the riverside, waving in waves and swathes, rippling, swaying, bowing and beckoning - before subsiding and returning the foliage back to green.
Ubiquitous ferns with their distinctive smell covered the banks, sometimes marestails pushed out of the mud and sometimes a delightful patch of forget-me-nots turned the riverside blue.
The water had mood changes. When it was slow it showed shimmering reflections of ash and sycamore. When it was deep they saw long, gently waving green weeds stretched out in the direction of the flow. Inches above, cute little black balls of fluff were going 'tweet tweet' and 'squeak squeak' racing along to keep up with mum. Just occasionally, the sun struck through this gorge of contrasts and shadow to glisten, sparkle and twinkle off the river surface - a surface often broken by the quick leap of a fish catching a hapless fly.
The valley seemed to get even deeper like a journey to the centre of the earth. The limestone had a multitude of tints from a flash of white to grey and occasional black. Above and beyond, right at the top, smooth, bright, green fields closely cropped by grazing sheep, were occasionally scarred by eruptions of ancient weather worn rocks.
Down below the boys were entering Miller's Dale and being entertained by sinister grotesque shapes of long dead trees, still majestic in death as in life: living ivy feeding on the rotting wood. Here they scared each other with ugly goblins, old hags and monsters. Dense foliage formed mysterious tunnels and caves, darkened and obliterated with cascading ivy, lots of ivy, harbouring more unknown horrors.
Abruptly, the teasing ceased when they saw an odd looking boy illuminated by a shaft of sunlight.
Chapter 9
Fairies, Goblins and Sacred Groves
The boy spotlighted by sunshine was cutting shoots from a young tree with smooth, grey-brown bark and pale-green feathery leaves. He stopped ... and they stopped. Slightly built, certainly not as tall as Scott nor as well made as Rex, the stranger gave them a warm wide eyed smile. In so doing he appeared stranger than ever - especially at the utterance of a falsetto and comical - "Allo!"
Coquettishly, head tilted on one side, just for a moment, his eyes came to rest on each boy in turn - starting with Scott ... and ending with Scott. Processing fresh information at close quarters, it became clear from his confident demeanour that this boy was, in fact, a young looking man - and at 34, not so very young at that. He was something quite outside their usual Heanorian experience, indeed, he was the effeminate and bizarre type which would simply not be tolerated in Heanor. Scott was cautious, Rex was repelled, the twins were amused and Simeon ... well, Simeon was intrigued. Titch was curious and blurted out -
"Wot yer doin'?"
Attention was soon diverted from the appearance of this funny little oddity, to what it was, that he had to say. He launched into an explanation of the magical power of Rowan -
"Witches used it! Ya too late for the sweet smelling white blossom, an too early for the blood red berries ... "
He told stories of Rowan being tied to mine engines to guard against breakdowns. He widened his discourse to an overview of the romantic mysteries, lore and occult associations in the wilds of Derbyshire, giving examples which were not far away from where they stood.
They heard about the elusive fairies of Caldon Low, the cunning goblin called Hob who dwells in a round-barrow near Chatsworth, pagan deities, stone circles, sacred groves, human sacrifices, subterranean dwellings of elementals and flying saucers seen over Kinder Scout. They were told of a mermaid who swims at midnight on the eve of Easter Sunday, the bottomless pit of Eldon Hole, the
Ubiquitous ferns with their distinctive smell covered the banks, sometimes marestails pushed out of the mud and sometimes a delightful patch of forget-me-nots turned the riverside blue.
The water had mood changes. When it was slow it showed shimmering reflections of ash and sycamore. When it was deep they saw long, gently waving green weeds stretched out in the direction of the flow. Inches above, cute little black balls of fluff were going 'tweet tweet' and 'squeak squeak' racing along to keep up with mum. Just occasionally, the sun struck through this gorge of contrasts and shadow to glisten, sparkle and twinkle off the river surface - a surface often broken by the quick leap of a fish catching a hapless fly.
The valley seemed to get even deeper like a journey to the centre of the earth. The limestone had a multitude of tints from a flash of white to grey and occasional black. Above and beyond, right at the top, smooth, bright, green fields closely cropped by grazing sheep, were occasionally scarred by eruptions of ancient weather worn rocks.
Down below the boys were entering Miller's Dale and being entertained by sinister grotesque shapes of long dead trees, still majestic in death as in life: living ivy feeding on the rotting wood. Here they scared each other with ugly goblins, old hags and monsters. Dense foliage formed mysterious tunnels and caves, darkened and obliterated with cascading ivy, lots of ivy, harbouring more unknown horrors.
Abruptly, the teasing ceased when they saw an odd looking boy illuminated by a shaft of sunlight.
Chapter 9
Fairies, Goblins and Sacred Groves
The boy spotlighted by sunshine was cutting shoots from a young tree with smooth, grey-brown bark and pale-green feathery leaves. He stopped ... and they stopped. Slightly built, certainly not as tall as Scott nor as well made as Rex, the stranger gave them a warm wide eyed smile. In so doing he appeared stranger than ever - especially at the utterance of a falsetto and comical - "Allo!"
Coquettishly, head tilted on one side, just for a moment, his eyes came to rest on each boy in turn - starting with Scott ... and ending with Scott. Processing fresh information at close quarters, it became clear from his confident demeanour that this boy was, in fact, a young looking man - and at 34, not so very young at that. He was something quite outside their usual Heanorian experience, indeed, he was the effeminate and bizarre type which would simply not be tolerated in Heanor. Scott was cautious, Rex was repelled, the twins were amused and Simeon ... well, Simeon was intrigued. Titch was curious and blurted out -
"Wot yer doin'?"
Attention was soon diverted from the appearance of this funny little oddity, to what it was, that he had to say. He launched into an explanation of the magical power of Rowan -
"Witches used it! Ya too late for the sweet smelling white blossom, an too early for the blood red berries ... "
He told stories of Rowan being tied to mine engines to guard against breakdowns. He widened his discourse to an overview of the romantic mysteries, lore and occult associations in the wilds of Derbyshire, giving examples which were not far away from where they stood.
They heard about the elusive fairies of Caldon Low, the cunning goblin called Hob who dwells in a round-barrow near Chatsworth, pagan deities, stone circles, sacred groves, human sacrifices, subterranean dwellings of elementals and flying saucers seen over Kinder Scout. They were told of a mermaid who swims at midnight on the eve of Easter Sunday, the bottomless pit of Eldon Hole, the
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