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Why care for the travails of men at sea?
We don't mostly
I thought the Shipping Forecast was
A lullaby
Of names and weather
It did not apply
To me
I came then to live with families
Of the sea
The southern names are still poetic
Majestic
Finisterre of course no more
Now Fitzroy in honour
Of the man who made the rules
Biscay, Sole, Fastnet and Shannon
Places I do not know
Here Hebrides, Fair Isle and Cromarty
Are all we need to know
Fathers and sons lost
Husbands and lovers too
The women of the north
Know how to fear
The Shipping Forecast
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23 comments:
Mimi
Lyrical, dreamy and siren-like quality.
You have transmitted the change and taken me with you.
A 'snow falling on cedars' feel and you have hinted at both the magic and the cruelness... and all the while the penelopes are weaving their scarves and unravelling them at night...:
"The women of the north
Know how to fear
The Shipping Forecast"
indeed...
It will always be Finisterre to me...
This has a timeless quality which I really like, Mimi, 'the women of the north' - as Doc says, Penelopes. All those women who through the centuries have waited for the sight of a sail on the horizon.
Doc - kind words again. I hadn't consciously thought of the penelopes, but how apt. Even though the Aegean seas are far different from our northern waves, it's the same thing. War, weather, disaster. It's the ones on-shore who wait and wonder.
minim,
what shoot said really well; a delicate ripple of a poem that travels forever
I love the unpenned but howling extension of this too; seeing the women of the north listening to the SF by their firesides with blankets (maybe cats and bairn too) on their knees - hearing those names with their ears, memories, fading dreams...
"howling extension" file...
magnificent comment...
you are back in form and thanks be to the mentor ulysses is armed once more...
mimi the muse strikes again
Thank you all. I used to live with an Australian who, not unreasonably, was not familiar with the shipping forecast. Obviously I was bounden to educate her about our cultural icons, and she was so entranced by the SF that the night her brother flew in from Melbourne to stay with us, she insisted that he stay up and pore over my old school atlas reading the names and checking where the areas are while listening to Charlotte Green.
Powerful and grim, Mimi, a bit like the waves on the shores of Scotland sometimes. But reading this from the comfort of a stable chair is way more enjoyable than some crossings I've done on P&O or Caledonian MacBrayne.
Easter 1989 - Hebrides. I had travelled to Harris to visit the stone circle at Callanish. On my last night, in the pub, I hooked up with two Scottish girls. We met again on the ferry back to the mainland early the next morning. We sat in the bar, chatting over coffee. The crossing was smooth enough. There was an old man there, tweed jacket, flat cap, woolen tie, sipping a brandy with a pint, then another brandy.
When we reached the mainland (Ullapool?) a couple of hours later, a steward informed us that we could stay on, at no extra charge, and go to Uist. Fair enough, Edinburgh could wait, and my new travelling companions were in the same carefree mood. We sat in the bar and ordered more coffee. Flat Cap ordered a pint, and another brandy.
The coffee was fine but what the steward had failed to tell us was what was brewing outside. How can it change so quickly? It picked up as soon as we left the harbour. Severe gales, force 9 to 10. My breakfast was soon in danger of never being fully digested. I took the only course of action I know of, and which has served me well so far. I lied down. The horizontal position does it for me. The sea can toss me around all it likes. If I'm lying down, I can take it. I even fell into merciful oblivion.
Well, not quite so merciful. The confused dream I fell into was even worse than the sea conditions. I was on the ship allright, but all hell was breaking loose. Everything that wasn't tied down was destroyed. We crashed on cruel rocks, the world collapsed in an unbelievable din of broken plates.
I woke up to find that some of the crockery behind the bar had been shaken free and had fallen to the floor. We were pulling into the harbour at Uist. I got up and looked around for the girls. I eventually found them in a gangway. They were green. I mean their complexion. And wet. Drenched. Is there a word in the English language that describes a state beyond drenched? They had been so sick that they had to go for fresh air and had spent half the crossing on the upper deck. Severe gales, force 9 to 10, heavy rain. When I found them, knees shaking and shivering, Flat Cap was giving them a word of advice. He was standing well upright, woolen tie slightly askew but a bright sparkle in his eye. "You should have had a brandy or two before the crossing, he said, it settles the stomach."
Sight-seeing on Uist was great too, severe gales, force 9 to 10, visibility... what visibility?
moral: on a ferry too far you're best in the bar?
offie
no time to get the shipping forecast under your belt (and of course pints with brandy chasers... alternative to chasing partners for the reel to come) before stepping aboard?..
I have my own story of love and lust on a cross-channel ferry. Perhaps the Mamselle Zeph should challenge us to a "Love on the High Seas" poetry moment.
a new love boat story, can't wait.
just came across this and it seemed apt to put it here, you'll probably find the beautifully haunting music on YouTube if you can access it;
Daniel Lanois, Fisherman's Daughter
I laid awake a whole night long,
waiting for the sun to beat down on my head
in this broken bed
I laid awake and dreamt of ships
passing through night,
searching for shelter,
stopping at no harbor
I heard the screaming waters
call sixty sailors' names
Raging words, pounding on the sail
like an angry whale
I felt the iron rudder skip
the smell of seeping oil,
the heat of slipping rope.
Failing hands, failing hope
Every sailor asks...
asks the question about the cargo
he is carrying
God's anger broke through the clouds
and He spilt the cargo for all to see -
The fault of the sailor,
the fault of he who asks no questions
about the cargo he is carrying
Fishes and tales and a fisherman's daughter
walks in the rain, she walks to the water
to the sea
That's lovely, File - looked on youtube but couldn't find it, but will keep an eye out for it.
well it's here if you want to hear it, you may have to register, always sorry, but it's free!
http://soundpedia.com/music/YWxidW1fMjAwMzI=/Acadie-Artist/index.html
"the women of the North" mimi has a haunting air...do you know of the legend of the Twa sisters?
file: I don't know the legend. Tell.
it's a very, very old tale mimi, roots probably in Norse but there variations everywhere e.g. Grimms - Singing Bones and a French Louisiana version which includes the verse:
Our mother killed us,
Our father ate us.
We are not in a coffin,
We are not in the cemetery.
the older versions are of two sisters waiting on the shore for a handsome sailor (or their father)to come home, the older sister pushes the young one in, she dies, and when her body is washed up it is a lute/harp thing and it sings of the younger sisters death
if you want all the versions (there are loads from all over the world and they vary a lot) look here:
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0780.html
if you want all the ballads, they are here
http://www.contemplator.com/child/variant10.html
usually when the sisters are told as brothers the rivalry is different, but you might be interested in the Polish version which has the girls engaging in a Raspberry gathering competition to win the heart of a prince
the Scottish versions are (to me) weird, your haunting line "the women of the North" made me remember this, there's something archetypal going on here, it touches the soul a chill hand...
http://www.contemplator.com/child/twasist.html
(turn your speakers on)
"O sister, sister, save my life,
An I swear Ise never be nae man's wife."
"Foul fa the han that I should tacke,
It twin'd me and my wardles make."
"Your cherry cheeks an yallow hair,
Gars me gae maiden for evermair."
I've got goosebumps just thinking about it!
oh yeah, just found (yet) another Scottish version:
The Twa Sisters
Dear sister, dear sister, wad ye take my hand
Hae ho an sae bonnie, oh,
An put your foot on that marble stone?
An the swan swam so bonnie oh.
Dear sister, dear sister, wad ye go walk with me,
Hae ho an sae bonnie oh,
And I will show you wonders before you return
And the swan swam so bonnie oh.
For thae was two sisters lived in a mill,
Hae ho and so bonnie oh,
For the younger sister pushed the older sister in
An was drowned in the dams o' Binnorie oh.
Oh miller, oh miller, come stop your dam,
Hae ho an sae bonnie oh,
For I do see a maiden or a white-milk swan,
An the swan swam in Binnorie oh.
For the miller hastened, he stopped up his dam
Hae ho an so bonnie oh,
And it's then they took her and hung her up tae dry,
An the swan swam in Binnorie oh.
For thae was three fiddlers passing this way
Hae ho and so bonnie oh,
There was one of them taen her fore-finger
For to make a fiddle-pin,
And anither of them taen three links of her yellow hair
For to make some fiddle strings,
And the ither of them taen her breast-bone
For to make a fiddle that wad play a tune its lone
And the swan swam in Binnorie oh.
File: thanks for this and the links. Your mention of Norse rings a bell, but I can't quite put my finger on it. In time it'll come back to me. I do know the Grimm tale of the singing bone. None of these things were consciously in my mind, but glad my words moved you.
mimi,
to me, one of the really powerful things about potery and art generally is that sometimes a subtle mix is achieved and folk can tap or touch the archetypal or the underlying interconnectedness of all things, the divine or the features of our genetic dream
those things all talk through us and sometimes the channels are clear
'women of the North' in the context of the sea especially, is a crack in the fabric of our perception of reality that reveals/hints at an aspect of the lifeforce
and as the zenists say, we cannot rely on words to do this, but groups of words or arrangements of lines and colour can echo and reflect what they can't describe
can't they?
"a crack in the fabric of our perception of reality that reveals/hints at an aspect of the lifeforce"
Ah me, file, you have a way with words. Instantly I was put in mind of flying home after a family funeral and as we swooped down across the firth to land at Inverness, there was such a rainbow. Until that point, I had not shed a tear, and then this was like a welcome home. The world was bigger than my sadness and all would be well.
o mimi, I've been there, it's an ironic and beautiful place isn't it? All the more intense for the thick black borders, as different from real life as it is real life, seldom seen oft felt
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