The Nene Valley at sunrise in June |
Wakerley Great Wood in early autumn |
'Preserve
all local sanctities of place and oral tradition as you can. The
antiquary may be trusted for the one: but words and myths have many foes
and vanish before the schools, like ghosts at the grey breath of
morning. The morning is welcome, yet I morn the death of many pleasant
ghosts, slain with bell, book and candle of unimaginative learning. In
folklore of fairies, in good wishing and evil wishing, in charms of hurt
and healing, in simples gathered at right seasons under sun and moon,
in churchyards and legends and natural things set to supernatural use,
much appears that influenced the lives of the old people, who were born
in belief of these spells and mysteries. They reacted on character; and
you who write of such legends, hold none too archaic or grotesque to set
down in its place; for these things fall quicker than the elms at
March, and cannot be recovered. Hourly they perish, in the withering
brains of ancient men and women and are lost for ever.'
A Shadow Passes - Eden Phillpotts, 1919
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