Rooks and castles, Knights and kings.

At last, a warm day and a chance to do a bit of aimless stravaiging about  the countryside to see what turns up.   A toss of a coin to decide north or south, a quick scan of the local map and a short car journey through the back roads of East Lothian had me at Crowhill above the Thornton nature reserve, a steep ravine of very ancient woodland.

 Apparently, there are indicator species that give some idea of the age of a wood, as they spread at a fairly steady rate year on year.  Two are ransomes or wild garlic and dog’s mercury.   They flourish in abundance in Thornton Dean so the woods must be very old.

Dog's mercury

Ransomes

The crows still dominate the skies around Crowhill, nothing changes for them.  The rooks cawed with proprietoral indignation as I followed the path up the glen beneath their nests

 Two castles once stood on either side of the ravine. Innerwick, a Stewart and later, Hamilton, stronghold and Thornton occupied by who else in this part of the world but the Homes.    It must have been like a scene out of a Grimm fairy tale or Gulliver’s Travels, two castles, within shouting distance of each other, separated by a deep gully and a burn

Both were attacked by Harry “Hotspur” Percy and his erstwhile prisoner and subsequent confederate, Archibald, Earl of Douglas in a scenario straight out of Shakespeare’s Henry IV as they tried to lure the king’s forces north while they slipped south to ally themselves with the Welsh forces of Owen Glendower.  All came to naught at the battle of Shrewsbury.

A hundred and forty odd years later, the redoubts were attacked again in  “the Rough Wooing” of  Henry VII and Thornton was completely razed.  There is now not a trace to be seen.  Some of the stones may have been used to repair Innerwick, though it never achieved any significance again.  The rest probably went to build dykes and cottages.

Standing on a rocky crag, there is still an air of romance around the ruins of the castle with vaulted chambers,  tunnel -like entrance passages with little guard rooms off.,the remains of a tower that has a few of the spiral steps remaining...

It is a pity it has been allowed to deteriorate so far and no effort made to restrict the dense ivy threatening to envelope the whole edifice.

Just as I was leaving, I notice a fragment of oyster shell.  Part of a medieval banquet?   Possibly it came from the shells burnt to produce lime for mortar or, more likely, it had been used as packing in a line of masonry in the same way that a modern kitchen fitter will use a sliver of wood to get the units aligned..

A castle well worth a visit.

 I will never be able to hear Henry IV compare the bold Henry Hotspur favourably to his own son, the wastrel prince Henry, pal of Falstaff., yet, in the same speech, wonder why Hotspur hasn’t given up his Scots prisoner to his king, without thinking of the ruse the pair had tried at Innerwick.

“ ..In envy that my Lord Northumberland

should be the father to so blest a son….

….Then I would have his Harry and he mine

… What think you, coz

Of this young Percy’s pride?    The prisoners

 To his own use he keeps; and sends me word

 I shall have none…..”

Hotspur was busy hatching rebellion and the feint attack on Innerwick castle was to be his first move

The prodigal Prince Hal made his father proud by defeating the rebels and killing Hotspur but the wily Douglas managed live to fight another day

.

“Go to the Douglas and deliver him

 up to his pleasure ransomeless and free”

  Ever the canny Scot. 

April is the cruellest month

It’s been a slow, slow spring. The cold east wind and the snow have proved a death knell to many lambs, disheartening for the local farmers and stretching their resourcefulness to the limit. The cold weather may be responsible for the dead puffins and guillemots coming ashore.  Maybe the sand eels are not there for feeding.  It bodes ill for the breeding season.

The wind has swung round an airt to the south and temperatures have risen but only with the loss of the drying effect of the wind as more rain comes in from the Atlantic.

Species are resilient however and the primroses and coltsfoot – what is the plural?  coltsfeet? -  are blooming on the sea braes and even a brave cowslip was testing the force of the blast.     

Scurvy grass is out.    Full of vitamin C it is, as its name suggests, a good anti-scorbutic and was used well into the nineteenth century until the availability of citrus fruits made it redundant.

It has a peppery taste more powerful than the rest of its crucifer cousins and would make a piquant addition to a salad but, despite W.S.’s  submission that names don’t matter and roses smell just as sweet etc., a menu with  “ garnished with scurvy grass” doesn’t have quite the same ring as with “rocket and watercress”. 

 Scurvy grass’s time in the limelight is past, replaced by a fizzy tablet

The celandine is in flower. Named after the swallow with whose arrival it is supposed to coincide; it is always earlier than those delightful harbingers of summer.  None are here yet but within a week they will come swooping in, helped by the southerly winds.   It is indeed an ill wind that blows no good.

While the swallows haven’t arrived yet, the goldeneye should be left for the north.  A pair on a local river must think it’s still winter.  An easy mistake to make.   Some do breed in Scotland, but in the Highlands, not here….or perhaps they are going to start.   Why fly off to Russia when you can enjoy the same weather here

Dublin

A trip to Dublin is always a treat for a Joycean.  Best is 16^th June but any time will do.

Just to wander in the footsteps of Bloom and Dedalus is distraction enough while LotH is off to Grafton and Henry Streets to try and rescue the Irish economy single-handedly.

We stayed at Dalkey with superb views over Sandycove and Dublin Bay, at the top of the hill where Joyce taught at Clifton School. 

 Dublin Bay with the Martello tower in foreground

To climb the narrow winding stair of the Martello tower is to hear Buck Mulligan’s voice from the gun emplacement.

“Come up Kinch. You fearful Jesuit”

 A quick trip on the DART train took us to the heart of Dublin and shoe leather did the rest.

 

To visit Sweney’s chemist shop and buy  lemon scented soap, pause at the National Library before taking coffee at Bewley’s on Grafton Street just by Thornton’s where Blazes Boylan bought peaches and pears for Molly…..Grand stuff.

A diversion to St Stephen’s cathedral allowed me to pay homage to Jonathon Swift whose jaundiced view of humanity belied his deeply held beliefs and quiet charity.

Returning home and reading Milo O’Shea’s obituary in The Times brought another Joycean trip but this time down the years.

In 1968, we boarded a bus to the next city to see a film banned by the local council.

“Ulysses” had suffered more cuts than a Chinese torture victim and continuity, always a difficulty with Joyce, was almost lost but, to this day, Leopold Bloom has Milo O’Shea’s face and I could never see T.P.Mckenna on television, usually playing a doctor, without hearing him intoning

“Introibus ad altare Dei”

over his shaving bowl on the parapet of the Martello tower above the “snot-green sea”.

 

 LotH is keen for a return trip.  There must be at least one shop left unpatronised, so, hopefully, it will be June16th, 2014….but it will still be Milo O’Shea having a glass of Burgundy and gorgonzola in Davy Byrne’s pub and picking over the book stalls at Merchants Arch.

The ineluctable modality of the memory!!

  Merchants Arch








Night-town but never as J.J. knew it!