Section:GDN 1J PaGe:7 Edition Date:190803 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 2/8/2019 17:44 cYanmaGentaYellowblac
Saturday 3 August 2019 The Guardian •
7
When the Wild Hunt erupts
from the pages of Susan Cooper’s
magnifi cent novel The Dark Is
Rising , the throng is led by the
towering, antlered fi gurehead of
Herne the Hunter. It’s cacophonous,
end-of-days stuff – enough to leave
any 10-year-old wild-eyed. I next
encountered Herne in shamanic
guise, swathed in dry ice mist and
spookily backlit in the 1984 TV
series Robin of Sherwood. With
the words, “Nothing’s forgotten,
nothing is ever forgotten,” he took
fi rm root in my teenage psyche.
There’s not a whiff of dry ice
today. The woods are warm and
fl ickering with butterfl ies. And yet
before my very eyes, an antlered
form is emerging, larger than
life, from the forest fl oor, with a
metre-long head and a spark of life
dancing in the huge dark eye.
It’s not a stag but a roebuck, with
blunt, teddy-bear nose, much less
forbidding than Herne. Perhaps,
then, he is the Romano-Celtic
forest god Cernunnos ; or Pan, piper
at the gates of dawn. Or could it
be that he is just a couple of fallen
branches and a trick of the light,
animated by a gently bobbing
bluebell seed-head in his “eye”?
It’s likely that Herne, Cernunnos
and Pan are iterations of the same
archetypal horned deity – a god
of wildness as old as imagination.
Not 20 miles away, excavations
of the Mesolithic settlement at
Star Carr have produced 24 antler
headdresses , made from red deer
stag skulls, with truncated antlers
and tooled cord-holes for securing
to the wearer’s head.
They are interpreted as the
regalia of generations of shamans,
which may have facilitated or
symbolised their metaphysical
connection with nature. It’s only
too easy to imagine their power,
and the reverence with which
each of these profoundly personal
possessions might have been
ritually deposited in the lake when
a shaman died.
Standing in the wood, well off the
path, as I often am, I’m spellbound
by the apparition. Rationality
insists that this is pareidolia – the
tendency to perceive patterns in
abstract stimuli. But a smaller voice
is also speaking. The dark is rising.
Perhaps I’m even praying.
Amy-Jane Beer- We erred again in describing
the designer Thomas Heatherwick
as an architect ( Turned out nice ,
27 July, page 30, Weekend). - Due to an editing error we
incorrectly referred to Aatif Nawaz,
one of the stars of the BBC Three
sketch show Muzlamic, as Aatif Na
( Sound & vision , 20 July, page 35,
the Guide).
Editorial complaints and corrections can be sent to
[email protected] or The readers’ editor,
Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU; alternatively
call 020 3353 4736 from 10am to 1pm Monday to Friday
excluding public holidays. The Guardian’s policy is to correct
signifi cant errors as soon as possible. For more information
on the readers’ editor’s offi ce see gu.com/readers-editorHowever expected, Jane Dodds’
byelection victory in Brecon and
Radnorshire is a nail in the coffi n
of the Johnson government. Let us
hope that opposition parties and
liberal-minded Tory MPs will
use the summer wisely to forge a
united front capable of derailing the
Johnson juggernaut and frustrating
Farage’s so negative purposes.
Peter Chapman
Ashwell, Hertfordshire- I learn from my local paper that
Robin Walker “previously served
as a minister in the Department
for Exciting the European Union ”.
Could we hear more about this
department so that we can all join in?
Elizabeth Dunnett
Malvern, Worcestershire - Re Susan Seager’s comments on
I Am Nicola ( Letters , 30 July ), I agree
that Adam had serious vulnerabilities
and issues that needed help.
My sympathies dried up though
on observing that he did sod all
around the house and seemed to
do no food shopping. Geez. I would
have dropped him like a hot potato.
Pam Connellan
Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire - Peter C Stone ( Letters , 2 August)
suggests that the Rees-Moggs might
still use a typewriter. I had rather
assumed that the Rt Hon J Rees-
Mogg’s secretary, one R Cratchit, Esq ,
still used a goose quill pen.
Peter L Hepworth, Esq
Leigh-on-Sea, Essex - A more pressing question ( Letters ,
2 August) about Boris Johnson’s
“prime minister” jacket is: how long
will he need it?
Toby Wood
Peterborough, Cambridgeshire - If I ’ d made my clothes last for ever
I’d still be wearing fl ares and fl owered
shirts at age 84 ( G2 , 1 August).
Anthony Burton
Stroud, Gloucestershire
Hugh Muir did indeed raise some
interesting issues about the honours
system being rooted in empire
( Letters , 2 August). My republican
husband told our children the MBE
I received in 2002 for work with rough
sleepers stood for My Bloody Eff ort.
They fully understood why I didn’t
get the OBE (Other Bugger’s Eff ort).
Helen Keats MBE
Kingston, Isle of WightPhil ip Hoare, in his analysis
of Moby-Dick ( G2 , 30 July), is wrong
in one respect at least : the substance
the sailors were massaging their
hands with was not sperm oil, it was
spermaceti, or casein – the curious
white substance, liquid at blood
heat, solid at room temperature,
that fi lls the massive reservoir in the
characteristic forehead of the sperm
whale, and gave the whale its name.
And it was Ishmael, not all the other
sailors, who became so intoxicated
by the sensation that he was
grabbing his shipmates’ hands and
gazing lovingly into their eyes. My
personal analysis of the book is that
you cannot believe a word Ishmael
says. After all, if the ship’s boy was
driven mad by being left alone in
the sea for two hours, what can you
think of Ishmael, fl oating alone in
the Pacifi c on Queequeg’s coffi n?
Peter Eiseman-Renyard
East Finchley, LondonEstablished 1906Country diary
Castle Howard,
North Yorkshire
It’s risky to remove
ticks with tweezers
Wearing fl ares and
fl owered shirts at 84
My Bloody Effort
Spermaceti hand
rubs in Moby-Dick
Your article advised that ticks should
be removed by pulling them out with
tweezers ( UK may have far more
cases of Lyme disease than realised ,
31 July). But this method often causes
the protruding body to snap off ,
leaving the head parts embedded
in the skin. Retained head parts
can cause infection, infl ammation
and discomfort. A much better
way of removing ticks is to use a
Tick Twister. You slide it under the
protruding tick so that the tick lies in
the slot in the Tick Twister. You then
rotate gently without pulling, thus
unwinding the tick which will detach
intact and waving its legs! It’s easy.
To see how it’s done, watch this
video : https://bit.ly/2YCdhBk
Grizelda George (Retired consultant
in emergency medicine), Oxford
- I was concerned to read that
Lyme Disease UK advocates using
tweezers to remove ticks. Since we
discovered tick sticks we ’ ve had far
fewer incidences of the tick’s head
being left embedded and potentially
causing infection. The consensus
on most Scottish walking websites
is that this is the best way to remove
them. Simply press the two prongs
of the stick behind the embedded
tick , twist clockwise and the tick will
come out. Advice not to walk through
long foliage will be ignored by most
baggers on hills without footpaths.
Margaret Squires
St Andrews, Fife [email protected]
@guardianlettersTwitter: @gdncountrydiary
ILLUSTRATION: CLIFFORD HARPERCorrections and
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