Tigh Nam Bodach
Oct. 13th, 2019 09:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootBeastie's first mission yesterday was to take us to the Lubreoch dam, from where we would walk to a remote clearing beyond the west of Glen Lyon, where sits a ancient shrine.
It is said of Tigh Nam Bodach (House of the Old Man/Spectre) that once a pair of giants came to live in this little glen and asked for hospitality. Despite their supernatural size and scariness, the locals obliged, and the strange folk stayed, growing a family there. Then the time came for them to leave, and in return for the courtesy they had received, they promised the glen would always be fertile. Now, 'some people' always bring the old stones, representing the old man, the old lady, the daughter and other children, out of the Tigh for summer, and put them back in before Halloween.
The day was of water, the reservoir beside us, rain above, cascades surrounding, rivers beneath, all musical, sparkling in various moods of the light. Fungi dotted our path, orange caps and fairy bonnets and basic little brown jobs including the odd psylocybin, alongside tiny flowers couched in the grass with rowan berries and birch leaves. Of course it was pretty.
Those gurgling burns and brooks were delightful until we had to cross them. Two were easy enough with good boots and goatworthy jumping, but one was a different matter.
On the map was just one single word for the place: ford. It was a triumph of optimism. The shallowest point was knee high, and even then there was a current demonstrating real enthusiasm for carrying off mobile phones/glasses/anything you couldn't keep in hand or pocket. We looked up and down, and there was no way around the horrible conclusion: the only way across was to take off boots and socks and wade. I was damned if I was going to remove my trousers, unlike our resident bard who bared himself up to his manly parts and strode into the waters like Cuchulain seeking blood at the ford of Glondath. The water was clear and fresh, straight out of the heart of mountains and swollen with rain. It was painfully cold, worse than that, one couldn't even cross quickly because the stones on the riverbed were sharp and slimy. One had to pause and think and pick one's way, and by the time I got to the other side, my toes were utterly numb, my legs barely able to bend to enable me to wipe them with a towel.
This was one of those times when I know I picked the best man in the world to marry. He did what I couldn't, dried my feet, got them into my socks and boots, did my laces up, fed me hot tea from the thermos. For the next ten minutes I could walk but the pain of returning blood flow was excruciating. Then it was time to squelch round the bogs across to the Tigh as the rain fell hard.
And there we stood, some divining (it is said that if you walk three times deosil round the 'house,' expressing how pleasant it is to be there and then ask a question, it will be answered) some thinking, some meditating, the bard playing his flute, my husband nonplussed. For him the journey mattered more than this focus for our turning point. While appreciating history, he is the kind of person Ford Prefect would have understood, someone who can find a garden beautiful without needing fairies at the bottom of it.
He and the bard were diametrically opposed in this; the bard winced as R leaned against the side of the tigh to take his socks and shoes off, though as someone pointed out, removing wet footwear is perfectly good manners when you enter someone's house. For his part, R believed he had never met anyone who wanted to be a Native American as much as the bard did. But if there were cringes or eyerolls they were very good humoured. The guy who had arranged the trip spoke of the clearances, though I found it hard to believe folk ever lived this close to the tigh. On the other hand, in the streets of Kathmandu there are shrines on every corner, so why not?
We returned, having a fine afternoon of it; rainbowns, sunshine, silver light on the water, gold on the hills. At one point we found an entire ram's skeleton; had I been any kind of Celtic shaman I would have picked out the skull with its perfect horns, taken it home and sterilised, then painted and varnished it. But this would require the non-interference of four bored felines, and besides I couldn't see R letting me put that thing in Beastie's pristine boot. No, it remains where it fell, a reminder of life and death on the hills. As the light mellowed we heard a strange cry out across the water, a couple of notes, 'just wind and birds,' as the bard put it, 'but you all heard it,' he added, unable to resist a little mystery.
11 miles covered the whole thing. Some stayed to camp, and we would have loved to do the same, but the cats are still slightly freaked by the move, and anyway there's something to be said for a warm dry bed. We drove home via an unkept hill route that Beastie did not like at all. By the time we were on the main roads the moon was rising full and vivid orange. I imagined its light over the House of the Spectre, stones at shadow play, and the grass all black gold before the gates of Elphame.
It is said of Tigh Nam Bodach (House of the Old Man/Spectre) that once a pair of giants came to live in this little glen and asked for hospitality. Despite their supernatural size and scariness, the locals obliged, and the strange folk stayed, growing a family there. Then the time came for them to leave, and in return for the courtesy they had received, they promised the glen would always be fertile. Now, 'some people' always bring the old stones, representing the old man, the old lady, the daughter and other children, out of the Tigh for summer, and put them back in before Halloween.
The day was of water, the reservoir beside us, rain above, cascades surrounding, rivers beneath, all musical, sparkling in various moods of the light. Fungi dotted our path, orange caps and fairy bonnets and basic little brown jobs including the odd psylocybin, alongside tiny flowers couched in the grass with rowan berries and birch leaves. Of course it was pretty.
Those gurgling burns and brooks were delightful until we had to cross them. Two were easy enough with good boots and goatworthy jumping, but one was a different matter.
On the map was just one single word for the place: ford. It was a triumph of optimism. The shallowest point was knee high, and even then there was a current demonstrating real enthusiasm for carrying off mobile phones/glasses/anything you couldn't keep in hand or pocket. We looked up and down, and there was no way around the horrible conclusion: the only way across was to take off boots and socks and wade. I was damned if I was going to remove my trousers, unlike our resident bard who bared himself up to his manly parts and strode into the waters like Cuchulain seeking blood at the ford of Glondath. The water was clear and fresh, straight out of the heart of mountains and swollen with rain. It was painfully cold, worse than that, one couldn't even cross quickly because the stones on the riverbed were sharp and slimy. One had to pause and think and pick one's way, and by the time I got to the other side, my toes were utterly numb, my legs barely able to bend to enable me to wipe them with a towel.
This was one of those times when I know I picked the best man in the world to marry. He did what I couldn't, dried my feet, got them into my socks and boots, did my laces up, fed me hot tea from the thermos. For the next ten minutes I could walk but the pain of returning blood flow was excruciating. Then it was time to squelch round the bogs across to the Tigh as the rain fell hard.
And there we stood, some divining (it is said that if you walk three times deosil round the 'house,' expressing how pleasant it is to be there and then ask a question, it will be answered) some thinking, some meditating, the bard playing his flute, my husband nonplussed. For him the journey mattered more than this focus for our turning point. While appreciating history, he is the kind of person Ford Prefect would have understood, someone who can find a garden beautiful without needing fairies at the bottom of it.
He and the bard were diametrically opposed in this; the bard winced as R leaned against the side of the tigh to take his socks and shoes off, though as someone pointed out, removing wet footwear is perfectly good manners when you enter someone's house. For his part, R believed he had never met anyone who wanted to be a Native American as much as the bard did. But if there were cringes or eyerolls they were very good humoured. The guy who had arranged the trip spoke of the clearances, though I found it hard to believe folk ever lived this close to the tigh. On the other hand, in the streets of Kathmandu there are shrines on every corner, so why not?
We returned, having a fine afternoon of it; rainbowns, sunshine, silver light on the water, gold on the hills. At one point we found an entire ram's skeleton; had I been any kind of Celtic shaman I would have picked out the skull with its perfect horns, taken it home and sterilised, then painted and varnished it. But this would require the non-interference of four bored felines, and besides I couldn't see R letting me put that thing in Beastie's pristine boot. No, it remains where it fell, a reminder of life and death on the hills. As the light mellowed we heard a strange cry out across the water, a couple of notes, 'just wind and birds,' as the bard put it, 'but you all heard it,' he added, unable to resist a little mystery.
11 miles covered the whole thing. Some stayed to camp, and we would have loved to do the same, but the cats are still slightly freaked by the move, and anyway there's something to be said for a warm dry bed. We drove home via an unkept hill route that Beastie did not like at all. By the time we were on the main roads the moon was rising full and vivid orange. I imagined its light over the House of the Spectre, stones at shadow play, and the grass all black gold before the gates of Elphame.
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Date: 2019-10-13 01:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-14 08:16 am (UTC)