An Unkindness for Halloween

And so to Mother Shipton's Cave in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, where I've been meaning to go for a long time.  It turns out that Halloween is a great time to visit, because the staff dress up and there are lots of hammy mannequins positioned around the woods which aren't in the least bit creepy until you forget they're there and then suddenly glimpse them and jump.

First though, lunch in the pub over the road - The World's End, so called because Mother Shipton, a witch and prophet who, we are told, lived here in the 15th and 16th centuries, declared the world would end if the bridge over the River Nidd fell for a third time.  (So far, it's happened twice.)

Unlike Daughter the Elder, I'm not a massive fan of kitsch, but there was plenty during the woodland walk to the Cave and Dropping Well to interest me. 

Like some altogether more tasteful carvings made from those much prized beech trees which have had to be felled owing to disease ... 

 ... and Igraine and George Skelton, keeper of the ravens at nearby Knaresborough Castle. Along with two of their charges.  

 

Although I've often heard - then seen - ravens flying overhead on Dartmoor and in Wales - and even over our local park in Bristol the other day - and have been moved to write several poems as a result, I've rarely had the chance to get that close to one before, and I was stunned by the hugeness of its presence.  It was like being next to a sizeable dog. 

 

 

This raven is called Izabella. Here's Graine telling her story in an excerpt from a documentary video by David Steans. 

 

Also present was this little chap, which I took for an oversized relative of the magpie from a distance, but who is, in fact, a crow-sized African Pied Raven, named Mourdour after the necromancer in Ivanhoe. 

  

It was very touching to see the close relationship between Igraine and her birds, and when she told of how one of her other ravens, HM Gabriel, had been found dead a month back, we all got rather tearful. 

Here's Daughter the Elder with HM Gabriel back in August, conjoined with a photo of my grandmother, Hilda Hill, because they are so alike.
 

Then it was time for Mother Shipton's Cave and the famous Dropping Well, the waters of which are so high in minerals that they petrify everything that is left there.  This makes for some rather eerie, nay positively Gothick sights. 

 

Then it was off to make a wish in the well - dip your right hand in water and keep it there while you make a wish but don't tell anyone and be sure not to wish for money - oh why not! - or harm to befall another and when you take your hand out, don't wipe it on anything but let it dry by itself - and to view the cave where the decidedly unbonny Ursula Southeil aka Mother Shipton is reputed to have been born to a very young, unmarried mother, banished from the town for not divulging the name of her baby's father, in 1488. 

I'm not sure what to make of the phenomenon that is Mother Shipton. It's tempting to see it as simply a very early manifestation of the tourist industry, but the story feels far far older than that to me. 

I kind of like the poetry of what are alleged to be her prophecies:

Then upside down the world shall be

And gold found at the root of tree

All England’s sons that plough the land

Shall oft be seen with Book in hand 

The poor shall now great wisdom know 

Great houses stand in far flung vale 

All covered o’er with snow and hail.

Time to walk back along the river - all Klimtian with the last of the sun, reflecting the pink cliff on the opposite bank, atop which stands the remains of the Castle - to be visited another day.

 

 

Halloween on Dartmoor

A late gig followed by a 5am wake up call and I found myself heading to Devon without my lovely anti-arthritis pillow and, more alarmingly, my extensive library of Dartmoor walking books.  'Never mind,' said my companion, 'you can buy one in the Tourist Information Centre in Postbridge'.  Except that when we got there, I discovered that I already owned all of them and baulked at paying £8 for a duplicate.  So we'd be making it up as we went along.  

First, though, a coffee in the East Dart Hotel and a visit to the bridges over a rather full looking river ... 

... and the pleasure of a chance encounter with copies of my novel, Dart, on sale in the post office, right in the middle of the moor and a few miles from where the story is set, in Hexworthy. (Apparently it's been a bit of a best seller in Postbridge this year.)

Then on up the road for a couple of miles where we parked near the pub and set out over Water Hill, which soon turned out to be very well named.  

Sloshiness notwithstanding, there were some grand views in all directions, back the way we'd come (such colours!) ... 

... and looking ahead to Meldon Hill near Chagford. 

 And given that the walk was of an ad hoc nature, it was great to come across the standing stone and very well preserved double stone row on Hurston Ridge.  

The top end of the stone row.

The end stone.

We headed for the drift lane past Metherall on the edge of Fernworthy Forest, the general murkiness of the day proving to be quite photogenic.  

After stopping for a time to watch a kestrel hovering against a background of darkly dripping conifers, we headed down the lane off the moor, Meldon Hill now less than a mile away.  

Then we mountaineered over a stile and negotiated the signposting around Lower and Higher Shapley, before heading back up onto the moor at Hurston.  

At times it was quite hair-raising with fields of cows to cross with Ted (Ted does not like cows) and paths that were more like rivers, complete with waterfalls.  It would appear to have rained a lot on Dartmoor lately.  

Back on the moor we leapt Hurston Water in a feat of derring-do, only to discover that the swollen stream was flowing right alongside the wall below the aptly named Lakeland and we had to cross back over again.  

Eventually we managed to cross it for a third time and gain some higher, drier ground.  

It was a bit rainy from time to time but still very beautiful in a wuthering sort of way.  

We hit the road at  Bennett's Cross, which dates from the 13th century and is one of my favourites.

 View of Cosdon Hill and Kestor Rock.   

And then up ahead loomed the welcome sight of the pub, the third highest - and reputedly the loneliest - in England.  

It being Halloween, we were relieved to see that despite having a spiffy new pub sign, it still goes by its old familiar name of the Warren House Inn, rather than the Slaughtered Lamb.   

Let's take a closer look ... ah yes, the Three Hares. Welcome to Dartmoor!