TC Lethbridge | The Sons of TC-Lethbridge

The Bleak Season

14th Dec 2004

Stop Press!
Check out this month’s ‘Tekh’s Journal’ essay - ‘Grumblin’ – The Trials and Tribulations of T.C. Lethbridge’ .

The Owl Service
The shortest day is fast approaching and the art of fitting everything I need to achieve within daylight hours is for me, a daily dilemma. However, I have recently discovered that by taking my dog for a walk just as it starts to get dark, has resulted in a surprising discovery. By leaving the house just after sunset, I am able to reach the top of the southern bank of the Lincoln Gap within fifteen minutes. By the time I have walked a further mile it is almost completely dark, but the ambient light from the city provides reassurance and the illumination for my hillside hike. This is indeed a peaceful time of day, for most of my fellow dog-walkers have retired to their homes and only those running late or others who, like me, have discovered an alternative and engaging reason to walk here on these dark, winter evenings.

At this time of the day, nature shuts down on the South Common and evidence of this closure is all around. Mist forms, to create a low translucent blanket that hovers feet above the decaying fauna and the scurrying of small animals, retreating to their burrows, can be heard all around. But it is the bird-life that has had the most dramatic effect on my over the past few weeks. The only evidence of the abundance of magpies and crows that exist here is their distant cawing from the silhouetted trees, on the crest of the escarpment. On clear nights, the moon rises from behind the ridge and against a dark, turquoise backdrop the sky is punctuated by flights of birds that make their way back to their roostings on the river Witham or the nearby Brayford Pool.

It is however, one silent, but unpredictable entity that has beguiled me on my walks over the past month. Within forty minutes of sunset, the call of a barn owl can be heard from the skeletal trees that align the crest of the ridge. If I am fortunate, it will appear, ghost-like and elusive, majestically presiding over the silent hillside in search of its prey. White, powerful wings effortlessly guide this powerful hunter on its nocturnal undertakings. Its appearance, often coincidental with the rising moon is otherworldly in this unique landscape that coexists with suburbia.

Of course my desire to cram my day’s activities into daylight hours is purely a lazy man’s excuse to ‘baton down the hatches’ for the night and enjoy the comforts of my home. With modern street lighting and amenities, the night should no longer be an obstacle for a city-dweller like myself. Of course, in days prior to such luxuries, prehistoric people would have had to exploit winter’s limited daylight hours to achieve their essential tasks. In days of yore, nightfall would have signalled the beginning of a period of chaos where natural occurrences like, the flight of a ghostly owl, would have been metaphorical of the ethereal presence of nature.

Left Hand Luke
In a recent copy of The Independent(1), I chanced upon an article on left-handedness written by their Science Editor Steve Connor. In his article, Connor discusses the incidence of left-handedness in the population and how ten-percent of Britons habitually use their left rather than their right hand. It is well known that left-handers tend to suffer greater health problems and are more likely to be involved in more serious accidents than their right-handed counterparts(2). The left-handed characteristic is largely genetic and if, as it appears, it is an obstacle, why then has the trait not died out long ago in pre-history?

Connor’s response to this conundrum is based upon recent research carried out by Charlotte Faurie and Michel Raymond of Montpellier University, who suggest that the advantage of left-handedness may persist because in a survival prerequisite. Faurie and Raymond suggest that left-handedness is associated with violence and that the trait provides the owner with an advantage in fight situations. They have found a direct correlation between the level of violence in a given society and the proportion of left-handers. It is the ‘surprise’ element that provides left-handers with an advantage in hand-to-hand combat, an advantage that can also be applied to sports such as tennis, cricket, baseball and boxing. The research also suggests that despite the drawbacks of left-handedness, there are clearly advantages in terms of creativity.

My interest in this article was sparked because of recent conversations that I have been having with the writer Stan Gooch. Stan’s researches have led him to the conclusion that Neanderthal man was indeed left-handed and therefore the left-handed trait, could possibly be a surviving characteristic from our Neanderthal legacy. This is assuming that interbreeding, consensual or otherwise, did in fact take place between Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals. Gooch suggests that the Neanderthal were a moon-worshipping race that placed emphasis on the maternal line as opposed to their patriarchal, sun worshipping counterparts.

Like Tom Lethbridge, Stan Gooch is a writer whose work is often overlooked by academics, for at the time of writing his work was often considered too radical to be publicly acknowledged. Time however, has a funny habit of upsetting the proverbial applecart and it is sad that visionaries like Lethbridge, never survived to see their critics eating ‘humble-pie’. Gooch’s theory on left-handedness is indeed an interesting, albeit controversial one, especially in these sensitive times where political correctness appears to be a yardstick for controversial debate. It is indeed a theory that requires further investigation, however it is important that those undertaking these future researches, acknowledge Gooch’s initial ideas, which were originally made back in the 1970s.

Thorn in My Side
Since last month’s ‘News’ posting, where I suggested a possible relationship between the Norman Motte in the town of Hanwick in the Scottish Borders, and the twin hills of Minto, I have received a number of messages from readers who are familiar with the area. Hob, who lives in Tyneside informed me that an Iron Age votive statue, accredited to Mars the Roman god of war, was once discovered in a holy well in the vicinity.

In his ‘Dictionary of Place Names’, Adrian Room suggests that the town name of Hawick simply means ‘hedge village’ or ‘village enclosed by a hedge’ although a public information board situated in the town itself, specifically states specifically that the hedge in question was hawthorn. This of course would make sense, as hawthorn would certainly form a good protective enclosure. Room suggests that the name originates from the Old English ‘haga’ meaning hedge and ‘wic’ an outlying farm or village. The town was recorded as ‘Havic’ in 1165 and Room suggests that there may indeed have originally been a dairy farm here, which provides evidence to the ‘wick’ suffix.

In his analysis of the ‘The Battle of the Trees’(3), the poet Robert Graves reveals that the hawthorn month of ‘Uath’ is associated with mourning and that well dressing is synonymous this springtime epoch. This dressing usually includes the draping and adorning of rags on overhanging thorn tree branches. This pagan cult, although now in a Christianised form is still popular in parts of Britain and especially in Ireland, were it is popular with both Catholic and Protestant communities. However, in Britain during the Reformation, The Church of England were intolerant of the veneration of a cult that worshipped a tree that blossomed during their nativity(4). This bigotry eventually led to the destruction of many sacred thorn trees, including the legendary ‘Glastonbury Thorn’ that once stood on Wearyall Hill. It would be interesting to discover if a thorn/hawthorn cult once existed at Hawick, and if so, would the veneration of holy wells in the vicinity been part of this patronage? The locally discovered votive offering mention previously, indicates that this may indeed be a possibility.

As a result of my ongoing interest in the thorn, it has prompted me to obtain a copy of Vaughan Cornish’s book ‘Historic Thorn Trees in the British Isles’, a book that has been on my ‘wants’ list for a considerable length of time. Cornish reveals that the positioning of sacred thorn trees is synonymous with ancient places of assembly or judicial address and is associated with a cult possibly bought to this land by the Belgae(5). One such place of assembly once existed in Salcombe Regis, not far from T.C. Lethbridge’s home near Branscombe. Cornish also discovered that these communal centres often occupied the sites of ancient mounds that were often adorned with a standing stone or sacred thorn tree. Would it therefore be too brave to suggest that the Norman motte played a similar function in Hawick? A speaker, situated upon this elevated mound could have presided over a large audience on the surrounding flat land south west of the convergence of the river Teviot with Slitrig Water. The twin hills of Minto would indeed have provided a dramatic backdrop to this dispatch.

As always, what started out as a casual observation has turned into a conundrum waiting to be solved and investigating from a distance is not quite the same as hands-on, primary research. It is now inevitable that I will have to return to Hawick in the near future to continue my enquiries. Watch this space!

Games Without Frontiers
Finally, I must say that this year has passed by so quickly and it hardly seems a year since I was waxing lyrical about two mid-winter events that I invariably visit – ‘The Haxey Hood Game' and ‘The Whittlesey Straw Bear Festival’ . I shall be attending both of these events again this year, so if you are going to one or the other, I might just see you there…

As they say in Lincolnshire, ‘ave a good ‘un!
welbourn TEKH – Linden ‘the people of the pool’ - December 2004

Notes:
1. ‘The Independent’ Wednesday 8 December 2004

2. I might suggest that the high incidence of accidents in left-handed people is possibly due to the fact that right-handers design the bulk of amenities and technological innovations, specifically for right-handed people. This biased design poses insurmountable difficulties for left-handers, which contribute to a greater incidence of accidents.

3. Graves R. (1948) ‘The White Goddess’ Faber and Faber

4. The flowering date of the hawthorn may of course vary due to where it is growing. One might expect the flowering to take place later, the further north you go? This would therefore dictate the date of any celebration coincidental with the cult.

5. ‘The Independent’ Wednesday 8 December 2004