Recently, rambling in the Peak District I climbed “Mam Tor”- the great rounded

peak named ‘Mam’ from Old English for Mother or Breast (Mammary).

Epic moments and there was a day of rain to refresh the parched ground- a little…

Hello all,

Well what can I say folks. Apologies and excuses. Editing takes yonks and my time gets squeezed and my posts usually have little errors here and there, which I often go back in to tweak. So it’s worth going to the Post through the Substack site rather than in email.

Anyway, it was brought to my attention that the free version of the Serpent Stone Post was not shared. It was a rare occasion when I created two separate posts… and this I felt was an error that needed correcting and flagging up to you lovely subscribers.

I’ve also tweaked a few other glitchy bits.

Hope it seems a bit more complete now and that you enjoy this glimpse into how I find my story-scapes in the real live landscapes I meet on my rambles……

So- without further ado- here’s the updated link to the Post with the free and paid option for the Serpent Stone recording along with the full written piece on Devon Serpent Folklore…

With love from the currently Summer-fruit-foraging and Rain-dancing

Laura Sky Salmon

.

Me on my Dartmoor ramblings, in the weirdly gnomish garden, beside the Pixie Land Gift Shop, Nearby is Pixies’ Holt- legendary home of the Pixies. The whole area directly inspires my new book…

Dear Wildlanders all,

Perhaps you’re asking, ”What happened to the Podcast and the Eco-fantasy book?

Read on for updates and scroll on down if you wish to get straight to the stories galorious…

With my work as Nature Storyteller for the Bowden Pillars Future Land Project and the completion of my book “Jack’s Patch” AND telling my tales out in Summer’s bloom, I have put my Podcast, “The Wildlanders Radio Show” on hold. I’ve also delayed my editing and recording of “Parsifal and The Well Maiden” until Autumn. … but I’m sharing my live stories with you where I can get them recorded and sending out chapters of Jack’s Patch too!

It seems the only way to get even a short(ish) novel written is focus, focus, catch up with everything else and… erm…RE-focus…

I’m planning a Relaunch of Wildlanders Radio Show, in collaboration with my local Radio Station “Soundart Radio,” once the book is done- and I will, of course, be sharing it here for you.

The idea for the show is a combination of live talk from me, with story recordings and some talking and/ or musical guests… Should be a lark!!!

Here’s the link for Soundart online, so you can get a taste of what this inspirational, experimental community radio station is doing… IT’S ABSOLUTELY ACE!!!

https://soundartradio.org.uk/

Over the past year I’ve been immersed in the landscape and community in my locality of Totnes in the South Hams of Devon, where Soundart is based.

As I say, a lot of my story-making activities have recently focussed on the Land next door, stewarded by the Bowden Pillars Future Community, where I’m their Nature Storyteller. In the Summer there are many More than Human beings to meet there and all of us in the Nature Circle and Regenerative Farming Co-op are coming together to offer a Community Event there soon.

It’s all about informing and inspiring our “Community of Interest” about the Regenerative approach- discovering wildlife and touring the plots of the pioneering growers.

I’m pretty excited to be leading folks on a Story Quest through the Land to meet the mysterious ‘Green One’ and learn how we can live as part of the World Wide Web of Life!

I’ve also been living as part of Bowden House intentional community for 3 years now and these all these connections to the area have really brought me “home” here. I’m feeling happy, settled and very fortunate; and the creativity bubbles and brews and overflows, wanting to find the light of day…

I can barely keep up with sharing it and now I’m better rested- after years of being unsettled- I find myself getting involved in more “in-person” events…

Stories told live with others involved, stories discovered walking through the landscape- for me this is where the magic happens.

I never stop a-rambling and so I’ve been exploring and gathering inspiration further out in the Wildlands too- along old trackways, over the moors, along the River Valleys and coastlines of the wider region.

Rambling through the Land of Story

As an Environmental Storyteller I spent 30 years rambling on- in more Ways than one!

Rambling through the Land, immersing myself in the Living World and finding the stories that await me there… finding out about the stories of that place from human records too, or finding an old piece of folklore which winds in through a special tree, a well, a bird encounter.

I rely on this link between the walking ramble and the talking ramble.

If I’m working at my desk trying to write a tale and I get stuck, I’ll go out walking and suddenly the images flow through my story landscape like a brook…

So the story is born in my imagination in pictures and then I return to the writing and my words begin to cover that ground, painting the picture for memory, for all listeners to hear.

Have you ever noticed yourself finding solutions, having brilliantly clear ideas during a walk?

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There’s a very good reason for this if we look back into our Evolution.

You might know that our ancestors’ brains became hard-wired to function in creative/ problem solving ways, as we climbed down from the trees and evolved into ground dwellers- into walkers rather than climbers.

It is thought that, as we began to walk about on the ground, our nervous systems felt more threat and so our brains expanded to create ways to survive and eventually to thrive down there.

It makes sense to me.

And also, it wasn’t all about the adrenaline-fueled wandering of the hunter and hunted. Our brains would also have evolved then, because this ground-based reality had so many different terrains- to stimulate the minds’ growth- and so many different forms of life too, beyond the tree-scapes we had inhabited before.

So we became deeply attuned sensory beings. We would have been highly skilled far beyond the scope of most 21st century humans; brains expanding to learn the lie of the land intimately, to understand the language of a vast variety of Other-than-Humans. Trees, plants, birds, predators and prey- living beings of all kinds- taught our ancestors how to survive.

Each was aware to their bones that the world wide web of life gave them everything they needed.

To know the landscape in such detail, with such expanded senses- the intricate weave of the plants in forest, moors, wetlands, shores; rocks marking our way, shifting winds, celestial bodies, following rivers, negotiating the ocean tides to forage for shellfish, seaweeds.

It was whilst walking in nearby South Dartmoor, recording another story, last year, I found a story-scape for my current book “Jack’s Patch”.

The Main Characters. Jack- a boy who needs to grow food for his community in war time- and the Gardener Gnome who brings him the wisdom he needs to do it, first popped up into my imagination over 20 years ago. This was when I first lived in the South Hams, but with life being as it is- the idea was shelved and gathered dust.

Recently - the tale came back into my imagination. I suddenly felt I could dust it off and get on with writing it quite fast as was a much shorter story than the big novels I have been working on for so long, but I wasn’t quite sure where to start..

Speaking to my mentor, Lucy, she spoke of her own novel set in the future, where people are coping with economic and climate collapse and this inspired me. Suddenly I conceived the idea for Jack’s Patch as a fun but rather dystopian fantasy of the future. But I couldn’t quite picture the setting…

It was whilst recording my video of the “Serpent Stone” Story, up on Dartmoor, last Summer, that I truly found a landscape, to inspire the Story-scape of ‘Jack’s Patch’.

Here’s a link to the free version of my Serpent Stone Post from last year, to remind you...

Paid subscribers here’s the full version relinked…

Based on folklore collected by William Crossing, “The Serpent Stone” tells of a moor-lander, bitten by an adder, who has a mysterious vision. Following the vision he sets off on a Quest for the Serpent Stone from his cob cottage, beside an old Holly tree, on the edge of a village called “Hollegn”…

This is the original name of Holne- a real village, below Holne Moor on Dartmoor, still very much alive, with a vibrant community.

Hollegn is old English for Holly, since the village was named after the trees that grow there. I imagine they were actively encouraged to grow as they have many uses, providing green firewood, emergency winter fodder for grazing animals, as well as being a versatile wood to make things with.

Holly’s History in woodworking (from https://www.woodcraft.com/blogs/wood/woodsense-spotlight-on-holly.)

Holly has always been used for small items, such as chess pieces, brush backs and handles, treenware, and inlay. In fact, piano keys made of this extremely white wood look like ivory. Its tight grain and trait of taking a high polish made it the choice for loom spinning rods in the 19th century textile industry–the smooth wood did not snag threads.

Today’s woodturners love putting holly on their lathes, carvers adore shaping it, and marquetry makers dye it into a host of colours (dyed black, it’s an ebony look-alike as shown above, right). Luthiers use holly for pegs, fretboards, and other tiny but highly noticeable instrument parts…

In Jack’s Patch, I have storyfied Holne into a village called Dracontor, named after a Tor which looms above.

A Tor which holds secrets of the most ancient kind…

Dracontor occupies the same position, on the South-east edge of the Moor, as Holne; the nearby tor is imagined, but inspired by happy hours spent exploring the great granite tors of Dartmoor, formed from molten rock at the dawn of time. Dracontor is a place of portals to other realms and this idea sprang from sources embedded in this land- ancient myths of the Otherworld, the Faery Realms- or as I call it the Underhill Realms.

Crucial to the Tale is another portal at a mound called “Pixies Bolt”- a place which is a fusion of Huccaby Tor and the legendary home of the Pixies at Pixies Holt, near Dartmeet, where an old stone structure is perhaps a Pixie refuge- or portal. Traditional Pixie Stories have been collected throughout this area, deep onto the southern moor, where the valleys and high moors seem to twine and bristle with enchantment.

If you go to Pixie’s Holt now, you’ll find a Gift Shop called “Pixie Land” marks the spot; with a novelty garden full of models of Garden Gnomes rather than Pixies…

The “Jack’s Patch” version, called Pixies Bolt, it is the Place where the Gardener Gnome comes from and a place which Jack and his Gnome friend return to to discover both Wilderfolk humans and the Pixies in play towards a certain full moon.

The Pixies of the Moor become an essential part of the action, as Jack journeys through the Underhill realm to bring them out of Dracontor, just in time for the dreaded coming of The Drones….

If you read on with Jack’s Patch, you’ll discover what happens when Pixies run wild in the Gift shop garden and how Jack goes through the portal at Pixie’s Bolt..

Just below, I am sharing the link to the Post containing Chapter 1, followed by Chapter 2. It is aimed for young (at heart) people from 7 years upwards and is set in the near future when the country is taken over by an Artificially Intelligent Government. The fun bit comes when the Elemental Beings of my Dartmoor-inspired Story-scape, rise up to support the Community of Humans...

In Chapter 2 the Wilder Folk are mentioned for the first time; People who live up on the Moors, off grid and in harmony with nature, having dropped out of the Digital Society of the 21st century. Jack’s Dad reminds the villagers that the Wilder Folk show them ways they can survive without the electrical and digital structures they have grown up with.

Examples of how to become Wildlanders….

I am putting the Chapters up, in full for Paid Subscribers and excerpts only for Unpaid Subscribers, as a way of encouraging you to support my work here.

The more subscribers I have, the more time I can afford to share what I’m doing on Substack in what, I hope, is an entertaining way for you all…

Thanks so much for ALL of your support- both paid and unpaid. It means a lot that you’re interested in what I do- helps me feel like I’m on the right track… AND please send your Feedback to me here...

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This Post from April contains Chapter 1 of Jack’s Patch, “Slugs and Snails”…

…and here is “Jack’s Patch. Chapter 2. The Name of the Gnome.”

Next morning Jack woke up lively but puzzled. He remembered his dream so vividly it seemed like it really happened. He knew he had really gone up to the Patch to pick off slugs and snails last night- he could feel the layer of dried slime still on his fingers. BUT- the rest of it? It had to be a dream- the Gardener Gnome coming to life. Yet it seemed just as real as the rest of it. He felt like he really had cried and dripped tears on the Garden Ornament’s stone head and then heard the Mole squeak and then…

No! It just couldn’t be true.

Jack was still thinking about the dream when he sat down to Breakfast. His Mum served up a steaming bowl of rice with a dollop of mashed apples from the orchard to sweeten it and sat opposite.

She looked across at him, through her unruly brown curls, her blue eyes dulled with worries.

“You alright, little Mister?” she asked.

“I had a strange dream last night, that Grandad’s Gardener Gnome came to life and spoke to me. Helped me get rid of the slugs and snails… called them slimers. He was very friendly… Wish it was true…” he told her.

“True or not true- dreams are important.” She replied.

“Do you know anything about the Gnome, Mum?”

“Well, when I first went up to the patch with your Grandad, he said the Gnome was his Great Grandad’s only frivolous belonging …”

“Frivolous?”

“Well, he said the Hannafords are a practical family and all they had was stout work clothes tools and objects you could do things with. The Gnome was the only thing he owned, that didn’t have a use…”

“But I remember Grandad told me the Gnome was “company”. That’s a use isn’t it?”

“Well, That Gnome must have had a lot of meaning to him, because it was written down in his Will to pass to your Dad and then to you…”

Then Jack remembered saying that word last night, in his dream, before he went to sit beside the Gnome- “Company.”

It was then that the feeling crept over him: Last night was no dream and he knew it and that meant one thing.

He had to find out the Name of the Gnome.

“I want to find out more about Great-great Grandad… and his Gnome…”

“Yes, Why don’t you look in Grandad’s Box of Papers… Only opened it once to put his Will inside. He’d left it in our file here, in case. I sort of thought it was up to you and your Dad to look through it somehow. There might be something about his prized possession...”

“Where is it?”

“Up on the highest shelf in your Grandad’s main room, next to your Grandmother’s keep-sake box.”

Jack’s Mum took the old blackened key to Grandad’s door from its hook by the door and passed it to him, then she held his face in her hands and looked into his eyes, with a glimmer of brightness in hers.

“Remember the Co-learners will be coming up to help at the Patch Wednesday so try and get the jobs lined up… Those wild rocket seedlings that Jenny’s been watering are ready to plant out.”

Villagers, who were able to, came up to help out on the Patch on Wednesdays but sometimes Jack found it stressful. No one really knew how to Garden like Grandad and there were some villagers who didn’t even know which were weeds and which were useful plants and vegetables.

Somehow Jack found a reply for his Mum, while his mind whirled with the thought,

I NEED TO FIND THE NAME OF THE GNOME!

“Yes- we will make room in the wild salad bed. Remember to bring another bucket of ash up!…”

At least Him and Mum had learnt bits and pieces from Grandad- when they went up to help, like wood ash being good for rocket and cabbage and things but how Jack wished now that they’d learnt more.

Mum pulled on her coat and stepped out into the chill spring air.

Ever weekday- sometimes at the weekend -Mum met up at the Village Hall with a group of the villagers- young and old. Together they learnt the skills they needed to survive here beyond the electronic world and grouped together to do the work that needed doing- looking after the older people who couldn’t do much and the little children, collecting firewood and spring water from the hillside, helping at the Farm and on the Patch,.

They all learnt how to do things from each other, so they called it “Co-learning”.

They also played games and sang all the songs they knew, to entertain themselves. Now the Trance Boxes and TVs were off, they had to go back to the ways of their great, great grandparents.

“If we’re going to survive, life has to be worth living!” Mum would say and then sit down and tell them a story from their book of old Moorland tales…

Jack didn’t go to Co-learning often; he was used to being on his own and now he had the Patch- a good excuse to do his own thing. He had done his learning at home with Mum until he turned 9 and he spent a lot of time in between, wandering off on his own, looking at the wonders of the world. Rocks and plants and insects and great ravens and buzzards flying high in the sky.

But last April, on his 9^th Birthday, he had suddenly decided he wanted to go to the School, down in the town. He wanted to meet more people of his age and find out more about the world outside the moor.

Somehow he liked it, though he hadn’t really fitted in with the other children. He didn’t have a Trance Box like them and he envied them in a way. They could just switch on their little screen machines, then they didn’t seem to worry about anything; they just stared at their screens- in a trance.

One night in September, after Jack got back from school his Dad came home early from the City, where he worked for a Company called Commtech. His Dad was grey-faced with weariness and worry.

Jack saw Dad going round and turning off the Smart Box for the electricity, then his and Mum’s Trance Boxes- which they mainly just used as phones; he unplugged the interweb connection so the lights went out.

jack pricked up his ears as Dad whispered huskily to his Mum in the Kitchen,

“You know I’ve been fitting a new system for that new Government directive?”

“Yes… what is it?”

“ I can’t speak to a human anymore- the Aibots are running the whole thing- I’m almost certain, they’re taking over the Government, love…”

Jack had seen Aibots when they went into town- they ran the check out machines in the supermarket and collected the rubbish; some had got a contract and become TV stars, singing robotic pop songs and appearing on Game shows. Some were human shaped others had four legs and carried things on their back, some Aibots were very compact in the shape of little control panels, others just existed on the Interweb.

His school friend Billy G’s smart house in Ashburn was run by it’s own Aibot called Fred, who controlled all their appliances- including opening the fridge or freezer. The family told the Aibot what to do but sometimes the Aibot asked

“Why command?” and after they’d had their reply, they sometimes refused and said,

“Command not good for humans.”

So, they would have to press the ‘override’ button to get the house to do what they wanted.

And Dad was saying the Aibots were taking over. Somehow it hadn’t surprised Jack.

“What can we do?” Jack’s Mum replied, eyes wide with alarm. She glanced across at Jack.

“You might as well speak up- Jack will have to know anyway…” she said.

Dad had put his hand on Jack’s shoulder as he came into the kitchen and stood, silently beside his parents.

“Right, ok, well this is how it is. I’m in touch with a certain group. It’s called the Community of Humans. We are getting organised…There’s a secret chatroom on the shadow web, for Humans only - we’ve found a way to screen out any Aibots…”

Jack remembered the sense of impending doom that crept over him that night; he couldn’t sleep until Mum had read to him from the book of Moorland Tales.

Not long after, on the 15^th of October 2041, the AiBot-war began.

It started with a video message spoken by a humanoid Aibot appearing on every screen- every Trance Box, every Television, every digital advertising screen in the shopping centre..

“For the good of all Humans- Compulsory for each citizen to register for their free Ma-bot Domestic Unit by October 20^th .

Failure to register will result in Mabot personnel enforcing the new protocols, door to door.”

Dad and Avril the neighbour, who also worked for Commtech, went round the houses and called the Villagers to meet in the Village Hall.

The village was in uproar when Jack’s Dad had brought out an old trumpet from the village band and blown it in a way that sounded like a giant fart to Jack. He laughed out loud- even though it was a very serious moment.

Then his Dad had spoken up,

“I would like to help Dracontor stop an Aibot takeover in our village. We will need to organise fast and be brave… We will have to disconnect the electrics, come off the network. The Wilder Folk manage to live off grid and we could do it too!”

Then he explained how the Wilder Folk lived and how they could learn from them.

Jack’s Mum and Dad used to take him for walks over the moors, and he had seen the Wilder Folk walking along the trackways, pulling hand carts and donkey carts.

The Wilder Folk- the Free People Of The Moors- had been living off grid, since long before the Aibot takeover… Some had always been nomads but couldn’t travel anywhere off the moor anymore because all the roads were smart-controlled. So they made their homes up there.

Other Wilder Folk had once lived among everyday people, like Timon and Griselda, who used to be their neighbours. Timon was an old school friend of Dad’s and, before the government announced “The End of Cash,” Timon had been living on the edge of Dracontor with his partner, Griselda. They had both worked in the woods beside the village, teaching local people about the plants and animals and how to cut certain trees so they would grow back in straight poles. They would make things out of the wood like bowls and spoons and bend them into shelters for people to camp in on holidays. They had to be paid in cash for all their work, but they didn’t have a bank- they didn’t have a proper address-so when the End of Cash came, they went to live with others like them.

Jack and his family missed going up to sit around the fire in the Holly wood, with them, so one time, using a hand-drawn map that Griselda had given them, Dad, Mum and him had gone to find them. Deep in the valley they went, along a rough track, climbing over rocks, beside the river. There they had found Timon, Griselda and other Wilder Folk…

So together they sat in a circle around a merry fire, everyone laughing and singing songs. They had smelt of wood smoke and sweat and had wild hair and they fed them nettle tea and deer-meat stew in wooden bowls. Griselda told a story about a Moorland Giant, then Timon played a wild tune on his mandolin, with other musicians on drum, violin and pipes.

But Jack and his parents had never gone back there, because life for Dad and Mum seemed to have got so stressful.

There were people in Dracontor, who had said “Good riddance!” when Timon and Griselda left, because they didn’t live by their rules- because they were different.

So, over the past year or so, things had gone from almost everyone being addicted to their trance boxes, the End of Cash and almost every shop except the Hypermarkets shutting down; from Devices being used for everything, to Artificial Intelligence messing up their lives, finally to the Take over of a Robot Government!

That day in the Village Hall, when Jack’s Dad suggested that the villagers should be off-grid, like Wilder Folk, some were angry, others confused,

Captain Weathercock, the Landlord of the Green Dragon Inn shouted out,

“I’d prefer to be surrounded by robots than those dirty landgrabbers!”

A few people bellowed agreements,

“That’s right- scumbags!”

“Yeh! free-loaders!”

“Sounds like the new government is offering us a life of ease!” another villager shouted.

But then Dad explained,

“Listen to me! These Mabot homes are designed to keep us all indoors forever. There would be no freedom for us- to go outside or tend to our gardens or our animals. All our food and drink will be grown in a lab, made of chemicals, with drugs in to control our minds; screens in every room telling us what to do- loud programmes that you can’t switch off until they switch to rubbishy Ai music to make us sleep... It’s what the Ai-bot government has decided is ‘for the good of humans’, they can feed us screen entertainment and keep us ‘safely’ away from anything real or natural… Do you really want to become prisoners?”

After the villagers heard Dan’s words, there was a long silence, then everyone spoke at once, Arguing, panicking, some were crying.

“What about my cows! My dogs‘ll need walking!” Farmer Jenny Lucksly cried out.

Dad shouted,

“Listen we used to work for Commtech- we know how to shut the whole digital system down!”

Quiet again. They were listening.

“The Ai-bots should leave us alone, then, if no signals go out and no electrics come in, they won’t detect us on their online portals… at least for now…”

There was a lot more talking and confusion but by the end of that fateful day the people of the village came to an agreement. To try and hide up on the edge of the Moor, to protect their freedom from the Aibot Government!

Jack remembered that cold, wet day when all the villagers gathered around an open grave in the cemetery. There were tears as each one of them gave up their trance boxes and watched them being buried deep, like so many loved ones.

Life would never be the same again…

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How I started my search for REgenerative Tales…

I became an Eco-activist in the mid 1990s and, as a writer with a background in theatre, I was compelled to become a Storyteller as a way of reaching out into local communities to inspire them about our precious endangered eco-systems.

So began an urgent Quest for stories which answered the question:

How can we live as part of Nature?

Along side my quest for stories, I began an ongoing process of REconnecting to the World wide Web of Life myself.

It began in a traumatic way, prowling the frontline of a Road Protest, singing and telling tales, shoulder to shoulder with other witnesses to destruction.

I watched magnificent trees felled in their Spring leaf, tree bodies scattered, wild birds sounding the alarm, as their eggs shattered on the ground; the flattening of the homes of so many creatures and plants- large and small- the fragmentation of many wildlife habitats.

We became a Tribe and it did feel like we were “Nature Defending Themself”,…

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It really feels like I’m finding my way now, with my role as Nature Storyteller for the Bowden Pillars Future Project. (<click link here to find out more).

The whole Project is being led by Regenerative Thinking. It’s an approach to land use which is holistic and ‘aims to restore, renew, and revitalize systems rather than merely sustaining them.”* An approach which builds close Relationship with the Living World and Human Community.

Seeking the Stories of Regeneration, I’ve been living my Storyteller’s Dream; I just have to step through a gate and into a rewilding field next door, to ramble over and explore a real-life landscape of story on the Bow-den.

“Curved Hill Sanctuary” is one way to translate the name Bow-den from middle English and it truly is becoming an ever richer sanctuary for many new trees and other wild beings who were pushed to the margins here, during the days of intensive farming.

The video shows me telling the tale of “Speaks-with-Birds and the Elder Pipe” at the 3rd anniversary of the purchase of the Land by the founders of Bowden Pillars Future, this May.

It describes how nomads recolonised our land, following the trackways of the deer, migrating with the herds, finding all they needed in the Temperate Rainforest which once covered this Land; how a Tribe of these nomads arrived on this hill to form Respectful Relationships with the forest plants and creatures- the truly indigenous inhabitants of the land.

My vision for this Story from Pre-historic days, came as I rambled over the land, tuned in and found myself stepped over the invisible boundary and into the Land scape of Story.

Of course, before and after those ramblings came reading about archaeological eveidence and delving into old myths and legends, born out of Pre-history…

My Stories of Place sort of weave themselves together from all of it...

*quote from https://mindrumestate.co.uk/what-is-regenerative-thinking/

As part of my early training, I took a course in Environmental Storytelling at Bishops wood Centre with the famous Ben Haggerty. (Storytelling Royalty…)

Almost the first thing he taught us was:

All the Old Stories are ‘Environmental’, because they tell of the Times before the Industrial Age when everyone lived closer with the elements and with the Other-than-human Beings.

So, I always root my stories in the old traditional tales and the history that wraps around them…

The “Elder Pipe” is the second story I’ve evolved for Bowden Pillars, about this imagined Tribe who came to live on the Hill, and who went to “Mother Elder” for wisdom, medicine and some of the resources they needed for survival….

The Folklore about Elder shows how humans had a close reciprocal relationship with trees and offers cautionary tales about what happened if someone did not respect Mother Elder…

So a crucial part of what I bring in from the old folklore about Elder is how people always ask her with great respect for what they need and give a good gift back in return.

In my tale, Speaks-with-Birds asks,

“Mother Elder, Elder Tree, may I take a branch from thee,” so they can make a Pipe- as their friend Robin has told them.

Elder Mother replies in her creaky voice,

“Cut my branch both straight and true.

Plant a part, carve a part- your song shall come to you.”

So Speaks with Birds plants a new Elder Tree near the camp: feeding what feeds them…

As part of my Nature Storytelling next door, I have been visiting a particular Elder along the track through the woods. Each month I go to say hello and see how they have grown through the turning seasons and film the meeting.

Here’s a little update video, I did in the end of May, when I went to see if the flowers had opened and sure enough…

Finding the Stories of Regeneration….

What if we all Remembered to Respect the Plants, the Birds, the Soil, the water, the elements that weave together the Web of life on our shared Earth?

The Regenerative Approach starts with RE-storing this Relationship with the Living world. Recreating Natural Cycles of giving back where we take out…

On the Land at Bowden Pillars, I’m discovering hopeful Stories of NOW…

Here humans are learning to cooperate with each other and with other Living Beings- Plants, Animals, Mosses, Funghi, Microbes to help actually do this…to REstore the Land’s Eco-systems SO we can all thrive together.

Here’s a little rough video, I captured whilst sitting in the woods, observing the bird behaviour- and a deer ran in to take cover from a passing dog walker… Notice how the blackbird flies up to perch on a branch- alert to the commotion as the deer springs into the wood but not flying off...

This wild margin is coming to life as more habitats spread through the land.

Old Stories of Connection feeding the new Story of Regeneration.

I based my story of “Speaks with Birds and the Elder Pipe” on ancient folklore because these tales carry ancestral wisdom. They go back to a time when Eco-systems were intact and the Woodlanders and Wildlanders really knew how to live intimately as part of the Living world.

When Speaks-with-Birds plants an Elder Tree in exchange for their pipe, they show us a model of how to maintain their place in the Web of Life.

Direct Reciprocity.

In these days we need to REconnect- mend our connection and make up for a few millennia of too much taking and not enough giving back!

So more and more visionaries of a greener future are finding all the ways they can to REstore their Relationship with the Living World and be REGENERATIVE…

The mass Carbon Capture project of the newly planted Rainforest on the Land at Bowden Pillars Future manifested through partnering with Devon Wildlife Trust and is supported by companies who need to offset their Carbon footprint…

Whoever we are, we need to come together to Restore our damaged world… Whether it’s rewilding a garden or planting a woodland, this is the Regenerative way- people REconnecting to support REconnections in Nature.

In me these old stories create a longing for Restoration of our “Climax Vegetation”- temperate forest…

And the Story of Speaks-with-Birds creates a vision of the Curved Hill as it once was, covered in pristine Rainforest, before the wild vegetation was ever stripped for farmland. It tells of humans who had Respect for the plants and animals, waters and soils they relied on….

And I believe they help us to envision A STORY OF THE FUTURE and be inspired to make it a reality.

So part of my role as a Nature Storyteller, is listening to the New Stories of the Bowden Pillars Future Team, who together formed a vision of an Eco-village and Farmland growing as part of a vital Eco-system, blending wilder areas with nature friendly food-growing systems…

Here’s part of an interview with James Shorten, one of the founders of BPF.

During the full Interview, and in other conversations I have had with James, he always speaks from the viewpoint of REgenerative Thinking;

Allowing Hedges to grow and wild plants to come back, restoring wildlife habitats as they spread out of narrow margins, their retreats in the decades of intensive farming.

He spoke of how Regenerative Thinking means pulling together as a wider community to help Restore our World. How, from the start, he and the other founders have worked closely with other local groups- such as partnering with the Devon Wildlife Trust to buy the Land.

How this partnership allowed thousands of trees to be planted over the old farmland, in their biodegradable tubes. How working with food growers dedicated to the Regenerative approach is enabling a living landscape, with areas to be set aside for Rewilding.

Here are huge first steps in manifesting a hopeful “Future Story”.

As a force for change, he tells an inspirational story of their shared vision and offers many ways we can step up as humans an make this Vision of the Future- of REgenerated Land and Relationship- a reality…

When Nature moves back in…The laurel hedge lining the old drive way, became a flight path for the bats at dusk…

Aleksandra Sliwa, an Architect and vital part of the Planning Team told me the story of how they were including Nature in all their plans.

How they moved the planned site of the Eco-village, because of their resident Bats…

Here’s a quick draft of the Story from what Alexandra told me- in my own words!

The Bats of Bowden Pillars…

“Once the new people of the Curved Hill wanted to build their village where an old house used to be.

Some of the new people lived in little homes beside the old place and they noticed at night the flittering of leathery wings. They had come to live beside this old human dwelling to find that bats had already claimed a home for themselves in the roof. They watched as these flying mammals went about their lives as beings of the dusk, flittering and diving to hunt, catching insects along the clear passage of the tunnel of laurels. The laurels were planted long ago beside a trackway and it had grown into a bats’ free-fly-way.

Everyone there agreed with the Wildlife Protectors that the Bats must keep this place as their home. So the new people of the Curved Hill got out their drawing board and drew a new plan which made room for the Beings who had already made their home there…

Those New people of the Curved Hill are always taking time to notice just who is flitting, rooting, creeping through the Land. They know that the More-than-Humans have to be made welcome; they have to give them room so the Web of Life can mend itself...and the Story goes on…”

Yes- a Tale of the Future is growing more and more real;

A Tale of a New Tribe living up on the Curved Hill…

To access the Paid Post that follows on from this,

“How I started my search for REgenerative Tales…”

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The tweeting, creeping, crawling, blooming, fluttering height of Summer approaches and I am fully immersed in this Devon Life, getting involved with celebrating the 3rd anniversary of Bowden Pillars Future Regenerative Project tomorrow, with some stories and music.

Yesterday I was walking on the Land at Bowden Pillars, following bees along on a buttercup trail…

As Nature Storyteller for the Project, I am witnessing so many ways that the web of life regenerates as the humans harmonise with the more-than-human beings and give the living world room to grow.

I’ve begun calling the plants, algae, fungi, and animals more-than-humans because, in truth, their intricate inter-relationships are essential to the survival of life on Earth- so it makes sense…

Much as I love it here in Devon, I am very nostalgic for the wilds of Ireland at the moment, because it was a year ago, I prepared to make my way back across from the Coast of Clare to complete my Storyteller’s odyssey in the Bogs of Allen, where I discovered the deep history of those wetlands with the ancient humans.

Human settlers arrived in Ireland only 12,000 years ago and somehow nature seems to have kept more of a foothold.

Here’s a glimpse of a Woodhenge out in the Bog of Allen, County Offaly.

As I miss my rambling ways and the magic of that land of stories, I thought I’d bring back my recording of a tale I created 3 years ago; a fantasy nature tale of a butterfly on a mission, whose perilous journey brings them to the Bog-lands of Ireland to complete their Destiny; to meet with three particular humans and change their lives.

Once the life of each one is enriched by their own butterfly moment of beauty and wonder, the Butterfly Effect naturally occurs.

Like ripples on a pond, these encounters spread outwards to others.

And so change happens.

Enjoy this tale and the heat of Summer.

Thanks to Davy Robinson, as ever, for his amazing production on the recording and to Gordon Robertson for this picture of Vanessa Cardui Butterfly.

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And a very merry Beltane to you!

I’ve been bringing in the May, singing songs and telling a tale or two at at Huxhams Cross, Mayfest.

Huxhams Community Orchard is a totally lush local Project and I join their seasonal celebrations when I can and bring a bit of story or song, as well as joining in the prancing and dancing, as I’m able.

Huxhams Cross May Day 2025. Courtesy Selena Mara https://selenamara.com/

Around the fire, with Selena Mara and Maya Love- two musical mates from my eco-activist days- I sang the old story-song of Jack in the Green.

It’s days like this, that make life worth living!

Here are the words of “Jack In the Green”, telling of the powerful fertility God of Vegetation- for Jack in the Green is the Green Man himself- who has joined May Day celebrations across this Land, for millennia…

Now Winter is over I’m happy to say

And we’re all met again on the first day of May

We’re all met again on the first day of Spring

To go about dancing with Jack in the Green.

Well Jack in the Green is a very strange man.

Though he dies every Autumn, he is born every Spring.

And each year on his birthday we will dance through the street

And in return Jack he will ripen the wheat.

With his mantle he will cover the trees that are bare,

And our gardens he will trim with his jacket so rare.

But the fields he will sow with the hair of his head

And the Corn it will ripen ‘til old Jack is dead.

Now, all you young maidens I’ll have ye beware

Of touching young jack for there’s strange powers there.

Happen they as do touch him so many do tell

Like the grain in the field so their bellies will swell.

When the sun is half up betokens the hour

When the children arrive with their garlands of flowers,

So now let the music and dancing begin

For to touch the good heart of young Jack in the Green.

Jack in the Green! Jack in the Green!

We’ll dance every Springtime with Jack in the Green.

One of our local Green Men…

So Summer leaves open to the light and our bodies feel the heat of the sun… a time for all life in our hemisphere to reach towards Peak Thriving.

So let us thrive as well as we are able, in these strange and sometimes alarming times…

I find it so important for Wellbeing to witness the beauty of life each day, the simple things that truly are free- like the soaring of a bird, the shape of a leaf against the sky, the diverse shapes and colours of leaves and flowers in any green space, the smell of the ground after the rain, the feel of the wind on my face, the movement of a certain cloud across the sky as they change shape in all their gaseous glory.

It helps me to relax with what feels good and then I feel my cold fear for the future thaw gently away.

I’ve been settling into a new job this Spring for “Bowden Pillars Future” which truly does give me hope for our future.

Why is this place called “Bowden Pillars”?

Well, there are stone Pillars on the Lane that leads to the track onto the Land- the entrance to the old estate, long ago founded up there on the hill above the Transition town of Totnes.

https://www.transitiontowntotnes.org/

Yes, through those Pillars at Bowden is a project, fed by a wider community, who have long been seeking solutions for a greener more peaceful future.

The name “Bowden” is said to come from middle English words “Bow”- bent or curved and “Den”- meaning “hidden retreat”. The hill of Bowden has now been replanted by project pioneers Devon Wildlife Trust with a fresh temperate rainforest and it is certainly a curvy hill.

There is also a sense of safety in retreat here- a “Den”.

Many of these high places around Devon are Hillforts or Burys- meaning mounds, with earthworks; all would have been vantage points in the ages of tribal warfare.

Now the views from the Curved Hill, across the Dart valley and north-west towards Dartmoor, can be enjoyed in peace and awe and Bowden Pillars team are welcoming people to get involved with all sorts of hope-inspiring activities. People are sharing wild skills, nature connection and ecological food growing and all that good, wholesome stuff!!!

You can read all about what this Regenerative land project is doing here.

https://www.bowdenpillarsfuture.land/

The video is an extract from my first month of “Alphabet Story Quests” for the Project. My theme was “A is for Arriving” in every sense of the word and this part tells a tale about first settlers arriving on the land, how the witch of the tribe got to know one of our slightest but most potent trees- the Elder- and how this tree gave the tribe on the hill the vital medicine they needed to survive.

Garden Park Field, Bowden Pillars Future Land Project, Devon

A Little Meditation for Arriving

Find a place to be outdoors if you can- or adapt this if you are indoors...

Perhaps you can sit beside an open window.

Finding ways of arriving in our bodies, arriving properly- feet on the ground, bottom on our seat, feeling the support of our Earth beneath us.

Breathing into the present moment, three arriving breaths…

Let go of past and future times- for now all there is is NOW.

Look around and notice what you see.

Perhaps there is a particular shape or pattern that draws you. inspires you.

Drink it in with your eyes.

Then, find a softer focus- you may close your eyes.

Listening to the sounds of life,

there could be sounds of humans, traffic, there may be song of birds, the rush of wind, the buzz of a bee or a fly.

Smell the air, feel the space around you.

The touch of the elements,

The brush of a leaf on our cheeks.

The cool caress of the breeze,

The kiss of the sun on our skin.

The cold spatter of rain or hail…

Who knows.

Moments when time expands and we can just BE, like a tree.

Perhaps we can take time and feel ourselves grow and thrive with the plants- and the old mantle of care fall, to mulch on the ground like the brown leaves of last year… Whether you are surrounded by them or not, they are there feeding the air with our oxygen and we can use imagination memory to feel closer perhaps- if they are not near. Or sometimes the spider plant in the corner of the room is enough to remind us that Green Life is what keeps us all alive…

Moments like these make life worth living…

Dear Wildlanders all!

Apologies for my Wildlanders Radio Show silence and lack of posts.

It’s been an intense few months, with the loss of a dear friend, family illness and yes, well… There’s just a lot going on isn’t there?

I’ve been working away with Wildlanders-related material, in between dealing with all the other stuff, but I just haven’t managed to complete any of it yet and so I thought,

How about I just quickly get in touch to share some of my work in progress?..

It’s a change from my more polished approach- but perhaps it will be interesting.

Into the mix came a new job as Nature Storyteller for Bowden Pillars Future Project in March, right in the middle of writing ‘Jack’s Patch’ a shorter fantasy fiction book for 7 years to infinity, inspired by this crazy culture of “Artificial Intelligence” (Ai! Ai!) and the wildlands of my Devon home.

I’m definitely focussing on my Earthy intelligence and not the Artificial kind, more than ever and doing all I can to stay grounded.

Anyway, here I am, wanting to share with you about this and other stories.

I’d planned to record my version of the Arthurian myth about the Wasteland, (based mainly on “Parsifal” by Eschenbach) for you last month. It seemed like a simple enough project, but when I came to it, I realised it needed a rewrite, highlighting the figures of the Well Maidens more.

I will be recording the first part beside my local Well as soon as it stops raining…

Much as I quite like a little natural cold shower in the outdoors- it’s not good for the recording equipment!

Meanwhile also been beavering away on “Jack’s Patch” and only 4 more chapters to write. Since Chapter 1 to 8 are complete I thought I’d share a taste of the New Book.

“Jack’s Patch” is set in the near future and it’s all about a boy whose village is cut off from the grid, whilst most people in the rest of the land are imprisoned in their homes by ‘Ma-bot’- the domestic Ai-bot system installed by a new Robot Government.

The co-star is a Gardener Gnome called… Well, actually his name is revealed later in the story so I’ll not spoil that reveal and the clever way Jack discovers it…

This is a drawing I’m working on of said Mystery Gnome- still needs more work on the background(!!!)…

Would love to know what you think of the story… let me know if you want to read more and/ or know someone who would like it- perhaps of the younger generation.

The completion is in sight and my plan is to take pre-orders for publishing.

Please support my work with a Paid Subscription if you can and then you can also read full chapters and hear full length recordings....

Subscribe now

Here’s the update…

Jack’s Patch by Laura Sky Salmon

Chapter 1. Slugs and Snails

It is the Year 2043, but, you wouldn’t know it, in this place on the wild edge of the Moors.

It is Late Spring and the Sun has just set over West and up the lane, into the twilight Jack Hannaford walked, up to Jack’s Patch; the Edible Garden that would help keep the remaining villagers of Dracontor alive.

Beyond this quiet place, somewhere to the East there was a War going on. They called it the Bot-war. Last Autumn, Jack’s Father had gone to join the COH- Community of Humans, who had gathered secretly to resist the new Ai-bot Government, run by Artificially Intelligent Robots

Jack was trying to be brave but he was knotted up inside with worry and sadness… To add to the problem of the country, perhaps the whole world, being taken over by Ai-bots, he didn’t know where his Dad was- if he was still alive. The strain of it was too much for his Grandad, who had died of a heart attack just before Christmas and then, to add to all this, one week ago the family dog, an old collie called Meg, had been buried in the garden.

Jack wondered,

How can I ever do what Grandad did?

He remembered the night beside the fire, when his Grandad had told him the Story Of Jack’s Patch. Jack must have been about 5 and they had just eaten a plate of stew, full of all the produce from the Patch and he was curious.

“How did you grow all that veg, Grandad?”

“Sure I planted the seeds, took the cuttings, tended the ground, but twasn’t me who grew it. That was the good soil, the air, the sun, the rain…

It’s nothing like my Grandad’s Grandad could do, though. He was a legend- the Jack of the Patch. He’s the one you’re named after, Jack.

It was round about one hundred years ago when that Jack first began to grow food there. Back then hardly anyone had electricity, gas, cars and trucks; no supermarkets then for a pack of meat or a bag of peas.

He was always a good gardener, so they say, but his gardening became legendary. In the three years before he went to war, he grew bumper crops of everything- like no one had ever seen before. It was a mystery how he did it, Jack. All year long he was cropping a plenty from that Patch; piles of beans, fat carrots, potatoes the size of your head, squash the size of four of your heads, greens and leeks without hardly a nibble out of them. He fed half the village…

But he died in the war and the mystery with him. So my Grandad’s dad learnt all he knew from his Grandma Kitty. She was a good gardener too- but not legendary like Grandad Jack. We’ve done the best we can since then… ”

So, this young Jack, a boy of 10, walking up the lane was the new Jack of the Patch. Here in this outlying place on the edge of the moors, cut off from the 21st century world, with no shops or electrics and no cars running, it was much like those times before the 2nd world war, 100 years before.

As Jack went he wound up his wind-up torch, with a click and a whirr. He was on Slug Patrol; it had been raining most of the day and he knew the slugs and their shelled relations, the snails, would be out in force, loving a wet path to slime on.

Through the gate and into the vegetable patch he came. In the shadows of evening, it was hard to see, so he switched on the torch and there he saw them glistening, crawling over grass paths, up over the leaves of the everlasting kale and munching contentedly..

The last thing Grandad had transplanted was this huge patch of everlasting kale. Jack had helped him snip the cuttings.

Grandad was bringing in a basket of their cabbagey leaves for Christmas dinner, when he had keeled over in the doorway of their cottage and died of a heart attack.

Jack wanted to cry, but he set his jaw, determined; that kale would not be everlasting if he didn’t go and pick off as many of the slimy creatures as he could.

Grabbing the old tin bucket, he began, picking off a fat one; Yuck! It stuck to his fingers. He flicked it into the bucket, then another and another. He came to the top of the row, looked down the next- there were trails everywhere and at the end of each a slug or a snail, sliding, sliming …

His heart sank; it would take all night.

Here at the end of the Garden was a little wild area where a few birds sang their evening songs bright and clear… A blackbird boldly bobbed along the ground and pecked at a juicy snail, spilling its guts and guzzling with a happy chirp.

“One down- One million to go!” Jack grumbled.

Beside a wild gorse bush, with its golden flowers, which smelt like coconut, there was a flat stone covered in moss and beside the stone was the only garden ornament in Jack’s Patch. His Great-great Grandfather had put it there, over 100 years ago when he first began working the Patch. It was a Gardener Gnome, chiselled from stone, with a grinning face, leaning on a stone spade with a little stone mole popping up its head from a stone mole hill on the other side.

“Company…” Jack thought, remembering what his Grandad would say, and sat on the rock beside the Gnome.

“Gnome, oh Gnome,” he said, “Not sure if I can do this- never paid enough attention to what Grandad said about the garden. Now he’s gone without me knowing what I need to know, with mouths to feed and … it’s just too many things have gone bad…”

He leant his elbows on his knees, held his head in his hands and at last the tears came, welling up, dripping down Jack’s face. .

“I wish they were all back and life was good again…”

Jack blubbed like a brook- so many tears and some trickled through his fingers and fell on the lichen-encrusted bald patch of the Gardener Gnome’s head.

Whilst Jack cried, he did not see the stone changing where his tears landed, changing into leathery, freckled skin- gnomish skin, spreading over the head to reveal tufted red hair, rosy cheeks and eyes that twinkled green.

Soon the whole of the little body had come to life, with mossy tunic and a little lambskin jerkin. At last, at the worn old boots of the gnome, the mole also came to life, with its squint eyes and tiny pink hands. Looking about nervously, the mole squeaked, dug down into the soil and disappeared.

That’s when Jack looked up and saw a living, breathing Gnome, standing in front of him.

His tears dried up fast, as amazement took over. He was speechless as the Gnome wiped Jack’s tears from the top of his head and exclaimed,

“What be this ‘ere? Me old bones alive! I awakes… Felt those eyedrops like rain… All these years- no one knew, no way of waking me til just now...”

Jack found some words then,

“You w..were made of stone but now- you’re alive…How can a Gardener Gnome be alive? How is this true?”

Looking down at the little gnome, merry face beaming up at him, Jack found himself doing something he’d not done for a long time- he grinned from ear to ear.

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“Well, here I be. The how of well ‘tis a long story, my fella. But what abouts those lonely old tears of yours, now. Tell your old Gnome what it’s all about…”

Then Jack told the gnome how life and possibly the whole world had gone bad, how three very dear ones and gone from his life, about how an Ai-bot government had taken over, how the people of his village struggled to eat and he had to grow food for them, but now he had a plague of slugs and snails and… what was he going to do? Tears started to trickle down his face again, as he spoke.

“Ah!” the Gnome exclaimed, sounding mystified. “Well, I don’t get me old head round maist o’ what ye says my fella but I know a thing or two about them slimers… For most of the fat sluggers you’ll need a “Slug party”…That’s what old Jack used to call it- worked a treat- messy business though…”

“A Slug Party?”

“Get on down to the olde inn. Ask from some dregs of ale… you know the stuff..”

“You mean old beer?“

“Aaah, That’s the stuff- yes- then get some dishes, sink them nice in the ground, then you fills ‘em up with the old ale, see. The fat sluggers- they loves to have a drink, then they fall in and have a last bath in it- get so tipsy they dies in it see…”

“More like a mass drowning than a party- but I see- they’ll at least die happy… It’s actually a good idea. Better than being crushed to death with my welly- that’s what I was going to do- what Grandad did. So, I’ll ask Mrs Weathercock down the inn if she can spare some beer. She and the Captain been brewing up over the winter…”

“Meanwhile I suppose I just have to keep picking them off for tonight…” Jack said, standing up and picking off another 6 or 7…”

“Well… I’m not a killer myself but a Gnome knows more than one trick… I got me friends see… the diggers…”

Then the Gnome did a little dance on the ground, gently tip-tapping the toes of his cracked old boots on the ground, until up came the mole’s pink nose again with their two pink hand-paws and then nearby among the moorish grass, another mound of earth, another and another… Little pink noses and hands coming up all over.

“Pile up those slimers over here …” the Gardener Gnome told Jack.

Jack shook out the slugs from his bucket in front of the crowd of tiny moles in their black velvet coats. Reluctantly they began to go in for the kill- bit the slugs in half and guzzled away, until the pile of slugs was half gone. Then the Gnome’s companion mole looked up at him and squeaked a few words, before the others moles crept off, slower than before. making little belches and muttering disgustedly, before they dug back down, into their mounds and disappeared.

“They’s ate all they could get down ‘em- probly their worstest kind of dinner. Taste disgusting them sluggers do- not like a nice sweet worm… Trust me, I tried when I was peckish. A blessin’ on ‘em, those diggers to help us out - good littluns they are…”

“What about the rest of the er… slimers?” Jack asked, collecting up any remaining slugs in his bucket, some survivors had already trailed off- leaving a sliming trail to escape the scene of the mole massacre.

Jack called out

“Oh no! They’re getting away!” and he went after them with his bucket.

“Leave ‘em. You’ll never get ‘em all. Besides- you needs some slimers in yer garden see… gotta ‘ave some…”

“Why?”

“Well they eats the rubbish of the garden too, the rotting stuff, the animal poos and such then they poos it out, see. Like the worms they helps make good soil…”

“Ugh- pooing out other creatures’ poo!...” Jack said, with a mixture of disgust and awe.

“Besides, after them diggers I gotta ‘nother trick to get some slimers out see.” the Gnome announced.

“Tis an old hum charm… the snails can’t resist it and some slugs will hear the charm but some slugs don’t know a good charm when they hears it- too thick skinned you see… Listen ere…”

Then the Gardener Gnome stretched out his face, eyes wide, took in a big breath and puffed up his neck; he opened his mouth a little and began to make a humming sound, then came a deep droning sound from down in his throat and on top of it all a high-pitched tone sound. This was a Gnome hum charm then.

Jack shone his torch on the garden and saw that snails were making their way down the kale stalks and some of the slugs too- the thinner ones. Their slime trails glittering as they reached the ground and then the Garden Gnome tramped off towards the gate, humming as he went and Jack followed. Strange he felt like he had to, like the charm was telling him,

“Follow, follow- a new life you,

Follow, follow, follow me do…”

Hundreds of snails and slugs came out of the garden gate and followed them up the lane, along the grassy verge, as they walked up onto the moors. They processed around the edge of the metal cattle grid, which spanned the lane.

Then the Gnome changed the hum. It went up a tone or two…

And the snails and slugs went off then into the moorland grasses.

Jack felt strange- a trance had come over him and he began to follow the slugs and snails off onto the shadowy moors.

“I live on the moors now. Oh, the lovely moors- I will stay here with the Slimers, yes.” He murmured.

The Gnome stopped humming then and called out in a commanding voice,

“Look at me, Jack!”

Jack turned round, shining his torch at the Gnome,

“Aaargh- too bright- turn the gadger off!” the Gnome cried, covering his eyes.

Jack switched it off. At first blackness, then in the light of the stars he could see the Gnome’s face looking up… a twinkle in the eyes,

The Gnome clicked his fingers,

“Jack of the Patch! The charm is not on you!”

The urge to go off with the snails and slugs had passed and he was left puzzled,

“The charm fell on you, fella- must have a musical ear- watch out for me old gnomish charms, he, he, he!” the Gnome chuckled.

“So now all the snails and those musical slugs they want to stay on the moors…”

“Yep they’s Moorish slugs now… though a few might forget and try and slide back down to the tender green of the garden. Most will get toughened up, eat moor grass, get eaten by crows and such…”

Turning back down the lane now into the darkness, Jack reached for the torch again, and the Gnome mumbled,

“Try those night eyes, me fella…”

Jack’s eyes adjusted to the gloom and they walked the night-shadowed lane all the way back in through the gate of the Patch.

Now he had walked through the dark and the slimer problem was getting sorted out and he had got over the shock of meeting a come-to-life garden ornament, Jack was suddenly filled with excitement and curiosity.

“How come Grandad never spoke about you?”

“Well, see your Granfer, ‘e never knowed about my changing way, see, so he never was told how to wake me. Not since the time of the er.. Old Jack has the wakening come. See old Jack- well he was older than you least ways…”

“My Great-great Grandad…”

“He never came back from going to the war. Said his good byes and went… He said he would make sure he passed on the secret of the waking… Only one can use it in a lifetime, see, or it don’t work…”

The Gnome explained as he pottered down the patch to his spot next to the stone, in the shadows…

“ So do I have to say “Oh Gnome, oh Gnome!” and cry every time I wake you?” Jack asked.

“No… that’s a one-off- only works once for each waker. No, the true charm to wake me out of stone is just to say me name, see, me fella…”

“Will you tell me your name then please, Mr Garden Gnome so I can bring you back to life again,?” Jack said, very politely, hoping the Gnome would say Yes…

“Sure as Sky is as Big as big can be…” the Gnome said merrily, as he picked up his spade. “I’ll tell ‘e my name young Jack, it’s Nat…” In the same moment the mole popped up and Gnome and mole froze in position.

Then, with a crick-crack sound from head to toe, the Gnome, his spade and finally the tiny mole- were all turned back to stone…

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‘La Befana‘- a sketch from the Night of Epiphany by Laura Sky.

Hello Wildlanders all!

A bright and bushy tailed New Year to you!

Here’s a little bonus Podcast with a Tale of “What if…”

What if La Befana, the Italian Witch of the Epiphany, flew into Donald Trump’s room and left him a gift?

What would it be? Perhaps not diamond studded cuff-links- (or golden hand cuffs?..)

Listen and find out…

As always I send you all my thanks for supporting my work with your subscriptions.

Please do sign up for a paid one if you’d like to hear and read all my material.

I’m bringing back the archetype of the Divine Fool on the next Wildlanders and sharing the whole of my version of Parsifal for Paid Subscribers and a new extract for the Free Subscribers. I recorded a fragment of it back in December 2023 and here’s the old post to remind you, with the Paywall removed!

I’m beavering away on a book over the next few weeks, for younger readers (7-11) called “Jack’s Patch”, first conceived back in 2003 and very much on the back burner until recently, when I was freshly inspired by my wonderful literary mentor, Lucy.

As you may recall, I came to a pause with “Rise of the Tuskellen”- aimed at people of 9 years upwards (to infinity!). I am getting some editing and mentoring support with it, as I’m basically trying to recreate a whole world- very much alive in my imagination, but extremely complex to put into a novel…

However I just really NEED to get a book out, so my littler “Jack’s Patch” project seemed a good choice. It’s already a third written and I would love to hear your input on it so I’ll share a sample soon.

Obviously, it’s about a boy called Jack. He lives off-grid on the edge of the Moors in 2045- at the time when an Aibot Government has taken over all systems. Jack’s Dad is a tech-worker for the government when he realises the Aibot threat and cuts their village off from the net. He leaves to join the Community Of Humans resistance group, leaving Jack and his mum and the remaining villagers to survive beyond the trappings of modern life. Jack is tasked with growing veg on an old Patch of Garden on the edge of his village. Feeling desperate and alone he finds the elemental forces of the moor awakening to help him and his community in these hard times…

Anyway- enjoy the wee Podcast- a ride into the Eye of the Night for an Epiphany moment!

Love and thanks,

Laura Sky.

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Last night for the Celtic Festival of Samhain- All Souls or All Hallows Eve, I took some time on my own, time for precious silence. As all who know me will attest, silence does not come easy to me… I’m a talker, a teller of tales, sometimes a singer in unexpected moments, at others a ranter, even a raver.

But sometimes enough tales have been told and it’s time to shut up, shut down the internet and tune into the Real World Wide Web of life- and death- that connects all things.

There is so much noise in this world- not just the traffic and the roar of machines- there’s the hectic buzz of the endless content online- everywhere is online these days! On social media we seem to become our own paparazzi; the compulsion to “comment”, I do not always resist. I’m sure some of it is about healthy connection but too much is addiction, isn’t it? There is always something to watch, some track to stream.

I’m old enough to remember when the TV channels went to bed at night and we didn’t even have videos to watch to keep us endlessly entertained…

But tonight is All Souls Night; the Celts and modern day pagans call it Samhain, a time to remember our own souls and our Ancestors’, who live on in the mysterious otherworld- in a parallel dimension among the animate elements of life. In earth, air, fire and water the spirits of the dead awake and call to the living. And yes, it is traditionally a time to gather, to dance in ritual, to wear disguises and to revel.

But tonight I need Deep Peace and rest.

I even switch off my streamed soundtrack for a little to settle into some solo silence and light a candle to my Mum who died eight years ago.

Then I have an early night- my body sinking with relief into sleep.

I dream of a high hill and what look like bodies rising up from the ground. Then I saw they were living humans, in disguise, dancing, dancing in the twilight.

It seems my subconscious decided to go to a wild Samhain ritual, somewhere in the Imaginal realm, whilst my body took her much needed rest.

Fun and excitement without the noise!

Photo courtesy of Mike Stevens

I am in a creative process of gathering my notes ready to tell the story here on Substack, of my experience of Mum’s dying and how the scattering of her ashes helped me reconcile myself more to the Cycle of Living and Dying and pulling together related stories and poems.

I began sketching the picture of the “Goddess of the Downs”- pictured at the top- on another silent night of solitude, back in Summer. I was staying in a cabin under the South Downs, wanting to spend time in this landscape of my childhood, of my Father’s family, where I grew up surrounded by the epic Sussex countryside.

It was near this place that my Mother died suddenly, whilst on a Sussex holiday eight years ago.

She had asked to have her ashes scattered up on the Downs at the high point of the famous ring of trees called “Chanctonbury Ring”, because she loved that wooded enclave and the views across Sussex of sea and sky and wealden plain.

So up on that Hill, we gathered in a circle to share our memories and then scattered her remains to the four winds. Amazing to think that part of her really is part of that soil now- the elements of her body absorbed into tree roots, up into branches reaching to the sky.

Anyway, by executive decision, my Step father kept some ashes and gave a takeaway bag of them to each of us, so we could scatter them where we wished. So Mum’s ashes are scattered in the North, South, East and West of Britain… She always wanted to get around more…

The post I’m writing and recording will tell wild tales and poems inspired by my experience with those ashes, with childhood memories of Sussex and my- often troubled- relationship with Mum.

One of the stories- as promised- will be The Tale of the Waning Year. Both silly and sad, the characters embody the endless cycle of living and dying. It features the antics of the mischievous Holly King and the Death of the brave Oak King. The Wren and the Robin also play their parts- as heralds of the waning and waxing year. It is based on Neo-pagan lore and inspired by the Mummers Plays of the English folkloric tradition.

My Step-father was one of the Chanctonbury Ring Morris Men, who danced up to this ring of trees every May morning to stir up the fertility of Summer. There were aching calves, the waving of hankies and the ringing of many bells.

Each year they would put on the “guises” of St George and the Turkish Knight and other characters, to enact their Mummers play outside a Sussex pub in the cold of winter. Mummers Plays come from the times when the land-workers would go a wassailing- playing plays and singing songs to get some food, drink or coin to help get them through the harsh winter when death was ever at the door… Hard times which called for merriment- live while you may!… and at the same time get the landowner to cough up some of the plenty they had in store, so you could survive to labour another year!!!

I still remember the sound of those Morris Bells- a sound of childhood.

Taken from https://crmm.org.uk/gallery with thanks.

The characters of George and the Turkish Knight come from the 11th century crusades, so it is a Christian tale- a perception of the battle between good and evil. I go with Frazer’s theory, in his book “The Golden Bough”, that such traditions would have found inspiration in ancient pagan rituals of fertility, of the turning seasons. Once upon a time, it was less about good versus evil and more about characters who embodied of the waxing and waning year, the forces of living and dying, at play in an endless turning.

Ancestral practices of honouring the cycles of the Earth, which evolved over Millennia do not get forgotten overnight!

You can feel the wildness of ancient ritual in the Morris dances- some more than others. Wildlanders all!

Anyway that’s all for now, here’s Mum in her garden with her familiar/ friend the Robin, who would fly into the house at times, to call on her. I believe Mum was happiest in the garden- though she loved a pint and a sing around after watching the Morris Dancing…

The Post of “Silent as the Hills” will follow as soon as I’ve pulled it all together- hopefully in about a week.

“Hundreds of years ago, on the southern edge of Dartmoor, it was the first dawning of Spring Sun, warming the air and casting their light on granite stones, lying, scattered here and there amongst the moss.

It was time for the serpents to come.

Stirring from their holes they came and slowly slithered across the ground in sleek curves, seeking the heat of day. Through tunnels of frost-melt grass, under russet arches of broken bracken, they came, to coil upon the stones. As their blood warmed in the sunlight, they wriggled and scraped scale on rough granite to slough their winter skins, translucent upon the ground.

The serpents of the moor had awakened.”

Following the Trail of the Serpents of Dartmoor…

In the Chinese Year of the Snake, I’ve become obsessed with how Serpents slither into stories, as potent carriers of the wisdom of the Earth; Divine Beings emerging from the ancient Animistic beliefs of our ancestors.

And so I found myself on the trail of a local Legend which was alive in the …

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“We are Stardust.

We are Golden.

And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden…”

From “Woodstock” 1970 by Joni Mitchell

Yoho Wildlanders all!

The picture shows how a walk in Dartington Gardens, turned into a Story Adventure, when my companion noticed we were walking among the legs of a Tree Giant and I decided we were so small in comparison we were certainly Pixy-folk…

The fun you can have when you play with Stories!!!

And so today, in the spirit of spontaneity, instead of a Radio Show, I recorded my first ever Wildlanders Video Show.

I finally worked out how to use my new phone microphone gear… very user friendly once I’d got over my techno-phobia.

The Video is a mix of my personal NatureWell © practice, a taste of what I’ve been sharing in the workshops and a bit of an update on the stories I’m “walking” with…

As you may remember, back in May, I went over the Irish Sea to a “Word Dancing” Retreat, at the Story Barn, nestled among the Glens of Antrim.

Shonaleigh Cumbers, Drut’syla of the Dutch Jewish Tradition, took us through the Midrash- a way of absorbing stories, body and soul, taught to her by her Bubbe- (Grandmother). The process gave us ways to “walk” with our stories and get to know them as friends; with respect, affection and wonder at their fascinating features, twists and turns…

Thank you Shonaleigh. You are epic!

https://shonaleigh.uk/

During the video I demonstrate one of my active grounding meditations to get into the body and the living world and arrive in the HERE and NOW…

In this way I find a sense of well-being and also a portal into the imagination.

I evolved the grounding from the NatureWell © practice I learnt through Natural Academy. For me it is a daily reminder to witness the Living world with the “Eyes of Wonder” and with an open-hearted sense of the pure miraculousness of life. “Biophilia”- a Love of all that is Alive.

A MASSIVE BIG UP to the Natural Academy for applying Pioneering Research from Derby University to their Nature and Health training programmes, so now, people in many places- from Schools, to Mental Health facilities- can access support, which places humans firmly back where we belong- as part of Nature.

https://www.naturalacademy.org/

Anyway my wee video is an exploration of how we OBVIOUSLY really are made of the stuff of the stars, as in Joni’s “Woodstock” song…

That like the Celestial Reindeer of Sami Myth- I mention in the video- we truly are golden.

…And one way or another we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden…

Back to a world where the pure elements of life are allowed to thrive… pure water, fresh air, diverse earth beings giving sustenance to each other and dependent on healthy amounts of sun-fire…

Yes, many of us know, that connecting with good old earth, air, fire and water- is not “Hippy Nonsense” and that, actually, those hippies really did have a point or two..!

So, this little session is an Invitation to let go of the stress of industrialised living, switch off the electronic world wide web and get back to the garden.

Back in The Garden we find that the REAL-LIVE World Wide Web has been waiting there all along- in the infinite interconnections of the Living World.

I am also sharing a short Creation Myth here. These myths tell of the first Garden which came about through the Dance of Life’s Becoming and the imaginings of how Elementals, Animal Spirits and Deities created the world, in all its diversity- both through art and accident.

The Creation Myth I tell in the session is inspired by many Creation Stories I have met over the years, but most particularly by the Cornish Story of “Tamara”- an Underworld Giantess, also transformed into a Water Spirit, because of her longing for the Light of Day.

Note: I’m pretty aware of the irony of inviting you to get away from your screen and out into nature when I’m sharing my Nature-based Session online!

It puts me in mind of a Children’s Programme called “Why don’t you?” which was on TV in the 70s and 80s.

When I watched it, the opening song had the lyrics,

“Why don’t you… Just switch off your Television Set and go do something less boring instead?”

The show gave all sorts of ideas for stuff you could do instead of watching TV- creating inventions and such. So perhaps I can offer you my Story Ways Video in the Spirit of “Why Don’t You?”…

Finally: Thanks to Bowden Pillars Future for hosting my Story Ways Session back in late July.

Here’s a few bits of feedback from those story walkers who came along. It encourages me that I’m on the right track with this format… It took months to develop it- but I reckon it’s worth it…

“Laura took us on a journey to explore the paths leading to a spring, with moments for immersion in nature and in our imagination. It was a gentle, heartfelt afternoon and I returned home feeling more connected to the area, inspired and relaxed...”

(from Kathleen)

“Thanks again for a special day Laura I came thinking I’d find a story out there yet I found the story in me all along! A skilfully led day outside in different terrains helping us observe & imagine “What If..” We wrote haikus by a tree spring and took on other imaginative realities.. plenty of sit downs for those of us of less athletic legs!

(from Marcea)

Here’s the group just after we finished our Story-making circle inspired by our explorations of the local landscape and how this fed our imaginal landscapes. The tale featured elemental protectors, animals with keen senses and those tender-two-leggeds- the first human settlers.

The aim of Story Ways is to give participants a chance to play with the “language of animacy” to express how the living world inspires them, play with images, sounds, ideas and to try out their Storyteller’s voices…

Of course Storytelling is useful for more than sitting round the campfire- it conveys compelling images which capture the imaginations of others, whatever the context…

Couldn’t resist sharing this…

Look forward to getting the Video of the “The Serpent Stone” out to Paid supporters soon…

Hello all,

Here’s some Wildlanders news and views…. and the promised links.

My adventures in the Story Landscapes of Ireland, put me on the trail of pre-historic peoples who lived in mythic and mystic relationship with the living world. As I followed this trail I realised that there is still a strong relationship there among Irish people.

Discovering this encouraged me on my Mission: to immerse myself in the Stories of the Places I go, and invite others to join me- to reconnect with our Living World, our Life support systems, in ways that inspire and enthrall us.

Stories can be a portal into a Sense of Wonder and they, in turn, come to life when our senses are stirred in the wondrous diversity of the Living World.

Hence my Story Ways workshops. I’m offering one in Devon this month- find out more below!

Here’s a picture of some Shrines made by young locals, beside the Boyne Estuary, which I mentioned in the Podcast. To me they seemed sure proof of a Living Tradition of connection, with the …

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On Slieve na Cailli (Hag Mountain), at Loughcrew, in the Company of stones and shadows, I witness the lay of the land, puckered with Fairy Hills and in between Human colonies are sparse and low to the ground.

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Hello all.

Well here it is- a new rendering of Chapter 1 of Rise of the Tuskellen in Audio- easier for you all to access my Eco-novel 30 years in the making!

I’m offering the first Chapter for free. Full chapters will only be avaialble for Paid Subscribers hereafter.

You can become a paid subscriber here to access all my writings and recordings- hours of nature-based stuff to help soothe these troubled times, created with love.

The next Chapter will be with you some time in June.

Must fly!

Laura Sky

Egyptian Serpent Game RMO Leiden 5th-6th Dynasty Egypt from Wikimedia Creative Commons

Hello all!

Well it’s been a bit of a struggle getting this out- I have had a bad throat, so my voice is a bit all over the place and I found I had to speak quite sloooowly…! Also I’m still getting used to operating a recording system- All New to me- so a few things got lost and had to be redone. There will be a few glitches in there still, but I’m sending it out warts and all!

Thanks to Davy Boy Robinson for rescuing it from my “tech issues”, producing it and adding a few sounds of his own. Hope he can do more sounds in future if I can raise some more to pay him!!!

HONEST feedback IS welcome… as this is a new thing and I want to know how listenable you found it…

Link to Reverend Sam Wernham and The River Dart Wild Church, as promised in the Podcast:

https://www.riverdartwildchurch.com/

And here’s that Excerpt from

“Wildlanders #19 Into the Dark and Out of Paradise”

with my take…

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It’s Spring Equinox and the Year is waxing- nights now become shorter than daylight!

Is it time to emerge from our holes, enlivened by the sun, like the cold-blooded serpent?

Is it time to get out and experience some bursting buds, some daffodils and primroses… sweet Spring.

It’s been a wearying old time recently for me, with some health problems going on. Like many others, I have been worrying too, with all that’s going on in this crazy mixed up world, but now- the Spring. Totally lush!

I feel this time of year reminds us to look after ourselves, to feel the sun on our skin, leave aside the woes of the World and find, whenever we can, the Joy of the Light...

I mean here in Britain- with our clouded skies- we need it- so much!

I recently read confirmation that Vitamin D is one of the best supplements to reduce inflammation, which explains all of those aches and pains this Winter.

Note to self: always take a Vitamin D supplement, when I’m sun-starved in Winter.

And, if you fancy a forage, eating Primroses as part of a salad- or just a petalled snack- can give you a lift in mood, help you find the joy of Spring, and so, maybe, worry less…

(Best to pick from high enough up that they won’t be pee-ed on.)

Early on Bride's morn

The serpent shall come from the hole,

I will not harm the serpent,

Nor will the serpent harm me.

From the Carmina Gadelica.

All through the Winter those cold-blooded snakes hibernate, unable to move in the cold months. Now they also emerge, moving slowly with their sluggish blood, then laying heir scaly bodies out in those warming rays. They are seen among the ancient stones on the moors, seeking the luxury of a hot rock to coil upon.

Of course they bring fear- because they are so “other”. Reptiles- I mean, a totally different category from us and they don’t even have legs like lizards.

But they are vertebrates like us...

In fact, as they wind through the grass, they appear to be ALL SPINE! I find it fascinating how their undulations resemble our human spines- particularly as we dance.

The picture above, is of an Altar I made for the conscious dance group I go to. I chose the snake because it was near to Chinese New Year and the start of the Year of the Snake; also because of this link with our spines. It is there at the core of our movement and our ability to be upright while we’re doing it.

Let’s be snaky- free and un-freeze our spines- put on some music, gently flex and wriggle… Let’s play at snakes, lie down and wriggle across the floor. It feels good.

Joy is in the Body.

Before they were quite so widely demonised by Christian belief, snakes appear as symbols of life-force and vital connection with our Earth. They appear of course, in Kundalina Energy in Vedic practice, and in many shamanic stories of the World Serpent, winding like the DNA of our cells.

Sure it is right to be cautious, if you meet one; like anyone they can be mean, if they feel threatened. Some have a bite or have the power to squeeze, but they never deserved being named agents of the Evil one and distrusted for their links with Pagan beliefs.

William Crossing, chronicler of Dartmoor Folklore, says that, in Dartmoor, the locals were deeply superstitious of snakes. These hardy folk of the moors didn’t fear much, but they really didn’t like snakes. A rambling moorland herder might carry an ash stick, to ward off snakes or to catch and neutralise them if they met one. But in fact, says Crossing, the snakes of Dartmoor are shy creatures who seldom would be seen, unless it is basking upon the stones harmlessly. In speaking to the Dartmoor farm folk, he realised the fear comes more from the Christian superstition that snakes are of the Devil, than from fear of a bite from a diamond backed adder.

There’s that old Irish Legend that tells of Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland. BUT there never were any snakes in Ireland; these reptiles didn’t make it over the Land bridge, when they re-emerged after the last ice age.

So the story is a metaphor. Patrick is driving out what the snake symbolises: the devilish beliefs of the “Pagan” Celts.

The Irish Celts brought the memory of serpent with them in story and art. Snake was an emblem of connection with the Earth, which was so important to their shamanic/ druidic culture.

They saw how the serpent’s whole body touches the Earth and so believed them utterly attuned to the Earth Mother and able wriggle into the magical Other-world beneath the ground. When they emerged from among roots or out from between rocks they were seen as messengers between the realms.

So even among the Celtic Christians people, beyond this propaganda about Patrick driving out the snakes, there seems to be a deep respect for the magical potency of the snake- as agents of Earth, rather than the Evil One in serpent form…

And so the serpent will slither into my Brigid story in the Podcast next week. To Brigid, the magical serpent that slides up from between the roots of the Sacred Oak and whispers in her ear, is an ally who guides and assures her of her path. Stories tell of her loving music, merriment, good food and beer. Brigid’s serpent guide, resembles a witch’s familiar and, surely she felt that tingle in her spine, that magical enlivening to the joy of an earthly life. So the link to the animistic origins of pre-christian Celtic spirituality remains alive and well in a story of a Christian Saint..

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Kells

This picture from the Book of Kells is drawn perhaps by one who has not seen a real snake; knows them only from a Celtic torc or ornament and from their imaginings of the myths and stories they have heard.

The image is imbued with Power which does not suggest a lowly or evil beast…

My Hope is to Publish a Podcast after celebrating each of the 8 Celtic Festivals and publish my Eco-fantasy book chapters in audio form monthly…

Please support by going “Paid” if you can and if you want to hear the whole podcast. If you can’t then please enjoy the free material.

Subscribe now

For a few days Will and his Mam took turns on the roof, waiting, looking out for the messenger from Lady Constantia. On the third morning Will was up at dawn swathed in his Cloak of Hiding. He had become so adept at the Way of Changing that, to a Grimmer, he would have appeared as rooftiles and skyline, even close up.

As the sun illuminated River Park, the birds of morning sang their optimistic songs, yet when the work hour arrived the clanging of machinery returned at the far end of River Park and sliced the sweet air into shreds. Once more the alarm calls went up from every tree.

Will could see the Grimmer Workers recommencing their mission, beyond the Sallen trees, now the ground had dried. They were digging the foundations of the Wheelie Car factory. The Progress continued.

The crows of Grimstone flew to and fro and three landed on the roof, bringing the News from the Crow’s Eye view,

“Caark! Tah terrible doings. Dah! Diggings in the Paaark!!”

It was then that Mam came up through the roof door and together they looked across at the workings.

Will had felt her sadness mingle with his own as she stood next to him. His belly felt queasy because he wanted to do something to stop the destruction, but he could not.

A sad little cloud gathered above them. Mam could not raise a downpour today; her outpourings of weather seemed to tire her after a while.

“We must be strong and be ready to meet our allies, before we can change this Progress…” she encouraged him, squeezing his hand.

The Cats came by, as usual, on their morning Progress along the roof-tops; Scrag up front strutting, Queenie holding her head proud and high. Queenie and Scrag knew they were there more by smell than seeing, for they could only see them very faintly through their Cloaks of Hiding

“Disgusting!” hissed Queenie, casting an imperious gaze over the ravaging of the Park below.

“They should not ought to do that!” added Scrag, who rarely spoke.

Lurking in the shadow of their chimney, was Midnight and she could see them clearly.

Will went over to her and she miaowled painfully,

“Truly this machine messing hurts my soul, yet makes me strrronger in my resolve. Tonight, at low tide I go beneath the tower… I go to the find the Hidden One…”

Then suddenly Midnight stopped and sniffed the air; her blue-black fur spiked up all along her spine.

“Beware- a strrrange one comes…”

Then over the rooftops he came, a cat with white, fluffy fur and a delicate step. Will could smell the perfume of roses as he approached.

Passing Midnight and Will, he came towards Scrag with belligerent blue eyes and hissed, fearless.

Scrag rushed towards him, squaring up,

“I know you, trouble maker! What you doing here?” snarled Scrag.

The white cat did not pause: fur on end, claws extended, he leapt high, pounced onto Scrag’s back, sinking those claws into the ginger Tom’s head. The old fighter twisted and flailed to get him off, yowling in rage and pain.

“Enough! Why have you come back to our territory, one who calls himself- ‘White King’?” Queenie meowled shrilly above the cacophony.

Obviously these cats had met before.

Off guard for a moment the White Cat was flipped onto his back and Scrag held him at the throat with a huge ginger paw.

“My Lady calls me that and rightly- King I am. I never wanted to dirty my paws with your roof again…yet I come with a message of importance…”

Will and his Mam had watched the wrangles of the cats, thinking it cat business- for them to sort out- yet, now they realised this was the messenger they had been waiting for.

“Please release him!” Mam asked Scrag.

So, released, the vicious fiend of white fluff leapt back onto his pretty paws and, looking haughtily over his shoulder at Will and his Mam, he commanded,

“Follow me! My lady awaits.”

Along the roofs of Northfell Street they followed and down they leapt, where the woodlands of the River Park were dense. They strolled out of the leafy cover and along the path as two Grimmers, with wide brows and larger bones, slow feet and the slit-pupils of their dragon eyes. The White King darted delicately between the trees and, where the River Park ended, they joined the road, going out of town. This time they turned left down the road which led out of Grimstone, past the final street lamp, where the bushes sprang lively, and past the drive-ways of some grand old grimmer houses.

All the way they followed the White King- that spiteful white ball of fluff- who pranced proudly ahead.

As they walked along, Will thought of his what Midnight had just told him: tonight, she was going into that dark place under RICMAC, to get a closer look at the Hooded Tuskellen- the Hidden One.

This mysterious cloaked person was bad- very bad. This was going to get very real and Will realised, he couldn’t keep it a secret from his parents any longer.

“There’s something else I didn’t tell you Mam!” and quickly he told her how, when he was very young, the Hooded One had appeared to him in a dream; he told her how Midnight had spied that same Tuskellen person in the Market, invisibly stealing fish, and of her intent to spy on him that very night.

“Why didn’t you tell me when you first dreamt it?”

“It was the night before you first went away to the woods Mam and left me..”

Will recalled the pain of their first parting and Mam winced in sympathy. Then Will added

“Also, perhaps I didn’t want to speak of this dream, because I don’t want it to be real, but somehow I knew it was true…”

“I hear you, my love, but, when your cat friend brings tellings of what she finds, please tell us straight away… It could make all the difference in our mission to slow this Progress”

“I promise, Mam!” Will said solemnly.

They passed a well-cut hedge and came to an open gate and through it they saw the neatly ordered rows of vegetables which were the Plotments. There were Grimmers gardening among the cabbages roots and leeks- the Plotmenteers.

One of them a lady with a friendly face and dark curly hair, waved as they passed.

Where the Plotments’ field ended, they came to an ancient driveway. Like at Castle Grimm, the gateposts were mounted by stone guardians: a Wolf and a Unicorn. Carved into the lichen-encrusted gatepost, they could make out the words “Muchly Hall”.

“Hmmm!” Mam muttered, as they followed the White King between the posts and down the drive of Muchly Hall.

“Why hmmm, Mam?”

Well, the Wolf and the Unicorn are totem animals of the Tuskellen of the Western Woods. This Lady, who is also a man, and her family before her, they know more than a little about us it seems.”

Along the drive there were wild borders and the birds sang full-throated, trees flourished, since the ground was well covered with centuries of leaf mould. Here was a feeling of healthy Green life which made most of the River Park seem dusty and bare in comparison.

Will found himself letting go of his Grimmer form and becoming Tuskellen for a little; fast as lightening he ran and leapt between the trees, hiding and jumping out on Mam...

Mam didn’t stop him and soon, she also changed into her true shape: finer boned, ears and nose pointier..

She too seemed to feel somehow it was safe here; that they could be themselves.

Up to the grand stone steps between pillars carved with leaves and to the great wooden door they followed the fluffy cat. Here the cat slipped through a little flappy door within the door and disappeared.

Mam took a deep breath and with a look, Will understood they must adjust themselves back to their full Grimmer shapes; just in case. Then she swung the brass doorknocker which was formed into the tooth-bared head of a wolf.

The slapping of slow Grimmer feet beyond the door, then it creaked open. Leaning down to meet them was a towering Grimmer in a frayed and faded black suit.

He spoke in a hushed tone,

“Good day!”

“I am Enda Grimwood and this is my son Willen. We are here to see Lady Constantia.”

“I am Mr Dorman- and I assist the Ladies. You are welcome and expected, though Lady Constantia is delayed. Do come in and wait…” explained the towering Grimmer, as he ushered them into a grand room, five times the size of their main room with huge mirrors chairs of green-tarnished brass..

Mr Dorman returned in a short while and announced,

“You are invited to take tea with Lady Wisteria, please follow me.”

They followed Mr Dorman across the hallway where a stone stair wound upward and a stone ribbed dome, capped the towering roof. Very grand- compared to the plain décor of Castle Grimm. Friendly portraits lined the corridor, down which Dorman led them until they came to a wide, high wooden door.

Mr Dorman pushed it open and ushered them into quite a different place.

Will knew this was no Grimmer Hall. It was pillared with sections of ancient durren trees, their strong branches sculpted to form the overarches of the ceiling above. The lower walls were hung with tapestries, woven with pictures of woods and hills and vast skies adorned with butterflies and birds of all shapes and sizes and, along the higher part, rainbow glassed windows lit the hall. The ceiling was made of thatch and there was a twittering from bird nests high above. Bird dung splats decorated the floor and furnishings. Along its centre hung chandeliers, wrought with glass butterflies. Never was such delicate glasswork made by Grimmer hands.

Will remembered what his Gramma had told him: that the last of the line of elder sons of the Grimwoods, who had the name Ricad, would not take on the Forge of Grimm and instead he took possession of some Grimwood Land, right on the edge of the Wild Park. The park which surrounded the pathway granted to the Tuskellen so they might move between their western home and the southern sea. Gramma had told him how the last Ricad Grimwood and his wife had built a house of wood.

This was it- he knew it.

The reception room and vestibule were a front for the ungrimmerish building beyond.

Then Will saw that here it was more than a building that was ungrimmerish…

At the far end of the hall was a dais and upon it, two huge wooden seats carved with intertwined vines and branches and small creatures such as birds, mice and bats. On one of the chairs, upon a faded velvet cushion, sat the White King preening himself and on the other chair, upon a felt cushion of moss-green, sat Lady Wisteria Muchly-Grimwood-Smythe.

She was the most ungrimmerish of people, unlike her solid sister in appearance. Upon her slight frame she wore a gown of sky blue with gauzy petticoats hanging, ragged in places. Upon her head she wore a garland, woven from the pliant twigs of a sallen tree, decorated with fresh flowers. Upon her hands she wore finely knitted, pinkish gloves, with holes for the fingers.

She had a cloud of greenish white hair and her face was quite finely boned, although, like Will she had the blunt nose of a Grimmer; her eyes slanted just a little and yes, as they came closer, Will saw it:

Lady Wisteria Muchly-Grimwood-Smythe did not have a Grimmer’s eyes.

Instead of the slit pupils of the Dragon people, her green eyes had round pupils like Will’s and his Mam’s, when they stood in their true Tuskellen form.

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A spine shivering, frosty sunrise…

Here am I, standing in the chill wonder of Imbolc morning.

This is the Celtic dawn of Spring, Feast of Brigid, a bridging archetype- both Goddess and Saint, snake whisperer and worker of wonders; otherwise known as miracles…

Later, limbs thawing, I walk out in the sunlight and joy flutters in my belly as the foetal lambs stir in the bellies of the Ewes.

Imbolc.

I mbolc- Irish-Gaelic way of of saying “in the belly.”

Aware of my clumsy feet, I try to avoid tender shoots and flower buds, unfurling over the ground. My ears fill with spring twitterings from the treetops, as I look up at quivering catkins, which dangle, pollen-laden from the hazel’s tiny twigs.

The Hazel: pliant yet strong, used to bend into natural tent shelters in the ancient days and some, who live close to the land, still use it nowadays too for this same purpose.

There is no strength, no pliant bough, without these first fragile inklings of life…

These are the male flowers whose pollen is …

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Hello all you lovely Subscribers!

Laura Sky here.

Thanks so much for supporting my writings and recordings from the Wilds of Britain and beyond.

Today I’m starting a Wildlanders subscriber chat, a conversation space exclusively for subscribers.

It’s a chance for you to share your tales and experiences from the wilds and to feed back to me about the Wildlander Publications.

I’ll post questions and updates , and you are welcome to join the discussion- even if just for a few words or pictures…

Join chat

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