Our Northern Kin

Strange May day dreaming, to find myself at Durham Cathedral. There's the shrine of St Cuthbert, 'Cuddy' as he's affectionately known, great Saint of the North and protector of eider ducks, a hermit praying in the sea and returning to land to be warmed by otters. He sounds like a mystic with his visions of stars and souls, looking upwards beyond the wind-driven seas to some heavenly home. One often told legend of the saint goes like this: his remains were moved to Durham so to avoid desecration by the Vikings, but during Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries his coffin was opened; there they found the saints uncorrupted body. This was enough to smite respect into the impious, and while they took the gold they reinterred the body reverently enough.

With his bones lie an extra skull, ascribed to Oswald of Northumbria, almost an emperor in Britain, battle after battle. He too became known as a saint, the spot of his fatal conflict against Penda of Mercia associated with miracles. It was said that a bird made off with his right arm, dismembered after death; where the bird rested a tree flourished, where the bird dropped the arm, water sprang out of the earth. It's interesting that the tree was an Ash, the bird a raven; that would suggest a mingling of older folk tales. Said arm apparently got knicked by monks who took it to Peterborough. There are at least four tales of alternative Oswald heads found across Europe, but it makes poetic sense* that the real one rests here, given that at the other end of the cathedral lies the man who recorded the sainthoods of both Cuthbert and Oswald.

It moved me to see the burial place of St Bede. I know he wasn't the only scholar, that his extraordinary writings were filtered through Anglo-Saxon Christian perceptions etc, but who isn't defined by their environment? He remains the father of English history, and I thanked him for his work. Guarding the way to them all was the knocker.






The bar between the lion/griffin/whatever it is' teeth are a man's lower parts, each leg being devoured by one end of a double headed snake. This then was a symbol of the power of the church; one who had committed a great offence could rap that knocker and be let in, to have 37 days of sanctuary in which they could try to sort something out or run.

We had already done our running. Northern Kin festival, now that was an experience!

This thing went superlatively wrong. Taking place in North East England in the Spring, the chances of rain were always high, some might say inevitable. The weather gods were gloriously true to form and indeed had been for some six weeks prior, with such vigour that the organisers considered pulling the event, then decided not to, but also declined to invest in trackway of any kind. The result was legions of cars stuck deep in mud, some of them nose down in it; rescue by tractors did arrive, some for free, others by local canny farmers who would charge £20 for the favour and if not given the cash, would simply tow cars back to their place in the mud. To add to the carnage**, with all hands on deck in the fields, the site itself had neither plumbing nor power at the start of the event, water supply remained as legendary as Oswald's multiple heads, there was no marshalling throughout, opening bands were simply chopped, great bands were left singing to empty tents, the list was endless. We weren't too troubled because we'd gone for an airB&B close by, but it was not easy for those camping on site. Facilities were so poor people were leaving before the headliner acts on Saturday and Sunday. Music was good, people were great, the laughs were excellent. But that's not where the magic was, not this time.

*There exists the possibility that 'poetic sense' is code for 'I just like the idea.'
** This was never intended to be a pun but here we are.