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Tag Archives: Dorset

Tamsin

05 Wednesday Jun 2019

Posted by Ollamh in Literary History, Military History, Narrative Methods

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Tags

Algernon Blackwood, billyblind, boggart, Captain Blood, cat, Catherine of Braganza, Charles I, Charles II, Dorchester, Dorset, Errol Flynn, George Jeffreys, ghost, Glastonbury Abbey, Glastonbury Tor, James, King Arthur, Lucy Walter, M.R. James, Maiden Castle, Monmouth, Nell Gwynn, Peter Beagle, rebellion, Sedgemoor, Somerset, Tamsin, Two Men in a Trench

If you had never seen a ghost and probably didn’t believe in them, what would convince you?  How about a ghost cat?

image1ghostcat.jpg

In Peter Beagle’s

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Tamsin (1999),

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13-year-old Jenny Gluckstein encounters one and it’s only the beginning of a wonderfully rich and, this being a novel by Peter Beagle, a little melancholy, ghost story.

We don’t do spoilers, but what we’d like to do—oh, and, by the way, Welcome, dear readers, as ever!—is, first, to recommend this novel, which begins in New York City, but is mainly set in Dorset,

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in the southwest of England.  If you’re interested in spooks and spirits of all kinds, England is a wonderful place to explore, and the southwest is especially haunted (if you believe in such things—we’re neutral, ourselves, but love a good ghost story).  Just look at this massive Iron Age hill fort near Dorchester, called locally, “Maiden Castle”—what lives there at night?

image5maidencastle.jpg

[And speaking of good ghost stories, some of our favorites are by M.R. James (1862-1936) and Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951).  Click on the names to access the links so that you can sample their work for yourself, if you don’t know them already.]

Jenny is transplanted from New York to Dorset because her mother’s second husband is an English agricultural specialist who is hired to rebuild a 350-year-old farm in Dorset.  Jenny is, initially, very unhappy with the move—especially when her closest friend, Mr. Cat, must spend 6 months quarantined before being allowed into England.  Things slowly begin to change, however, as she makes friends with her two new stepbrothers and finds that the ancient house holds more than her new family, including a boggart, the billyblind, and four ghosts (including that cat).

The ghosts are ectoplasmic survivors of a tragic period in the history of southwest England which all begins with Charles II (1630-1685).

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After his father, Charles I, had been executed in London in January, 1649,

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his son, Charles, had led an exile’s life until, in 1660, he was invited to return to Britain and reign as Charles II.

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Unfortunately for the country, although Charles was married to the Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza (1638-1705),

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they produced no heirs.  Charles also had a long string of mistresses, including the most famous, Nell Gwynn (1650-1687),

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and one of them, Lucy Walter (c1630-1658)

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gave him a son, James (1649-1685),

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whom Charles not only acknowledged, but made, among other things, the Duke of Monmouth.

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This James had somehow come to believe that his father, Charles, had secretly married his mother, thereby making him the legitimate heir to the throne of England.  His uncle, also named James (1633-1701),

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asserting that his older brother, Charles, appeared to have no legitimate heir, claimed the throne for himself upon his brother’s death.  This did not please the Duke of Monmouth, who, believing that he had support in the southwest of England, raised a rebellion there against his uncle.  He had only very limited resources, and much of his little army was armed with improvised weapons, many of them repurposed farm equipment.

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Opposing these was a detachment of the Royal Army,

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trained professional soldiers.  The only battle of this brief campaign occurred not in Dorset, but in the shire to the northwest, Somerset,

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which, in itself is a rather spooky place.  After all, in the 12th century, the monks of Glastonbury Abbey claimed that they had happened upon the grave of King Arthur

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and they had a lead cross (from the coffin) to prove it.

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Even if it’s not spooky, Glastonbury is an impressive place—just look at Glastonbury Tor, with the remains of the 14th-century church of St Michael atop it.

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Monmouth knew that, to have any chance of raising more support, he would have to deal with that detachment of redcoats sent to stop him, but, with his own army’s limitations, the best way to even the odds was to attempt a night attack, one of the most difficult maneuvers possible.  Unfortunately, although the Royal Army was initially surprised, the mist which covered the battlefield, along with an uncertain knowledge of the terrain, and the lack of discipline among Monmouth’s troops,

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as well as the steadiness of the King’s soldiers,

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led to a complete defeat of Monmouth’s army, which immediately disintegrated, while Monmouth and his chief followers fled for their lives.

Monmouth was soon captured and brought before his uncle, James, who was less than avuncular in his reaction

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and, very soon afterward, Monmouth was beheaded.

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Not content with ending the rebellion, James sent a five-man commission of judges to the region to rout out all opposition to his reign.  This commission was headed by the Lord Chief Justice, George Jeffreys, First Baron Jeffreys (1645-1689).

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Jeffreys, from the records, was a very thorough man, but a very biased one, as well, and several hundred people across the region were executed after brief trials,

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others being shipped as virtual slaves to the Caribbean.  (The swashbuckling adventure film, Captain Blood (1935), with Errol Flynn, is about one of the latter—a doctor who helps a wounded escapee from Sedgemoor and suffers for it.)

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Jeffreys then becomes the villain of Tamsin, having developed a passion for Tamsin Willoughby, whose family farm is the one which Jenny’s stepfather is hired to restore, during the period now known as the “Bloody Assizes”.  Tamsin and Jeffreys and Tamsin’s lover, Edric, are trapped in a kind of terrible time warp and it’s Jenny who—but wait—we said no spoilers, and we mean it!

This is a book to read and reread and now, with a little historical background from us, we hope you enjoy it as much as we have.

MTCIDC

CD

ps

If you would like to know more about the Battle of Sedgemoor, the Two Men in a Trench team of Tony Pollard and Neil Oliver have a fun battlefield archaeology program on it.  Here’s the LINK.

 

Jolly Tom.2

16 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods

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Tags

Barrow-downs, Barrow-wights, Bree, Dagger, Dorset, Eowyn, Fangorn, Frodo, Gandalf, Middle-earth, Nazgul, Neolithic, Old Forest, Old Man Willow, Peter Jackson, Sauron, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Ring, Tolkien, Tom Bombadil, Weaponry, Westernesse, Witch-King of Angmar

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always!

As you can see from the title, this is a continuation of the previous posting, in which we began a discussion of a two-part question: 1. What would be the advantage of keeping Tom Bombadil in a recorded (audio or film) version of The Lord of the Rings? 2. What would you need to keep?

To summarize the previous posting, we suggested that:

  1. he, along with Fangorn/Treebeard, represents the great age of Middle Earth—something very important to the author–and a continuity of living things, which leads us to
  2. he might also be seen as a form of hope: the Ring has no effect upon him and he remembers a time before the arrival of Sauron, suggesting that there might be a time after him, as well, and that the Ring has limits
  3. as it seems out of place even in the current text, the bulk of Tom’s verse and the sometimes rhythmicized prose could be removed, leaving only the character himself and his part in the plot

We believe, however, that there is a more pressing reason for keeping him in the text, and it has to do with something Gandalf says to Frodo when Frodo, panicked at the prospect of having to deal with the Ring, demands, “Why did it come to me? Why was I chosen?” LotR 61.

“’Such questions cannot be answered,’ said Gandalf, ‘You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess: not for power or wisdom, at any rate. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.’” LotR 61.

This is a continuation of Gandalf’s earlier statement that:

“Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it.” LotR 56.

Thus, there is a level of intentionality at work in Middle-earth, something beyond Sauron. And, when we see Bombadil next, he will prove to be an instrument of the intention.

The Hobbits have left his house and, following his directions, have passed onto the Barrow-downs.

Breeland_breetobarrowdowns

A down is a piece of rolling countryside, often bare at the top, with trees in its folds—as here in Dorset.

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The Dorset Downs have lots of Neolithic remains, including numbers of barrows or tumuli, grave mounds commonly covering an interior structure, not uncommonly made of stone—

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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Wakeman_Newgrange_tumulus_chamber_cross_section

Such tumuli once contained the body or bodies usually of high-status persons

Unknown

and all sorts of grave goods, either as a display of wealth or perhaps for some sort of afterlife use.

gordion1957

Bombadil has been careful, however, to say “more than once” (LotR 134) that the Hobbits are to avoid the barrows themselves, telling them not to meddle with them or “cold Wights” (LotR 133). (He also says that they should pass them “on the west-side”—there have been lots of guesses about this—we would add our guess that it might have to do with the orientation—literally—of the entry. If entries faced east and the rising sun, it would be wise of the Hobbits to skirt the barrows’ potential blind side, on the west. And there is also the rather obvious point, once you’ve looked at a map of the area, that, if they kept the barrows to the right and the Old Forest to the left, they would be heading north towards the road to Bree, as they intended.)

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Those Barrow-wights are not the original inhabitants of the mounds, but agents of the Witch-king of Angmar, who sends them to take possession (The Lord of the Rings Companion, 144-145), long after their original occupation—but, what’s interesting is that, at least one of these tumuli appears not to have been plundered and this leads us to our next point about Tom Bombadil. After he rescues the Hobbits (showing again his mastery over at least the minor forces of evil), he does a little plundering of his own, including:

“For each of the hobbits he chose a dagger, long, leaf-shaped, and keen, of marvellous workmanship, damasked in serpent forms in red and gold…Then he told them that these blades were forged many long years ago by Men of Westernesse: they were foes of the Dark Lord, but they were overcome by the evil king of Carn Dum in the Land of Angmar.” LotR 146.

damascene-sword

Here are a few ideas of what, at least, the leaf shape might have looked like:

leaf.2bronzeageblades leaf.1

And we include this third one just because it looks so cool—

leaf.3

Bombadil, of course, has actually seen all of this happen, and here we see that theme of great age appear again. And there’s the pedigree of those blades. Unlike the sack ‘o swords slung without any more explanation than “These are for you. Keep them close.” to the Hobbits in the film, these were weapons made by heroic men of the past, doomed men, but who fought evil until they were overcome (a strong theme throughout the history of Middle-earth).

Late in the story, one of those blades seems to be the instrument of intentionality once more. When Eowyn faces the Witch-king of Angmar, now the chief of the Nazgul—

lord_of_the_nazgul_2

and he is about to kill her with his mace, Merry strikes him from behind, stabbing him in what, on a living man, would have been a vulnerable spot, the back of the knee. (LotR 842.)

eowyn_vs_the_nazgul_by_arteche-d3ggm8g

Distracted and, surprisingly, in pain, the Nazgul stumbles and Eowyn destroys him and here, once more, we may see intentionality, and all because of Tom Bombadil. Merry’s sword, from its contact with the undead flesh of the Nazgul, withers away, but—

“So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse. But glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dunedain were young, and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king. No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews together.” LotR 844.

So, for everything from Old Man Willow (whom the script writers couldn’t resist completely, transposing him to an improbable scene with Fangorn/Treebeard) to showing the great age of Middle-earth to suggesting other powers untouched by the Ring to offering possible hope to showing something of the intentionality behind certain actions in the story to providing the ancient and magical weapon which could finally bring down the Witch-king of Angmar and save Eowyn at the same time, might we suggest that, next production—audio or visual—of The Lord of the Rings, Jolly Tom might have a place in the cast?

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

CD

PS

If you would like to read more about Tom, see, for example, Dorathea Thomas, “He Is: Tom Bombadil and His Function in The Lord of the Rings” at Academia.edu.

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