Cape Grimm

by Carmel Bird

  FRANKLIN, JOHN (1786–1847)

  Born in Lincolnshire, England. He was in charge of signals at the Battle of Trafalgar, commanded the ship Rainbow in the Mediterranean, and in 1801 assisted in the mapping of the coastline of the Great South Land with his uncle, Matthew Flinders. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was knighted in 1829. From 1836–43 John Franklin was the Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen’s Land. He had always dreamed of proving the existence of the Northwest Passage, a water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean through Canada. After two previous attempts to find the Northwest Passage, in 1845 he sailed from England with an expedition of one hundred and twenty-eight men to Canada once again. His ships, the Terror and the Erebus, became trapped in ice, and the men, desperate, freezing and suffering from the poisonous effects of the lead in their food containers, resorted to eating the dead bodies of their companions. In 1848 the first expedition to look for them set out, but it was not until 1857 that any trace of them was found, when Franklin’s wife, Jane, sent the little yacht Fox to look for evidence. It was then established that John Franklin had died in 1847.

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  GINGERBREAD

  RECIPE

  INGREDIENTS

  3 cups plain flour

  3/4 cup sugar

  4 teaspoons ground ginger

  1 teaspoon allspice

  1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

  pinch of salt

  1 cup milk

  125 grams butter

  3 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

  1 cup treacle

  2 eggs

  METHOD

  Mix flour, sugar, spices and salt.

  Heat milk and dissolve butter and soda in it.

  Add treacle and well-beaten eggs.

  Stir this mixture into the dry ingredients.

  Mix well.

  Bake in a lined and greased tin for 45 minutes in a moderate oven.

  GODDARD, AMBROSE (1934–1974)

  Psychiatrist, founder of the Mandala Clinic for the Mentally Ill in Melbourne, Australia, and advocate of the controversial Deep Sleep Therapy. Died by his own hand in 1974.

  GODDARD, SOPHIE (1960–2002)

  Psychiatrist, daughter of Ambrose (see above), who was murdered by one of the inmates of the Black River Psychiatric Detention Facility while in the performance of her duties.

  GOLDEN APPLE SNAIL

  The golden apple snail was introduced into China from Florida and Mexico in the 1980s by snail farmers who planned to export the snails to European markets. The venture was unsuccessful, and the snails escaped and spread through the waterways until they found an ideal habitat in the rice fields where they are now a serious threat, being capable of destroying whole crops in a very short time.

  GOLDEN GATE

  Name of the gold mine at Mathinna, near Fingal in Van Diemen’s Land.

  GOLDEN MEAN

  This pattern appears clearly and regularly in the realm of things that grow and unfold in steps, the phenomenon being very obvious in such structures as the shell of the paper nautilus and the seed head of the sunflower which grows in clockwise spirals overlaid on counterclockwise spirals, according to Fibonacci numbers. It may also be observed in the configuration of the inner ear.

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  HANS-MY-HEDGEHOG

  Story number 108 from the Nursery and Household Tales of the Brothers Grimm.

  Once upon a time there was a man who possessed lands and monies sufficient to his needs, yet there was something lacking in his happiness, for he and his wife had no children. One day when he was at the market some of the merchants questioned him on the subject of his childlessness, and he and his wife were mocked. Humiliated and sad, the man grew angry, and when he returned home he found himself saying to his wife that he would have a child, ‘even,’ he said, ‘if that child should be a hedgehog.’ His wife laughed at his remark, and when she became pregnant there was great rejoicing in the house. The couple were naturally forgetful of the husband’s careless words uttered in sadness and rage.

  Then the wife had a baby, and the top half was a hedgehog with long sharp quills and the bottom half was a boy. When the woman saw the baby, she was horrified and she remembered at once her husband’s words and she said, ‘Now see what you have wished upon us!’

  ‘It can not be helped. The boy must be baptised,’ said her husband.

  In her great sorrow the woman said that the only name they could give him was Hans-My-Hedgehog.

  The astonished priest who baptised him said, ‘Because of his quills he can not be given an ordinary bed.’

  So they put a little heap of fresh straw behind the stove and laid him in it. In truth his father wished him dead, such was his misery at having fathered such a creature, but his mother saw to it that her child had sufficient nourishment, and so Hans-My-Hedgehog grew and thrived. He lived behind the stove for eight years.

  One day the man was going to a fair in the neighbouring town, and he asked his wife what gift he might bring home for her.

  ‘A little meat, some bread, and a little red jug for the table.’

  Then he asked the servant girl, and she requested a pair of silken slippers and some fancy stockings.

  Finally, to be fair, the man went behind the stove and said, ‘Hans-My-Hedgehog, what would you like?’

  ‘Father,’ Hans said, ‘bring me some bagpipes.’

  When the peasant returned home he gave his wife the meat, the bread and the little red jug. Then he gave the servant girl the silken slippers and fancy stockings. And finally he went behind the stove and gave Hans-My-Hedgehog as handsome a set of bagpipes as you could ever imagine.

  When Hans-My-Hedgehog saw the bagpipes he was very happy and he said, ‘Father, would you go to the blacksmith’s and have our fine cock-rooster shod like a stallion, that I may ride away and never more come back?’

  So the father had the rooster shod, and when it was done Hans-My-Hedgehog rode away, taking with him some pigs and some donkeys, for he planned to live in a certain style in the forest. The cock-rooster flew up into a tall tree, carrying Hans-My-Hedgehog with him. There Hans sat for four long years and watched over the donkeys and the pigs until they had grown into a fine herd. And all the while as he sat in the treetop, he played his bagpipes and the music he made was beautiful.

  One day in the spring a king came riding by on his elegant white horse. He had heard the music of the pipes from the edge of the forest, and he was beguiled and followed the sound deep into the woods until he became quite lost. When the king arrived at the tree where Hans was sitting, he looked up and was surprised to see a little hedgehog astride a little cock-rooster sitting in the tree making the music. The king called up into the tree, thanking the player for the music, and then saying he had lost his way and asking for directions back to the kingdom. Hans-My-Hedgehog had much knowledge, and he had been thinking about things for many years. He now climbed down from the tree and explained to the king that he would show him the way if the king would promise to give him the first thing that greeted him at the royal court upon his arrival home. When the king said nothing Hans-My-Hedgehog handed him a quill and a leaf of paper and requested the promise be recorded in the king’s own hand. So the king took the quill and the paper and he wrote something down. Then Hans-My-Hedgehog, who had never learnt to read, showed him the way, and the king rode safely all the way to his palace.

  His daughter saw him coming from afar, and was so overjoyed that she ran to meet him and kissed him. The king thought about Hans-My-Hedgehog and told her what had happened. He said he had lost his way in the woods and had met a strange animal riding a cock-rooster and playing sweet and mysterious music on the pipes. The animal had given him directions to the palace and had expected him to keep a promise in return. But the king had written nonsense on the paper, and he felt the life of his daughter was safe. His daughter laughed when she heard the story, and there was great rejoicing in the kingdom for the king had returned.

  Hans-My-Hedgehog wondere
d what had become of the king and his promise, but he was of good cheer and tended the donkeys and pigs, and sat in the tree playing his strange melodies on his pipes.

  Now it happened that a second king heard the sound and that he too was beguiled and he too became lost. When he saw Hans-My-Hedgehog he asked for directions and Hans again replied as he had done before, asking for a written promise.

  ‘Promise me you will give me the first living thing that greets you when you reach the gates of your palace.’

  The king said yes and signed a promise to Hans-My-Hedgehog. But this time Hans told the king that he would lead him to the palace, and so, riding on his cock-rooster, Hans led the procession of the king’s horses and men until they came to the gates of the palace where Hans left the king and rode away.

  Now the second king also had a daughter and she was fair and beautiful. She ran out to greet her father, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. She asked him where he had been during his long absence, and he told her how he had heard some strange music, and had followed it, and had lost his way in a great forest. He told her he had come upon the musician, who was half hedgehog, half human, astride a rooster sitting in a tall tree playing his bagpipes. Then he looked into her eyes and told her that he had made a promise which he must honour. He had promised the hedgehog that he would give it the first living thing that greeted him when he arrived at his kingdom. The princess was shocked and afraid, but she said that she would gladly honour her father’s promise and go with the creature when he came for her.

  Hans-My-Hedgehog rode then into the kingdom where the first king ruled. The king had issued an order against any person who was carrying bagpipes and riding on a rooster. This person should be killed at once, should be shot at, struck down and stabbed to prevent him from entering the castle. Thus, when Hans-My-Hedgehog rode up, they attacked him with bayonets, but Hans was swift, and he spurred his rooster on, and they flew high up, up, up, over the gate and up to the dishonest king’s window. Landing there, Hans shouted to the king. ‘Give me your daughter as you agreed, or you and your daughter will die.’

  The king grew afraid of the strange magic that attended this creature, Hans-My-Hedgehog, and so he told the princess to go out to him, in order to save his life and her own as well. So the princess put on a white dress, and her father gave her a carriage with six horses, many servants, a bag of gold and seven fine houses. She rode out on a white horse and Hans-My-Hedgehog took his place beside her with his cock-rooster and his bagpipes.

  The king was very sad and thought that he would never see his daughter again, and he lamented that he had attempted to trick Hans-My-Hedgehog. However, it did not go as he thought it would, for when the princess and Hans had travelled a short distance from the city, Hans-My-Hedgehog stopped the horses. He alighted and he asked the princess also to alight. She was more afraid than she had ever been. Then he pulled off her white dress that shimmered with bright jewels and she stood naked before him. Then he attacked her in rage and he stuck her with his quills until she was covered in blood from head to toe.

  ‘This is the reward for your father’s deceit. Go away. I do not want to see you ever again.’

  And, weeping with pain and sorrow, the princess wrapped herself in a blanket and mounted her white horse, which was soon spattered and smeared with bright red blood. She rode away home, and when her father saw her he cried out and died from grief, and she was cursed as long as she lived.

  Then Hans-My-Hedgehog rode on to the second kingdom. Here the king had ordered that if anyone resembling Hans-My-Hedgehog should arrive, he should be saluted and brought to the royal castle with honours and should be escorted by a guard of soldiers in full regalia. So Hans arrived, and he was met with great ceremony at the gates of the kingdom and made a royal progress to the king’s reception hall. There the princess saw him for the first time and she was faint with horror and amazement and fear. Yet she was honourable as her father was honourable, and she sat with Hans at the royal table and they ate and drank together. Later that evening, in the courtyard of the palace, the princess and Hans-My-Hedgehog were married amid great celebrations, among mountains of fresh flowers, to the sounds of royal music and accompanied by a display of Chinese fireworks.

  As dawn was breaking it came the time for Hans and the princess to retire to the royal bedchamber. She was most afraid of his quills, but he told her to have no fear, for he would not hurt her. Then he requested that four men should come to the recess outside the bedchamber, and that a large fire should be burning in the grate beside the door. When this was done he shed his hedgehog skin and gave it to the men, who burned it utterly in the fire where it flamed and crackled and spat until it was reduced to ashes.

  When his hedgehog skin was gone, Hans lay upon the bed in the shape of a beautiful young man. But his skin was charred, as if blackened by the fire. The princess requested the attention of the king’s physician, who washed Hans with good salves and balms until he was cleansed and soothed and pure, and there was rejoicing for another week in the kingdom.

  Some months later Hans travelled with his wife to visit his father and mother, who still lived in the house where Hans had spent so many long sad hours behind the stove. When he said he was their son they said they had no son. Then the woman said there used to be a son, but he was dead, and he had been born under a spell, with quills on his back like the quills of a hedgehog. Hans then took out his old bagpipes and started to play, and the cock-rooster came running up crowing, and the father and mother, with tears in their eyes, knew that this young prince was indeed their son, and they rejoiced and embraced Hans-My-Hedgehog and his bride the princess.

  My tale is done, and away it is run, to little August’s house.

  I

  IRIS

  Iris, counterpart of Hermes, is the female messenger of the gods of Olympus, having the power of the word. She is in the service of Hera, has golden wings and feathered slippers, and bears the kerykeion, or snaky wand, in one hand and the box of the word in the other. She is the only one who can enter the cave of Hypnos, the god of sleep, to deliver a message without being overpowered by drowsiness. Iris is also a psychopomp who accompanies the souls of women to the other world. The rainbow is the bridge between Iris and the earth, and is also the ‘eye of heaven’, lending the goddess’s name to the coloured disk of the human eye.

  The luminescent colours of the iris flower led to its being named for the rainbow. The iris is one of the most ancient cutivated plants. It was taken from Syria to Egypt fifteen hundred years before the birth of Christ. Because of the association with the goddess who carries the word, the flower is a symbol of eloquence.

  Indians of the Californian desert wrapped their babies in the leaves of the iris to protect them from dehydration, and they also used the leaves as fibre for cord, snares and fishing nets.

  The legend of Clovis from sixth-century France explains the inspiration of the iris as the model for the fleur-de-lys. Clovis’s army was trapped by the Goths, when Clovis saw yellow irises growing in the Rhine. He realised the water was therefore shallow enough for him and his men to cross. He escaped to safety and adopted the iris as his device and it became the emblem of the French royal house. When Louis VII adopted it as his emblem during the Crusades in the twelfth century it came to be known as fleur-de-Louis and then the fleur-de-lys.

  In the twelfth century, when the magnet was first used for the navigation of ships at sea, the fleur-de-lys was chosen as the symbol to indicate North and it has appeared in that capacity on all compasses and maps ever since.

  The name of the ship that sank off Puddingstone Island in 1851.

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  JOACHIM THE PROPHET

  He was born at Celico in Calabria in about 1130 and died in 1202. Joachim was a visionary and prophet who, early in life, adopted an ascetic life. After a pilgrimage to Palestine, he entered the Cistercian Abbey at Sambucina. In 1176, he became abbot of Corazzo, and about 1190 founded his own monastery at Fiore, forming
a new Cistercian congregation. He predicted a Golden Age when infidels would unite with Christians, and when the hierarchy of the Church would become unnecessary. Dante names Joachim as one of the people in Paradise.

  THE JUNIPER TREE

  Story number 47 from the Nursery and Household Tales of the Brothers Grimm.

  Once there was a rich man who had a beautiful wife but no children, and the wife prayed for a child by day and by night. In front of the house there was a courtyard where there stood a juniper tree. One day in winter the woman was sitting beneath the tree, peeling apples with a knife, and as she was doing so she cut her finger and three drops of blood fell upon the snow. Then she longed for a child who was as red as blood and as white as snow, and in that moment she felt sure that this would come to pass.

  A month went by, and the snow melted. And two months, and everything was green. And three months, and all the flowers came forth from the earth. And four months, and all the trees in the woods grew thicker, and the green branches were all entwined in one another, and the birds sang. Then the fifth month passed, and the woman stood beneath the juniper tree and her heart leapt for joy. She fell to her knees. When the sixth month had passed, the fruit was heavy on the trees and then the woman rested. After the seventh month she picked the juniper berries and she ate them greedily, but then she grew sorrowful. When the eighth month passed the woman called her husband to her and she said, ‘Husband, if I should die, bury me beneath the juniper tree.’