recent heavy rains and saturated soil has brought thousands to the surface this past week and the Kites have had a feeding frenzy. There's also the fact that the Thames Valley has more motorway than any other region in the country including the M1, M4, M40 and M25. That's a lot of carrion. 

If you want a good view of Red Kites, simply throw a broken up chicken carcase into your garden. It'll take them a while to build up the courage to retrieve it - they're quite cowardly for such a big bird - but once one does it, they'll all come down. I took these photos through my kitchen window about six years ago.










Wednesday 13 March 2024

Return of the Monoliths

The inaccurately named monoliths are back! Well, one is anyway.

This one has turned up on a hill in Wales.


The silver structure was spotted by walkers on Hay Bluff, near the town of Hay-on-Wye on the weekend. Sprouting up out of the mud and measuring about 10ft (3m) tall, its discovery has led many to take to social media to question who put it there and why. 

Local builder Craig Muir said he was "taken aback" when he spotted what he assumed was "some sort of a UFO" while out hiking. "It seemed like a very fine metallic almost like a surgical steel," he said, describing the monolith, a large single upright block usually made of stone."It looked perfectly levelled and steady, despite the weather being windy." 

Since there is no way to drive up to the top of the hill, Mr Muir suggested it could have been taken there by a group of people or dropped into position from a helicopter. "It didn't seem like it was chucked in there, instead it has been accurately put in the ground," he said. "However, there were no obvious tracks around it and one would think that something like that would cause a lot of mess."

I'm sure you all remember 'Monolith Mania' back in 2020 during lockdown when these things were popping up everywhere. In November 2020, a monolith was spotted by people aboard a helicopter in the remote Utah desert in the USA, before disappearing days later.

A few days later, another monolith appeared on the Isle of Wight. Similar structures then popped up in Cornwall, and a few isolated parts of Europe. One even popped up on top of Glastonbury Tor, an area steeped in Celtic mythology, inscribed with the words "Not Banksy" on the side. In total over 200 monoliths appeared around the world - there's a full list of all sightings on this Wikipedia page.

Oh, and why did I say 'inacurately named'? Because the word monolith means 'single stone'. These are man-made artefacts (no, not alien!) and they're made of metal. If you want to see a real monolith, go to Rudston (see here).


Wednesday 6 March 2024

Musings on a Nation

Yesterday I celebrated St Piran's Day - Cornwall's national day of identity. All the Celtic nations are proud to celebrate their patron saints' days. But why not England and St George?

Here's a new - and somewhat philosophical - dog walk video where I muse on this very subject.




Tuesday 5 March 2024

Happy St Piran's Day! Gool Peran Lowen!

My video from last March 5th.

Have a great day!


I celebrated in suitably gluttonous fashion.






Monday 4 March 2024

When is a Monarch not a Monarch?

Here are some interesting facts about stags and their antlers. 

The normal maximum number of points on a stag’s antlers is around 12-14. Any stag with 12 is known as a ‘Royal’ and a 14 pointer is called an ‘Imperial’. Anything over 16 points is a ‘Monarch’. 

So now you know why Landseer’s Monarch of the Glen painting is so named ... although, weirdly the painting only shows 12 points.


Hunters have developed lots of terms for the various antler parts. Here they are starting from the skull and moving upwards: 

  • Beam – Central stem of the antler. 
  • Burr – Bony rim of the pedicle. 
  • Brow Tine – The point at which the first antler branches off. 
  • Bay/Bez Tine – The second branching-off point. 
  • Tray/Trez Tine – The third branching-off mark. 
  • Sur Royal Tine – Fourth branch on a separate tine of a deer’s antler. 
  • Fork – End of the antler that forks out into two tines. 
  • Palm – Usually used to discuss moose, this refers to the end of the antler that spreads out, resembling a human hand. 
  • Crown – The top tine on the deer’s antlers. 

These definitions explain the layout of deer antlers. Some other terms used to describe the state of the antlers. They include: 

  • Rack – This term refers to the complete set of antlers; racks are usually typical or non-typical. 
  • Abnormal tine – This is a tine that grows off another tine instead of off the main beam. 
  • Typical – This adjective refers to a rack that has all its tines growing upward with no abnormal tines.  
  • Non-typical – Refers to a rack that has one or more abnormal tines, or tines that grow off another tine instead of the existing beam. 
  • Drop tine – This phrase describes a tine that is growing at a downward angle. 
  • Kicker point – An abnormal tine that grows from the burr, near the pedicle. 

So now you know.


Thursday 29 February 2024

A Leap Blogpost

This content is lifted directly from a feature at Tradfolk - see the original here.

The concept of a leap year has ancient roots, dating back to a time when early civilizations struggled to align their lunar or lunisolar calendars with the solar year. The Decree of Canopus (238 BC) suggests that Ptolemy III had thoughts about adding an extra day into the year every four years to celebrate his own deification, an idea swiftly shouted down by the Egyptian priests. A few hundred years later, the Julian calendar, implemented by Julius Caesar in 46 BCE, established the 365-day year with a leap year occurring every four years (just to balance things out a bit). Theoretically speaking, leap years exist to maintain synchronisation between the calendar year and the astronomical year, compensating for the roughly 0.25-day difference between the two. Without this adjustment, seasonal shifts would gradually occur, leading to significant discrepancies in agricultural cycles and celestial events. However, as Steve Roud points out in The English Year, “this is not really accurate enough, which is why centennial years are only leap years if they are divisible by 400 (e.g., the year 1900 was not a leap year, but 2000 was).” 

Across cultures worldwide, leap years have inspired a myriad of customs and traditions, ranging from the whimsical to the practical. (Actually, we take that back. It’s nuts, the lot of it). Perhaps the most famous leap year tradition is the concept of women proposing to men on the 29th of February. Legend has it that this tradition originated in 5th century Ireland when St. Bridget complained to St. Patrick about women having to wait too long for men to propose. As a result, St. Patrick designated February 29th as a day when women could take matters into their own hands. Known as “the ladies’ privilege”, you’ll be unsurprised to learn that there is no concrete evidence for its origin. Furthermore, the notion that it became a Scottish law in the 12th century appears to be pure myth, as is the idea that any man turning down a woman’s proposal was subject to a £100 penalty. The rules are even more fanciful once we get into supposed English tradition, where it was believed that a woman could only propose to a man if she was wearing a red petticoat, and that any man rejecting her had to hand over a new silk gown. By 1710, the author of The Arbiter of Polite Comportment wrote that, “Ladies have a full and absolute license to propose marriage to single gentlemen on February 29th: and if the gentleman is so rude as to refuse, he is infallibly bound to give the spurned lady a present, which is usually a new pair of gloves on Easter Day.” So, you know… horses for courses. 


The romance of a female-proposed marriage aside, tradition seems to dictate that not much good can come of a leap year. In Scotland (again) it was believed that leaplings (babies born in a leap year) would only experience a life of hardship, or, at the very least, “a year of untold suffering”. Much the same fortune could be expected for a German or Greek child, but there was a better outlook if you were born in Anthony, Texas (“The Leap Year Capital of the World“), where a three-day festival continues to take place every four years, between February 29th and March 2nd, celebrating (you guessed it) all things leap year-ish. This includes a meal for leaplings (“closed to the public” – what on earth do they get up to in there?), lots of music, entertainment and food. Notable by its absence: untold suffering. So it’s a merry leap year to one and all after all. Leap year superstitions Back in Scotland, Greece and Germany (but mainly Scotland), a belief proliferated that marriages taking place in a leap year would end in divorce or perhaps even the death of a spouse, although which spouse isn’t clear. Neni Panourgiá, in Fragments of Death, Fables of Identity, went so far as to rule out starting anything new during these lengthened 12 months. Might as well stay in bed… …unless you’re a gardener, in which case you’ll be out checking that your broad beans haven’t grown “the wrong way”. As T F Thiselton Dyer wrote in English Folklore (1828), “It is a common notion that in leap year broad beans grow the wrong way – that is, the seed is set in the pods in quite the contrary way to what it is the other years. The reason of this is, ‘because it is the ladies’ year; they [the beans] always lay the wrong way in leap year”. Who needs science when T F Thiselton Dyer’s about? 

Before we leave the world of superstitions entirely, one last visit back to Scotland, where Robert Chambers conceded in Popular Rhymes Of Scotland (1826) that, “On the whole, there is a prejudice against February in the Scottish mind” (and if that doesn’t make the perfect t-shirt slogan, we don’t know what will). Chambers signed off with a profound little couplet from the agricultural people of Peebleshire and Selkirkshire: Leap Year Was never a good sheep year. Consider yourself told. 

Given the hold that this auspicious occasion had over the romantic and agricultural lives of our ancestors, it’s rather a disappointment to find that there are a mere 21 references to leap year in the Roud Index. Traditional song titles include ‘The Leap Year Ladies’, ‘Won’t You Hail the Leap Year’ and ‘The Maiden’s Complaint’. Unsurprisingly, most of these are housed in tomes with titles such as Pete Morris’ American Comic Melodist (1857), Monstrous Droll Songs (1796) and Moncrieff’s Comic Songs (1845). Alas, gems are not in abundance. Most of the traditional leap year songs are as “monstrous droll” as you might imagine. Since we happen to have a copy of Cole’s Funniest Song Book in the World (1890) here on the Tradfolk bookshelf, we’re able to close this admittedly flimsy article on a typically hysterical note. Hold your sides. They may just split. 

Leap Year (circa 1890) 

Nice room, Easy chair, Old Bach Sitting there 

 Old Bach Begins to snore, gentle rap at the door 

 Enter maid, rather old, with a look of Love untold 

 Converse a while, this and that, close by him Old maid sat 

 Soon she talked Sentimental, he didn’t care – Continental 

 She got mad, gegan to cry, other tactics she thought she’d try 

 Years you’ve called every night, as if you had perfect right 

 Why you came goodness knows, never once did you propose 

 Now ’tis Leap Year by heaven above I shall tell you of my love 

 Then there was an awful crash - he had leaped through the sash 

 Funeral next day At eleven, Old Bach Safe in heaven 


The information in our Customs Uncovered series comes from several books, most commonly The English Year (Steve Roud, 2006), and The Stations of the Sun (Ronald Hutton, 1996).