I promised a post that would reflect my time in the Lake District. Already the details have blurred into a happy memory of driving through the countryside and up small mountains covered with heather, and taking occasional walks up the sides of mountains, to waterfalls, or along a footpath. We stopped at one to see a the Bowder Stone, a rock that had slid from the mountainside and come to rest in the valley on a corner, so that the entire rock balances on its side.
The rock itself is remarkable, but that isn’t what struck me initially. It was the forest walking to the stone that was so beautiful – it was like a primeval forest, remembering times long gone when bears and wolves may still have roamed through the trees, hunted by Celtic warriors blessed by their druids. But that wasn’t what struck me, either. It was the light and the greenery – it’s always the same things that get me – everywhere I looked, I saw trees and moss and heather, all lit up by the sunlight. The moss was so thick, it grew around every side of the trees. Standing there, I could almost hear the forest growing, I could feel it.
Time didn’t matter in that forest; it smelt of the eternal. This was the real Lothlorian in real proportions, not one romanticized as a dwelling for elves that grew old a long, long time ago. It was ageless and young and ancient and fecund and real. My memories of it are only passing, but it will be a place I will return to again and again within my own memory and imagination.
Pictures have been added!
They can only do so much justice...
They can only do so much justice...
This is why I have such a hard time in places like California or Utah or Nevada. I need the pulse of green and growing things around me, where it feels like the land itself is breathing and alive and has been for untold ages. The East Coast has that in spades, though it often has an air of malice which adds spice to wandering through the woods -- European forests, including those in Scotland, feel alive but there's also a sense that the land has finally grown accustomed to co-existence with humans. That makes it somehow more comfortable.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I don't say it in this post, in comparison to East Coast forests, British forests feel used. The heart of the magic lies in the past, and how the past can come alive, not the present.
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