Is it stag semen? Is it Piskie Puke? Is it the gelatinous remains of a fallen star? In this blog about rare Star Jelly, I look at past and present understandings of this odd glob.
A Walk in English Weather Posts
In this last blog of four about Samhain, I finally get a chance to use what I learnt in my research to have a stab at placing Samhain on Dartmoor. Where might the gatherings, fires and drinking have happened?
In this blog I look at a selection of Halloween folklore, building from an understanding of the earlier Samhain customs. Included here is a long-dead Devon tradition, recorded by Mrs Bray that harks back to the pagan rhythm of the festival year.
In this second blog of four about Samhain, I delve into Irish Celtic mythology and the research literature on Samhain practices, to lay the groundwork for understanding what Samhain might have been like on Dartmoor in the pre-Christian days before it became Halloween.
This is the first of a quintet of blogs on Samhain Dartmoor; Samhain being the pagan predecessor to Halloween. I am going to use the first three blogs to build an understanding of these sinister celebrations so that in blog four, I can sketch out a picture of what this might have meant in the culture and landscape of Dartmoor.
I have once again taken up the old trans-moor track, that connects Chagford in the east to Plymouth and Tavistock in the west. This middle moorland section, between Two Bridges and Postbridge, is particularly impacted by turnpiking, bringing trade and inns to the central moor; a hospitality trade still much in evidence today.
An opportunistic walk near my holiday accommodation led me to the most enchanting river I have ever walked. The River Gelt sculpts insane fluvial shapes in its bedrock channel, whilst the valley, which once clanged with the chisels of Roman soldiers, quarrying blocks for Hadrian’s Wall, hides the ghosts of these men in the graffiti they left on the quarry faces.
In this second blog on Mesolithic White Tor, I focus on its geology – dolerite. Dolerite, also known as greenstone, has been recognised as being important in relation to other Mesolithic and early Neolithic sites, but as yet White Tor’s dolerite seems to have gone under the radar in considerations as to what made this place special. What might research on stone use in the Stone Age tell us about the ontology of Mesolithic people at White Tor and their ‘charismatic’ stone tools?
In this blog I take my interest in Cudlip and its dairying history right back to the beginning – to the Mesolithic and a time before agriculture. I use this blog to explore why White Tor, with its early Neolithic tor enclosure, emerged as an exceptional place at the birth of pastoral farming. What was happening in the Mesolithic that helps us understand our ancestral shift at Cudlip to a cattle-based way of life, and the monumentalising of this landscape?
In this blog on the landscape of Cudlip, I explain my inspiration for wanting to explore the deep pastoral history of this place and its connection to women and dairying. This first blog sets the scene for more writing to come, exploring different stages of this landscape’s pastoral past from the Neolithic to the present, and all the incredible folklore, ritual and butter-making practice that brings alive this landscape of cows and maids.
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