education

PUPILS' WORK

Introduction
Thomas Hardy's Novels
Defence of Georgette Heyer
TS Eliot's 'The Waste Land'
A Story
Some Poems
Keeping Mallard Ducks
Designing a solar-powered oven
A Water-Collecting Craft
Building a Windmill
The Elderflower

Introduction

I came to Hartland in 1983 at the invitation of Satish Kumar and other parents of children at the Small School to run it. The school, which takes pupils aged 11-16, had started the previous year and had met some difficulties. I was excited by the challenge of providing a broad and balanced curriculum with very limited resources. I wrote an account of the early years in 'Inventing a School'. I also gave a lecture in many parts of the country, 'Schools for tomorrow...as if children matter' available above for download as a PDF file.

I have recently (July 2009) become Chairman of Trustees of the Small School and back teaching English frrom September 2009.

One of the exciting things about running the school was seeing what pupils could achieve when the curriculum was geared to their own particular needs. What follows are some examples of the work that was produced. As you read, remember these were pieces written by 14 and 15-year-olds for GCSE.

Does how depressing Thomas Hardy’s novels are
depend on when he wrote them?

Claire Sharp

Thomas Hardy was a poet and a novelist, living between the years 1840 and 1928. He was born in Dorset, and when writing his novels he uses his knowledge of Wessex to give wonderfully detailed descriptions of the countryside.

Writers often say that they only invent characters, who then take control over what happens in the rest of the book. It has been said that what happens after the characters take control reflects what is in the author’s subconscious. Thus it is not surprising that, after having written Jude the Obscure, a depressing book, described as ‘a deadly war waged between flesh and spirit and to point to the tragedy of unfulfilled aims’, Thomas Hardy became frightened to write more novels, and so turned to poetry.

In this essay I am going to study some of Thomas Hardy’s novels in order to see if there is a relationship between how depressing the book is and when it was written. If I find that the later the book was written the more depressing it is, and the change of mood within the book is a gradual thing, then the probability is that the next one would be even more depressing. However, if there is no relationship and the depression factor of a book cannot be predicted from the date of its writing, then they are random.

I am going to study the five novels listed below (with the year in which they were first published):

Under the Greenwood Tree, 1872
The Trumpet Major, 1880
The Mayor of Casterbridge, 1886
Tess of the d’Urbervilles, 1891
Jude the Obscure, 1895

The story lines of Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure are quite similar. Both Tess and Jude have children that die or, in Jude’s case, kill themselves. They both marry but are soon deserted by their consorts. Both become as good as married to other people until things go wrong, at which point they both go back to their original partners. At the ends of these books both Tess and Jude die. Although both deaths are tragic, Tess’s is more bearable because, when she dies, her sins have been forgiven and she is at peace, not dieing because she cannot endure life. With Jude, after his career, love and health have come to fatal ends. Life for him becomes a burden and death a blessing, like the ending of a bad dream. ‘Put an end to a feverish life which ought never to have been begun!’

Under the Greenwood Tree contrasts greatly with both Tess and Jude. It is almost like a fairy tale, telling of Dick Dewy’s endeavours to gain Fancy Day’s affection, which he does eventually. They marry, and the book ends with the prospect of Dick and Fancy living ‘happily ever after’. ‘Dick and Fancy stand as fair a chance of having a bit of sunsheen as any married pair in the land.’

The Trumpet Major is quite similar to Under the Greenwood Tree, telling of romances and ending in marriage. However, in this novel there are two men in the running for the heroine’s love. These two men are brothers. One is a sailor and the other the Trumpet Major of the title. Although the Trumpet Major is by far the most gentleman-like of the two brothers I, along with the heroine, Anne, prefer the sailor, Bob. The marriage between Anne and Bob is pleasing, but shadowed when Thomas Hardy makes it known that, after the end of the novel, the Trumpet Major is killed in war.

If one could be sympathetic and tolerant towards Henchard throughout his mistakes, in The Mayor of Casterbridge, then one may well hold him in high enough esteem so as to be sad at his death. I lost patience with him after he had sold his wife, dis-employed his best friend from jealousy and been cruel to his daughter-in-law. In my opinion society is better off without him. Just the fact that Henchard could, and did, do these things was enough to make the book depressing. However, the much-desired and happy marriage between his step-daughter and ex-best friend gives great consolation.

Thomas Hardy ended his first book with marriage, his middle books with marriage and death and his last book with just death. It seems that the later a novel was written, the more depressing it is. Thus Under the Greenwood Tree is the least depressing and Jude the Obscure the most.

In these circumstances I think that Thomas Hardy was justified in stopping writing novels. If he had written a novel after Jude the Obscure it would probably be most unbearably depressing.

If a book is depressing it can still be a good novel. Although Jude the Obscure is depressing, it is still worth reading. It just takes longer to do so because one has to be in a mood that can overcome the depression it engenders.

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Defence of the writings of Georgette Heyer

Abi Johns

One of my favourite authors is Georgette Heyer. She writes historical romances (and also detective novels) set for the most part in Regency London. Her favourite author was Jane Austen, and she was greatly influenced by her writing. Consequently, Georgette Heyer has a similar humorous style. 1 have read most of her historical romances, of which she wrote nearly forty. However, I am constantly being teased by my acquaintances for enjoying these books so much. Many of these criticisms come from people who have never read her stories. 1 feel that her works are being condemned by association with cheap romantic fiction. I would therefore like to construct a defence of Georgette Heyer and her novels.

The first point I would like to make is that humour plays a large part in nearly all Georgette  Heyer's  books. Such wit is never, in my experience, seen in the novels of Victoria Holt or Barbara Cartland, who also write historical romances. In Georgette Heyer's books, humour is an integral part of the plot and characters, even in the names.  It is therefore very difficult to find a small passage which is funny without relying too much on knowingthe characters involved. One such passage, from Frederica, is humorous on its own, but does benefit with knowledge of the characters:

"He broke off, perceiving suddenly, and with disfavour, that his Cousin Alverstoke had an arm round Frederica. Revolted by such a betrayal of unmanliness, he bent a disapproving look upon his idol, and demanded:
'Why are you cuddling Frederika, sir?'
'Because we are to be married,' replied his lordship calmly. 'It's obligatory, you know. One is expected to ‑ er ‑ cuddle the lady one is going to marry.’
‘Oh!’ said Felix.'Well, I won't ask  anyone to marry me, if that's what you have to do!'

Another example of her humour is found in the character of Viscount Barham in The Masqueraders. He believes very firmly in his own intelligence, and the funny thing is that he really is amazingly clever!

 'I shall once more contrive. Do not doubt that 1 shall contrive! I am a great man, Therese: 1 realise it at last. 1 am a very great man!'

In writing humorously, Georgette Heyer distracts the reader from the romance ‑ the reader is not totally absorbed in romance, drawing attention to the writing itself. Georgette Heyer's style is more sophisticated than it seems at first. Distancing the reader from the romance makes the reader notice other aspects of the novel ‑ such as the humour ‑ so her style is subtle as well.

Although in each separate story there is not a large amount of character development, from book to book, chronologically, there is quite a significant change in Georgette Heyer's style of writing, In her earlier works, there is a lot of action, and although still funny, they are more romantic, and they have more of a flavour of good winning over evil. They are mostly set in the eighteenth century, such as The Black‑ Moth, (her first novel) These Old Shades and The Masqueraders. Sheset her later novels, for the most part, in the Regency period. Her wit became drier, her stories based themselves more on conversation, not circumstance, and characters became much more realistic. Examples of this progression are: Black Sheep, Frederica, and The Grand Sophy.

Georgette Heyer was a historian, and therefore her stories have a degree of historical accuracy that some other writers cannot achieve. She is mentioned, for her historical novels, in The Oxford Companion to English Literature (which, perhaps I should add, Barbara Cartland is not!) From her descriptions, one can form a fairly accurate picture of the fashions, settings, and opinions of the higher classes of the time. This being said, she does not teach about history. Her novels aim to amuse.

I think part of the reason for the criticisms of popular fiction is that such works are taken far too seriously. Georgette Heyer's novels are not serious and deeply meaningful, they are light, witty and amusing. However, some novelists make themselves out to be serious and meaningful, and only succeed in being boring. They try to be what they aren't. Jane Austen criticized this aspect of the Gothic novel in Northanger Abbev. Even as they put themselves, as novelists, down, writers of Gothic fiction took themselves and their stories very seriously. Comedy in such works was unheard of. In the same way, romantic fiction writers tend to leave out the humour

Romanticizing history is often frowned upon, partly for its popularity. It is mainly women who write it, and women who read it, and lots of them, hence the unfavourable term popular fiction. Is it really better to have some musty volume of precise historic information ‑ read once every blue moon than apaperback embroidery read with enjoyment again and again. I don't think so, and I find the attitude that anything available to the masses is condemned without trial, one of insufferable elitism.

George Eliot, in Middlemarch, has a well‑balanced approach to history. The presentation of the politics of the time would be difficult to take on its own, but is made palatable by the twists of life and romance. Jane Austen does not write of history in events, and is therefore not regarded as a 'historical' writer. Her concern is with the manners and conversation of the period ‑ and Georgette Heyer's later books, such as Black Sheep and Lady of Quality have a tendency towards this style. Georgette Heyer's main historic interest is with fads and fashions, though she does concern herself with wars of the time ‑ especially the battle of Waterloo. In The Spanish Bride, she uses the true story of Harry and Juana Smith to lighten the long wars with France. In An InfamousArmy she relates the story of the Battle of Waterloo based on the viewpoints of real and fictitious characters. I feel that these books are more seriously written than the others, and deal with important issues, while still being a good read. An Infamous Army was laboriously researched, so that right down to the smallest manoeuvres, the battle itself is totally accurate. These books show that Georgette Heyer can be serious when she wants.

My last point is that well‑known phrase: 'Each to his own'. Everyone will obviously have different literary tastes, but perhaps the number of people who share a taste for Georgette Heyer's novels could be thought significant. Surely, if so many people read her books (and more than once, I might add) they must contain some redeeming feature for the eyes of her self‑made critics?

I rest my case, and leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether Georgette Heyer's humorous and light style, and her historical accuracy, exonerate her from criticism. If not, perhaps the reader ought to consider asking Georgette Heyer's many fans for a second opinion.

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T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land

Maya K Mitchell

This poem covers every aspect of poetry that exists. From rhythm to metaphor, everything one looks for in a poem is here in great depth. This means that a traditional study, even if only at GCSE level, would be a great work. Therefore I will be covering only two aspects of the poem.

One of the things I am looking at is the way the themes of Water and Death run continuously through the poem. They are sometimes connected; one section is even called Death by Water, and a fear of that, of drowning, is brought up several times. The opposites are also there: death by thirst ‑ a need of water, and water as a soother, as opposed to a killer.

The second thing I am looking at in this study is Eliot’s use of voices. He uses them in various ways. Sometimes the voice has a name, sometimes a lot of personality, sometimes it tells you nothing, and is there only to personalize the situation. There are lots of different narrators, as well as speakers.

I will do the above in the first part of the essay. My aim is firstly to point out any parts of the poem that I feel contribute to the Death and Water themes; writing about both very obvious uses of  Death and Water, and also very minor pieces that still contribute to the overall effect; and secondly to write about all the voices that are illustrative. There are some whose use I do not understand, such as this from The Fire Sermon:

           "Trams and Dusty trees.
           Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
           Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees ...

As I have very little to say about pieces such as this I will skip them.

The second part of this essay will be about my personal response, and why I was attracted to the poem, here analysing more my reaction to it than the poem itself.

The first piece, The Burial of the Dead, begins with almost each phrase being a thought or recollection. The phrases do not necessarily follow logically on from each other, because thoughts follow in obscure patterns, according to each person’s different outlook on, and experiences of, life. However, there are vague links, as if the writer has been speaking his thoughts, and then been thinking silently for a few moments before continuing aloud. This means that one can be at a loss to understand how something follows on, but several readings makes the mind finally lend itself to explanations. The example I am thinking of is when he is talking about staying at the archduke’s house when he was a child:

           “And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
           My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
           And I was frightened.‑‑‑He said, Marie,
           Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
           In the mountains, there you feel free.”

Note the lack of continuation between the story of the past; ‘...and down we went.’ and the comment, which clearly belongs to the present; ‘In the mountains there you feel free.’ This change, however, can be explained; one imagines him thinking back to flying down a slope on a sled, and the feeling of exhilaration and excitement and awe, and the freedom that brings. He is thinking back, and in his mind’s eye he sees the landscape, the densely dark evergreen conifers, and the pure white of the snow, and he says aloud:

“In the mountains, there you feel free.” This leads on to something more obscure, however, in the shape of:
“I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.” I explain this as him just having thought on the feeling of the mountains, the look of the mountains, the mountain he sees most regularly, what he does there, and thus “I read, much of the night ...”

The Burial of the Dead introduces the death theme slowly, through fairly conventional poetry. In the first part there is some mention of death and water; it rains, lilacs breed out of dead ground, and so although nothing specific is said about either of the two themes, they are there, and just being there, in a piece not at all about them, is an excellent way of showing their intrinsic part of every day life. We may not notice them, but they, unavoidably, do exist, and without them nothing else would. Water is essential to life, and most things thrive on other dead things ‑ the soil is made up of dead plants and leaves, for example, and many animals eat other animals, so one thing’s death is another’s life.

The second piece in this part of the poem is very beautiful, and very poetic; it is one of my favourite parts of the whole poem. It is written in prose‑poetry, and no voices are used.

I have interpreted death being introduced here at the point where he says “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” I think the fear is of death: specifically of a death through thirst, because the dust is dry and waterless. The setting is also dry and sounds like a desert:

                   ...where the sun beats,
                   And the dead tree gives no shelter.. ... no relief,
                   And the dry stone no sound of water ... this red rock ......

This was one of the first parts of the poem that really struck me; the reality of the matter is that a handful of dust is potentially death, and therefore something to be feared. If you are in a waterless desert then that fear is a very real one. So dust, or sand, which is how anything, plant or animal, will end up without water, represents ultimate dryness, dehydration, and death. Alongside this there is also the reference to the Christian funeral ceremony ‘...dust to dust...’ which adds to the reader’s awareness of death.

The next person to really contribute to the themes is having their Tarot cards read. This piece brings up the combined themes of Death by Water, where it is stated plainly that he fears drowning. This is reinforced with his card being ‘1 ... the drowned Phoenician Sailor,’ who is the main character in the fourth, very short, stanza, entitled Death by Water. and a quote from Shakespeare: ‘Those are pearls that were his eyes.’ I think that this fear is also emphasized by:

                                                                            “... I do not find
                   The Hanged Man‑‘
As if lack of the hanged man means there is even more chance of a watery death rather than a land death ‑ this reminds me of The Tempest, where Gonzalo assures himself and others that they will not drown on account of the boatswain’s complexion being ‘perfect gallows’, i.e. that he looks like a man who will die on land: be hanged. If Eliot is using this ‘hanging’ as meaning dying on land, then it makes sense that not finding the hanged man should make him fear death by water.

This person’s actual voice is not heard until the last three lines:

                        “Thank you, if you see dear Mrs Equitone,
                        Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
                        One must be so careful these days.”

The last part of The Burial of the Dead is confronting deaths in war. At first the observer is very vague in one’s mind, he is watching all the dead people from the war ‘flow over London Bridge’ and he merely comments
                                      ...so many,
                   I had not thought death had undone so many.

Then he recognizes someone and stops him, crying out his name, and we hear a cynical, bitter, disturbed and confused speech, and we learn that our narrator is someone who is not at all sure whether his impulse to criticize this repulsive ‘murderer’ is right, or whether he ought to accept and forgive the man, as he himself is in many ways the same person, and no doubt needs to be forgiven and understood. I think he feels that part of the reason he is so repelled by Stetson is because the narrator sees himself in Stetson:
                          ... mon semblable...
                        There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying; ‘Stetson!
                        You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
                        That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
                        Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
                        Or has the sudden frost disturbed it's bed?
                        10 keep the dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
                        Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!
                        You! Hypocrite! lecteur! ‑ mon semblable, ‑ mon frere!’

I notice ships as a connection to Death through Water. In this war one of the main fears for the narrator and Stetson would have been not just being shot, but going overboard, perhaps mid‑fight, and drowning. The
way that the crowd flows over London Bridge also gives a reference to the motion of water.

In A Game of Chess voices are used much more. This piece is divided into three. It contains firstly a relatively straightforward description of a room, then some dialogue, and lastly a story from the bar maid about Lil.

The room, in the first part, sounds like a bedroom or dressing room because of the sort of items in it; jewellery boxes, a mirror, and so on. It feels somehow musty and old, despite mention of the breeze from the window, because this part of the poem is totally filled with the odours and scents of perfumes and powders. In some ways it reminds one of Miss Havisham from Great Expectations, in the way that she lives in such an old, dusty, decrepit house, revoltingly musty as she clings on to what seems to be the very same air that hung about her room on her wedding morning so many years before.

Only in as far as the room is so old and lifeless does this piece deal with death.

The dialogue is a very strange one. It is held between a nervous woman and a very odd, obscure‑thinking person who, though I do not know why, I presume is a man. He is the narrator because he does not speak in inverted commas but he makes no direct statements to the reader, as other narrators do. This adds to his unconventional behaviour.

The woman has lost, or perhaps just never found, meaning in her life. She is very bored, but this is not expressed in a resigned, or even cynical way. Rather, she is agitated, confused and frightened:

                   ‘My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
                   Speak to me ......
                   What is that noise?....
                   What is that noise now?...
And so on. She sometimes feels hope that there is some way out of her situation, and then for a moment she becomes excited and animated before again giving way to despair:

                   ‘What shall I do now? What shall I do?
                   I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
                   With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
                   What shall we ever do?’

Her companion does not appear to be very supportive; his comments are obscure and, when reflected upon, repulsive:

                   ‘I think we are in rats’ alley
                   Where the dead men lost their bones.’

This person also thinks about drowning, repeating what the narrator mentions in the part of The Burial of the Dead when he is reading the Tarot cards. There it says, in brackets, after a mention of the Phoenician sailor:

                   (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)

Here it is used in the following context:
                   ‘Do you remember 
                   Nothing?’
                   ‘I remember Those are pearls that were his eyes.’

 This is, of course, a quotation from Shakespeare's The Tempest, when Ariel is trying to convince Ferdinand that his father has drowned.

This woman is wretched because of her lack of life, because of losing touch with reality, because she has no cares to keep her living. This makes her appeal of ‘ What shall we ever do?’ to the cool and matter of fact, cynical, ‘The hot water at ten ....’ heart-rendering. This anguish is portrayed without comment, or obvious sympathy, but with clarity and insight which compels the reader to understand what she is suffering. Her lonely existence, made almost more lonely by her creepy companion, the agony of boredom and the lack of meaning in her life fills her with dullness which becomes an incurable, heavy ache. And she also has a terror: she is frightened of having nothing to do. She becomes nervous, her room feels claustrophobic because of the powders and perfumes, and this very naturally comes out in her mind as fear, and she is frightened of the slightest sound or movement that she cannot fully explain, as one is when one gets oneself into a nervous state. Her thoughts flit to the wind under the door, and then to strangeness of her companion, and then back to her life, and what it consists of. She has a spark of imagination:

                   ‘I will rush out as I am, and walk the street
                   With my hair down, so.’
but it is so small and insignificant that the moment it is spoken she instantly relapses into the unbearably long future with:

                   ‘What shall we ever do?’

The way this piece ends is very effective in showing the narrowness, the dullness, the impenetrable calmness of their way of life. It is the narrator who is speaking in reply to the woman's last utterance of: ‘'What shall we ever do?’
                      ‘The hot water at ten.
                   And if it rains, a closed car at f our.
                   And we shall play a game of chess,
                   Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.’

Really the pair are waiting for death, and the man acknowledges this, mentioning death twice; ‘...Where the dead men lost their bones.’ and ‘...Those are pearls that were his eyes.’ But the woman is too frightened to think about it so she changes the subject both times. Perhaps ‘the knock upon the door’ at the end is going to be death’s knock.

The last piece in A Game of Chess is the barmaid’s account of a conversation with Lil about Lil’s husband. This piece is written with a cockney accent, and is a fairly simple story, told realistically in the setting of a dingy pub.

Despite a lack of outstanding features it manages successfully to draw one into the situation, with it’s interruptions of ‘HURRY UP PLEASE, IT'S TIME’, and the ‘I said’s, so that one is quite disappoin­ted when one is wished a good‑night after:

      ‘Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
      And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot’

Because the story is left unfinished, and I am interested in it. What I find strange is that a few days ago a similar thing happened to me in a shop; the man in front of me at the counter was explaining to the shop- keeper that he was supposed to be the go‑between for his friend and his friend’s girlfriend. He clearly did not know the shop assistant, because as soon as he had finished his shopping he left without even finishing hissentence. I wonder if Eliot had a similar experience, because before this happened I could not understand at all the likelihood of the barmaid’s listener leaving the pub before the barmaid had finished her story.

The barmaid is quite a vivid character, standing behind her bar, perhaps leaning her plump arms on it from time to time in a conspiratorial manner; ‘(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)’ or nod conspiratorially at her listener’s horrified or amazed expression; ‘... He did, I was there.’ She is someone who believes herself to be much more together and clever than the people around her. It is almost as if she considers herself to be wise, and as such has perfect right to be frank about other people’s affairs. As she says herself, she doesnt ‘mince’ her words, and we need no assurance of that! To her friends she probably, because of this bravery, is most interesting to listen to. I am sure she has stories of personal encounters over the very latest gossip with all of her and her friend’s acquaintances. To me this shows a remarkable skill belonging to Eliot; noting small observances and including them so subtly that they cannot be picked out individually, but as a whole create a very real person and situation.

The Fire Sermon is the third, and longest, section of the poem. It is concerned mainly with the river Thames and connections to it. This is interesting; why use water’s opposite, fire, as a title for a poem about water? I do not have an answer to that. It also relates a tale about a typist’s evening. Most of The Fire Sermon is written without the use of voices. Tiresias is the only narrator, though there is a personless voice whose purpose, as far as I can see, is not explained, and who I have, therefore, not included in this study.

The first piece is softly sad, not gloomy, but gently, beautifully sad. It is not pessimistic or even resigned, just very calm, without regret or anger or despair, without even surprise that ‘...the loitering heirs of City directors; / Departed, have left no addresses.’  There is no room for any of those emotions in the lilting rhythm, there is room only for statements.

The end of this piece, however, leads into the next one with a sharp grating sound, which contrasts heavily with the line before it, which is an extract from a song, and so sets a particular type of mood:

                      ‘Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
                      But at my back the cold blast I hear
                      The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.’

Especially the ‘the’ in front of bones makes the poem change completely from the soothing melody of before to the broken‑up, choppy, and harsher piece to come. It is possible that these two moods in fact reflect the river itself, which changes so many times on its course to the sea.

The second piece, as I have said, is in a very different mood from the first. It introduces a rat to become more distant from, and repulsive to, the reader. Words like ‘gashouse’, ‘wreak’ and ‘king’ are used to keep a balance, so that the more sluggish side of the poem; ‘softly, ‘slimy’, ‘musing’ and ‘vegetation’ is prevented from dominating the feeling. This part is more cynical and brings in the life around the river rather than concentrating only on the river itself.

The fourth piece (I have no comment to make on the third) is the tale of the typist. The scene is related by Tiresias, who is represented here in a sad, resigned, light. He is gently cynical, but one does not feel correctly so. Eliot makes one disagree with Tiresias; the scene is sordid, but not tragic. Perhaps I, as the reader, am supposed to feel this because I have seen so little of life ‑whatever my age I cannot have seen more than a hundred years of life, unlike the ancient, weary, Tiresias who has lived for thousands of years, and who ‘Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest’ and who has ‘...foresuffered all / Enacted on this same divan or bed’. But to me the prevailing atmosphere is definitely that, although the lovely woman has stooped, she has not fallen, or broken. She has a stronger character, and a little false love‑making cannot touch her, either because she is too ignorant, or too intelligent. I suspect the former. Here is a typist, she does not, at the end of the scene, philosophise over the tragedy of the world and of her life, and the lives of all mortals, as Tiresias does, but instead is ‘Hardly aware of her departed lover;’ seeing what happened as a not pleasant but necessary part of life; ‘'Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.’

At the end Carthage is mentioned, and as the name brings the image of the funeral pyre on the coast into our minds the word burning is repeated. This is the first mention of fire in the whole of The Fire Sermon which was mostly about fire’s opposite, water.

The Fire Sermon ends with something that is nowhere else in the poem: a line of one word, beginning with a lowercase letter: burning.

The fourth part of the poem is called Death by Water. It is ten lines long, and all about Phlebas, the drowned Phoenician sailor, mentioned in The Burial of the Dead.

Death and Water unite here, and fear of this ‘death by water’, introduced in The Burial of the Dead, and continued in A Game of Chess, is urged onto sailors –
                    ‘O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
                   Consider Phlebas...’

The fear of death does not stop at dying; it is being dead that is unwanted by Eliot here - the idea of not living, of doing as Phlebas did, he who ‘Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell…’, and even forgetting ‘profit and loss’ is mourned in this context.

This poem also deplores the lack of ceremony over drowning, the way it is treated casually. ‘A fortnight dead’ is saying that there is something not quite right about the way he died. Perhaps it is a rebellion against the power of the elements that they can snatch up any life that they care to take, or even perhaps don’t care to take but will anyway.

One of the clever things in this piece is the motion of the waves in it: each line ends with words whose vowels are drawn out, so it dies in the same way that a wave dies; getting increasingly slower, and finally fading away rather than stopping: ‘...dead, …swell, …loss, ... sea, ... fell, …youth. …whirlpool, ...jew, …windward, ...you.’

The last part of the poem is called What the Thunder Said. It seems to deal mainly with mountains and water. The first part is written without any particular narrator, using ‘one’ where ‘I’ would have been suitable had Eliot wanted to base the poem in a particular person’s mind.

It starts with a piece based on the theme of death. It begins with some sentences commencing with ‘After’, to get the feel of death being after life, after pain, after winter, after spring, after vocal noises.

The second and third pieces are about water, or rather the lack of it. Set on a road winding amongst rocky, sandy, mountains, it is about yearning for water. Life is unbearable in the dryness described: ‘Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit’. It complains: complaining for want of water, and without water at least silence and solitude, but none are given. From the prose‑poetry it goes onto short‑lined poetry, which sounds like breathing, a desperate, whimpering plea, or as films depict really thirsty people on a desert stumbling along and murmuring ‘water, water ...’ or, in this case, ‘...the sound of water only’.

After the above three sections it changes to the first person for one stanza: ‘Who is the third who walks always beside you?’ In the notes Eliot said that this was inspired by hearing a news article about explorers in the Arctic who had felt that there was one more person present in their party than was their actual number. Personally I feel that Eliot could also be talking about death, as, without knowing it, the arctic explorers could have been sensing death’s presence. In the case of this poem I am drawn to feel the possibility of death because the figure is ‘gliding’ and ‘... wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded / I do not know whether as man or a woman’. These all sound to me like descriptions of death.

To set the scene for the ‘Datta, Dayadhvam and Damyata’ section,        three basic Sanskrit words, the river Ganga (in India) and its surroundings are described; the clouds have gathered, the jungle        anticipates the storm, and then the thunder speaks.

What the thunder then says is unspecific. It seems its words are a gift, because the word Da is placed before Datta, Dayadhvam and Damyata’s ‘speeches’, and Da means giving, as does Datta. Dayadhvam means sympathy, and Damyata means control or domination, but these do not seem to be much of a clue to the use of these words in this context. What is clear, however, is that each says two things, the first on different aspects of life, the second about the nature of themselves.

Datta, on face value, is saying that what we have lived by will never be found after our death, in obituaries or wills. What is also being said is that our own lives are a gift, to us and from us, because it is living that enables us to give. Our sole gift is in a moment’s surrender.

Dayadhvam talks about being in a prison; perhaps the prison is life. Whatever it is, Dayadhvam tells us that thinking of the key for the prison is what concretes the existence of the prison. Underneath this the nature of the ‘speaker’ is betrayed. Dayadhvam is sympathy, and therefore sympathetic to people in their prisons of existence, and the fact that they are unable to escape their prisons. There is also sympathy for Coriolanus, the ‘broken’ dictator.

Damyata’s speech is the simplest. Firstly it is said that the boat responded easily to hands skilled at controlling it, then it is explained that hearts respond as easily to controlling hands. I presume that the controlling hands are Damyata’s, as Damyata is speaking to someone specific; ‘your heart’ and Damyata is control.

The last piece admits to the incoherence of the poem, saying simply:

                   ‘Shall I at least set my lands in order?’
Then later:
                   ‘These fragments I have shored against my ruins.’

It finishes ‑ with ‘Shanti Shanti Shant’, which are the three peaces: peace with yourself, peace with your immediate surroundings, and then universal peace.

I like most of the poetry I have read, and there is a lot of it. Whenever I am especially inspired or impressed by a poem I like to learn it, so that any time of day or night I can say it to myself. I naturally have to spend a little time learning the lines. There are, however, some poems that, although I appreciate them to read and hear, I just do not wish to learn.

The amazing thing I noticed about The Waste Land is that, with no effort on my part, I knew bits of it very quickly. When we were talking about how I felt about the poem and I wanted to give an example for an opinion I had about something, the quotation was out of my mouth before I had time to think about it.

There is much I don’t know, maybe because I cannot relate to some of the phrases as easily as others, but I was stunned by the striking simplicity and weight that many of the phrases carried, and that somehow made them stick in my mind.

First and foremost the rhythm has obviously been worked down to a fine detail. Whichever part of the poem you turn to you will find that each phrase is perfect:

                   Where the walls
                   Of Magnus Martyr hold
                   Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold."

Firstly, I must conclude my study of the Death and Water theme. There does not seem to be a climax that Death and Water are building up to. In the poem itself there is no conclusion about death or water, so 1 do not feel that there was a particular centre that they were being used for. Eliot was, however, toying with these two ideas, and their necessity to life. There seem to be some things that he was particularly interested in. One was the change that bodies go through after death; the phrase ‘Those are pearls that were his eyes’ he seemed to think of as a suitable description of this change, and he added to it the loss of memory and thought that occurs; Phlebas was the focal point for this. There is also the change that a body which died through dehydration would undergo; eventually it would turn into a handful of dust.

One of things I wonder about was whether the first stanza was called The Burial of the Dead through some connection to not being buried. I mentioned before Eliot’s possible distaste for the lack of ceremony surrounding drowning. Perhaps a burial, to most people an event to avoid thinking about, is to him a welcome idea in comparison with drowning.

The thing for me about water and death is their absolute necessity to life. In writing about these two themes Eliot is observing some very big and important truths.

There are small observances as well as big ones; not all the poem is making profound statements about life, there are things which are picked up casually, like:

                   Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
                   With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
                   And went on in sunlight ....

There are so many things in this. I feel he stopped in surprise at the sun, and then went on, delighting in it. Perhaps he stopped somewhere because of the rain, and then went on when the sun came out. Either way, both are things done by me regularly. But it is written so nicely. It is not splendid, I cannot commend an amazing use of metaphor or wonderful simile. They are not lines filled with powerful words, or talking of powerful things, but yet it is powerful. Because of the simplicity of the nature of the subject, so are the words simple, and from this the phrases are simple. Yet beautiful.

The more I read the poem the more I like it. It rolls off the tongue in a very pleasing manner! I enjoyed doing this study chiefly because it gave me the time to read the poem many times over and discover its beauty.

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A Story

Liberty Smith

As i sit here with lit wick eucalyptus candle burning in front of my shower licked wet folded arms i can hardly see the snow falling drowning outside. The flame lights my chin my nose and makes my eyelashes look like spider legs up my forehead. Mmm  Hot showers feel so good on goose bumpy skin! But sitting here next to a drafty window now in this towel which does nothing more then give me modesty, i wonder if minutes of luxurious warmth are such a good idea for a whole evening of cold. Well, at least i’m clean.

i leave the window the candle and the flame to make new shadows in the the little room i leave behind, to go upstairs and put on layer after layer of clothes so i can stop shivering. When i’m dressed and downstairs again i look through the vertical crack of the open door and i see you. You look so beautiful and calm and i’m so curious about what is behind your drowsy eyes. You must hear my breathing because you open your eyes and smile at me looking like a Michelin man in all my jumpers.

‘Do you like it here?’ without waiting for an answer you say ‘I do. i promised to bring you, and now we’re here! I was very young when I first came...a Christmas long ago. Most of my memories blur into one long winter. Sorry it’s so cold, we’ll get some fires going tomorrow. Come and sit with me, we can warm each other up.’ i walk over to you and your smiling face and sit tight fit squeeze with you in a dark old armchair.

‘Tomorrow we can explore. Well i can explore and you can come with me! You must know everything inside out! This house is so big, how long have your family owned this place for?’

‘Dad had some memories, but I’m not sure beyond that ... it’s an old house though so maybe it’s been in my family forever. Do you went a beer?’

‘Ummmm, yeah.’ you pass me a can and it starts to numb my fingers so i pull my jumper sleeves over my hands like mittens and drink. ‘Do you reckon the snow will he shallow enough in the morning to walk in the grounds?’

‘Definitely. We can make snowmen. Hundreds of them! A Snowman Army!’ you laugh at your own joke and look at me.
‘Sorry. After all the driving I needed a beer. Or two. Or three. I think they’ve gone to my head a bit! Prepare for some unfunny jokes and already told tales!’ you laugh and we kiss. Beer taste kiss. When we first started going out we couldn’t stop kissing. It was addictive. It was a substitute for breathing, a better alternative than oxygen.

So now we kiss. i love you. You love me. For all the beer you’ve drunk you’re still a great kisser. Hmmm. i know where this thing is going... i know what your lips are telling, asking mine so gently. i hold your hand and we leave our beers and the old red armchair and go upstairs to our icy bedroom.

The window is open and i try to close it but it is broken. We take off a couple of layers and entwine under the duvet.  ‘I love you so much ... I missed you’ you say through chattering teeth.
‘ i love you too ... what do you mean you missed me?’
‘When you had your shower.’
‘ What?! That was for five minutes...’
‘Mmmm I know...I missed you.’ i giggle and whisper i love you to your cold face. We tangle up tighter and fall asleep. It is way too cold for anything else.

*  *  *

i open my eyes and feel disjointed from my self, not knowing what time it is, where i am, or why i have no feet. i look up at a crack patterned ceiling and dusty yellow light shade. Oh yes, a holiday… Turning my eyes left i see a plain papered wall then you, lying sleeping dreaming next to me. You’re still holding my hand and your eyes are moving under their lids. Turning my eyes right i see another wall, some plain paper, with an addition of a painting in an old frame. The man in the painting is looking out to a cottage at the bottom of the hill he is standing on. It must’ve been a windy day on that hill, the tree next to him is bent and statically swaying.

The un‑closable window is also part of this wall. i see trees through its frame and glass, but they are as white as the landscape around them and as still as icicles. But, like icicles, i know they will melt. Maybe tomorrow i’ll see them green. Maybe this afternoon.

i sit up and try to thaw my icy toes by rubbing them with my one free hand and i wiggle them while i finger by finger release my other hand from yours. Limb by limb i’m in the open of the bedroom and add more layers to my already slept‑in ones. i try to thaw my brain out too, to think about breakfast about the day about the place about the lack of heating and the assignment given to me by my coffee‑breath, call me sir, publisher.

Tying my hair back and leaving you to sleep i walk across the hallway and then downstairs, passing the mossy scribble of green wax on the table from the evening before. A leftover.

Walking in and out of rooms, round furniture, glancing at ornaments on sideboards and spying a piano in what once had been maybe the main living room i think about no.l. on my mentally written list. Breakfast.

As soon as i think it i can smell bacon crisping in a pan and butter melted toast, i can taste it in the back of my throat, on the tip of my tongue.

i walk out of the front door which we did not lock, to peer at all the shapes and mounds of various sized whiteness. Staring at the pure snow my belly rumbles and inside i can feel it moving around, rearranging. i've never compared my stomach to a shop assistant before.

Now, where is the food? Big blue cooler bag in the back. Good. Back to the kitchen. i leave the car with a slam of its side door and see the very top layer of the previous night’s snow crumbling tiny slowly in the early rays of sunshine.

Like white thieves they came, to steal the colour from my view. Like our yellow hot saviour my round bellied friend comes now,
   to take back what they had stolen and, piece by piece, give colour back to my aching eyes.

Inside i figure we have no cooker. Just a green Age that looks like its been here so long it’s part of the essential structure of the wall. i open the Aga door with a pull, inside is an empty black hole, and close a with a push. i work out that Breakfast = Hard work. So again i’m walking in and out of rooms, through the main room and through a curtained door into some kind of side room. It has no window. The lighter in my top layer pocket shows me to have ended up in exactly the right place. Stocks of dry wood, piles of crumbling newspapers and a wooden board half way up the back wall where the coal must come through.

i step forward and suddenly everything goes black. Someone’s pushed me? No. No one’s pushed me. Thinking only ‘this is going to hurt this is going to hurt’ i put my hands out to feel my fingertips pushing high speed through sheet after sheet of dry newspaper. My side joins them and Ouch! i landed. i’m alright just thinking of how much i hate/love gravity. Click Click the lighter is on, and i’m at the same inferior level as the paper wood and coal. Putting as much as i can into my pockets and holding my jumper up like a basket i carry it all back to the Aga. So i do the whole ‑yay let’s make a fire‑ thing and it does not amuse me. But i bet it amuses the Aga.

You’re still not awake. i hope the smell entices you down. Just the thought enticed me. The food is steaming, becoming rapidly cold, to i call you. ‘Darling? Darling? If you would like to have breakfast, i’ve got some ready.’ i think, if you don’t, i’ll eat it all and grow happily fat! Except i hear you ... creak by wooden stair step creak down down into my arms. Mmmm, morning hug.

‘How did you sleep?’ you ask..

‘Well, i think i’ve passed the Inuit initiation, but apart from that, fine thank you.’ i smile and you smile back. ‘This place is all ours for a few days.’ i know this, but you’re reminding me so you can revel in the fact, revel in playing your father, revel in giving me something, revel in the past, revel in this morning. ‘Wow, you’ve done really well, got the old Aga working and everything. Mmm‑mm, breakfast.’

*  *  *

Happy Day
Six months on
Around the clock
Body say
Fire is up
I want you here
Tulip May
Love Rosie back
Error of on Evo‑error
We lay
Our petals grew
Found a friend
Sorry to see them go
Now I’m looking forward to
January Snow
January Snow, I know
What I think I know... i press C and then take my foot off the pedal. You look up from the newspaper you are reading. ‘That’s it? It’s a bit short...’

‘I didn’t have much to say. But don’t you like the way the music it so fast and intricate at the beginning and then it just slow slow slows down? Like some journeys, like a fairground ride?’
‘Play some more, I love to hear you play and sing in the background, it’s nice
i scream in my head. TWO THINGS WRONG WITH THAT ONE, DEAR. One, . background? Cheers.
No, really. I love it when you are doing something that is such a part of you, for me, when it’s in the
background. Two, nice?
Nice? NICE? That word does not register in me. i fight a one woman battle with nice. Nice is not nice.
Nice is the enemy. Nice is the epitome of all evil, maybe tops with pre‑linguitial grunts that still exist in
some old men and people at petrol stations. Stone‑age fuel stops. i fill my own car up every time, thanks.
Place my feet back on the pedals and sing so quietly softly i struggle  to hear myself. B, B, A B,
[pause] B, and i’m in.
In this home grown tempest [pause] that we find ourselves  [breathe] i don’t think that either of
us ever meant [quiet now] to push these winds so ..fa ... fa ... Far. [again with the entry notes] Even when we
think it’s calm [pause] and it is, until the next [breathe] shoreline appears in view, and then we hide behind
all the dark clouds we built up
Tell each other that the other’s cloud is darker
And I know this storm
Is needed sometimes
But my raft is
Ric
Ke
Ty
And I want this storm
To move on and grow up and grow old and grow tired
So,
We
Can
See
That water is never completely clear…

* * *

‘I’m nearly finished my sweet.’ you call forgetting  i’m in the some room, lying on the bed. ‘O.K, well, I
just don’t want it to be dark when we’re out, that’s all.’ i’m staring at the zig‑zagging mini
earthquakes that pattern our ceiling and i’m aching to explore the gardens and the woods that are part of the grounds
that belong to the house. Look at you. Such the man of the house. D.I.Y. expert mending our broken window.
Thinking about angles ad screws and making sure that things that should stay shut are so. Look at me. Such a
wannabe man of the house. Well, woman. The non‑confident unangelic angel who thinks about screwing too
much. The one who loves to open and open and open but only in herself. Sparking her own dynamite only to
implode again. Miss                        Self-Destructive exposing herself through words. Anomaly of her own family, independent
of this world (she thought) except now she knows just how dependent she really is. Escape routes lie in her
dreams, and a little fetish for reactions makes her tongue slip sometimes.
‘I’m done. Are you ready?’ my eyes refocus and yes, i am ready.

*  *  *

Crunch‑step. Crunch‑step. That’s you. Step two three, Step two three. That’s me. i waltz in the remaining snow which is now a kind of on ice‑grass‑mud mix. It’s going to be dark soon. It feels like a dream. Smells like a dream. Of nothingness. Fresh and nose‑tingling. Snow and ice don’t really smell though unless you’re in a city, once they’re mixed up with the polluted roads and paths, becoming a brown mush substance that people just sweep to the sides. But here it’s like Narnia.
i’m dancing giddily round and round you and laughing because if there was a desire in me to live in a perfect world it would be like this. i feel like a child when i thought i did live in a perfect world, before monsters came in and took the places of my All Smiles Insurance Advert Family. It’s a bastard realisation, huh?
‘Can you stop that? You're making me dizzy.’ Your comment hits me like a snowball in the face. ‘What’s wrong, darling, i thought you liked dancing?’ i ask you pleadingly ... a spiteful smile curling my lips.
‘I’ve got a headache. You laugh too loud.’
‘But laughter is wonderful’ and I laugh as loud as I can.
‘You've been lying around all day, except for making breakfast. What’s wrong?’
‘What’s wrong, i ask, ‘With relaxing?’

" Relax/lazy, call it whatever... You know I hate being cold. I’m very susceptible to weather. 1 need constant levels.’ You’re so grumpy. i don't say anything back. i don’t have to. Instead i waltz and jump and skip and laugh end lie down and then jump up again until i reach the woods. The smell of  pine is very invigorating. It kind of makes you widen your eyes, as if they can small it too. Turning around to try and see your figure somewhere on the mottled green and white land i come across your figure hunched to the light wind, your hands to deep in your pockets like they’re searching for treasure. You don’t see me. Looking back at the trees there is a large low branch, perfect for me to sit on and see you when you arrive without you seeing me.

One‑ two‑ three and i’m up. The branch‑seat is damp from melted snow and your steps are coming close. Hehe. You look and search but cannot find me. Even with my dark boots dangling you only see trees. Hehe! i project a stage whisper. ‘When beauty asks a question, how often do you answer?’

You spin on your toes to my direction but still do not see me. i try again. This time i sing my words to a discordant tune.
‘i grab my quiver and my bow,
And shoot three times,
And somehow i miss,
It’s like there’s a kind of grey,
Where there should he a black line.’ i jump down. i feel better now.
‘You scared me, y’know? 1 thought something had happened to you, something bad.’ You stare crossly at me, as i’m grinning i say, ‘Then why no shouts of joy and big warm hugs that i’m alright end not being eaten by wolves? Roasted by Witches? Hmmm? Why do i get got at if i’m o.k., and cried for if i’m dead?’ Now i’m cross too. Anger can he very catching. ‘Because I was scared. I’m cold and tired. And hungry too. Wandering in some scabby trees when my feet are wet is not my idea of fun. Sorry if it is yours. Do you have a cigarette?’ ‘Yes,’ i reply with a blank face. Bland feeling. i pass you one out of a half smoked pack and you take it.’ Do you have a light?’ This question i think about. i like it. Hehe, i giggle to myself, but yes, i do have a lighter, so i pass it to you. We walk back in silence and blow out smoke which the wind snatches. Darkness joins our quiet threesome and envelopes us all.

*  *  *

Sitting by the fire between your legs i feel cosy and safe. Another cigarette. No ideas for the assignment. Too tired. The walk earlier and only having breakfast has left me with no energy. i know some of the best creative work has been done out of hunger, in cold, in desperation... but hunger just makes me think of food. Taste‑bud tingling good food and nothing else. i write best when my belly is full and content, not interrupting me with low rumbles. The snow is falling again. So beautiful. So natural. So cleansing.
You are twitching your hand in your sleep behind me so i hold it and you stop. i throw the filter into the embers. We
fall asleep like this and i don’t think i had a single dream.

*  *  *

‘Shit. Shit. Shit, shit.’ It’s funny the way people swear when something goes wrong. ‘Shit’ you say again. i try and help you; ‘look, don’t worry, i’m sure the signal will come back soon... it’s probably just the snow doing something with the communications.’ You are standing on our car holding up your cellular phone to the sky. i look around at the ever‑deepening snow. The light flakes fall on my nose and tickle it until i have to scratch.
"This is a major problem. No phone means if something happens to one of us, or both of us, what then? No one will know.’ i can hear panic in your voice.
‘Nothing will happen though,’' i say calmly. ‘What could? Nobody lives for miles anyway.’
‘Exactly! Right, I’m going to drive to the nearest village. We’re running out of stuff.’ You climb down and ooh and aah at your back which hurts from last night’s sleep position in the armchair.
‘O.k. don’t be long. i’ll make some coffee.’ i leave you still waving your phone in the air like traffic control and go inside.
With my coffee on the top i’m playing again. Words wander in and out, not really in an order, just meandering around the music. It sounds like a hymn so i sing like one, maybe just a bit kookier. i sing holy holy.
‘Just because a fits, doesn’t mean a suits..’ i think of my life.
‘Holy Jesus in three-D. How are you going to make me? How are you going to take me?" i think of ambition.
‘Because you know i suit silver not gold. i'd rather roll in the dust to keep me clean..’ i think of my pedestal and wonder who put me there.. myself?
‘Than to see what you’ve seen. Holy Jesus, Holy Jesus some day again in three-D." i wish i could believe. i wish for complete ignorance. Ignorant Bliss. Oh holy holy.
You stomp through and sit angrily in the chair. i stop playing.
‘What's wrong?’ i ask.
‘The car won't start,’ you reply. The phone won’t work You pause, then you add, ‘So we’re stuck’

*  *  *

Falling. Drowning. Disappearing. Joining. Adding. Delicately. Reappearing. Steam ‑ Water ‑ lce ‑Snow. H2O Like a magician’s trick. Frozen tears.
‘Here, take this Sweety.’ Passing me hot coffee. You stand up and look at me inquisitively with your blue eyes. i am surrounded by my books and pads of blank paper. i have three black roller ball pens. i am sitting on the worn rug in front of the fire, ripping the loose threads with agitated fingers.
‘It might make you feel better?’ i can hear that question mark like a foghorn. Yes, it might make me feel better. It might not. i don’t know. i don’t care. i feel letters and words creep over me like scorpions but i mustn’t move otherwise i won't get stung by an idea. You sit down and the draught you cause sends my scorpions scuttling away. ‘No ideas, huh?’ ‘No.’ ‘Forget the assignment. We’ve get more important things to worry about.’ ‘Like what? We’re already enclosed in this snow cold hell. We can’t escape from this ‘Shining’ rerun. What else can i do?’ Ooops. i didn’t mean to say that. i was going to try and be calm. i wanted to still see the beauty in it all, but as the day went on i began to hate our white cage. i felt claustrophobic.
‘Look, baby I know you feel a bit scared, but, well, maybe we should get some sleep?’ ‘Maybe.’
i don't keep much stuff around. i value my portability. i find safety in notebooks, to that’s all i keep close to me. Sleep sounds good.

*  *  *

i open my eyes. i turn to see you. I’ve been crying so my lids are puffy. i get up and walk to the man on the hill, i look to where he looks. i see nothing in particular. He tells me to see exactly that, nothing in particular. Look at everything in the picture then marvel in the detail, he says. He holds my hand. He holds my head. He holds down my feet. He has one hundred hands making me a coat where my clothes were. Palms as insulators. The hands turn into ice. i am inside a block of ice. i turn and turn, faster than a roulette wheel i turn.
Ouch. i open my eyes, feel around for my lighter and click click it’s lit. Off the floor, climb back into bed, under the covers and next to your pale warmth i cuddle. i wonder if i’ll remember my strange dream.

*  *  *

The snow, the snow, 3 to 4 feet high snow against the outside of 6 feet high French doors. Ice, ice, icicles hanging like vampires sleeping from the guttering.
Outside it's just a huge bare canvas. i feel like painting. First i’ll sing. i turn to the piano, its cold keys greet me and i play like the snow falls. Softly, softly, gently, taken by the winds. i wonder if snow over gets vertigo? i stop playing... ‘And you think i con stand on this string,
And you think i will not break it and fall,
His motto is practise, practise, practise,
But then where comes radical?
And you think what you see is what you get,
And you believe what you see and so,
The unexplained is explainable through
Blinking…’

‘That one was nice. I like a capella stuff'.’ i didn’t notice you come in. ‘Thanks. i think i’ve got an idea for my assignment, i'm going to go upstairs end read for a bit.’ i grab my cigarettes and run up the stairs; i can hear you saying something; but i don't ask what, i want to be alone. i don’t actually have a clue about my assignment; i feel like painting.
i stand in front of the window you mended and open it. The red chair in the corner fits through the frame well and i throw it as hard as i can. Red mark, angular and unplaced in the snow. If i blur my eyes it looks like a paper cut’s blood on pale skin. i need to run, i can’t bear this enclosure, somebody help me. Anybody? i close my eyes and run crash down the stairs into your surprised arms. Please, please i can’t cops i want out now.

‘Please please help me i don’twanttobe hereanymore needtogetaway canwegocanwego?’ Everything’s a blur, my eyes overflow i blink. Nothing changes. Is it my own fault? Did pray for snow subconsciously? My fucking subconscious. Did it want real? Did it want physical? Because i’m hurting now. Hurting inside so bad. What have i done? i grab your phone and dial randomly.
‘Darling, it doesn’t work remember?’ You’re more scared of me than i am.
‘Hello? God? It’s me. Look, i need a favour down here. Give me a sign that everything’s going to be O.K. Please? Sand me a sign. Send me an angel ... anything... a hot dog with onions and extra Ketchup .... R.S.V.P double time. Clamour for; urge; cry aloud; fill on one’s knees; throw one’s self at the feet of; come down on one’s morrow bones. i prithee; i pray thee; if you please…please…’ You take the phone and hold me like i'm glass. i don't know what to think. i look up to your eyes and they’re watching me...
‘Come on. Bed. You need to sleep. Things are really getting to you. The snow will stop soon, I'm sure. Alright?’
‘Yes, getting to me ... Right.’ You take me in your arms and i cling to you ... i love you ... i love you. With the duvets pulled up around me and up to my ears you kiss my forehead goodnight and leave me alone. The light is off. No moonlight. No starlight. No more wish i may. No more wish i might.

*  *  *

i open my eyes. i turn to see where the music is coming from but there is only sound. i've been crying but my
lids ore not puffy. Three perfect tear shaped icicles hold onto my cheek, and my irises are white. i get up and
walk to the man in the painting, except he is not on a hill, he is pirouetting on a plastic souvenir of Mount Fuji. i
think that it must hurt. He stops and tells me that i’m right, it does hurt but it is worth every pain to understand
certain points. ‘0h!’ is all i can say. He holds my hand. He holds my head. With his pocket wand made in Taiwan he taps my head and closes his eyes. When i look down i am wearing a gown fringed with fingers and buttoned with thumbs. We waltz on the spot and tunnel deep into the snow. Violins playing themselves below us and then Bang! i feel my arm pulsing and painful. i turn to see who has thrown a snowball at me ... The man! But he was... we were ... how did he… ‘Who ARE you?’

*  *  *
Darling you’re freezing. You’ve been sleepwalking, you've thrown a vase across the room ... What’s wrong? I’ll carry you downstairs so you can be with me by the fire, I can keep an eye on you.’ You’re so sweet. So sweet. And so hopeful and caring. Could i over be like you? i doubt it. Why do you love me? I’m unlovable i make love make coffee, but i know i don’t make you happy. Well, we do hove fun. i want to ask you why you love me but my eyes are already closing. In my little boat, drifting off to Sleep water. Slish, Slosh, Sleep.

*  *  *

A child screams. Everything goes black. A small hand slips into mine end pulls me towards a fragment of faroff light. There is a swishing noise behind me, it’s the train from my dress. A beautiful white dress embroidered with one thousand snowflakes entwining a delicate cobweb with icicles hanging like dewdrops. We enter through on archway into a cavern, the child climbs onto my lap and we slide down the paths of ice.
‘She’s here She’s here!’ they cry. Somebody takes the child and attaches strings to it’s limbs, someone else does the same to me. But it’s You! You’ve never been in my dream worlds before ‑ no time to think ‑ no time no time ‘Late, late…’ Cry pure white rabbits dashing post me, rubbing their paws, huge watches on their backs. Except in the whirlpool of snow end ice all i see is their black eyes and the black hands and numbers of time going by. My left leg lifts, then my right. My arms rise above my head ballerina‑style ... you control me, you hold my strings. As the music quietly begins again the whirlpool stops and everyone is completely still. Statuesque. 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4, we’re in.

The puppets, the puppeteers, we all sway and leap. The controllers control and the doll‑like dance. Amazing dancing. Graceful dancing. You told me you didn’t like dancing. Oh well. i give in, i move the way you want me to move, it’s all so easy. i'm almost numb with the sensation of acute easiness. Just as i think i’m liking it, the orchestra stops and all strings are dropped. Half the population falls to the floor and the other half turns to me and claps. ‘Well done, well done now you can sing for us.’ Two red shoes bring me a piano, the one i had as a child, clicked three times and then disappears. My mouth opens and then i hum a bit. Everyone bends their backs to try and hear me. i need to get out, i see another clock and know what i can do. Mr. Subconscious? Help me out ‘till 12. So i sing talk tell play...

More than pre‑September                        Our kind of tea light romance                         Everything's easy hard.
i don’t want to look up to much but at the some time             i           don't went to look down i cant work out if
i’m lost in my world or everyone else’s.             we love to almost wary kind of music, and we make our own.
               All i want to say is in silence and i still never find the need to drink.
      to me, sense isn’t an order    just a              meandering               following.
i let everyone go on praying and listen in to their prayers   for once my head is clear   and her letters are in my bin.
i went to make so much noise and beauty, all done without frowning                        and frustration. i
want snow and sweat and new clothes and creations.
                        i want someone to kidnap me so i don’t have to run.
   i need a lesson learnt and a theory listened 1 want to drive fast and curl up with you.
i feel my energy in slumber but because i can feel it all i want to use it. i want to break my ice and lie on it solidly.
   Can we go now? to here?
To be safe and just be?      i need you to laugh, that’s why my mouth is still. i went to dream from 11 to 8 and suddenly wakeup and find you holding my hand.
        oh i miss you -
                i love you i’m -
sure you’ve said this to me but,
                                                                                                                      i'm restless without you.
i want a simple conversation i want us i want you here
love love LOVE
   at least i’m not in America ‑maybe it’s the weather‑
i can see you sitting on my chair i’m thinking faster than my hand, but occasionally my hand gets there first. i wish i had this piano
   i want my black ballet shoes
     i want you to he here.
    Everytime i breathe out i let a little bit extra out and leave my mouth slightly open.
                        i want to dance in front of you freeflow and you to smile at my performance
              i want us to be personal, i want you to lift my veil, i feel you.

            Tomorrow i can cross off today.

LOVE.
   i’m so deeply in love with you. Nothings going to stop me from floating. Exhale. and a little bit extra.
  You know me. i think... well you know i’m scared of death but can’t wait until tomorrow always ‑you know that can’t be....
                               i’m writing sideways and you said that we’re close, closer than most. I’m feeling better and do you know how much i need you?

*  *  *

i stop. i look up. Everyone is sitting on the ice‑floor staring at me. One by one they stand up and clop. ...the clapping becomes louder and louder, the child who brought me here climbs on the keys and onto my knees and whispers, ‘Well done. You did it You found your heart and spoke truly. Your words broke the spell, we’re free! You’re free! Goodbye.’ 1…2…3…(the chimes ring) i know i need to get out. i cover my ears and run screaming. My screams turn to words, but they are not mine ... 4… 5… 6… ‘OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!! BACK THROUGH THE WARDROBE! FIND MY PRINCE, KISS HIM QUICK! 7 …8…9… WHERE ARE THE BEANS? ONLY ONE WISH LEFT! DON’T APPLAUD ‑ THE FAERIES WILL DIE! DON'T TOUCH THE APPLES! 10… 11… YOU’RE NOTHING MORE THAN A PACK OF CARDS AND I HATE ALL OF YOU! … 12.

*  *  *

          You kiss my nose, lips, ears, cheek. Neck, shoulder, chest, belly. i choose not to open my eyes.
Somehow it’s warm, through the slit of my slightly open left eye i see whole green trees. Sunshine! i can’t help but smile. You rest your head on my stomach and i’m pretty sure you’re dozing. Turning my eyes right and fully
opening them i look at the picture in the frame.

             Kachonk!   ,    [Snow. Rabbits. Ice. Tears. Mount Fuji. Music. Love and Mr. Subconscious.]
i smile again. It’s kinda funny i mean, i love you. i hate you. i want you. i despise you. i am you.
i'm inside you.
You’re inside me. i have a place. It’s taken time. i belong now. i’m clearer. i am. i i i i iiiiiii ......

­

‘What’s that?’ I stop staring at the picture and shake you. ‘Listen!’ You push yourself up and ask, ‘What?’
‘Listen!’ I say again… ‘It’s the phone!’ We clamber about the bed…
‘Shit – Shit – Where is it? throwing duvets and pillows everywhere, you find it in your pocket. ‘Hello? Yes, yes
it’s me… Oh thank God…’

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A Collection of Poems

Ruth Rodway

I have put together a collection of poems that I have written over the past few months. They are presented in the order in which I wrote them, and I have written a little about why I wrote each one after the poem itself.

Going to School

                        Silver hammocks hang ‘tween grasses,
                        Glistening like jewels
                        On the golden moor.
                        Above us is blankness,
                        Obscuring all view of sky.
                        Nothing stirs but the trundling school bus
                        Which winds its way
                        Along the wet tarmac
                        Towards civilization.

 I wrote this poem on the school bus. It was a miserable morning, with thick mist. It felt as if we were a million miles from any other human beings when we drove across the moor. I noticed the little spider webs covered in dew on the grasses, which inspired me to write this little poem then and there.

Summer Festival, Oshika 1992

                        Straw mats lay scattered with people,
                        Under the star-lit sky.
                        Children shouted, parents chewed sweetcorn
                        All awaiting the forthcoming excitement.
                        Last light on distant mountains
                        Turned to shadow: soon the summer
                        Moon would be visible.
                        I wandered past the stalls
                        Where foreign young men winked,
                        Shouted greetings, and offered their goods.
                        I smiled, but continued to walk past.
                        Joining a group of friends,
                        We bought blueberry juice
                        From rich tanks of swirling purple.
                        The cold, sweet liquid was refreshing
                        After the fierce heat of the day.
                        The sky was now a deep indigo,
                        The moon and stars so brilliant
                        They pierced holes in the sheet of darkness.
                        Children’s lanterns hanging around the edge
                        Gently lit the baseball pitch.
                        Suddenly a bang: I turned and looked up,
                        A tiny spark shattered into a million colours
                        Which sprinkled downwards
                        Towards their watchful audience.
                        The sparks crackled, and the sound
                        Was echoed in the peals of clapping.
                        Amazed, I returned to the ‘Small School’ mat
                        Where others were gathering, too.
                        Wonderful hours passed, that evening:
                        Hours of shivering under beautiful skies
                        Clapping, then waiting in expectation.
                        Firework after firework banged,
                        Echoing through the mountains,
                        Causing the ground to tremble.
                        Sparks burst into fountains, colours changed,
                        Red into green, blue into yellow:
                        White dissolved into sky.
                        The last burst of clapping trailed off…
                        An echoey loud-speaker spat strange words –
                        The show was over.
                        We poured sleepily into minibuses,
                        Which roared us home to futons!

This obviously was inspired by my visit to Japan last summer. I found it a very inspiring place to be. Many of the things which we did there provided good material for writing, but it wasn’t until a few months after we came back that I wrote this poem.

Fox Hunting

                        Substantial crowds of men and women
                        Clothed in green macs, topped with tweed caps
                        Flock round polished horses and glistening cars.
                        Freshly-painted hooves, and bow-tied riders
                        Mingle their way through yelping hounds.
                        They’re off! Galloping over soft turf,
                        Leaping over muddy-edged ditches.
                        Blood-thirsty canines seek foxy scent:
                        Darting through woodland, sniffing down rabbit holes
                        With horsemen in quick pursuit.
                        An unexpected flash: orange fur glinting –
                        Feet, pounding, slipping, sliding;
                        Mud everywhere: But the fox is wiser.
                        By now she’s lost to her enemies.
                        Eventually the troops give up –
                        They return to the cars and eager spectators,
                        Muddied, panting and dejected.
                        All that preparation –
                        Precise arrangement of both horse, hound and rider
                        Comes to nothing.
                        Only somewhere, a beautiful vixen
                        Guards her cubs with greater care.

 Foxhunting is something which makes me very angry. Whenever I see a group of people supporting a hunt, it makes me sad that they can enjoy such a cruel and pointless sport. I wrote this poem to try and bring into the open my ideas about how pointless an activity it is.

The Birth                       

 This poem is my interpretation of the birth of Christ. I feel this poem is probably far from original. Because there have been so many interpretations of the birth it’s hard to be original. I wrote it in the time just before Christmas as a way of getting myself back into the actual meaning of Christmas.

Shylock

                        Humiliated, brought to the eyes
                        Of stone-hearted creatures
                        I stand – a victim for all,
                        Undone and ruined.
                        My end has come.
                        My identity has been seized –
                        Wrenched from me,
                        Like a child from its mother.
                        I must adopt something new –
                        Something that I hate –
                        A new religion.

The Poppy

                        Only the sleepy ear of a crumpled field poppy
                        Hearkens to the sound of the early morning:
                        She hears the whispering wind of wisdom,
                        The beautiful birds, singing of bravery;
                        The envious elves, speaking of evil,
                        And the lazy lovers, laughing of love.
                        As only the poppy has heard,
                        It’s only she who has learnt
                        What mankind has still to learn.
                        But what man can learn from a poppy?
                        Only he who can hear
                        What has not been spoken.

This poem started as an image of a field poppy. From them it grew into a little poem with rather strange ideas that came to me. It was a bit of an experiment with alliteration, which I’d never really used in my poems before. I hadn’t intended to use it at all but when I realised that I had a lot of “w”s in ‘the whispering wind of wisdom’ I decided to try and follow-through the theme. 

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KEEPING MALLARD  DUCKS

Laura Howell

WHY MALLARD DUCKS?

The Mallard duck is not suitable to keep for egg production or for eating. Other ducks have been highly bred for these purposes. The Mallard, kept free‑range, is the best duck for slug and insect control, lays between 25 and 125 eggs a year and is the ideal choice for an ornamental duck.

The Mallard drake has bright, striking plumage, with shiny green head, white band round the neck, rusty coloured breast, iridescent blue‑green speculum, black and white feathers on the pointed tail and light grey underside and top of wing. The beak is yellow, blue, green, brown or orange and is often a good way of recognising a particular duck.

The female has subdued plumage compared to the male but has intricate patterning on her golden‑brown and black feathers. Seen together they complement each other.

HOUSING

Ducks can be kept in a purpose‑built chicken ark, with house and run, (obtainable from a poultry supplier) or even in a garden shed. They must be kept secure at night but can run free‑range during the day. Males kept together will fight (if there are females to impress) so the best arrangement is to keep them in male/female pairs. Ducks need a clean, secure place to lay eggs.

WATER

A very large pond, at least six feet deep, must be available to keep Mallard healthy. They need it for exercise, natural food and hygiene. On the pond ducks will dive for food, swim underwater and furiously wash themselves.
If Mallard ducks have a good pond they will be happy and healthy and less likely to fly away.
Clean drinking water must always be available because pond water may be polluted.

FEEDING

Mallards can forage for much of their own food, insects, seeds and plants, if they are free‑range. However, they will need a supplement of mixed corn (available from an agricultural merchant). They cannot digest the whole grain so it should be boiled to soften it. Very young or old ducks and layers should be given a teaspoonful of brewers yeast (niacin) in the food.

If it is not possible to free‑range the ducks, mix boiled grain with layers mash and add. grit to aid digestion and for healthy egg shells. Ducks must have grass and green plants available, so the ark should be moved daily.

CLIPPING WINGS

Mallard ducks will fly high and long distances. They will come back if they are happy, but the risk of losing them can be avoided by clipping their wings. This is done by cutting the main flight feathers of one wing. The two outermost feathers can be left intact. This must be done annually.

It is advisable to consult an experienced duck keeper to avoid permanently damaging the duck's wings.

PREDATORS

The predators on ducks, their ducklings and eggs are

DUCKS     foxes, mink, weasels, dogs, owls,

DUCKLINGS     cats, snakes, crows, jays, magpies, gulls, rats, hawks, mink, weasels,

EGGS     snakes, cats, crows, jays, magpies, gulls, rats,

The main predator is the fox. The ducks can be protected by tight fencing, four feet high, with two strands of barbed or electric wire and close‑fitting gates. Foxes squeeze or dig through fences.

HYGIENE

Bedding must be kept clean and dry to avoid foot­rot. Food and water bowls must be washed daily.
The duck house should be washed twice yearly with disinfectant to avoid disease.

EGGS

Mallard duck eggs are the same size as hen eggs, pale blue, with a large yolk and a white which holds together when cooked.
The shells of duck eggs are porous which makes them susceptible to picking up infection, so they must always be clean and dry when collected. This makes duck eggs less popular than hen eggs.

The Mallard will become broody in Spring, build a nest and lay her eggs. If she is left she will lay 12 ‑ 16 eggs and then start sitting. To avoid having ducklings, remove the eggs. The duck will be very good at hiding the eggs in the straw. If she is unhealthy she will stop laying. She will not lay in the winter and will lay less as she gets older.

It is normal for the first several eggs to be odd shapes and sizes, sometimes to have very thick or thin shells and sometimes to have no shell at all.

HEALTH PROBLEMS

Highly‑bred ducks are more susceptible to health problems than the Mallard. Ducks in small flocks are usually healthy.

The main problems encountered are FOOT PROBLEMS

The feet of water fowl are easily damaged. If they are kept on a hard, dry surface without access to bathing water foot‑rot will result.
Another main reason for foot problems is vitamin and mineral deficiency, caused by inadequate diet.

BOTULISM

This is food‑poisoning from decaying animal and plant matter. It is very common and often fatal. The Duck's environment must be kept clean.

 BREEDING

The Mallard duck is an excellent mother because she is not highly bred so her mothering instincts are still intact.

If a secure house is provided she will build a nest in it, lay her eggs and sit for 28 days. In that time she will throw out the unfertilised eggs. She will turn all the eggs every four hours. She will moisten the eggs by preening moisture into her underside feathers and shaking it onto the eggs three times a day. When the eggs hatch she will clean and dry each duckling as it emerges.

THE LESS YOU INTERFERE IN THIS PROCESS THE BETTER.

After 2 ‑ 3 days the ducklings and mother will leave the ark house and come into the run, wanting food and water.

Provide :­

1. 'Golden Start" chick food, mixed with diluted milk and brewers yeast.
2. Water in a container no more than half an inch deep. Ducklings easily drown.
3. Ensure that the mesh in the ark run is no more than a quarter of an inch.

The ducklings must not be let out of the ark unsupervised until they are 5 weeks old because they are very vulnerable to predators.

CONCLUSION

Whatever your reasons for keeping ducks, this has given a brief summary of the tasks and responsibilities involved. It is important to follow the guidelines for feeding, housing and protection to ensure you have healthy birds.

I can assure you that keeping Mallard ducks is a very rewarding and enjoyable experience.

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Designing, Making and Using
a solar-pwered oven

Hannah Rodway

After studying this diagram I came up with a design of my own:

Having made my design I started to collect the materials I needed:

• 4 mirrors, one 37 x 26 cm, one 45 x 21 cm, and two 26 x 25 cm.
• 2 sheets of glass 31 x 49 cm
• 1 metal box 30 x 30 x 23 cm
• 5 metres of foil
• 8 hinges
• a piece of thin ply 100 x 155 cm
• a sheet of zinc 30 x 23 cm
• fibreglass loft insulation
• some odd bits of wood to strengthen the outer box and to support the mirrors

These are used in the following ways:

glass            This is to increase the heat in the space between the glass and the oven top.
Metal box:   This is the oven space. The outside must be painted black, with the door and top getting four coats of paint and the rest, one.

These are the various stages of construction.

• Making the plywood box

2. Preparing the metal box.              3. Lining the plywood box

The metal box is painted black.
                                                          The plywood box is lined with tin foil held in
                                                          place with drawing pins.

4. Putting the insulation and metal box in.

5. Covering up the insulation with tin foil.

6. Putting in the double glazing.

Put a layer of mastic onto the upper edge of the wooden bar. Clean the glass with meths and put it into the box. Push it down and put another layer of mastic on the glass just around the edge. Put in some pieces of wood that are approx. 1 cm wide.
 (It is a good idea to do stages 8 and 9 at this point.)
Clean the side of the glass that is facing upwards and also clean the second piece of glass. Place another layer of mastic on the wood that is showing and on it place the second sheet of glass. Push down and fill any gaps with mastic.

7. Reducing the oven space.

Cover the zinc in foil and wedge it into the oven approx. 14 cm from the top.
8. Preparing the mirrors.
To prepare the mirrors you must cut out the pieces of plywood as in the diagram. Then cut some strips of aluminium (or other soft metal) sheeting about 2 x 6 cm. Then mark out the edges of each mirror on the relevant piece of wood. Nail one of the aluminium strips on each side of the rectangle marked out. The diagram below shows the positions.

9. Attaching the mirrors.

You should now put the hinges onto the backs of the pieces of ply. Then fix the pieces of ply onto the sides of the box. Try to get the screws into the wood between the layers of glass.
Whe the oven is going to be used put the mirrors into place and bend over the ends of the aluminium strips to hold the mirrors in place as illustrated below. The second diagram shows which mirror goes where.

10. Setting up the oven.

                                                                                                                                          
This type of oven would be useful in hot third-world countries. This is because there is a lot of sun and so the oven would reach much higher temperatures in a shorter time. This would also be a good because it doesn’t use up resources. If I had carried this experiment out in a hotter country, my results would have been more satisfactory.                                                                               
   

Moderator’s Comment

I like this as an investigation. She has certainly solved a technological problem. I’m sure a lot of research and hard work went into this project. She has written it up rather well.

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A Water-Collecting Craft

Peter Dollimore

Aim:            To design and construct a craft to collect water samples from lakes or slow-flowing rivers for pollution testing. The collecting apparatus must be able to collect from different depths.
The point of making it is so that pollution testers (e.g. the National Rivers Authority) need not have to take a boat to collect samples from areas otherwise difficult to reach.

Properties:

• Waterproof
• Buoyant
• Self-propelling
• Manoeuvrable
• Easy to lift and carry
• Will fit in the boot of a small car
• Able to collect water at different depths
• Able to manoeuvre with as little water disturbance as possible
• Able to move in a straight line
• Balance
• Able to manoeuvre in shallow and deep water
  
  

First Design            

This is a paddleboat type of design. There is a motor for each wheel to steer it. To go forward you switch both motors on.
The main body of the boat is a catamaran for two reasons:

1. The two level parts of the boat that run in the water take the place of a keel. The water running through the middle makes the boat continue on a straight path forward.
2. The container that is lowered to collect the water samples needs to be in a place that will not unbalance the boat. The obvious place is straight down the middle. The catamaran design makes this possible.

The collector collects the sample by being lowered on a string down to the desired depth. (Its string will be cut to the correct length.) It is then left to fill with the water from that depth (about 1 minute) then pulled back up again by a low-gear motor.

After I had thought about the design for a while I saw two problems:

1. The paddle wheels would create too much water disturbance;
2. The collector design wouldn’t work as a ‘collector from different depths’ because as it is lowered it will take in water all the way down and the water it collects will not be from a particular depth.

I have decided to stick with the idea of a catamaran for the reasons already mentioned but will redesign the collector and propulsion mechanisms. As the propulsion is also the steering mechanism in Design 1 I will also have to design this.

I have decided to treat three problems, the collecting apparatus, steering and propulsion separately.

Here is the catamaran base I have made on which these mechanisms will fit.

The Collecting Apparatus for
Water-Collecting Craft

Aim:            To design and construct a device for collecting water samples at
different depths for use on a small watercraft.
The sample must be no less than 100 ml.

Design:         To enable the collector to collect water at different depths I decided
that it should be lowered upside down. This would mean that it would
be full of air and no water would be able to enter it. When the collector
reaches the desired depth it will turn the right way up (open end up) and fill with water from that depth. It will then be pulled back up again onto the craft to be returned for testing.

I conducted some small experiments to test this solution’s efficiency.

Experiment 1

This experiment was to make sure that no water entered the collector until it reached the desired depth.

I lowered the collector, open end down, into a large bucket. As it went down no bubbles broke the surface, showing that no water was entering the collector. Just short of the bottom I turned the collector the right way up. All the air was released and it filled with water.

Experiment 2

Now that I have made the actual collecting bucket I need to design the mechanism for lowering the collector upside-down, turning it back up at the desired depth and returning it to the craft.

The Collecting Mechanism

Result
 

When I tested this design it didn’t work. The collector was lowered very well but when it reached point 3 it was pulled back up without turning the right way up. This was because there was not enough leverage on the collector for the rope to turn it the right way up. Also, when the collector broke surface the winch drum (B) could not pull it up any further, Even though the winch drum was wrapped in sandpaper there was still not enough friction to lift the collector clear of the water and the rope slipped.

To try and solve the problems I redesigned it. My second design was this: 
                                                                                           

Propulsion

For me, the craft’s propulsion was the easiest of the three problems. There were only two main problems that I had to face. The first was, What should be used? It had to be something that did not disturb the water or become tangled in underwater objects like weed but would propel the craft at a reasonable speed across fairly calm water.
The idea I soon came up with was a fan, similar to that used on hovercraft. I managed to get hold of a 12v car motor fan. I converted it so that it could easily be fitted onto the craft’s deck when needed. (See diagram 1)

My second problem was where on the craft the fan should be placed. I reasoned that if it were too far forward it would tip the rear end of the craft up, and if it were too far back the front of the craft would lift. (See diagrams 2 & 3) This would not be due to the fan’s weight, which could easily be balanced, but the force with which the fan would, when switched on, try to move forward.

I decided to try the craft with the fan positioned as it is in diagram 4. After testing it I found that it worked well, without too much pressure on either end.

When the final test of the whole craft was done the fan worked brilliantly and could even propel the craft upstream when tested on a flowing river.

Steering

After I had decided to scrap the first design I realised that I would now have to make a separate steering mechanism. I decided to use a basic ‘technic lego’ design. This is a diagram showing how it works:

A low-geared electric motor turns rod A, which turns cog B which, depending on which way cog B is turning, moves the corrugated flat piece C either left or right. C is fixed to F, and when C is moved, F moves left or right. This moves pieces D that turns pieces E to which rudders or wheels may be fixed. The diagram below shows what happens:

When I first assembled this mechanism presumed that I would use it to turn the rudders that would be placed in the water but, after thinking of a fan for propulsion I thought that maybe I could use this mechanism to turn rudders in the fan’s air stream.

The fan spins and produces a strong air current in direction shown. The rudders
turn and (hopefully) direct the air stream left or right. This will manoeuvre the craft.
The strip shows whether the air current is actually being directed.

This means of steering the craft was not successful. The polythene strip showed that, for a small distance, the air current did move in the direction that the rudders directed it, but after about 25 cms the strip went back into the middle again. I think that the reason for this was for two reasons:

1. The rudders were not large enough to totally change the air current’s direction;
2. The air disturbance caused by the fan’s circular movement caused too much of a non-steady air current and so the rudders just served to make the air current even more disturbed rather than directing it.

I will not use this method to steer the craft. I will stick to normal rudders that turn in the water.

The Cable

To run and control motors on the craft I needed a cable that would go from the batteries on the bank to the craft.
I connected the motors up so that all their wires went into two separate cables. I stuck the cables together and made it so they left the boat at the place shown below:

I positioned floats along the cable at 3 ft intervals so that it would float on the surface.

The cable was about 15-20 ft long. It was connected to a 12v battery, which ran the fan and two 4.5v power packs (Lego) that had a switch on so that I could change the directions of the motors.
 

Fitting it all together

Now that I have made the three mechanisms: the collecting apparatus, the propulsion and the steering, all I have to do is fit them onto the craft, make a cable to supply electricity for the motors and test the whole thing on a lake or slow-flowing river.

The Final Test

I tested my boat on a slow-flowing river near my school. It floated perfectly and the fan and rudders worked well at manoeuvring it.

When the collector was tested under real conditi0ons I was very surprised at how well it worked. The craft went out, did its job, and returned perfectly, just as I had wanted it to and I was very pleased.

There was only one small problem and that was that the cable caused a slight drag on the craft. This limited manoeuvrability.

If I were to continue this project I would try to make the boat so that it could be radio controlled. Unfortunately this cannot be done now, as I do not have the equipment.

I think that a craft like this would be very useful to pollution testers, as it would save them having to row or wade out to collect samples.

If I have time in the future I may try to make a really decent one and sell it. I enjoyed making it.

 

April 1991

The Moderator wrote:

This is one of those superb pieces of work that really makes you think we are producing embryonic scientists and engineers.
Here is a boy who has obviously got his teeth into a real problem and has enjoyed the challenge.

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BUILDING A WINDMILL

Mukti Kumar Mitchell  

I first went to discuss the design of a windmill with Mike Agg, a former Rolls Royce engineer, who is very interested in windmills. He showed me various statistics such as:

• If the blade is at 45° it will turn at the speed that the wind is travelling at.
• If the blade is at 67.5° to the wind it will turn at twice the speed of the wind.
• Since the centre of the windmill is turning slower than the outside, the blades ought to be at a greater angle near the hub, 45° to the wind perhaps, and the outer edges of the blades should be around 15° to the wind.

Mike also gave me a book on windmills called Small Scale Wind Power. Ifound this very comprehensible and interesting, and from it got many ideas and information about wind, efficiency, location, towers, and much more.

I decided to make a slow-speed windmill for the following reasons:

• They do not need to be made so precisely because they spin slowly. The tips of the blades of high technology high-speed windmills travel at speeds up to 400 miles per hour and, just like aeroplanes, they need to be built perfectly or else they rattle themselves to pieces.
• The design is also much easier; I don’t need to define the curve of the blade, how it twists, and how it moves from a steep angle to a shallow angle so accurately
• Slow-speed windmills will start up at quite low wind speeds and will therefore work more of the time. High-speed windmills take more to start them off, although they may work more efficiently when running. Some large high-speed electricity wind generators need an auxiliary motor to start them up. For this reason slow-speed windmills also work better than high-speed ones in gusty wind.
• High-speed windmills normally have aerofoil shaped blades which are much more difficult to make than a simple curved piece of flat metal.

SIMPLY: High-speed windmills are far higher technology and are far more difficult to make. As my first windmill a slow‑speed one is a much more sensible idea because it does not matter if there are any imperfections in its construction.
      

fig 1 deflection of wind.

Windmills work by deflecting the wind. The best way to do this is to take the wind onto the blade at the leading edge at an angle almost perpendicular to the windmill, the angle it is already travelling at. The blade is curved so that as the wind moves across the blade it is slowly angled round to the angle at which it comes off the blade at the trailing edge. (See figure 1)

A slow-speed windmill produces greater power, properly termed in this case torque, but less speed. So the blades need to be at not too great an angle to the wind. This also has the advantage that the windmill will start running at lower wind speeds.

DESIGNING THE WINDMILL

First I had to design the windmill. After finding out some things about slow and high-speed windmills, I decided to take Mike's advice and build a slow-speed windmill. It would have:

• Tin blades (advised by Mike to be:) approx. 36² by 4², with hub angle and curve of 45°, tip curve around 15, and tip angle of around 65°. (See fig. 2)
• A bicycle wheel as pivot and bearing and support
• A 2² rim made of tin, running around the circumference of the windmill, to which the tips of the blades would be attached with rivets or small bolts. This rim was to hold the tips of the blades rigidly in place and therefore help to strengthen the windmill.
• A 6² by 4² wooden hub to which the inner tips of the blades would be screwed.
• A bicycle dynamo, probably run off a belt which goes round the rim of the bicycle wheel.

This was all that I thought about for now. The design of a vertical pivot enabling the windmill to turn to face the wind would come later.

Mike suggested that I make a wooden mould over which I could hammer each blade so that they would all have the same curve.

He brought two sheets of galvanized tin, each 6’ by 10². Seeing the quantity. I decided to alter the design and make 11 blades 2' long instead of 36²

In order to avoid causing too many eddies and disturbances, the angle at which the air is deflected off the back of the blades should be the same all the way up the blade.
These triangles illustrate at what angles the blades should be all the way up their length. The angles the air comes in at will normally be 0° but here they are shown in relation to the moving blade.

Fig. 2 Triangles to determine angle and curve of blades

These diagrams show how I used the diagrams in fig. 3 to determine the angles and curves of the blade at different points on its height.

Fig. 3 Blades drawn onto the triangles

Fig. 4 The design

Building the Windmill

• The first step was to make a wooden mould over which I would hammer the blades. I used an old piece of wood 2’ long and, with a plane, shaved it into shape. I put two nails through the mould to slot into two holes in the blades to keep them in place while being hammered.
  

Fig 5. The mould, plan, section tip/hub side view

The next step was to make the hub. I cut 4² off the end of a massive stake, diameter 6², and shaved it to make it fairly round. The reason the hub is so large is that the diameter needs to be big enough to attach the inner edges of all the blades to it.

Fig. 6 The hub of the windmill

• I cut 11 blades out of tin with tinsnips. I made two holes in the blades with a hammer and nail to line up with the nails in the moulds. Then I tried to hammer the blades over the mould but I found that this didn’t work; the tin kept springing back to its original shape. I managed to shape the blades in the end by first banging them to a curve greater than that of the mould and then hammering them back over the mould.
• I made tabs on the blades in order to attach them to the hub and rim. I decided to make three tabs. Most of the blades were 24² long but, due to my inaccurate cutting, some were only 23² long. I decided to make the actual length of the blade, excluding the tabs, 22², so I cut some of the tabs 1² long and some only 0.5² long.
  I drilled holes in the hub-tabs just big enough to put my 0.75² screws through, and bent them over. I bent over the tip tabs but did not drill holes in them because I did not know the size of the rivets or bolts I would use to attach the rim.

            
Fig. 7. The tabs

• Next’ the wooden hub was attached to the bicycle wheel. I drilled a hole right through the hub and then drilled and
  chiselled out a concave pyramid into the back of the hub so that the spindle of the wheel could spin freely inside the hub without touching it. The hub would need to spin with the wheel.
  Then I attached the hub to the wheel by bracketing it to the spokes.
  
  

Fig. 8. Attachment of hub to wheel.section.rear view

• Now I could attach the blades to the hub, but first I had to mark out 11 lines, the positions of the leading edge for each blade. I found that the diameter of the hub was 16.5², so I marked 11 lines 1.5² apart.
  I screwed the leading tab to the hub and then the middle tab so that a line across the front of the blade would be around 45°. I found that it was convenient not to screw the trailing tab to the hub because it was sticking over the back of the hub too much and I felt that two screws were adequate.
  
  
  
  
  Fig. 9 Attachment of blade to hub
  
• At this point the windmill was nearly finished and I was eager to try it out. It seemed very strong even without the rim and any attachment to the spokes of the bicycle wheel so I decided to test it.
  First I had to build a tower. The simplest way seemed to be a stake in the ground.
  It was quite a gusty day. I chose a place for my 7¢ stake in the centre of the field away from trees and other obstructions. I made a hole in the ground with a metal pin and hammered in the stake.
  I attached the windmill to the stake with a strip of metal facing what I thought was the prevailing wind.
  
  
  

Fig. 10 A close-up of the attachments at the top of the stake

THE FIRST TEST

I was amazed to see how well the windmill worked. As soon as I had finished tightening the nut that held it on and let go the blades began to spin. I had to stand back because I could see that if I touched it, it could easily chop off my fingers.
Since it was going so well I decided I decided to try and find out how fast it was going. I tried to time it but it was spinning so fast I could not follow any particular blade so I decided to put a label somewhere on the hub, but this presented another problem: stopping the windmill. I tried pressing the hub with my gloved hand but this had no effect. Eventually I managed to bring it to a halt by prssing an old cycle inner tube against the rim of the bicycle wheel, I then wrapped the inner tube around one of the blades and the stake while I fixed the label.
I let the blades go free and they span rapidly. I waited for a big gust of wind which span the blades so fast you could not see them, made them whistle and rocked the stake. Then I counted the revs over 20 seconds.

                   *RPM test: 67 revolutions in 20 seconds = 201 RPM

                   Tip speed

• Circumference = diameter x p
• Circumference = 126 cm x 3.14159
• Circumference = 396 cm or 4 m
• Tipspeed in metres/minute = 4 x 201 = 804 = 48.34 Kph

Allowing for inaccuracies and varying windspeed over the 20 second test, I can say that the tipspeed in this test reached around 50 kilometres per hour.

FURTHER MODIFICATIONS

After the first test I took down the windmill. I decided to strengthen it by attaching the blades to the spokes of the bicycle wheel with wire. I drilled two tiny holes in each blade, about where they touched the rim of the bicycle wheel. I then put wire through the holes and twisted it round a spoke.
This modification greatly improved the rigidity of the blades and strengthened the whole windmill.
At this pointI decided not to carry on with the design that included a rim around the circumference of the windmill: I felt this was unnecessary because the windmill seemed to be very strong anyway.

The original aim of this project was to generate electricity so the next step I took was to attach a bicycle dynamo.
I could see that it would be easier to run the dynamo straight off the rim of the bicycle wheel than run it off a belt. I drilled a hole in a piece of copper pipe in order to attach it to the spindle of the bicycle wheel. Then I clamped on the dynamo. I twisted an elastic band round the head of the dynamo sothat when running against the wheel rim the contact would be rubber to metal rather than metalto metal. I positioned the small red rear bicycle light within 4² of the dynamo and attached it to the dynamo's clamp.

Test No. 2

I set up the windmill in the dark, with the dynamo and light attached. As soon as I switched the dynamo into contact with the windmill I noticed that it had a serious effect on the windmill's performance. I had to give the windmill a push to start it, but after that it ran fast enough to power the light easily.
I left the windmill for about 10 minutes and when I returned it had stopped. But with a torch I could see the elastic band had been broken. I also realised that once the windmill had stopped it took a large gust to start it.
The problem with the bicycle dynamo is that it causes great friction because it has to put pressure on the rim in order not to slip. Perhaps a belt would in fact work better.

Further modifications

At this point I decided to try to make a vertical pivot which would enable the windmill to turn to face the wind.
I found a large metal bracket and a large bolt. With extreme care I actually managed to drill two holes
through the bolt through which I could attach the bolt to the stake. I then assembled the bracket, bolt, windmill and dynamo onto the stake as shown infig 11

Fig 11. Assembly of pivot mechanism, rear v. side v. plan.

To go with the pivot mechanism I naturally had to make come kind of protruding fin which would turn the windmill to face the wind.
I found an old piece of plastic pipe about 1m long and a very thin sheet of tin about 18² by 14². I cut a slit about 2² long in the end of the pipe into which I slotted the vein, the piece of sheet‑tin. I drilled two holes through the pipe and the tin and threaded a piece of wire through and back and then twisted it to hold the vein in place.
I attached the pipe to the pivoted bracket so that it would turn the windmill.

Fig 12. The finlveinlpivot assembly.

Test no. 3

I set up the windmill. with the new pivot and vein on a not-so-windy day. I immediately observed that because of the weight of the windmill there was a lot of friction in the pivot mechanism. Taking this into account the vein was not really big enough for the wind to turn the whole windmill unless, perhaps, in a very strong wind.
The best thing to do at this stage was to attach a much bigger vein. If this still was not adequate a new pivot mechanism, probably with bearings, would be needed.
I tested the windmill on a windy day and found that this greater force of wind was still not enough to face the windmill to the wind.

Further modifications

I decided to make a new larger vein. I cut the vein from a sheet of 3-ply wood. It is a sort of triangular shape 78cm high by 81cm long and with a totalarea of 4018cm square. (much larger than the last vein who's area was 726cm square.) I attached this to the pivot with a piece of copper pipe about 80cm long.

Fig 13. The new vein: side view of windmill.

Test no. 4
                                                                         
I set up the windmill on a fairly windy day. The new vein, being much larger and heavier than the last one, balanced the weight of the windmill and therefore the pivot could work with less friction. The new vein easily turned the windmill to face the wind.
I set the windmill up again on a calm day and it turned to face the wind just as easily.
Now that it always faces the wind it is surprising how fast the windmill spins even on a calm day.

Further modifications

The general use of slow speed windmills around the country is for water pumping. Since I was not very impressed about my windmill powering a tiny little bulb, I decided to try and adapt it to pump water.

This I could see would not be easy. The problem would be that however I took the power off the windmill this mechanism would have to be able to turn round and round. Therefore however I took the power off the windmill it would have to be right in the centre of the turning pivot. The obvious way to take power through the centre of the windmill would be to have two gears at right angles above the centre of the pivot driving a shaft which went down through the centre of the pivot, as in fig 14.

.
Fig 14. The obvious solution.

The problem with this would be the non‑availability of the necessary gears, and the setting up of the shafts with bearings to make them turn smoothly and without too much friction.

I had been meditating on this awkward problem for some days when I suddenly noticed car speedometercablesfor sale in a garage. This immediately gave me an idea. I could use a car speedo cable, because it would bend and still turn and could take the place of the two gears and shafts in 'the obvious solution'.

The only thing which needed changing in the present design of the windmill was that, instead of a solid metal bolt as the pivot, I would need to use a piece of metal pipe. This had to be thin enough to fit inside the metal bracket, fat enough to put a car speedo cable through the centre of and thick/strong enough to be able to take the strain of the windmill in the wind.

By amazing chance, whenIwent to apologise to my next door neighbour about waking his family up at midnight with our motorbikes, he had just such a pieceof pipe and gave it to me! I purchased a speedo cable in Bideford.

First I took down the windmill and reassembled it with the piece of pipe as pivot. I also added a piece of metal to hold the wheel I planned to use to drive the cable. I also needed to add another piece of flattened copper pipe to hold the wheel right against the bicycle wheel. I cut a curved piece of copper pipe in which to case the cable where it was bent. When I had put the cable through the pipes I attached a small wheel to the end of the cable.

Fig 15.The wheel, rear view, to show how I attached it.

                 
Fig 16. The whole cable drive mechanism. Side section.

Test no. 5

I assembled the whole thing on a reasonably windy day. The drive mechanism caused much friction in the windmill and gave a high resistance, but once started the windmill worked quite well and went quite fast even with the drive on. I am quite happy about it because with the drive on the windmill can still turn right around and around and the drive is not affected.

I left the windmill for a few days with the drive on and during these days it did not rattle itself to pieces and nor did the drive get broken.

Future modifications

Well, what's the use of a drive that doesn't drive anything? The next step is obviously to attach a pump to the drive. I just have to wait until I can find a pump. If I were to come across a washing machine pump I could quite easily attach it. Otherwise, if I got hold of a hand water pump I would need some other apparatus for working it. I have thought about the set up of both these different kinds of pump.

Fig. 17. The set up of a hand pump.

CONCLUSIONS

I can say that I greatly enjoyed this project and learnt about wholefields of knowledge which Iknew not about before I started. Most of the science I have learned about during this project is Physics, which is my favourite science. I learnt a lot about the theoretical side of windmills, wind, air, and use of the wind from Mike Agg. I alsolearnt a lot from the book Small Scale Windpower.

On the practical level, I can say that I designed, built, and modified this windmill with my very own hands. Not a single other person helped, and I feel that this is

THE GREATEST PRACTICAL ACHIEVEMENT I HAVE EVER MADE. With pleasure!
15/3/1989

This project was published by the Northern Examination Board as an example of work deserving 100% marks.

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THE ELDERFLOWER

Simon Rodway

PROLOGUE: THE DEATH OF A HERO
spoken by Penda Honeytongue
          
           The great old days have gone, and all the grandeur
              Of earth; there are not Caesars now or kings
              Or patrons such as there used to be,
              Amongst whom were performed most glorious deeds
              Who lived in lordliest renown.
                                                                            The Seafarer (1)

I sit huddled over the flat‑topped boulder that serves me as a writing desk. It makes a poor desk, when I could curl up in a warm corner by old Ielfstan's hearth with a black‑oak. bowl of honey‑mead at my elbow and Garm(2), the deaf old boar‑hound sleeping at my feet. But I felt that in some way I had to be near Gunnar Osricsson, my lord, in this moment,

More than a year I have been in writing this saga; sorting through the tangled strands of his incredible story and weaving them together, embroidering them with the jewels of a skald's art. As I write, my pen skittering across the uneven surface, I remember that wet autumn evening so long ago; the blue spear‑heads inviting the ravens to feast; my lord, veteran of many frays, spitted on an Irish lance, his orichalc brand from lost Atlantis bespattered in gore. Afterward I found him, face down in the delicate heather‑blooms, with a little breath in his body still.

'Write my story for me," he said. "that in later ages men may still remember my name. Do this thing for me, lend a Honeytongue, my shield‑companion, when we have parted for ever."

A while later the Angels came for his soul. I layed him in the earth, with his head towards the rising sun. These long months since, I have travailed that his memory is not lost. Now I have finished l feel an emptiness. Where is a man who has no lord?(3) For this past year the tale I was writing kept me from facing the emptiness. Now it, too, is gone. I weep a little: for Gunnow, for myself; for all the people whom strife and the clangour of saexes has bereaved of children, lovers, fathers, lords.

In a while, I will return to old Ielfstan and his avaricious penny‑pinching, to fat Helga and her whiplash tongue, to the maimed, wheedling beggars, the bragging warsmiths(4), the widows with emptiness behind their eyes, to the petty, war‑torn world of men; I who have looked on the glory of Atlantis and the greatness of Yggdrasil, the Quickwood(5). What will they care for the memories of one more lost hero? Never-the-less, I present the fruits of my labour for what they are worth(6).

CHAPTER ONE: THE WANDERER
Spoken by Gunnar Osricsson

I am Gunnar Osricsson, youngest son of Osric the Angleman and of Gunnhild the daughter of Hawk Redbeard son of Egil the Strong and of Gudrun daughter of Ketil Fox son of Kol and of Halbera the White daughter of Ragnar the Black son of Gutthorn the Raven(1). Osric the Angleman was a seafarer who rode the whale‑path to Denmark where he met my mother. He is the son of Eanwulf son of Osmod son of Eawa son of Pybba son of Creoda son of Cynewald son of Cnebba son of Icel son of Eomaer son of Angeltheow son of Offa son of Waermund son of Woden (or Odin as we say in Denmark) son of Freotholaf son of Freothowulf son of Fin son of Godwulf sone of Geat son of Taetwa son of Beaw son of Sceldwea son of Heremod son of Itermon son of Hratha of Hwala son of Bedwig son of Sceaf who was the son of Noah and was born in the Ark. Noah was the son of Lamech son of Methuselah son, of Enoch son of Jared son of Mahalaleel son of Cainan son of Enos son of Seth son of Adam who was the first  man on Earth and was created by God our Father, Amen(2).

Being a youngest son and having no inheritance, l left my father's hearth and took a knucklebone from the basket of Herulf Kolsson and went a‑Viking with the crew of the Red Hawk.  It was my first experience of seafaring or warring and the faces and characters of my sword‑brethren still stand out in my mind; Herulf     himself, gruff and fiery‑tempered, with skin like tanned leather, Kolsson himself with white scars from a life‑time of guiding beaked war‑prows through rain and shine, calm and storm(3); Ulf Crow, with grey hairs in the tangled black mane that had earned him his name; Gorm Lombard(4) with the strength of a Troll; hump‑backed Thrand the Red(5); Thormod who scolded like an old woman; Kolsegg the Skald whose fine lays kept us going when ill‑fortune had almost broken our will; Ulf Hedin(6), a baresark of great strength and ferocity who was timid and shy when the fit was not upon him ‑ before battle he would tremble like a leaf in snow-water so that he could not hold a tind(7), but when the blue blades began to keen he would run naked upon the foe and rend them with his barehands(8); Grim Fairfax(9) with his barley‑pale hair and his girlish good-looks; Lodin Longshanks, a tall, dour warrard(10) with a useless withered arm; Eirik a cantankerous old seafarer whose near sightless eyes were milky‑white; these are but a few of the men that sang and rowed and fought and died beside me.

For long weeks we ploughed the Whale‑Path, seeding the furrow behind us with empty wine‑skins, torn sail-cloth, gnawed bones and fish‑heads(11). And when my soft hands had blistered and hardened at the oars, we came near land amid a quarrelling squall of sea-mews(12). Many of us were all for going ashore at once, but Herulf  said:
"This is but a small island inhabited by crude folk with little wealth, For a little longer must we row and then we will come to a great land where men have chests full of pale gold, Frodi's meal and byres full of fat kine. The Lochlannach they call us and cower behind locked doors at the rumour of our coming." 

We were greatly cheered by this speech and we sangas we pulled at the oars, eager to fill our chests with riches and our bellies with fresh  meat. But it was not to be so.

For there dwelt on this desolate island an evil weather‑worker and he made a terrible magic that aroused the North Wind which came howling across the sea, whipping the waves into green mountains that gaped wide to glut us(13). The rain came down in grey sheets like a fall of spears. The thunder seemed to shake the very world and the lightning split the sky‑roof. And through the roaring elements the hideous Draug in their sodden wrecks came sailing into the wind grinning their horrible grins, clutching barnacle crusted prows that impossibly stayed afloat, sternless, with staved‑in ribs.

Ulf‑Hedin cried aloud: “Ragnarok! The Wrack of the Gods is upon us!" until Gorm Lombard tied his mouth with a cloak to stop his noise for the men were unnerved by his words.

Then black rocks, like teeth, leapt from the water to chew our craft and spew it, shattered, upon the strand. The Draug cackled as we floundered in the brine. The Vikings called upon the Allfather to save them (we were pagans then, may the Lord forgive us) but to no avail. Ram, the Mother of Storms(14), snared them in her net and they were gone.

Some few of us were cast upon the shore, battered and soaked through. Herulf was gone, standing grimly on the steer‑board till the end; Thurmod's scolding tongue was cold(15); Kolskegg sang no more.

As we staggered up the beach through the growing darkness, too dazed to comprehend what had befallen, wild shapes leapt at us through the gloaming. They swung at us with swords blackened with soot to prevent moon‑gleam betraying their ambush. These were the Painted Folk; the weather‑worker's warriors; scrawny, half‑naked men, shrieking like hell‑devils, their bodies stained blue with woad.

Few of us were armed but still we fought hard and died well. Thrand the Red and Eric Thorfmusson fell, pierced by Pictish war‑spears. Their life ebbed with the tide.

I snatched an axe from a howling, painted wose and split his skull with it. Sinister Lodin was a hawk with a broken wing, his beak of flashing, Pictish steel. He died at the hub of a wheel of blue‑painted corpses, Ulf‑Hedin reaped a harvest of blue sheaves, but they surrounded him and brought him down like a bear.

The day opened its yellow eyes upon a dolorous scene. Of the Painted Men, none still breathed. Their bodies lay tumbled upon the blood‑soaked sand, Viking bodies too. Of my shipmates three only still stood; Ulf Crow cradling a bleeding arm; Gorm Lombard cursing softly as he struggled to extract a lance‑head from his thigh, and wasp‑waisted Grim Fairfax.

We had not time to send the dead off in the customary way of the time which was to burn their bodies, that the spirit would be released to return to the Allfather on the wings of the Valkyries; but we laid them together apart from the Pictish beasts and heaped rocks upon them to spare them from the ravens.

Lord God, have mercy upon their souls. They died in ignorance, but they were good men in their own way, They knew of Your Son, who went into the earth-darkness for the good of Your people, and who rose from the cairn like the Lord Barleycorn.

As we straightened our backs from this task we beheld a troop of Painted Men marching across the forsaken heath towards us. Arrows, whining like beaten curs, rained upon us, We fled across the broken ground, down swart‑toothed cliffs.

A tiny coracle tossed on the heaving grey waters below us. We splashed through the chilling brine and clambered aboard the frail vessel. Grim Fairfax and I seized paddles and laboured to haul the unwieldy craft clear of the rocks, The Painted Folk appeared to sting us with their darts, but we were soon out of range of their short bows.

I wondered that the weather‑worker did not crush us with another tempest. Perhaps he was not able to summon another so soon after the first. Perhaps he was content with the casualties he had already caused. His motives for the original assault were not clear. If it was loot he was after, he would be disappointed, for we had none. For whatever reason, we were spared his wrath and drifted aimlessly for many days.

Poets regale the sea with honey‑sweet names: Whale‑Road; Swan‑Path; AEgir's Meadow. They speak of the prancing wave‑horses; of the Selkies, the seal‑folk who till the waves as we till the land; of the un‑tamed power of the ocean: of its haunting bitter‑sweet music. l, who have lain for seven nights upon its merciless bosom, speak of it in starker terms: Widow‑Maker.

It taunted us, that long week, flaunting its unpalatable waters as we stared dry‑throated, empty‑bellied at the sun‑glitter, Then out of the brightness sailed a drake‑prowed longship dragging a salt furrow behind it.

Wehailed it, beyond caring who these strangers might be. Lines were thrown and, weak with hunger, we hauled ourselves aboard. They were Saxons, blonde-haired giants from the Northern forests of Almain where the Trolls polish their dreadful eyes and peer through the gloom snuffling for human blood. Their speech was like enough to ours for us to understand them and them us. 1 also knew a little of the speech of the Angles, my father's folk, which was in essence the same tongue.
  
Thecaptain, Osgeat, told us there was room on the rowing benches for us. The shafts of the Painted Folk had seen to that. So it was that the tattered remnants of the proud crew of the Red Hawk sat on the hard sea‑chests of stark  seafarers pulling the heavy oars over the edge of the longship (oar‑slits are unheard of in Almain). Aside from this, the             Skua was similar to the Red Hawk  that now was sodden planking washing with the tides.

The‑ man on the chest before me was a poet; Penda Honeytongue was his name. He told me many tales of his folk in the long weary days that followed: of Beowulf the bee’s wolf; of Scyld Scefing, the Targe of the People; of the great Mirk Wood that separated his land from the rich Southern lands where folk were brown of skin and white of tooth; of Wade the Halsing, a great weather‑worker, patron of the Saxon people.

In return, although 1 am no skald, I told him the sagas I had heard as a bairn in my father's mead‑hall, squatting among dog‑gleaned bones, listening to the gleemen. Clumsy‑tongued, 1 spoke of the Peace of Frodi; of Sigurd the Volsung and his battle with the great Worm Fafnir; of the AEsir (the gods to whom I hearkened at that time) and of their strife with the Rime Giants.

I came to recognise others of my new shipmates in those weeks: Simple-Offa with his broad, good‑natured face; fierce Cynergrim Head-hewer; Oswine, whose arm had been lopped off above the elbow in some long-ago skirmish; Brand Guthrumsson with his brawny blacksmith's arms. They boasted of theirprowess in battle and lamented the absence of their wivesand lovers much as the men of the Red Hawk had done. Seafarers are much the same whether they hearken from rime-bitter Denmark or forest‑bound Almain,

I learnt that the Skua was bound South away from these Pict‑infested islets, to the rich farmlands of Albion. The crew of the Skua were‑ merely raiders, but many Saxons had taken their womenfolk  and settled there.

We sailed close to the coast, putting in at night where we could, occasionally stopping to sack  cliff‑top villages. We amassed little wealth from these raids, for the folkwere poor crofters and  fishermen. For the most part they fled when they espied the helmeted war‑smiths, but in one settlement a few sturdy herdsmen banded together to repel us. The headman carried a metal sword, but the rabble were armed only with picks and staves. We slew a couple and the others were routed. We took a handful of coins and some rough bronze and amber jewellery. The men grumbled.

"We are tired of worthless baubles" growled Brand Guthrumsson waving a dented copper torque in Osgeat’s face.                                  
"Have patience" said Osgeat. "Further south we will find richer spoils."

It was as he said. But some few days later, Cynegrim Headhewer sighted a longship ploughing serpent‑wise through the swell. As it approached, Olgeat cried out;
"The Sea Mare Gundulf Nithinq is come!"

He took up his broadaxe and made as if to leap overboard. I asked Penda about this. He replied that Gundulf had slain Osgeat's brother, Eoppa the White, for the slandering of Cynric, Gundulf's father, for which action Gundulf had been declared a nithing, Awanted man, he had turned Viiking. Now the Fates intheir perversity had crossed his strand with that of Osgeat,  and Osgeatwas determined that one strand should here be severed. It appeared that the thing was in Gundulf’s mind also, forhe drew the Sea Mare alongside the Skua and greeted Osgeat from the deck.

“Hail    Osgeat Wiglaf's son!" he cried, He was a broad man with a tangled mane of red hair. 
“Hail Gundulf Cynric's son!" replied Osgeat through shut teeth.

They spoke together oftrivial things for a little. Then Gundulf said: "You have found your warg, His head is yours for the taking." His tone was light, as though he were speaking of the doings of a far‑away people who mattered little to him.

"Then 1 will come and take it" cried Osgeat and he would have boarded Gundulf's ship in that instant, had not Penda restrained him, saying that it were better to do the thing his axe against Gundulf's than the Skua's crew against that of the Sea Mare.

"We have no quarrel with Gundulf's men. Let there be a Holm‑Ganging instead."
"Aye," said Gundulf, "Let there be, a Holm‑Ganging."

end of Chapter One

NOTES ON SOURCES for 'THE ELDERFLOWER'

Prelude

1. Richard Homer's translation from A Choice of Anglo‑Saxon Verse, pp. 184‑95
2. 'Garm of the Bloody Breast' was the watchdog of hell in Norse mythology,
3. This sentence was inspired by by the OE poem ‘The Wanderer’, (Homer op. cit.)
4. In the 0ED of Etymology it states that the word 'smith' could originally be suffixed to any trade, hence 'warsmith'.
5. 'Quickwood' was inspired by a race of animated trees in the First Ed. Advanced Dungeons and
   Dragons Monster Manual II byGary Gygax. Here 'quick' is used in the sense 'living' .
6. The he style of this whole passage is influenced by Rosemary Sutcliffe's writing.

Chapter One

1. The style of this genealogy and the character of the names contained therein derived from
   the Icelandic sagas, especially Magnus Magnusson  and Hermann Paisson's translation of Njal's Saga,
2. This genealogy from Eanwulf onwards is compiled from the genealogies of the English kings from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle translated by Anne Savage.
3. This description is based on that of a Lochlannach seafarer in The High Deeds of Finn MacCool by Rosemary Sutcliffe.
4. I used Lombard after reading about the Germanic tribe, the Lombards (OE Longbearden,
   long‑beards) in The Lost Road compiled byChristopher Tolkein from J.R.R. Tolkein's
   early writings,
5. 'Thrand the Red' is based on a character in Wind‑Eye by Robert Westall.
6. I first found the name 'Hedin' in its OE form 'Heden' in The Book of Lost Tales Vol.I  compiled by Christopher Tolkein from J.J.R. Tolkein’s early writings. I later found the combination 'Ulf‑Hedin' in Njal's Saga  tr. Magnusson and Palsson,
7. Meaning a 'spear' in this case, It is an OE word meaning 'projecting spike', Cf. modern English :'tine’.
8. The description of Ulf‑Hedin and the use of 'baresark' instead ofthe commoner 'berserker' is influenced by Henry Treece's Horned Helmet.
9. ‘Fairfax' is an Anglicisation of the OE 'Foegerfeax' or fair‑hair.
10. 'Warrard' is constructed from 'war' and 'ard' as in 'sluggard', 'drunkard' etc,
11. 1 first came across this image in An Orkney Tapestry by George MacKay Brown.
12. 'Sea‑mews' is an archaic word for seagulls.
13.        This phrase is similar to Shakespeare's 'And gape at wid'st to glut him' The  Tempest, Act 1. Sc.1 line 57.
14. Ran, the Sea‑Giant's wife inNorse mythology. The epithet 'Mother of Storms' was applied to her by Rosemary Sutcliffe in The‑ Lantern Bearers.
15. Cf. '...young Harry Percy's spur was cold, ' (Henry IV part II, Act 1, Sc. 1, line 42.)

This is a small selection of the 71 footnotes Simon gave to this story. He also has a bibliography of 42 books from 23 authors.

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