T
he Reverend William
Borlase found much of
wonder and curiosity in
his travels around south-west
Englandinthemid-18thcentury,
including the rapid rises and falls
of the ocean within the space of
twohoursalongthesouthcoast
of Cornwall on November 1, 1755.
Thethirdandfourth‘refluxes’,
hewrote,wereasrapidasthose
of “a mill-stream descending to
an undershot wheel”: a long-
distanceecho of the tsunami
produced by the massive earth-
quakethatdestroyedthecityof
Lisbon 1,300 kilometres away
thesamemorning.
Likemanynaturalistsofthe
time,Borlasewasespecially
intriguedbystoriesof
submergedlandstowhichsuch
experiences lent credence. The
story about Lyonesse was one he
knew intimately. A land of
“woods,andmeadows,and
arable lands, and a hundred and
forty parish churches” said – in
the account by Florence of
Worcester,amonkwhodiedin
1118–tohaveexistedonce
between Cornwall and the Scilly
Isles. AndconsiderthatWelsh
hero, Brân the Blessed who is
said to have walked across the
seafromWalestoIreland
torescuehissisterfrom an
abusive husband.
Surely, they
cannot be true.
Think again. We
know that during
the coldest times
ofthelastgreat
iceage,around
20,000 years ago,
the ocean surface
was 120 metres
lower than today;
there were
landconnections
between Wales
and Ireland
across which
millions of
animals (includ-
ing humans)
routinely crossed
unaware they
were doing
anything especially memorable.
Mostof our ancestors, going
back 100,000 years or so when
an embryonic need for complexcommunication may have begun
to emerge, exchanged
informationthrough spoken
words not in writing. While
much has undoubtedly been
forever lost, some
fragmentsmay
remain in ancient
stories like those
about Lyonesse
and Brân
theBlessed.
If the story
about Brân
walking across
theIrishSeais
basedonareal
event, then this
needstobeat
least 9,600 years
old – probably the
last time a
meanderingland
bridge between
Wa les a nd Irela nd
was still passable
on foot.
There are
many more examples of such
ancientstories.Lastyear,staying
inaremotecommunityinFiji,I
listened as an old man regaledthe company with stories his
grandfather had told him, about
theplaceswherehistribeonce
lived, the battles they fought, and
even – thousands of years earlier
–howhisancestorshadbeen
guidedbytheirbenevolentspirit
protectortotheseverdant
islands. His grandfather had
made him promise to tell these
same stories to his
grandchildren but the
old man bemoaned they – with
their iPhones and the
connectivitytheseprovidedtoa
wider world–werenot
especiallyinterested. Shaking
his head, he speculated that this
situationmightmeantheend
of this tradition and the
associated loss of identity that
goes with it.
In microcosm, this represents
theparloussituationinwhich
manyoftoday’soralcultures,
threatened by the arrogance of
literacy and its attendant
manifestations,find themselves.
Memories of times long past that
havenotyetslippedintothe
abyss... and which help define all
of us.PAUSE
Howtolistento
your ancestors
PATRICK NUNN
Illustration: Mitch BluntTheEdgeofMemory:
Ancient Stories,
Oral Tradition and the
Post-Glacial Worldby
Patrick Nunn
(Bloomsbury Sigma,
£16.99) is out now