And Celtic Dreams
I used to drive a milk tanker at night, and through early mornings, leave the depot on Bodmin Moor in a veil of mist and murk, drive for two hours until I reached the rugged lands surrounding Lands End, and St Michael’s Mount (Pictured below.)
A different life, a distant time. Driving through that land was like dipping your toes in another realm. The dairies were remote, tucked away in deep forgotten corners.
Old granite farmhouses that have stood for centuries, the wind buffeting, sea crashing below. Boswarthen, Calamansak, Trengwainton, Frenchman’s Creek, The Lizard (England’s southernmost point:) all accessed by narrow corkscrew lanes; (the truck’s mirrors would scrape on stone each side leading down to picturesque Cadgwith Cove.)
Everyday sights included Lanyon Quoit, Trencom Hill, where the giant once threw rocks at his neighbor (Like in the Stone Giant scene from the first Hobbit Movie.) Madron Wishing Well, St Piran’s Well, The Cleave Waterfall, The Merry Maidens, and the Tristan Stone, the last a lone sentinel on the moor, a memory of that sad lost tale –– The doomed lovers, Tristan and Iseult.
A land surrounded by sea on three sides. That coastline rivals the Big Sur in California, but the climate is wild, windy and wet. Tall stones lean against each other as you turn a corner, or wedge the truck in someone’s hedge trying to maneuver past the three German tourist buses scraping through.
June was best; the sun rose so early. I would gaze up, and watch stars flicker over the sea –– a sparkle, the odd one shooting down like fireworks –– the milky way painting a path from north to south, a feeling of the Earth moving underfoot. Like Ireland –– Cornwall oozes Celtic Magic, the wind whispering echoes of stories told by bards long ago.
The other images are of Boscastle Harbor, near Tintagel where they say King Arthur was born –– a popular tourist spot where I drowned and crushed my Ford Van in the Great Boscastle Flood 2004.
Read the second link below for more on the Boscastle Flood. I kicked my way out of the rear window of my drowning van as it filled with water. Spent two hours in a thorn bush, hanging on, surrounded by lightning, and howling gales. Happy day, 14 years ago. 🙂
You can read about the Boscastle Floods Here
Next Up Our Weekly Fantasy Misadventure
Episode 15: The Ruined Town
Long legs can cover distance at need. Add a bit of incentive, like six angry pikemen still digesting breakfast, and it’s amazing how fast you can run. That said, Corin’s breath was ragged, and his high-speed shanks weighty as blocks of wood. Something in the distance. Sanctuary? Unlikely.
A dark line. More trees perhaps — not necessarily a good thing. But it least it would award a bit of cover to lurk and skulk. Deploy guerrilla tactics. They were a hundred yards or so behind him — the sluggards. The crossbowmen further back still, which was fortuitous. You have to cradle the positive like a fragile captured bird.
What’s that — buildings? Ruined walls and broken stone dwellings. Oh shit… Corin knew where he was now. Waysmeet. The lost town. Bad place. Spooky. Once a busy crossroads and trading center, but then something untoward happened. Nobody knows what. May-happen dark things from the forest crept in one night? Whatever… The rumors were not appetizing. A hamlet of shades, creeping things and choking, honking beasts in brambles. That’s what he’d heard — in taverns mostly.
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Corin glanced around. There was plenty of cover. But nine men was a lot on an empty stomach. He wiped snot from his nostrils with the back of his hand, sighed, and then eased Clouter from its scabbard and took a long slow breath.
