Ravens at High Seat Snow on the ground, sunlight and louring cloud made a magical January day in Borrowdale. We were up amongst the high tarns on a boggy watershed where colourful sphagnum moss was frozen and lichens sculpted with ice. The day was memorable for me because we were surprised to hear music in the wind. I had heard it once before but even so, it's magical. Have you ever heard the Eolian harp whilst walking in the Lake District Fells?
Up here, on the watershed plateau between Bleaberry Fell and High Seat, the vistas are vanished. Sunlight catches a thin layer of ice on a high tarn, its surface pierced with pokes of bogbean, trailing long green cords. There’s solitude and a sense of wilderness up amongst the rocky heather knolls and undulating ground, hollows of blanket bog where water seeps and trickles. Through fresh snow my boots squelch and suck deep in the mire. Soft rough, I call it. Knots of heather might snag and send you sprawling, peat bog might tug at you, but it’s a soft landing..
Listen. A mysterious music, an eerie humming. What can it be? Like an Eolian harp, the fence-wire is tuned to the wind. It’s magical. Place a finger on the wire and the vibration is stilled, the music silenced.
Looking back toward Bleaberry Fell the bogbean tarn is still visible, if you know where to look in the picture, west of the singing fence.
Follow the song all the way up to High Seat where the cairn catches the wind.High Seat belongs to the ravens. The pair circle about the rocky knoll croaking, folding their wings and falling through the air. Waiting to reclaim their look-out post. There was billowing depths of dynamic cloud, louring and pierced with blue.
Next day, once again, I read Coleridge’s poem, The Eolian Harp. Placed in a casement, the stringed instrument makes music in the breeze.
‘Such a soft floating witchery of sound
As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy Land.’
Imagine such music on a January day in the fells, the surprise and mystery of it. A witchery of sound and magical light.
I told Brian Bowness. The Eolian harp is an effect I’ve rarely heard, and so the more remarkable.
‘On the far side of the moon they have it regular.’
I may have laughed, but he has poetry. He runs with the far side of the moon motif. He’s willing to hear the music of the spheres, to credit marvels.
Listen. A mysterious music, an eerie humming. What can it be? Like an Eolian harp, the fence-wire is tuned to the wind. It’s magical. Place a finger on the wire and the vibration is stilled, the music silenced.
Looking back toward Bleaberry Fell the bogbean tarn is still visible, if you know where to look in the picture, west of the singing fence.
Follow the song all the way up to High Seat where the cairn catches the wind.High Seat belongs to the ravens. The pair circle about the rocky knoll croaking, folding their wings and falling through the air. Waiting to reclaim their look-out post. There was billowing depths of dynamic cloud, louring and pierced with blue.
Next day, once again, I read Coleridge’s poem, The Eolian Harp. Placed in a casement, the stringed instrument makes music in the breeze.
‘Such a soft floating witchery of sound
As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy Land.’
Imagine such music on a January day in the fells, the surprise and mystery of it. A witchery of sound and magical light.
I told Brian Bowness. The Eolian harp is an effect I’ve rarely heard, and so the more remarkable.
‘On the far side of the moon they have it regular.’
I may have laughed, but he has poetry. He runs with the far side of the moon motif. He’s willing to hear the music of the spheres, to credit marvels.
As we left the snow the fell-side was rich in mosses and lichens.
Next time I heard the Eolian harp I was on the Smardale Ghyll Viaduct. You'll find this episode in my new book, Cumbrian Contrasts.
Next time I heard the Eolian harp I was on the Smardale Ghyll Viaduct. You'll find this episode in my new book, Cumbrian Contrasts.
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