30 November, the flying rowan of Gurnall Dubbs An icy north wind resounded through Craggy Wood. A pure light from the north and a low sun highlighting landscape features in a late-November signature: stone walls and outcropping rock illuminated. Long shadows creating a drama of their own.
The waters of Gurnall Dubbs reflected an intense blue in a clear, blue sky. Along the shore we looked out for the flying rowan, a flogron of magic properties. A flying rowan has its roots neither in earth nor heaven, but suspended between realms. This flying rowan grows in the cleft of a glacial erratic and today the strong sunlight gleams on its bark and its poll of fine branches. And an old nest. Imagine the brood of nestlings hatched in a tree of super-magic.
A flogron, the flying rowan of Norse mythology. So what's the story, I'm asked.
The waters of Gurnall Dubbs reflected an intense blue in a clear, blue sky. Along the shore we looked out for the flying rowan, a flogron of magic properties. A flying rowan has its roots neither in earth nor heaven, but suspended between realms. This flying rowan grows in the cleft of a glacial erratic and today the strong sunlight gleams on its bark and its poll of fine branches. And an old nest. Imagine the brood of nestlings hatched in a tree of super-magic.
A flogron, the flying rowan of Norse mythology. So what's the story, I'm asked.
Not enough to share a flying rowan with a nest in its branches, I'm asked for a myth to accompany the tree. So whose might the nest be? A raven perhaps. Hugin or Mugin, the ravens of Odin. Not enough, what's the myth, a friend insists. He wants the story. So I'll give it some thought.
A day of clarity and wondrous light, and a blast on Potter Fell. Heather lashed to and fro in a wind that tried to topple us. The low sun hid patches of ice and we lurched through heather, sinking into soft boggy ground and having to yank out walking poles. The trackless terrain was exhausting and it was a relief to reach grassy turf with something resembling a track, and frozen ground. No one stopped to take photographs until we came together at the trig point on Brunt Knott. You can't see the wind but you can tell from the way we have hoods fastened close about our faces that it was fierce and freezing. I like the ghost-photographs in shadow.
I love that cold, northern sunlight of intense blue through to icy chill that is the backdrop to the rowan tree. And the way the strong light picks out old ways, stone walls and glimmer crag- intensifying our seeing. There are elemental forces on the loose today, the fierce cold and the wild wind. Each of us withdrawn into our hoods and striving to battle the wind. From time to time we gather to regroup and charge our sense of camaraderie- we'll remember this day. The coldest day of the year, with snow in the east and on the distant Lake District fells.
A challenging walk because of the wind. And a challenge to come up with a story: the myth of the Gurnall Dubbs flogron.
I love that cold, northern sunlight of intense blue through to icy chill that is the backdrop to the rowan tree. And the way the strong light picks out old ways, stone walls and glimmer crag- intensifying our seeing. There are elemental forces on the loose today, the fierce cold and the wild wind. Each of us withdrawn into our hoods and striving to battle the wind. From time to time we gather to regroup and charge our sense of camaraderie- we'll remember this day. The coldest day of the year, with snow in the east and on the distant Lake District fells.
A challenging walk because of the wind. And a challenge to come up with a story: the myth of the Gurnall Dubbs flogron.
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