Landmarks

by Robert Macfarlane

  Roger’s gift of that word would set further ripples of influence ringing outwards. Two years later he and I would travel together to the ‘holloways’ of south Dorset, in search of the hideout of the hero of Geoffrey Household’s cult 1939 novel, Rogue Male, who goes to ground in a sandstone-sided sunken lane in the Chideock Valley. Seven years after that I would return to Chideock with the artist Stanley Donwood and the writer Dan Richards, with whom I subsequently co-wrote a small book called Holloway – though by then I had fully forgotten the work’s true origin in that letter from Roger to me about the walnut woods of Kyrgyzstan and their deep-trodden lanes.

  The other gift I received from Roger’s trip to Central Asia was an apple pip. He had travelled to the Talgar Valley in the mountains of Kazakhstan in search of the ur-apple – the wild apple, Malus sieversus, that was thought to have evolved into the domestic apple, Malus domesticus, and in that form found its way to Britain thanks to the Romans. On the northern slopes of the Tien Shan massif, Roger had filled three film canisters with wild-apple pips and damp cotton wool, and carried them home to Suffolk. He planted the pips in pots on his kitchen windowsill and there they had grown to seedlings. But then Roger died and the seedlings almost died with him, as the creepers on the outside of the farm grew untended over the kitchen window and shut out the sun. Potbound and light-hungry, each seedling developed an obvious kink in its trunk from the months around Roger’s death, where they had leaned desperately sunwards.

  Then Titus and Jasmin rescued them, re-potted them and gave them light. The seedlings flourished into saplings. When spring came, Titus planted out ten of the ur-apples in a field just behind the barn where Roger’s archive was kept, making an apple avenue. And Jasmin gave one of the saplings to me. I planted it in the chalky clay of my suburban garden, and to my surprise it flourished there.

  It takes about twelve years for an apple tree to grow from pip to first fruiting. I write this in the spring of 2014, eleven years after Roger returned from Central Asia. My ur-apple flowers with white blossom, its leaves are a keen green, and it still has the sharp crook near the base of its trunk that remembers Roger’s death. Next year, all being well, it will fruit for the first time.

  ~

  A life lived as variously as Roger’s, and evoked in writing as powerful as his, means that even after death his influence continues to flow outwards. Green Man-like, he appears in unexpected places, speaking in leaves. There is, of course, a tendency to hero-worship those who lived well and died too young, as Roger did. Laundry lists and emails become holy writ; hallowed places become sites of pilgrimage; admiration is expressed through ritual re-performance; and idealism threatens to occlude the actual. I know that Roger was no pure Poseidon or Herne: that he flew often and without apparent pangs to his conscience, that he could at times talk too much and at times too little, and that he was unrepeatably rude to any Jehovah’s Witnesses who made the long trudge down the track from Mellis Common to the front door of Walnut Tree Farm. But his writing did show people how to live both eccentrically and responsibly, and by both dwelling well and travelling wisely, he resolved in some measure the tension between what Edward Thomas called the desire to ‘go on and on over the earth’ and the desire ‘to settle for ever in one place’. Above all he embodied a spirit of childishness, in the best sense of the word: innocent of eye and at ease with wonder.

  Though Roger is gone, many of his readers still feel a need to express their admiration for him, and the connection they felt with his work and world view, and so they still write letters, as if he might somehow read them. As I am Roger’s literary executor, and as our writings have become intertwined, many of these letters find their way to me. They come from all over the world, and from various kinds of people: a professional surfer from Australia, a Canadian academic, a woman from Exeter confined to her house due to mobility problems, a young man re-swimming the route of Waterlog, lake by lake and river by river, in an attempt to recover from depression. Titus and Jasmin have to cope with the scores of Deakinites who come on pilgrimage to Mellis each year, wanting to see the farm and its fields. Most are polite. Some expect it all to have been kept as a shrine or museum, and are offended by the changes they perceive. Some, inspired by Roger’s insouciant attitude towards trespass, wander the fields uninvited, or take unannounced dips in the moat.

  But all of the pilgrims, and all the letter writers, are under Roger’s influence, and as I know that feeling well I do not begrudge them it. Among the letters I have received, one of the most heartfelt came from a Dutch-English reader, and this is how it began:

  I am Hansje, born and bred in the north Netherlands where I bathed from age one in lakes, rivers and cold-water outdoor pools. Here in Warwickshire, where I have lived for some thirty-three years, I am among other things a swimmer, and if you ever wish to swim in the beautiful Avon, then do tell me and I will show you to the best and secret places. I have never experienced the profound sense of loss of someone I have never met as when I learnt that Roger had died. Many sentences in each of his books are as if engraved in me, find a resting place, a recognition, they are magnifying glass, lens and microscope to the natural world, a watery surface through which I look to see the earth clarified.

  Glossary III

  Waterlands

  Moving Water

  aber mouth of a river (into the sea), estuary; confluence of a lesser with a larger river Welsh

  abhainn substantial river, often running to the sea, with numerous tributaries Gaelic

  ǣwell source of a stream Old English

  aghlish crook or sharp curve of a river (literally ‘armpit’) Manx

  aker turbulent current East Anglia

  allt strong stream or burn, usually running into an abhainn Gaelic

  bala outflow of a river from a lake Welsh

  bathshruth calm stream, smoothly flowing stream Irish

  bay slow water above a weir Cumbria

  beck stream northern England

  berw of water: boiling, foaming Welsh

  beuc-shruth roaring stream; cataract Gaelic

  beum-slèibhe sudden torrent caused by the bursting of a thundercloud Gaelic

  blaen of a river: source, headwater Welsh

  borbhan purling or murmur of a stream Gaelic

  brook small stream English

  burn, burnie small stream northern England, Scots

  burraghlas torrent of brutal rage Gaelic

  caa’l mill dam; place in a stream where salmon jump North Sea coast

  calbh gushing of water or blood Gaelic

  caol stream flowing through a marsh Irish

  cartage violent stream of water that runs through a town and carries away the off-scourings Manx

  catchment area from which precipitation and groundwater will collect and contribute to the flow of a specific river ecological

  cenllif torrent, swift-flowing stream Welsh

  comb feature of a stream where water pours over a rock such that it stands upwards in glossy ridges, separated by grooves (Gerard Manley Hopkins) poetic

  cora weir or ford that might be used as a crossing place; also a rocky ridge extending into a sea or lake Irish

  còs-shruth stream running partly underground or forming hollows in its course Gaelic

  crìon-allt small stream often dried up by the sun’s heat in summer Gaelic

  currel small stream East Anglia

  cymer confluence of two or more rivers or streams Welsh

  drindle diminutive run of water, smaller than a currel East Anglia

  eagmin mall slow meander or winding of a river Gaelic

  easaraich boiling of a pool where a cascade falls Gaelic

  faoi noisy stream Gaelic

  ffrwd swift-flowing stream, gushing rill Welsh

  force powerful waterfall northern England

  gairneag noisy little stream Gaelic

  ghyll, gill deep rocky cleft or ravine, usually wooded and forming the course of a stream northern England

>   glaise rivulet, stream Irish

  gore muddy obstruction in a watercourse Essex

  grain point where a stream branches Yorkshire

  gull to sweep away by force of running water East Anglia

  gulsh to tear up with violence, as a stream when swollen with floods Northamptonshire

  iomashruth eddying current Gaelic

  keld deep, still, smooth part of a river northern England

  lade watercourse to or from a mill Galloway

  land-shut flood Herefordshire

  lane slow stream Galloway

  latch occasional watercourse Cumbria

  lum slack water at the bend of, or a pool in, a stream Cumbria

  marbh-shruth that part of a river or stream the current of which is scarcely perceptible Gaelic

  mill-race, mill-tail stream of water as it runs out from under the waterwheel English

  nailbourne intermittent stream Kent

  nant stream; stream-cut gorge, usually rocky Welsh

  òs inlet or outlet of a loch Gaelic

  pill creek capable of holding small barges Herefordshire

  pistyll, rhaeadr waterfall, water-spout Welsh

  potamic of or relating to rivers; riverine ecological

  pow naturally sluggish, slow-moving stream, generally with a muddy bottom Cumbria

  reach level, uninterrupted stretch of water on a river English

  riag-allt fast-flowing, noisy stream Gaelic

  rin stream Shetland

  ruadh-bhuinne torrent embrowned by peat Gaelic

  seabhainn very small river Gaelic

  sgoinn small pool in the rocky bed of a stream in which salmon get imprisoned and caught when the tide is low Gaelic

  sgòr-shruth rocky stream Gaelic

  sill of a weir: the glassy curve where the water tips over the level English

  speat sudden flood (spate) in a river following rain, snow or thaw Cumbria

  spout waterfall, smaller than a force northern England

  stripe small stream, burn Shetland

  taghairm noise; echo; type of divination by listening to the noise of waterfalls Gaelic

  threeple, tripple gentle sound made by a quick-flowing stream (incessant chattering, monotony and repetition being implied) Cumbria

  tolg to sputter, vomit, as a mountain torrent Gaelic

  turn-whol deep, seething pool where two streams meet Cumbria

  twire movement of slow and shallow river water Exmoor

  ùidh stream with a slow but strong current running between two freshwater lochs Gaelic

  vaedik channel, small stream Shetland

  whelm half a hollow tree, placed with its hollow side downwards, to form a small watercourse East Anglia

  winterbourne intermittent or ephemeral stream, dry in the summer and running in winter, usually found in chalk and limestone regions Berkshire, Dorset, Wiltshire

  wirli place where a dyke crosses a burn Shetland

  ystum of a river: a bend, curve, meander Welsh

  Pools, Ponds and Lakes

  blatter puddle Yorkshire

  botunn deep pool Gaelic

  cesspools water that gathers on the ‘cess’, or land between a river and its bank, when the river is low Fenland

  flosh stagnant pool overgrown with reeds Lancashire

  fuarán spring, pool or fountain Irish

  glumag deep pool in a river Gaelic

  grimmer large, shallow, weed-infested pond East Anglia

  hassock large pond Kent

  lacustrine of or pertaining to a lake or lakes; lake-like geographical

  leech pond or pool of water lying in the hollow of a road Lancashire

  lidden pond west Cornwall

  linne pool in a river, deeper than a glumag Gaelic

  llyn lake Welsh

  loch lake Gaelic

  lochan small lake Gaelic

  lodan little pool; water in one’s shoe Gaelic

  loom slow and silent movement of water in a deep pool Cumbria

  lough lake Irish

  mardle small pond convenient for watering cattle; also to gossip, to waste time gossiping Suffolk

  mere marsh; pool (used of Grendel’s abode in Beowulf) Old English

  pell hole of water, generally very deep, beneath an abrupt waterfall Sussex

  plash small pool Cotswolds

  pudge little puddle Northamptonshire

  puil pool or small marsh Scots

  pulk small dirty pool Essex

  stank pool caused by a dam or a stream; also the dam itself Cotswolds

  staran causeway of stones built out into a loch in order to fetch water Gaelic

  swidge puddle Suffolk

  tarn mountain pool or small upland lake northern England

  wake piece of open water in the midst of a frozen river or broad East Anglia

  Rain and Storm

  after-drop raindrop which falls after a cloud has passed (first cited in Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia, c. 1580) poetic

  bachram very heavy rain (literally ‘boisterous behaviour’) Irish

  bange light rain East Anglia

  bashy of a day: wet Northamptonshire

  basking drenching in a heavy shower East Anglia

  blashy of a day: wet north-east England

  blatter to rain heavily, noisily; also to beat, thrash Galloway

  bleach of rain and snow: to lash, blow in your face North Sea coast

  bleeterie showery Scots

  blirt short dash of rain coming with a gust of wind Scots

  boinneartaich isolated drops of rain Gaelic

  brais sudden heavy shower of rain Irish

  braon heavy shower at the beginning of summer, favourable to the growth of plants and crops Gaelic

  brenner sudden sharp gust of wind and rain on the water Suffolk

  brishum, briskeno rain Anglo-Romani

  chucking, henting,

  hooning, hossing,

  hoying, kelching,

  lashing, pissing,

  wazzing it down raining hard English, Scots, with countless regional variants

  cith, cith-uisge shower of warm, drizzling rain Gaelic

  ciùran drizzling rain Gaelic

  clagarnach clatter; noise of heavy rain on an iron roof Irish

  dabbledy of a day: showery Herefordshire

  dag to spit with rain North Sea coast

  dibble to rain slowly in drops Shropshire

  dimpsey low cloud with fine drizzle Cornwall, Devon

  dinge drizzle or rain mistily East Anglia

  down-come, down-faw fall of rain Yorkshire

  dravely of a day: showery Suffolk

  dreich dull, overcast, misty, cold Scots

  dribs rain which falls in drops from the eaves of thatched houses Leicestershire, Northamptonshire

  dringey light rain that still manages to get you soaking wet Lincolnshire

  drizzle fine precipitation with droplets less than 0.5mm in diameter meteorological

  drochy warm, moist, misty Galloway

  drookit soaked, drowned Doric

  dropple to rain in large drops Northamptonshire

  flist sudden squall with heavy rain Scots

  frisk gentle rain Exmoor

  gagey showery weather, unsettled and changeable south-east England

  garbh-fhras boisterous shower Gaelic

  gleamy showers and fitful sunshine Essex

  glìbheid mixture of rain, sleet and hail Gaelic

  glut long stretch of wet weather Northamptonshire

  gulching downpour of rain Essex

  haitch slight passing shower Sussex

  heavy rain rainfall with a precipitation rate of between 4 and 16mm per hour meteorological

  humidity very gentle rain Northern Ireland

  hurly-burly thunder and lightning England

  juggin raining steadily, not as bad as kelching Lincolnshire

  land-lash high winds and heavy rain English

  lattin, letty enough rain to make out
door work difficult (as in ‘let and hindrance’) Shropshire and Somerset respectively

  leasty of weather: dull, wet Suffolk

  light rain rainfall with a precipitation rate of between 0.25 and 1mm per hour meteorological

  lummin raining heavily Galloway

  mì-chàilear even more dreich than dreich Gaelic

  misla, misla-in rain, raining Shelta (Irish traveller dialect)

  mizzling raining lightly and finely north-west England

  moderate rain rainfall with a precipitation rate of between 1 and 4mm per hour meteorological

  owdrey overcast, cloudy Exmoor

  pash heavy fall of rain or snow northern England

  payling wind-driven shower Northamptonshire

  perry wet squall Lincolnshire

  planets extremely localized rain, falling on one field but not another, is said to fall in planets Northamptonshire

  plothering raining heavily Leicestershire

  plype heavy sudden shower Scots

  posh strong shower Shropshire

  rain precipitation with droplets of 0.5mm or more meteorological

  scoor shower of rain Scotland

  scud light, quickly passing shower Herefordshire

  serein fine rain falling from an apparently cloudless sky meteorological

  shatter scattering or sprinkling of rain Kent