Synthetic Violet - Lent Issue 2023

Editor’s Notes

The painting displayed on the front cover of this issue of Synthetic Violet has an interesting history At first glance, the average onlooker might interpret it as a religious painting or representation of Christ. Yet, this painting is in fact a self-portrait, painted by Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer in 1500. The artist himself states this in the inscription on the right side of the canvas, having painted himself at age twenty-eight.

Interestingly, the full-frontal facing orientation of Dürer differs from traditional self-representations (as well as his previous two self-portraits) which are oriented on a three-quarter angle towards the viewer. Instead, the symmetrical and intent gaze of this painting evokes the conventional depiction of Jesus as Salvator Mundi, particularly in late medieval artwork. Whilst it is impossible to know why Dürer might have wanted to represent himself in this way, the painting is an undeniably powerful and intricate example of Renaissance painting, and the development of realism and representation that went beyond religious significance but rather emphasised detail and truth to veritable appearance.

Indeed, although the position of the hand in the painting might seem to recall an image of Christ Pantocreator, the position could draw attention to the artists profession, imitating the grasping of a brush which, incidentally, might have been made of the same fur material as displayed in the painting. Certainly, there are several examples of double meaning within this portrait. The subject is at once displaying the success and maturity of his style (through his clothing, facial expression, and detailed brush techniques) and the unprecedented choice of depicting oneself as Christ Alternatively, the positioning of the hand may be symbolic of an ‘A’ and ‘D’, the initials of Dürer, which appear also in his monogram in the left of the painting, conveniently placed below the date yet ostensibly acknowledging the painter’s authorship rather than the ‘anno domini’.

Whilst at the time of its creation there seems to have been little controversy surrounding the painting, later some critics condemned this representation

The fact that Dürer’s hair is of a darker colour than previously depicted in his earlier portraits further indicates that this was a deliberate effort to create an effect that both evoked and challenged the boundaries of religious representation.

Yet whatever does this have to do with literature or let alone the opening of this term’s issue of Synthetic Violet? The answer, as with most things, relies purely on interpretation. Let us take, for instance, the average reader as an onlooker, one who possesses moderate knowledge of art as a discipline and does not identify as particularly devout or belonging to a Christian faith. I do not think I would be mistaken in assuming that the first question that arises in their mind would still be ‘Is this a representation of Jesus?’, particularly when considering the added factor of the time of year, and subtitle of this ‘Lent’ term edition. Arguably, this query, is as I have proven above completely valid and justified. But why, if we have admitted already that this reader is not an expert in all things artistic nor necessarily religious, should it be so evident to draw such a conclusion?

It is here that my thoughts linked with the various interpretations of literature, and most importantly the subconscious and hidden nature of the impressions of ideas on our minds. Our memory and own opinions are heavily marked by the perceptions and ideas of culture around us, regardless of any deliberate influences. If our perception of the significance of a painting can rely on vague notions which we have never deliberately sought out, but have infiltered our minds unbeknownst to our conscious awareness, does this not apply similarly to our understanding of the things we read?

The answer I found was likely to be in the affirmative. Indeed, to pursue the artistic allegory, we can examine the various ways in which artists have represented passages of literature This sub-theme of art known as Literary Art, is again one of those things which people often have a vague knowledge of but do not realise perhaps its full extent. If we examine mythology and epic classical literature alone, there are numerous paintings each depicting similar events or ideas with various interpretations. One of these for instance is the portrayal of Helen in the Iliad, some painters choosing to depict her flight with Paris, as voluntary others as an abduction. The truth of the matter itself being unclear in the text, with the extent of divine involvement and intervention, further accentuates the role of interpretation.

Yet, what I find fascinating about the artistic representation of literature is that it reveals the plurality in which any scene can be perceived by different people. When one reads any text an image of the setting is conjured in one’s mind. It is unlikely that an identical image will arise to another reader. This led me to wonder about the extent and degree to which the images and pictures that are conjured by reading vary depending on the spectator

Certainly, if these literary artists are representing the images they saw when reading these various works, then it is likely that both on a very minute scale and on a much larger one, the interpretation and understanding of a book or story is unique and distinctly personal to the reader. For instance, let us take a passage from some classic text, perhaps lesser known, without specifying its origin or context:

The dull sky soon began to tell its meaning by sending down herald-drops of rain, and the stagnant air of the day changed into a fitful breeze which played about their faces. The quick-silvery glaze on the rivers and pools vanished; from broad mirrors of light they changed to lustreless sheets of lead, with a surface like a rasp.

It is quite simple to understand and visualise or at least place this description into a spatial understanding of setting. It is raining and the weather has changed, there is more than one character present in the scene. Yet there is some element of foreshadowing in the text. The drops are likened to ‘heralds’. There is a bleak if not sinister aspect to the ‘stagnant air’ and the ‘fitful breeze’. When put into context it is likely that a different meaning and sense will be added to this passage, merging into an overall image of the novel itself - (Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy, Chapter 30).

This variance of interpretation based on scientific or psychological analysis can be defined using the degrees between hyperphantasia (very vivid mental imagery) or aphantasia (lack of mental imagery) both of which are quite rare; the majority of people lying somewhere along the spectrum. Interestingly, this only refers to the vividness of images conjured up by the brain. Beyond this and the words set to the page there is no way of defining exactly what we see when we perceive this scene – albeit artistic representation.

In addition to this mind’s eye, we must acknowledge the aspect of drawing images or conclusions from literary memory or rather what impressions and snippets of knowledge we have gathered of a particular work. Some literary art may be created based minutely on a specific passage of text adhering to all the detail described in words, more often however, it is the artist’s personal take on a particular famous literary event.

To me this suggests two major notions. The first as demonstrated by Dürer’s painting is the ease with which a certain impression can be achieved based solely on pre-existing conceptions. The second is that if even a painted image can have such an effect, is it not even more apparent that writing can be understood with vastly ranging interpretations?

Of course, a general image, as with art, is still conjured; Helen is presented as beautiful, the plot of unfolds no matter how one sees the setting and yet it is easy to describe what happens but not always to give one’s innermost feelings and deepest impressions of a book or text. A painting might certainly lend itself to various interpretations and questions, but nothing can change what is already there. For literature and writing, the number of interpretations is arguably infinite. A book can never be read in the same way twice even by the same person; there are simply too many different interpretations, images and allusions, significance, and hints, present between the lines Thus, our interpretations are diverse and unique whether we might visualise the characters and landscapes or indeed whether we visualise anything at all. Perhaps this why stories are such complex and intricate things, taking on a life of their own beyond the pages, revealing the multifaceted and convoluted relationship between the reader and the novel. Thus, the true essence of literature may forever remain etched between the liminal border of the conscious and unconscious suspended between the mind and spirit within memory and emotion, yet ever changing developing and metamorphosising into a great confused image which forms the literary soul.

- Carole Tucker, ed.

Art

Poetry Theme of the Issue: Environment

Following on from the House Poetry Competition of Michaelmas 2022, here is a selection of the most successful entries, all reflecting in their own way on the theme of environment, whether this may be referring to geographical and meteorological change or any surrounding of unique and extraordinary atmosphere.

Solastalgia

The cracked concrete crumples under my tired feet, A thick smog pollutes my vision, stings my eyes and penetrates my nostrils.

All air around me is grey, I fight my way through it. The black brick office buildings stand tall, As rigid as daggers poised to strike the heavens

As the final autumn leaf falls leaving trees barren. Cars cough their way through the packed street; Their toxic stench invades every nook and cranny of existence. I must escape.

Captured, confined, caged by the industrial monster we have become

And as the hourglass slowly drains, The cage closes in and coils around us suffocating us of nature, joy and innocence

We must change before we are all consumed, Become parts of its machinery that churns out death and extinction

- Gabriel Cirstea

Environment

Brick-red trunks, topped by a billowing plumage of White leaf, watch the writhing trees trampled underfoot. Cable lines spark and the ground underneath turns grey; A cloud of charcoal ash in a sea of scorched soot.

Florescent lights peak out beyond the blaze-red front, And water their stone-dead gardens and fill their streams, With an electric artifice of cold, hard hope; All whilst drunk with pro-robotic radiant gleams.

And with cleansing bleach they wipe their whole record clean; Dew-drop fabrication and wayward chemicals Billow in the wind, and with fire they sterilise The ground to make it clean, barebones and skeletal.

All this is shown to me on my computer screen, Which shines bright in the dark while others soundly sleep, And whispers in my ear that the world will soon end In fire, brimstone, thunder, in rapture not mystique.

And the constant flow of the rapids start to cause Me to lose sleep and stay awake long past daybreak, The constant water stops but the weir keeps turning As I try to go about my every day.

And the brick-red trunks continue to grow, The lights still blind nature’s coarse, beady eyes, But people still talk as if there is no Avoidance, just inevitable lies.

Until I collapse, exhausted, Plagued by my own mechanical beliefs That the world is ending, gratuitous, Decaying slowly and without relief.

I’m told by many that I’ve just misplaced my mind. They just go on and on As we run out of time.

- James Roskilly

It’s raining dear

Birdy, little sweet, in my earblue little specks of orange, white little specks of blue

Grass is dancing my dear - we hear everything!

And bees are sleeping n ow, do not fear.

I am a perfect circle and so are the petals I lie in We, too, are in perfect har mony.

And the sky is azure blue and the cicadas areWell you can tell me what they do.

Mouflons roam our fields, Crows cawk and screech and -

What do I hear?

Is that you?

Or merely the pathos of this our conversation?

For it seems I’m the only one s peaking dear.

Petrichor is thick i n the air

It seems it might rain.

sour rain -

Did you pack your umbrella?

I feel like a funambulist balancing h ere, Trying to talk to you across your acres...

Darling, how long have you been here?

- Alice Shaw

Iridescent Darkness

The viridescent trees glimmered in the shimmering sea, the fiery haze dissipating into a dark, empty void, and with each breath took, there was no air to fill their lungs, for it was no longer enough. The ocean's depths were not as deep, and the soil beneath their roots was barren and parched. A quiet chorus of despair filled the air, echoed by the whispers of an ancient wind. Bygone are the days of iridescent turf reaching towards the golden hues of the horizon, where vibrant greens were not painted on canvas but in reality, and where vast oceans did not devour all that they touched. Now, we stand upon a battlefield of ash, a barren wasteland left behind by those who once ruled above us, Now, thunders reverberate into the night sky, the hazy cobalt luminance,

a void of darkness suppressing the once shimmering swathe of life, and with each exhaled breath, there is no air to fill our lungs for it has been taken away by the lifelessness of our world. This world is now a tomb, a graveyard for all that once existed, And though our end shall be nothing more than a memory, it is my hope that one day, another may rise from these ashes.

- Akash Durairaj

Environment

A fiery inferno of scorching flames sweeps unhesitating, Inundated with uncontrollable rage.

Its scorching flames lick the charred branches of the ancient trees, They once stood tall and strong but now they tremble in the furious heat.

The entire landscape is shrouded in a thick, acrid smoke, And the sky enveloped in a deep orange haze.

All Summer, the sun’s blinding rays baked the parched ground, And not a drop of water fell from the sky. Now, this tsunami of devastating destruction destroys all in its path, Showing no mercy to the tinder-dry forest. Within hours, huge swathes of precious and historic land, Is engulfed cruelly by this fierce blaze. Yet all it took for this cataclysmic disaster to take place: Was one spark.

- Ted Bowers

Iceland

As I stood before the awaiting world, everything seemed afar, As if it had been stretched out in front of me. I had walked for hours, and this moment paid off, It paid off for the breath spent to reach it, It paid off for the time taken to see it, This one sight this one feeling paid off. And so I faced awestruck into the rolling hills of red and orange, Each seeming bigger, seeming bolder than the last Sighing as the great of this great sight before me collapsed, And all I could do was stare, memorised, into the vista around me, A sight beyond the dreams of any. And as I walked down the glorious mountain, I could not take my eyes off the golden hills, My gaze fixed upon them. And as we ventured back, past sheets of ice in summer, And geysers smelling of egg, The great valley, the great expanse caught my eye, It was everlasting, I thought, For it stretched on out of sight, But it had to have an end, I told myself, though not believing it. Such a jaw dropping sight, such a wonder, just sitting there, As if waiting for someone, something to find it…

- Amy Scott

Forests green, cities grey

Grey rain falls from a grey sky onto a grey city Green as concrete

Wild as steel

As full of life as stone

Even the air, even the wind is grey, grey, grey

The tatters of a printout hang limply

Tangled in netting, the letters smeared illegibly by rain and time

Torn and hopeless, unnoticed

Now I wonder

Does anyone remember what it said?

I know you, I want to say Do you remember?

Once you were a tree, as tall as the sky

Perhaps birds made nests in your branches

Perhaps insects burrowed in your bark

Pine and spruce, hemlock, fir Words now lost to time

Do you forgive us? I want to ask

Did you feel when we came with saws and axes?

Did you fear the blades of the stripper, the pulper?

Can you still remember the forest, When you can see only grey?

I’m sorry

Do you mind that I’m standing here, watching As you slip from the fence and fall

Disappearing under the mud?

Do you mind that I’m leaving, Turning away

While you become slush in the rain?

Grey rain falls from grey clouds onto a grey world, once blu e

A slip of torn paper swirls into the gutter

Quickly forgotten

Nothing more than slime and mud

Even the people, even the minds are grey, grey, grey

Art

Tsunami

raw sirens of saviour, clawed their way through waves and waves of inevitable loss. Time slept around our synchronised hearts; I watched lives fade into the shattered eyes of my lover. the world danced to our dying waltz. we felt their world on our hands dripping out of us as they ran into death. people forgetting to live and we forget to survive; but are we born for more than to love and gaze into death hugs of my lovers body fell against my body as the waves covered their city. Our city still entangled unknowing to others where it ended and our death began, they watched our lantern dim from the rescue planes, starved of oxygen we stared back.

Selfless fools dreamt they had saved everyone but the city was dead. their city was begging for saving from the waves; it danced its final dance with the tsunami rising and falling; all the sins and love buried with it. Our love sung with it until its final chord

- Isabel Smith

Environment

From gently bubbling springs RIVERS do rise, And upwards climb towards the skies, From whence they came and erelong shall return, For still for clouds in open skies they yearn.

Far, far from the abyssal depths they flow, To caverns deep and valleys low, Up, up to towering mountains tall, Where, from high clifftops, water falls.

Over rough rocks their waters spin, Downwards fall in trickles thin, Through tunnels deep within soft grassy plains, And under fields full of golden grains.

Across marshy fens runs a splashing creek, To clamber over muddy stones and meet, With one tiny tributary, and another, To form a rushing torrent, then - a river.

Then off again they flow, to merge and burgeon, To bubbling brooks of carps and thrashing sturgeon, And off to deep dark waters, which conceal, Many a mollusc, and a silver eel.

This is the place where glitt'ring waters run, And spiders climb on dew-soaked webs they spun, From gossamer threads, delicate and thin, This is the place where thrushes, wrens still sing!

But quickly to the shores be running, For upon us the time is coming, Where birds shall from high perches fly, And gently flowing springs run dry.

- Suhail McLachlan

Poetry

Ephemeral Encounters

We stop at red and go at green, contemplating everything that would have been. But only briefly, as I rub my eyes, observing the blurred red lights of the cars in front of us and how they all bleed into each other as we wait, stationary at the stop signs, inhaling the smoke of the present moment. These instances, which render the unsettling awareness of my heartbeat, how it falls and rises. And the cracking of the bones in my knuckles, as I feel every fibre in my body, the unevenness of the fingers, coarse skin, and hands shaking. And feeling as if you are always fever-dreaming because every time you look around, you see the light. At night, back home, when you unlock the front door, upstairs, before you sleep, you watch from the window as the moonlight seeps in, casting a milky white trail of unfed hope, you watch the lachrymose sky as it rains, pouring into reality. How a single moment can be captured and stuck in this haze of fragmented pieces of your life.

- Aamarah Khurram

A Feathered Flight

I saw a crow fly. Swerve to avoid the window, swoop its wings catching the sun, land softly in slow motion on the frosted ground

A magpie jumped from branch to branch thin enough to bend without breaking.

Gliding in the winter dawn from roof to roof they flit small enough to fit on the corners of window sills.

This is not a courtyard, but under the open sky taking on the semblance of an aerodrome.

- Carole Tucker

Rising Tide

No-one is deceived. Not a single soul

Not by those venom words of yours

Half-held, Barely breathing, Balance breaking, Your voices swell amidst the dark.

There is nothing that will silence, The hatred in their hearts, Anger breeding violence, Which nothing can ever thwart

And the rhythm swells among the light, Chanting and marching up and down, These streets and avenues.

So many voices. Views

That merge into centred chaos

Rendered impassable, Tenaciously resolved, These surging sounds

Shift from left to right

Filling one ear then the other

An asymmetry of sound

Coalescing into one

- Anon.

Voluntas

The hope that spurs,

That sparks

A flame to burn

Consume itself

Its light cascades

Dappled on the carpet

dust illuminates

The fear that pricks

The doleful unconsciousness

Of inactivity

Idleness that cannot rest

The words solidify

As lakes that petrify

With ice.

Curiosity that blossoms

That awakens

a verdant sprig in spring

it grows upon the mind

embraces thoughts

roots itself in earthen knowledge.

And love that sings

That lauds

Its praise upon ideas

Quavers in delightful song

Words that transform

To symphonies, Igniting souls.

Anger that shouts

That chants

Its bitter course

Revenge that hates

What was betrayed, Indignation

That lofty pride

Forsaken

And modesty

Determination

Rendered all the more Resolved.

Would that nothing may dishearten

When these voices come to call

- Carole Tucker

Art

Prose

It Happened Under the Tamarind Tree

That was bizarre. Whatever did those strangers mean?

Perhaps it would help to think things through from the beginning. Although I must warn you, I have been accused of not getting to the point straight away. It’s like I am writing letters to a world that wants telegrams. But telegrams are scary, brutal, and fast. A sudden strike to the senses. They almost always bring bad news. And I don’t like bad news. So, telegrams scare me. And I don’t scare easily.

But other people do get scared an awful lot, and very easily I think. Take the incident that happened a few nights ago. I was sitting under the tamarind tree in the middle of our village. Ours is a small green and clay coloured village in northern West Bengal, nestled between a train line and a highway, which are about a mile apart. The village is bordered on the south by a branch river, the beautiful Brahmani, which feeds two forests, one famous for its bamboo dwelling spirits and the other for tigers. Countless paddy fields and mango and lychee orchards make up the rest of the green I mentioned before. The village centres around the tamarind tree which has been a fixture for most generations now living here. It had grown old long before the elders of now were born. It doesn’t bear the delicious, tangy-sweet tamarind fruit anymore. Even if the tree did by chance produce tamarinds from time to time, the fruit is so high up that the gracious resident fauna of this landmark, the monkeys and the birds, must g obble them all up before any human can ever taste it. But the leaves are perpetually vibrant and green, like the clear, sparkly mind and eyes of an otherwise infirm grandfather, and the tree provides an amazing shadow, so it is cool under its boughs even during the hottest of summer days. Many years ago, somebody (no-one living has any recollection of exactly who and exactly when) constructed a red cement border around the tree so that people might sit under it. But the trunk has with time, outgrown that border and now bits of red cement and plaster lie around its base – like an anklet of rubies. The tamarind tree is truly at the heart of our village.

Sitting under the tamarind tree and talking with people. This is generally the way a young man like myself passes the evening hours in

our village. And this is where I was that evening, a few nights ago. The village elders were settling down for their regular evening “panchayat” activities. These meetings are piled high with discussion and conversation and are meant to smoothen out any wrinkles that crease our daily village life. There is nothing of much serious substance to iron out most evenings and so the elders generally sit on the palm leaf mats under the centuries old tamarind tree and reminisce. Stories pour out from under the silver moustaches and tired old eyes come alive behind thick, hazy glasses. Small cups of sweet hot chai and fresh -off-the-oil samosas from Dilip’s tea-stall behind the tamarind tree, steam up the elders’ meeting. Dilip is the only food vendor we have in the village, and he wears a deliciously warm, big, friendly smile. The sweet, heady aroma of clay oven smoke, born of the evening kitchens of the village houses all around rolls in. And I and many others sit around listening to the stories, over and over, enjoying them again and again, waiting for the familiar canvases to be repainted night after night, anticipating the same climaxes and same twist endings.

That night a few days ago, however, there was something new. Helu was clearly impatient to tell the elders something. Helu is a simple young man, generally quiet but very happy to do chores for the elders. He feels important and tall, his self-esteem and simple ego wearing the happy badge of recognition, since the elders chose him for the regular cleaning-up duties after the meeting. No sooner had old Kartik Master, the first village school headmaster, sat down did Helu blurt out, his face and voice unusually tormented by a terrible combination of haste and hesitance, “Tonight someone will have to stay behind with me to put things away.” Everyone turned to look at Helu. He had turned pale. Tentative. Scared. All conversation froze. And what seemed like an eon passed. Satya Babu, another of the elders, who actually has a college degree and now runs his farming endeavours proudly enhanced with newest knowhows, was particularly concerned. He is very fond of Helu, always has been since Helu was a child, - it is as though he is Satya’s own nephew or something. Satya Babu self-medicated with several sips of tea and then with a deep and genuine concern, quietly asked, “Why do you need anybody else to help you pick up the mats and lanterns Helu? What is troubling you lad?”

Helu desperately tried to formulate an answer but before he could say anything, his eyes welled up, his body started to shake, he licked his lips twice, wiped his tears with both hands and started sobbing violently.

One man rushed up and tried to console him, but Helu shied away, almost jumping away startled as if on a taut spring. Then between his loud sobs he managed to splutter, “Gh-gh-ghost, there was a ghost” and then he fell hard and flat on the ground, fainted. There was again another phase of stupefying silence before anybody could muster enough sense to move. Someone ran to fetch water from Dilip’s tea-stall and sprinkled it on Helu’s face to wake him up. He opened his eyes slowly. He looked completely drained but was much more composed than before.

Helu spoke again, very quietly and almost in a whisper, “I can do this little job, of course I can, but I…I saw a ghost last night! She was here! I was so scared.” Helu began to shiver again. “By God’s grace I escaped. Barely able to walk home, I was! All night I did not sleep. Whenever I closed my eyes I could see her. Oh what a horrible, scary thing to see. Nothing like anything I have seen before. I see her standing there staring at me. Peering deep into me. With horrible, horrible wet searching dark eyes. And since then, even when I am awake, I keep looking to see if she is following me. If she is just there standing behind me. Staring still. Or perhaps waiting there to gobble me up.

“A petni, you saw a petni?” queried an elder searchingly, brows furrowed. “Describe completely what you saw,” he ordered, “Is it any different from the apparition in the story we were discussing the night before? The ghost Taran said he saw on the way to the Tarapith Temple?”

Oh, I must interject in my own storytelling, to mention that that was a scary story too. Apparently Taran the rickshaw-wala had stopped his vehicle close to the cremation grounds behind the temple, next to the branch river Dwarka, after dropping off his passengers at the temple for the midnight puja. The bright silver full moon shimmered in the night. The sounds of the temple, - bells and music and people were distant, but the faint sweet gurgling of the river was close. There were a few crickets about, and their rhythmic ensemble kept one’s time from slipping away blissfully without measure, as it would be prone to do here. The breeze was sighing gently. As he casually sat down to rest, lighting up his bidi, he looked up and saw a woman in white, sitting on a tree branch, dangling her legs and beckoning him. It was an impossible sight, one that made Taran jump out of his skin. The cremation ground is loaded

with stories of souls who have not found peace, the unsatisfied, the lingering ghosts. What did this one want with Taran? He jumped back onto his rickshaw, pedalled furiously away from that tree and into the temple compound where the jabbing of his stark lonely fear dissolved into the noise and life breath of the large throng of devotees, priests and shop owners. Eventually, when the moment he had been dreading arrived and he had to return towards home, Taran, tense and tight like a strung bow, darted like a madman, especially when crossing that tree, his eyes squinting, so as not to catch sight of anything other than where he was driving. The elders dismissed his story as an optical trick that the moonlight and shadows had played on his mind with the help of the toothbrush tree that stood slightly bent next to a willow. From a distance, the head of the toothbrush tree and willow swaying in the breeze could easily take on the form of a woman in a white saree lifting her arm and beckoning. I couldn’t imagine it well, the image would not form completely in my mind but Taran seemed happy with that explanation. He needed to ferry passengers to and from the temple for a living and the scare story of a ghost in the tree would not be healthy for his business.

There are so many stories about how to spot a ghost. Apparently, the female ghosts float about and beckon with long arms and fingers. Some can be heard by the tinkling sounds of their ornaments, particularly their silver anklets. They are often persistent and follow one about. Many people have said that they feel her following silently and when they turn around to check if they are imagining things, the ghost is right there beckoning and pleading. So, following from this experience, people who feel they have encountered such a ghost run home, never daring to look back. Also, some ghosts appear as flickering flames, prancing about in mid-air. Foggy nights are apparently the best to pick out male ghosts sitting on tree branches. They are invisible but apparently fog cannot pass through them so, if you see unexplainable little pockets of clarity in an otherwise densely foggy night, you know that there is a male ghost. Oh, and the most playful ones apparently run or walk about with a little eddy of leaves and dust around them. I am sure I have seen many dust spirals, but I have never thought those could be ghosts. Anyway, I digress…

But Helu was certain that what he saw had been a ghost. “No, no, she was not in a tree. She was behind the tamarind tree.” He vehemently corrected. “She wore a white saree bordered with red, and it covered

most of her head. I could even hear her, some kind of awful whispering wheeze, like dry leaves being brushed up by the wind. She stayed in the shadows but was always moving closer towards me. When I looked at her she stood still but her form gently swayed, as if in a trance. I think I saw one long skinny hand with long, shiny, gnarled fingers. I called out, “Who is there? Who are you?” And she said nothing, just stood there. I could not see her face through the little dark opening of her hood, but I could feel that she was staring at me. And, and, she was not asking me for fish as the one who had followed Shubho when he was returning with fried hilsa from his aunt’s home and decided to take a short cut through the woods, no… if you think I am making this up or simply confusing something that I remember with something that I actually saw, I’m not!” He added the last in a despairing tone that petered into some unhappy murmuring.

“Hmmm, that is new. Anybody know if this was a prank? Any newcomers to the village? Strays?”, old Kartik Master broke the quiet following Helu’s shocking stanza that had left all listening quite stunned. Sharp as a tack he is. He listens very carefully and almost always asks a very relevant question, always with confidence boldly painted on his face with a smile and a sparkle of cleverness and wit behind those thick lenses.

There was a collective negative sound augmented by furious shaking of heads all around the panchayat.

Dheeru Thakur, the oldest priest in the village, with big fluid eyes burning under his long unkempt silver hair came to a practical solution, “We need two of Helu’s neighbours to stay back, so all three can return together. How does that sound Helu?”

Helu tentatively tilted his head in agreement whereas Madan and Panchu, his two closest neighbours began to voice a short-lived complaint, Dheeru curtailing their audacity with one of his blazing stares. Somebody joked, that the female ghost will not show up anymore because she was after Helu, the bachelor. Two married men being in the mix, – she would not be interested at all! Helu must have felt angry but could say nothing as the elders laughed it off, only mildly admonishing the speaker, “These supernatural things are not a trifling matter”.

On the way back home I kept thinking, why is it that almost all of these ghost sightings are of clingy women around trees who follow men, or in

the rare occasion, horribly disfigured old men sitting on tree branches? So what happens to the ghosts in deserts, do they just stand around or float about since there are no trees? What would happen if I saw one? I know, I would ask what is it that they want? If I did indeed have what they want I would, by goodness, happily give it to them.

The next morning, I woke up and started thinking about the ghosts again. I wondered what it be like to see a ghost. If I were to try to converse with it, to ask it questions would it become angry? Would that matter or might they, out of spite, haunt me forever? Might they be sufficiently angry in their unhappiness at being stranded souls to try to kill me? … But I have never heard of anyone being killed by a ghost.

As I walked to Dilip’s tea stall, I was curious as to whether Helu had seen his ghost again. Dilip would know the morning news, he is the central news agency for the village. Always abreast of all the goings-ons, not because he is nosey but mostly on account of people feeling the need to tell him their news for some reason. Maybe it’s because he is quiet and people don’t like silence, they find it uncomfortable and so blurt out their lives to fill the void of noise. As I bit into a crunch y, steaming hot samosa, I queried Dilip about Helu’s predicament, tried to make some conversation on the matter. Dilip just shook his head with a solid frown and a negative grunt. So, apparently there were no more ghostly happenings the night before.

I went to the tamarind tree and walked around its huge trunk looking for clues. Even during the day, it was quiet, cool and dark under the tree. I saw nothing awry, not that I knew what I was looking for. Yet it felt mysterious. Eerily quiet. As if all the village noise vanished into thin wisps before they could reach the trunk of the great tree. And in that silence, as I kept still, I started to hear a rhythmic rush – as if the tree was alive and was watching my every move. I touched the rough bark. I felt strangely reassured in that inner sanctum. Standing there, I imagined myself alone under the tree and in late evening. Shadows stretching and solidifying everywhere, the faint flickers of the lantern flames making the darkness more menacing. It would be scary to suddenly see a woman draped in a white saree here, quietly looking at me. I went to Helu’s house but wasn’t able to speak to him. He was running a high fever and was suffering fits of delirium. His mother’s face looked strained and she was very worried, not knowing what might have caused her son’s sudden condition. Clearly Helu hadn’t talked

about his supernatural encounter with his mother. I decided not to add to her worry and returned home without saying anything.

On my way back I mused whether there were little ghosts, I mean ghost boys and girls. What would they be like? They couldn’t be scary. And, if they really were unsatisfied souls, what could a little boy or girl be unsatisfied about? They’d probably worry about a lost ball or a torn rag doll? Or that their parents would not let them go mango-picking all afternoon in the scorching summer sun? What was I dissatisfied about when I was a little boy? Not much really. Do all dead people become ghosts? What happens when, let’s say a family dies, suddenly in an accident, or a flood or from cholera or some such disease? This would obviously happen before their natural end, so it would be likely that they would be extremely dissatisfied. Would they all become ghosts?

That evening, Helu did not show up at the daily evening meeting. But he was more present there in his absence. The elders voiced concern. I spoke up, probably for the first time ever in these meetings, and that startled everybody. When I reported Helu’s delirium, most of the elders were quite taken aback. I was sure somebody was about to admonish me for not bringing this to their notice earlier, or for not letting Helu’s mother know about the ghostly happenings that had scared him or finding out more or something else, I can’t tell, but all that and my racing thoughts were stymied by Dheeru’s grave hoarse whisper, “Evil is about! Bad times, bad times!” He closed his eyes and silently started praying. He was in some sort of a trance, his entire visage ashen, his silver hair looking strangely buoyant and his lips, bluish as if cold, quivering quiet words I couldn’t quite make out. At length he opened his eyes. Gone was their glare and resolve. They were pensive and dim. He was scared! The great Dheeru Thakur, the young nonagenarian, scared! What hope did anyone else of us have of retaining our courage!

Kartik and Satya Babu decided that a few of the elders would pay a visit to Helu’s house and talk to him or his mother. Dheeru was determined to spend the night in Helu’s house to do his best to preve nt any further evil descending on him. Dheeru is the oldest priest of our village and we all believe in his strong spiritual power. He isn’t a witch doctor or a seer or psychic, – just spiritually enlightened with a fervour for all that is holy and good. Someone asked whether the nightly meetings should be postponed but that was promptly dismissed. “We can’t be held hostage by apparitions!” the elders issued a voice of reason. Helu could have

simply caught a bug, after all. Dheeru was hopeful, that it should rather be an ailment of the medical variety and not what he was afraid of. I applauded the logic and the bravery of the elders. I found myself volunteer, “I’ll take on Helu’s responsibilities at the tamarind tree until he is able to return. I’ll put things away and sweep and clean the ground!” Everybody gave me a cheer, the elders because they approved of the fact that I was not being scared and the rest out of relief that they wouldn’t have to stay behind or feel bad about not volunteering to.

Later I thought, “Why did I volunteer?” I surprise myself sometimes by pulling such certifiably “blockhead” moves! Quite happy is my simple life in this beautiful north West Bengal village by the river. Did I wake up on the wrong side of my bed? Did I have a death wish? Was I parched for excitement? Was I bored of the everyday and mundane? Was I curious? Or just simply insane? All my academic interest in ghosts (and in truth any desire to be a hero and help Helu) walked away with the last of the elders leaving the meeting. Night pounced upon the tamarind tree and seemed to spread as far as I could see. The distant, dim and dismal streetlamps, themselves gasping for life due to the poor rural electric supply, succeeded only in punctuating the darkness that seemed to solidify further with every passing moment.

At the base of the tamarind tree, I felt suddenly lost in the moment, petrified like a mouse stunned in front of the expanding hood of a swaying cobra. I realised that I must have been standing, transfixed, staring at the darkness for much longer than I knew or normally would and immediately hurried to gather up the mats. I needed to move fast. A breeze started coming up the path from the river about two hundred yards away. Its whisper grew to a loud lament as it rushed up to the huge tamarind tree which seemed to respond to it with a long, sustained sigh. Dry leaves and dust chimed up the path too in a small vortex that danced around the tamarind tree and suddenly dropped into a heap close to where I was standing as the breeze that had brought it died. I almost jumped at the sudden silence. It seemed like everything, even the night, was too scared to make a sound. I felt a tremendous urge to look behind the giant tree trunk but was too terrified to turn my head. The lantern flames stood unwavering at attention, and yet I was quite sure I saw the shadows flickering at a furious tempo. Shuddering at the incongruency, my body broke into goosebumps, chills raced down my spine, my heart thumped like never before. My legs became jelly. The silence had become deafening and inside my head it felt like the night

was getting ready for something, to hatch something horrible. What manner of unholy evil could and would be unleashed I could but imagine. And I would be in its path. I grabbed the last mat, bundled them all up under my left armpit, stretched to pick up the two lanterns and with a Herculean effort, scraping the bottom of my courage vial, I started to run home.

The lanterns were swinging in synchrony with my frantic gait and air gushed in to suffocate the flames almost immediately. I kept on running and hurtling through the dark on the path that I knew I could follow in my sleep. Halfway down the road I suddenly felt even more scared. There was somebody running with me! Yet I didn’t hear footsteps or any noise save an unfamiliar rushing scraping sound that seemed unpleasant. I didn’t turn my head even though every bit of my senses and volition wanted me to see who was running with me - or what! The sound stopped abruptly as I turned left towards my home on to the street of red laterite barely visible under the dire illumination afforded by the lone streetlamp at the corner. I didn’t stop running until I was securely in my room. As I caught my breath, I looked at the night outside. Calm and dark. Quiet. Still holding my sides, I started laughing. How did I let my imagination get so much the better of me? What was all this? Just a bit of breeze, that often starts and stops. That’s all! After dinner, as I slowly let comforting sleep overpower my still excited nerves, I returned to my previous thoughts about ghost boys and girls. Why might they still be haunting the earth, souls unsatisfied in life? Why would they be unsatisfied?

The morning light cleared my mind of questions and worries and fear. I felt quite silly about my scare the previous night. As I left home for my morning jaunt to Dilip’s, I saw a little boy sitting under the lamppost at the corner. I suddenly remembered my musings about the little ghosts and thought that I would ask him what kind of things he had wanted and didn’t get. He was sitting there forlorn, counting leaves in a little whirlwind that fell flat as I walked up to him. “Hey little boy, what is your name? Oh, I see you are quite naughty …you went for a swim in the river with your clothes on! Wait now, you’ll catch a cold, or at any rate your mother will be very angry with you…” He smiled broadly at me and jumped up and ran away down the road with a tinkling laughter trailing behind him, “Hih hih heee!” Ooh what a naughty, little one, I thought.

I stopped next at Dilip’s. The news rang on the voices of those taking breakfast, sipping tea or reading the paper and especially of the tea -stall holder himself. Helu had not recovered yet.

Dheeru Thakur had spent the night at Helu’s house. No further ghost sightings had been reported. Everything and everybody in the village seemed to have returned to normal. Normal is good. Perhaps sometimes boring, but safe and good.

After that night’s meeting under the tamarind tree, I collected all the mats, shaking my head and chuckling at the previous night’s events. Secretly I was in awe of my imagination, how real and imposing it had made all things untoward seem. Tonight was different. Tonight was calm. No dramatic weather. No unexpected sounds, movements or appearances. As I walked a few steps from the tamarind tree the little lamppost boy I had seen in the morning appeared in my path, as though out of thin air. He was beaming. A happy playful smile stretched across and lit up his tiny face as he looked at me with new sparkly eyes. How different he looked now since I saw him last. The lantern light flickering on the whites of his mischievous eyes and teeth shone with an unnatural luminescence accentuated by the shadows of his features. He startled me completely. I felt my heart skip a beat. Or stop even. I don’t know why but I might have even let out a scream. The boy asked plainly and straightforwardly “Why did you scream? I have brought my parents to meet you.” Behind him I could see now stood a woman. Wearing a white saree with a red border. She was smiling as she affectionately pulled her little son close to herself. Next to her stood her husband who looked strangely familiar. Yes, like a tired and thin version of our own Helu. All three were wet through and bedraggled as if they had just fought through a storm or swam through a heavy current. I noticed also that the poor boy’s hair was still wet and water dripped into a little puddle from his shirt corners and shorts. Had they been swimming in the river together? Again? All of them, the whole family? At this hour? The man spoke and his wife nodded in agreement, “We have been waiting to meet you, ever since our little Boltu said you were wondering about and waiting to meet a boy like him. Well, I see the others are coming, we must head back to the river…”. The strange family and their words, which took on a rather melancholy tone, melted into the dark, beyond my lantern light. And I was left standing again, alone, transfixed.

That was very strange. Whatever did they mean? When was I wanting to meet the boy Boltu, who I just met earlier today? I had merely been wondering about ghosts, poor young ghosts and why they might be. Why did this family come to meet me? Why did they wait to find me? And who are the others coming now…to the river, but why? I turn sharply around to see that the elders and others from the meeting, that had ended not five minutes ago are all rushing back, looking worried and scared. They do not see me standing but keep going, rushing past. There are gasps as they all crowd under the tamarind tree. Some people scream and some start sobbing. I run to be with them and try to peep over their shoulders, to edge a space to see. What are they all looking at?

In the flickering light of the lanterns they have brought, I can see a body lying on the ground with the palm mats flung all about him. His eyes are open, as if in horror.

It is me.

- Neelkantha Mukherjee

Glossary:

Babu: A term to show respect, used as suffix.

Bidi: Short cigarros hand rolled in leaf and tied with string.

Chai : Hot tea boiled in milk with sugar, ginger and spices.

Panchayat: A local council dealing with village affairs.

Petni: A female ghost, not a widow which is specifically called a “shankchunni”.

Puja: Ceremonial worshipping and offering of prayers.

Samosas: Deep fried pyramidal packets of pastry stuffed generally with savoury potatoes and other vegetables.

Thakur: A suffix often used for priests.

ED12X5 woke to the monotonous buzz of the work alarm. His face was ashen; his body thin, weedy, weathered and worn down by life in the Dome. He ate his nutrient capsules: colourless, tasteless spheres. His clothes were the pewter grey of the Party. Military form, he marched to the door, ready for another day in the mines.

Everywhere was a wash of empty grey: the sky, as usual, was a flint canvas, merging into the unrelenting brutalist buildings. There was nothing, nothing at all, that wasn't the colour of wet cement. The sky, like the people, had no change, no emotion. Area 4 was the only place life could survive. No one could stand up to the Party; the Government made sure of that. No one remembered anything of the Old World; the Government had their minds wiped. No one knew anything but their daily routine. ED12X5 was no different.

In the cracked concrete, he saw something unfamiliar. What was it? Realisation dawned on him... a dandelion. Touching its delicate petals, memories flooded back of electric blue skies on a su mmer’s day; dragonflies, glistening biplanes in luminous blues, bright as dew drops, dipping and twisting in the sunlight. He remembered colours: the vermillion of rose hips, bumblebee yellow buttercups, ginger orange fire. He remembered honey smelling roses; warm breeze on his face; bubbling trills of a wren. It gave him a flicker of hope. Maybe everything could change. It all came back to him. One name, his name: George.

- Alexander Walker

A Portrait of Lilies, Man, Demons, and Gods

Up in the mountain, nestled within the grove of valleyed peaks opposite the purple anger in the hard-faced rock, the rugged visage of a man looks up at the sky’s resounding glare, ridged with charcoaled streaks of tears. He prays.

Her fragile spirit hangs upon a string, the gentle redness of her cheeks struck by a deathly violet pallor. The innocent child’s gaze in her wide glacier eyes is filled with a pained glint that perseveres. A soft smile is visible on her chalky lips, her golden hair lies limp upon the pillow. Memories of the aureate haze that enveloped her, the sun’s rays dappled on her head as if illuminated from heaven. Eyes smiling, and lips red.

An illness bound to seize her, a child so young, what had she ever done? He prays to punish him instead. He implores. What good would it do for her to leave this earth while she has hardly lived long enough to see the way the birds assemble when the winds change, how the flocks grow old and the lambs err into caves during the storms, and how they frolic in the flowered fields. He trusts the infinite, believes in the might of heaven. His mind is good, his soul is simple. There must be a reason in the actions of God. Yet he cannot bring himself to lose her, the mountain will be better than death, even in its gentle eternity.

He prays for her to live.

If she had died then she would not have seen the snows fall in drifts deeper than centuries before, she would not have heard the wailing song of the wind or laughed among the other children, would not have blossomed into a pearlescent lily of the valleys. He would have grown bitter and rugged, silent, and forlorn, grown angry in his old age remaining confined to the higher altitudes. And one day many years hence he would have perished in turn. His body found collapsed near his flock, looking down to the depths and crevices of the darker peaks, as if he had fallen asleep his head resting on his hands that held on tightly to his shepherd’s staff.

Heaven granted her the power to live, even if the fates foretold a dark and spreading stain that seeped and dimmed the light that shone on her. Perhaps a mistake had been made, or the great benevolence of the skies could counteract the black cruelty of evil. Once more, good would fight alongside man and triumph over evil.

If she had died then, she would not have fallen in love with the pernicious semblance of a mirage, would not have listened to mellow sweetness that poured, black ink or fog from a corrupted well, would not have fallen, swept under by the tide of her own innocence, would not have faltered, would not have run on that fateful night, would not have slipped in the rain on the rocks, would not have been seized by the grinning shadow that chased her from behind. She would not have been found lying in the scarlet, grey mud, the lily defiled and trampled. And he would not have incurred the wrath of man for his vengeful anger. But all witnessed the injustice, the criminal gone free, evil triumphing over purity, and turned their heads to the events, they condemned a father whose love had known no bounds, for fear of blaming a man whom they saw as exempt from the justice of God.

Down in the wallowing moisture of the cell, amidst the dampened darkness of the stone, the grimacing yellow of the light that comes in and shines between the bars, his head drops heavy to the floor. If he had watched her, if he had been wiser and known how to temper her wild spirit, if he had seen the perfidious demonic beast beneath that man’s waxed countenance, he could have warned her of the d anger, he could have saved her. Now the cell is cold and empty, guilt consumes his angered heart, he hopes he’ll die and suffer for her pain. His cries are deep and suffocate.

He prays for forgiveness.

Essays

The Gallizenae and Their Role in Breton Folklore

The Gallizenae were an order of nine virgin priestesses on the Île De Sein off the coast of Brittany said to have the power to predict the future, calm the winds, and take the form of different animals. The earliest record to their existence was in 43 CE from the Roman geographer Pomponius Mela and his account is the one on which further analysis rests. He records the otherworldly abilities listed above as well as their affinity for healing, and a combination of these powers recurs in several folktales of t he Breton region as well as further literature. The French author Chateaubriand suggests that the reason for this repetition is that within the public consciousness the Gallic “Druidesses then changed into Fairies, into witches” over the centuries (1809, p464), but their shared characteristics can be led back to those of the Gallizenae. The major roadblock in research such as this is simply the lack of information – Gallic deities themselves are not fully understood, most sources are not Gallic in nature and often similarities between stories may seem surface level or unremarkable. Even so, it is my belief that the concept of the Gallizenae and their description, as penned by Pomponius Mela, has influenced wider Breton folklore.

Pomponius Mela’s Account

The principal source for the Gallizenae’s existence and role is in the section included below:

‘Sena, in the Britannic Sea, opposite the coast of the Osismii, is known for its oracle of a Gallic god, whose priestesses, sanctified by their perpetual virginity, are said to be nine in number. They call them Gallizenae and believe they are endowed with extraordinary gifts to stir up the seas and winds by their incantations, to turn themselves into any animal form they want, to cure diseases which among others are incurable, to know what is to come and to foretell it, but this is only revealed to sea-voyagers who have set out on no other errand than to consult them.’

- Pomponius Mela, Liber III.40, De Chorographia, c.43 CE

The number ‘nine’ was sacred to both the Celts and Gauls as it was the combination of three by three (referencing three worlds, three states of being, cohesion, etc.), and the ‘Osismii’ was the term for the Gallic tribe

that inhabited Western Brittany during this time, and presumably the tribe the Gallizenae also belonged to. Mela doesn’t specify which ‘Gallic god’ which is typical of Roman and Greek sources, though often they would include the closest Roman/Greek deity instead (eg. Minerva-Sulis, Mercury-Visugius/Lugus, Dionysus-Sucellus). The powers listed may also be cause for concern – the reference to turning into animals and controlling the wind could be a distortion of the Odyssey (Circe and Calypso specifically) rather than an authentic description.

Mela was a Roman geographer who grew up in Iberia (modern Spain) and as a result would have been more familiar with the coastline of Western Europe than many of the other geographers of the time. His books followed the coastlines of the known world detailing islands and cultures though it’s unknown whether he relied on now-lost records or visited any locations himself. Similarly, much of his life and motivations in writing are unknown which makes it hard to evaluate the source’s reliability.

The Île de Sein Itself

The Île de Sein lies within the Iroise Sea and is separated from the Pointe du Raz by an hour’s boat ride and an 8km stretch of sea known as the Raz de Sein (‘Raz’ meaning ‘tidal current’ in Breton) which flaunts the violent currents that gave it its name. Beyond the island, reefs extend over 25 km west in the Chaussee de Sein and as a result, the isle was known for shipwrecks. Even now large vessels are prohibited from passing through, and as recently as March 9th 2023 the winds reached over 100km/hr. During her travels in the 19th century, Katharine Macquoid remarked that at the Pointe du Raz, though “perfectly calm elsewhere”, the sea “raged and roared” in a “bubbling seething cauldron [...] fit for demons”, supporting her later assertion that shipwrecks occurred “constantly, spite of the numerous lights along the coast”. Further, she then cites the Breton fisherman’s prayer “‘Save me, O Lord, in the Passage of the Raz, for my boat is little and the sea is great.’” (Macquoid, 1877, p291 -4).

Compared to the fierce sea that surrounds it, the Île de Sein, with an area of 0.58km2, average elevation of 1.5m, and population of c.260, seems largely unremarkable. The author Henri Queffélec wrote that the island “should have sunk under the sea a thousand times [… for] it was a miracle that the waves did not surge over it, tear it away, and drag it into the abyss once and for all, and the miracle continued at every moment” (Queffélec, 1944). Despite the geographical challenges (acknowledged even by King Louis XIV in the early 18th Century when he declared the isle exempt from taxes, viewing them as an additional cruelty to their exposure to storms, sea, and

rocks), the island has been inhabited for thousands of years, as evidenced by the two megalithic menhirs that stand in its centre. The two menhirs are known as ‘Les Causeurs’ (‘Ar Brigourien’, ‘The Talkers’) as the smaller is said to lean towards the taller, and are thought to be neolithic (6000-2500 BC) like many other menhirs across Brittany, including the vast collections at Karnak. The term ‘menhir’ refers to a large standing stone à la Stonehenge while ‘megalithic’ simply means that it was found in a group. The two that remain are likely to be the remnants of a wider stone circle that has either been eroded by the sea over time, or destroyed by researchers like the Nifran tumulus (a burial mound) near the menhirs had been. The purpose of the menhirs is unclear but it’s likely they had some form of spiritual function, further linking the island to ancient religions. Even in 1880 a local folk tale stated that, were someone suffering from fever, an islander should wrap nine stones in the patient’s handkerchief and place them at the foot of the menhirs. If a passer-by took the pebbles, the fever would be transferred to them (Guenin, 1936). Currently, the menhirs stand next to the Church of Saint Guenolé (built 1898 -1901), further linking the island’s ancient routes to its modern faith.

The origin of the island’s name is debated, not aided by the many iterations it has held over the centuries – from ‘Insula Sena’ in Latin, ‘Enez-Sun’ in Breton, ‘Île des Saints’ in the 17th-18th centuries, and ‘Île de Sayne’ in the 19th. The Latin title could reference the island’s geography (‘sena’ being winding, or ‘senus’ as a curve or bay) or the Gallic deity the priestesses worshipped, while the Breton ‘Sun’ may be a contraction of ‘Sizun’, from the Old Breton ‘Seidhun’ which in term has ill-determined origins. Notably, the Breton of Sein has separated from the Breton of the mainland (eg. the term for the Breton language ‘brezhoneg’ is pronounced on Sein as ‘bredonèk’) and speaks to its isolation throughout history.

Considering the fierce ocean conditions and rocks littering the passage to the Île de Sein, any secrets the Gallizenae held, if indeed they held any, must have been valuable indeed for sailors to pursue them. Yet even when scrutinising the existence of the nine virgin priestesses, the menhirs attest to the fact that the island must have been known and inhabited centuries before Pomponius Mela’s time.

The Recurrence of Mela’s Motifs

The concept of nine island women blessed with otherworldly powers features in several folktales across the Celtic world but their specific connection to the Gallizenae of Sein is harder to trace.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, a medieval cleric most known for popularizing and streamlining Arthurian legend, authored the ‘Vita Merlini’ around 1150. The Latin poem contains the first literary mention of Morgen le Fay and a description of Avalon (known as the Isle of Apples) in a description heavily akin to Pomponius Mela’s. Monmouth wrote that “nine sisters” ruled over the Isle, and that Morgen, the eldest, was “more skilled in the healing art”, was able to “change her shape and to cleave the air on new wings like Daedalus”, could move within the wind to wherever she wished and knew of Arthur’s pending arrival to the island following his wounds. Together, these distort Mela’s account (nine women who could cure diseases, turn themselves into animals, mould the winds and predict the future) into one woman seen to be more powerful than the others. Despite her later prevalence, Morgen’s role in his narrative is minor – only agreeing to heal Arthur of the injuries he suffered following his final battle at Camlann. Still, the legacy of Morgen (later Morgana) being by Arthur’s side as he proceeds to Avalon has endured (even within the stories where she plays a vital role in causing his injuries). Similarly, the concept of Avalon as a paradisal island, though whether this is from Mela or more general beliefs in the afterlife such as the Greek Elysium, can be contested. To add to this, while some have linked Monmouth’s description to Mela’s, he could be referencing the women of the Odyssey (Circe and Calypso) in Morgen and the number “nine” could link to the nine muses (Morgen’s sisters do all have Greek names, including ‘Thitis’ who is said to be skilled in the cither – a medieval stringed instrument).

From the 18th-20th century, interest in folktales and local legends exploded, leading to several collections of various quality and legitimacy. Because of their oral nature prior to the literary record popularised by the Brothers Grimm, pinpointing the exact dating and origins of these tales often seems a hopeless task but links to the Gallizenae have been noted. Likewise, in the mid-17th century, Sein’s reputation for its wreckers and belief in non-Christian folklore (due to its history of Gallic druidesses) was so great that no priest was willing to serve the island (Renier, 1866) despite the wider shifts to Christianity.

Villemarqué’s introduction to his selection of tales in ‘Barzaz Breiz’ (1839) describes the Breton ‘korrigan’: a fae creature that “can foretell the future, they know the art of war […] they can assume any animal form, can cure that which seems incurable, and are able to travel from one end of the world to another in the twinkling of an eye”. Korrigan vary wildly in folktales from gnome-like creatures less than a foot tall who steal unattended food, to seductive women who live in fountains and spend their nights combing their hair. Their less-attractive counterparts share

characteristics with lutins and dwaves, while the more-desirable renditions link to mari-morgans and sprites. Within his collection, Villemarqué recorded the ‘Ar Rannou’, a Breton cumulative call-and-answer song (like the 12 Days of Christmas or the Communist Marching Song) that he apparently heard twelve different versions of. Around Sein, the most popular apparently included the verse ‘Nine korrigan are dancing, flowerwreathed, in wool clothing, in the moonlight round the spring’. Similarly, several tales recorded by Lewis Spence in 1917 (like A Goddess of Eld, An Unbroken Vow) include a korrigan having “nine attendant maidens”, a theme Spence himself links “not improbably” to Mela. Notably, the theme of nine ‘attendants’ and a central figure harkens back to Monmouth’s description of Morgen’s powers in comparison to her sisters. The community of nine priestesses who existed on equal footing seems to have fallen away as the centuries passed. Regardless, Spence goes on to say that some believed the korrigan to be “pagan princesses of Brittany who would have none of Christianity”, echoing Chateaubriand’s idea of the druidesses turning to fairies in folk-memory and the wider ‘Druid Theory’. Fairy-folk including korrigan often gained anti-Christian sentiments as the decades went on (from being burnt by blessed water, to being unable to fully recite the days of the week – as the final day is holy, and to simply hating godfearing men), and Spence posits that, at least in Brittany, this is due to the Church banning their practises so harshly – the fairy-folk simply responded in turn.

One tale of a mari-morgan, similar to those of korrigan, from the Île Molène, north of Sein, describes a beautiful virgin fairy with maidenattendants who lured unfortunate sailors to her and stopped their heart with just a touch. Worse than this though, the men were forced to suffer “the saddest fate” of a Christian, condemned to wander the seas forever having had the morgan efface his baptism mark from his forehead. This tale is interesting though in that it paints the morgan herself in a sympathetic light – her “joy” at a man approaching is sharply cut by her “despair” at the corpse she is always left with (Evans-Wentz, 1911, p200201). Once again, this tale diminishes any connection the morgan may have had with her attendants in favour of placing her unfulfilled romantic desires at the forefront. In his account of the Fairy-Faith, as he calls it, Evans-Wentz offers his own description of korrigan as the predominant “invisible inhabitants” of Brittany that only appear at night, live in “groups or families”, practise mischief, and most enjoy dancing in circles under the moon (p206-7). Similar to the verse in the Ar Rannou, the korrigan of Evans-Wentz are linked with the moon and appear in a group though they are known less for their fantastical powers and more for their love of mischief and merry-making. Evans-Wentz does offer a connection between

korrigan and Sein through his reference to menhirs though – it was believed that the pre-Christian structures of menhirs offered the fairy-folk protection from the faith (Villemarqué, 1839). Beyond his accounts of folktales, Evans-Wentz also discusses several theories for the Fairy-Faith’s origin including the aforementioned Druid Theory. This posits that the “folk-memory of the Druids and their magical practises is alone responsible for the Fairy-Faith” which can be linked to the ‘folk-memory’ of the Gallizenae inspiring the later folklore around korrigan. As well as this though, Evans-Wentz also recounts what he calls the ‘Mythological Theory’: the Celtic “fairies are the diminished figures of the old pagan divinities” – not the Gallizenae, but the unknown god they worshipped. Similarly Courthope, in ‘A History of English Poetry’, suggests that the existence of fairies (and their role in Arthurian romance) is due to “Celtic fancy”, specifically citing the 3.40 passage of Pomponius Mela with the logic that the Gallizenae and their abilities must have been a product of the Celtic imagination, which was then channelled into folklore following the rise of Christianity.

One of the most definitive works linking the Gallizenae to fairies is Chateaubriand’s ‘Les Martyrs’ (‘or the Triumph of the Christian Religion’, 1809). In the novel, the priestess Velleda (named for a historical Germanic seeress) is a virgin of Sayne (“île vénérable et sacrée!”) lamenting how the Gauls have fallen in the face of Christianity. She calls herself a “fée” and recites the powers of the Gallic fairies: “to stir up storms, to ward them off, to turn themselves invisible, to take the form of different animals” (1809, p142). Chateaubriand references Mela in his footnotes, and states clearly that the evolution of the Gallizenae in popular consciousness, as mentioned before, was that the Gallic “Druidesses then changed into Fairies, into witches” (1809, p464). Their transformation to “witches” reflects their opposition to Christianity as referenced above. The most likely explanation for the conflation of the Gallizenae into korrigan (and ‘fairies’ more widely) in my opinion is a combination of the Druid and Mythological Theories laid out by Evans-Wentz. As the Gallic and Celtic deities were assimilated with Greek and Roman ones, their characteristics blurred, and local legends spread. To distinguish deities, the Gauls and Celts would turn to their own passed-down tales of druids and thus the interconnection between the two theories is seen.

And on the Île de Sein, where sea, storms and rocks isolate them, where no 17th century priest wished to tread, where they built their second church next to their two menhirs, where else would folk -memory of old gods and their worshippers persevere?

Conclusion

Overall, in cases like these where there is so little known for certain, finding any conclusion can be near-impossible, relying on the subjective opinions and beliefs of the researcher. Often it hinges on how far you’re willing to put faith in seemingly shallow similarities. Pomponius Mela’s account, short though it is, provides the backbone of the argument, evidenced by the historians and authors who have connected his work to later tales (Chateaubriand, Villemarqué, Spence, Evans-Wentz, etc.). Even if Mela’s account was fictional, that doesn’t discount the impact it had on wider folklore. The menhirs on Sein prove that it must have been inhabited though, and if the islanders weren’t the Gallizenae, they would still have likely believed in the Gallic gods and Druidism, and therefore would have helped the ‘folk-memory’ endure through time to belief in the korrigan and related creatures. It is my belief though that the Gallizenae most likely did exist as an order of nine priestesses on the Île de Sein during Antiquity, and the accounts of this (whether through Mela or ‘folk-memory’) inspired later folklore.

- Ally White

References:

- ‘De Chorographia. Liber III.40’, Pomponius Mela, c.43 CE.

- ‘Through Brittany’, Katharine Macquoid, 1877.

- ‘Pierres à Légendes de la Bretagne’, Guenin, 1936.

- ‘Un Recteur de l'île de Sein’, Henri Queffélec, 1944.

- ‘Vita Merlini’, Geoffrey of Monmouth, c. 1150.

- ‘Les Martyrs’ Books 9-10, Chateaubriand, 1809.

- ‘Barzaz Breiz’, Théodore Hersart de La Villemarqué, 1839.

- ‘Legends and Romances of Brittany’, Lewis Spence, 1917.

- ‘Mémoires lus à la Sorbonne etc.’, Léon Renier, 4 avril 1866.

- ‘The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries’, Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz, 1911.

- ‘A History of English Poetry, Courthope, 1895.

In January, England's environmental watchdog the OEP admitted it has "little good news to report" when reviewing government's progress on climate and nature targets. The rate of species decline is alarming with the abundance of important species fell 17% between 2013 and 2018, after a period of "chronic decline" since 1970 [17].

The UK is one of the world's most nature-depleted countries, with only 53% of its biodiversity left, according to a Natural History Museum study [9]. According to the 2019 State of Nature report [1], 41% of UK species have decreased in abundance since 1970. The average distribution of UK mammals from 1970 -2015 has gone down by 26%. Hedgehog populations have decreased by 50% in the UK, and they were put on the IUCN red list [1]. According to the Wildlife Trusts, 15% of UK wildlife is threatened with extinction [7]. Seventy of our bird species are on the red list [13]. Over 40 million UK birds have disappeared since 1970, according to the RSPB [15]. And only 14% of English rivers meet ‘good’ ecological status, while the rest are worse [5], and the River Tame in England has the most microplastics in the world, according to the WWF [8]. Pollinators are declining, because of habitat loss, pesticides and the disappearance of 98% of wildflower meadows. Some reports suggest that insect abundance have fallen by over 50% since 1970, so insect-eating birds like the grey partridge have declined by 92% [6]. Furthermore, the UK Biodiversity Indicator for habitat-specialist butterflies shows a decline of 68% between 1976 and 2018 [14].

Mary Colwell’s book ‘Curlew Moon’ [3] shows the complexity of issues causing the decline of just one species, the curlew. As Mary Colwell states, ‘It is such a human modified landscape, it simply is impossible to leave nature to it and expect a variety of life to thrive.’ Habitat loss is an issue for curlews: floodplains of rivers and upland habitat been drained for more livestock, and curlew eggs are accidentally crushed by sheep and cows trample them. Peatland and wetlands are also important habitats for curlews, habitats threatened by the use of peat in horticulture and, likely in the future, by sea level rise and climate change. With urbanisation and population increase, Colwell says the ‘cheek by jowl’ nature of people living side-by-side with nature means that people and dogs can crush eggs and nests. There are more generalist predators like foxes and crows that prey on curlews’ young, too. The biologist Edward Wilson called the future the age of loneliness, which would be a time when only general scavengers like foxes and crows will survive, whereas specialist creatures like the curlew will be lost [3].

People want cheap food, so intensified farming means food is made cheaper. In Curlew Moon, Mary Colwell explains that the cost was given to the land, with freshwater pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, flood damage and mammoth declines in wildlife numbers [2]. Pesticides kill bees and other pollinators, hedges are removed to make every square inch efficient, and this causes massive biodiversity loss. Farmland birds have (on average) more than halved in numbers from 1970 –2015. Over 70% of the UK’s land is farmed and management of farms impacts

biodiversity loss. The move from hay to silage has been bad for curlews. In 1965, curlews were successful, because cows were fed on hay during winter – 90% of the hay was cut in August. By 1995 hay was replaced by silage, which needs regular cutting earlier when birds are ground nesting: eggs and chicks are often crushed by a farmer’s cutting machinery [3].

Despite the successful efforts of conservationists mitigating biodiversity loss, the trends suggest we are not managing to reverse species decline. It is a huge problem, as the complex nature of issues needing to be faced to save the curlew species demonstrates.

Why isn’t enough been done by the Government to reverse the biodiversity crisis? Professor Michael Jacobs [4], Professor of Political Economy at Sheffield University, discussed how democracy is about opposing forces, and therefore that means compromise, meaning it doesn’t always go far enough.

Many people have different interests involved, including financial interests. Many of the issues that Professor Jacobs said can stop people acting on climate change could also apply to why enough isn’t being done about the biodiversity crisis. It takes effort and may not be what businesses or consumers regard as a priority. It can also be costly.

We need more environmental coverage in mainstream media. The biodiversity crisis is not making the headlines enough and public opinion is swayed by UK news. Governments only make change if they are pressured by public opinion.

Many conservation organisations are concerned over the uncertainty surrounding the Retained EU Law. Important environmental laws, which protect wildlife and habitats, could be completely removed by the end of this year. These decisions decide the fate of so many different species and habitats, and it’s crucial to make the right decision. The government’s overhaul of farming subsidies in January, where farmers are encouraged to protect nature, was a decision which could have a positive effect and is a step in the right direction [18]. The government has the potential to make a positive impact – we need them to make the right decision to protect the environment, now more than ever.

- William Walker

Bibliography and references

1. State of Nature Report 2019

2. Zoom talk on ‘The Curlew and Farming’ hosted by Mary Colwell, 16th February, 2022

3. Mary Colwell’s book ‘Curlew Moon’

4. Orwell Youth Fellows Zoom meeting and Q and A with Professor Michael Jacobs, Professor of Political Economy at the University of Sheffield, an environmental economist and writer, and former Special Adviser to Gordon Brown on energy, environment and climate policy, 5th Jan 2022

5. Guardian Newspaper article Shocking state of English rivers revealed as all of them fail pollution tests, Sept 2020

6. Professor Dave Goulson’s report, ‘Insect Declines and why they matter’

7. More than one in ten UK species threatened with extinction, new study finds, Wildlife Trust, Sept 2016

8. WWF website article ‘Is this the future of UK Nature’

9. The Natural History Museum’s article, ‘UK has 'led the world' in destroying the natural environment’

10. RSPB article ‘RSPB calls out UK’s lost decade for nature as the UN reveals ten years of missed targets’

11. Summary of Biodiversity in the UK: bloom or bust?

12. ‘State of Birds Report’ 2017

13. RSPB article Wednesday 1 December 2021: New UK Red List for birds: more than one in four species in serious trouble

14. Butterfly conservation - The UK and England butterfly indicators (21st June 2018).

15. ‘With millions of UK birds vanishing, it's time to Let Nature Sing’ RSPB website

16. Bird indicators BTO

17. 'Little good news': Govt on track to miss two-thirds of its own environment targets, Sky News Jan 19th

18. Farmers paid to protect nature in dramatic overhaul of subsidies scheme, Sky News

26 January 2023

George Monbiot Orwell talk on Journalism, Politics and the Climate Crisis, October 2022

Literary & Cultural Recommendations

A.M.Ruffle

Treading a fine line: journeys along borders

Seeing Presidents Xi and Putin shaking hands this week reminded me of Colin Thubron’s ‘The Amur River: Between Russia and China’. This is an entertaining and informative account of a very impressive exploit: in 2018, Thubron, ‘in his eightieth year’, set out to travel the length of the Amur River, a large part of which forms the border between Russia and China, ‘the most densely fortified frontier on Earth’.

I knew very little about this region and I enjoyed discovering about both the contemporary situation and the historical power struggles between various players. Episodes in which Thubron recounts his sometimesdramatic experiences are interspersed with sections explaining the political and cultural background. He employs various locals as guides for short distances along the way but at times he is alone and attracts suspicion as a single, elderly and clearly western traveller. His exploits include being interrogated at length by police in Sretensk, after unwittingly straying near some joint military exploits, and suffering debilitating injuries in a riding accident in Mongolia (he continues regardless).

This week a smiling Putin seemed to joke that he was envious of China’s economic success, and Thubron reveals how bleak the future seems for many in Russia’s Far East, where residents feel they have been forgotten. Teenagers at a school he visits look blank when he asks about plans for university and careers (‘They come from poor villages, the teacher later tells me. They would be lucky to find jobs at all.’). Cheap Chinese goods are ferried across the river by low-paid Russians, and in Khabarovsk Russians express resentment of the Chinese traders in the markets, who are officially prohibited but employ Russians to front their businesses in ‘semilegal partnerships’.

The 1858 Treaty of Aigun established much of the modern border when China ceded lands north of the Amur to Russia. It is referred to by Thubron’s Chinese acquaintances as invalid, as part of China’s ‘century of humiliation’ involving many ‘unequal treaties’ and the establishment of British Hong Kong – hence the nervousness of Russians about possible Chinese attempts to reclaim these territories. However, Thubron shows

how the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk, which confirmed Chinese ownership of the land and stopped Russian expansion in Siberia, was similarly forced upon Russia through Chinese military superiority. A shocking example of the countries’ different perspectives on history is seen when Thubron visits museums on either side of the border. During the Boxer rebellion of 1900, Russian fears of invasion led to a massacre of the Chinese minority in the town of Blagoveshchensk; this event is graphically depicted in the Chinese museum in Aigun but glossed over in the regional museum of Blagoveshchensk itself.

Another book exploring the troubled and complex history of a border region is Colm Tóibín’s ‘Bad Blood: A Walk Along the Irish Border’. For me this was a classic example of ‘armchair travel’ as I read it during my tenday Covid-enforced absence from school. Tóibín’s evocative descriptions of the landscape and the weather (mostly windy and rainy, if memory serves) helped transport me to an unfamiliar time and place. Tóibín walked this route in 1986, in the year following one of many Anglo -Irish Agreements, and published his account soon afterwards. For readers with no memory of 1986 this is a highly illuminating though sometimes confusing read. Reasonably enough, Tóibín assumes a certain knowledge of contemporary politics and frequently refers not only to the IRA but also to the RUC, UDR and INLA.

The 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement seems to have had the opposite effect from that intended, and the book presents a depressingly bleak picture of communities full of resentments and fears, where the cycle of violent attacks and reprisals offers no hope for the future. Again and again, while walking in the countryside, Tóibín comes across ugly obstacles of concrete and metal, where roads leading into Northern Ireland have been blocked by the authorities to prevent weapons being brought in from the Republic. Local residents have to make long detours to reach nearby shops or workplaces via official crossing-points, and police circle overhead in helicopters for their own safety. The publisher’s summary on the back cover of the book calls this ‘one of the most dangerous strips of land in Western Europe’.

Like Thubron, Tóibín himself meets with suspicion. Arriving on foot at an isolated hotel in the north, he finds the staff clearly taken aback by his southern accent and nervous in case he belongs to a terrorist organisation. There are more light-hearted episodes, for example where Tóibín takes a break sailing with friends on Lough Erne, attends sporting and cultural festivals and makes a detour to the Catholic pilgrimage site of Lough Derg. His ambivalent feelings about religion lead him to take a detached and

often amusing view of the pilgrimage, even while immersing himself in the highly ritualistic proceedings and sharing in the hardship of fasting and staying awake all night. Even the sectarian tension provides some comedy. At another hotel he finds the Protestant guests from Omagh friendly and interested in his journey; however, as they chat over borscht, a soup from eastern Europe, he makes the mistake of mentioning that the Pope (then the Polish John Paul II) regularly eats this dish in the Vatican. ‘Everyone looked down. The room echoed with a deep silence. [They all] paled at the remark.’

Paradoxically, the very hopelessness of Tóibín’s 1986 account made me feel more optimistic about positive change in divided regions. Knowing that the Good Friday Agreement did bring an end to the Troubles in 1998 means we have a very different perspective from contemporary readers of ‘Bad Blood’. I wondered how the 1998 agreement had succeeded where so many others had merely served to worsen tensions, so it was intriguing to hear the news this week that it may have been an MI5 agent making completely unauthorised comments who convinced the IRA to participate in the peace process. I do not mean to suggest that there are no dangers for Northern Ireland now, and indeed the phrase ‘return to a hard border’, heard so often since the Brexit vote, has much more meaning for me after reading this book. However, young people living in the area today have clearly grown up in a completely different world. Will this apply to Russia and China? If people read ‘The Amur River’ forty years from now, I wonder what their reactions will be.

Mr. Green

Here is a list of some novels which have won the Booker Prize over the years (in chronological order) which I would recommend to Sixth Formers as excellent general reading –

The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Ballard

Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Staying On by Paul Scott

The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch

Rites of Passage by William Golding

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally

Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner

The Bone People by Keri Hulme

Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively

Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Possession by A.S. Byatt

The Famished Road by Ben Okri

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle

The Ghost Road by Pat Barker

Last Orders by Graham Swift

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

The Sea by John Banville

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

Ms. Jones

I am an exceptionally slow reader. There, I’ve confessed it. It’s something I’ve always struggled with, particularly when I was a university student and had to read loads of papers, often hundreds of pages a week. Even as a teacher, I find it can take me longer than I’d like to read students’ work, particularly if the handwriting is less than legible… It’s immensely frustrating as I LOVE to learn and I adore a compelling story.

However, audiobooks and podcasts have been complete game changers for me. Some might argue that nothing compares to the feeling of pages in your hands or perhaps listening rather than reading is just for lazy people. Nothing compares, though, to listening to an audiobook narrated by an actor who can switch tone and accent to embody different characters in a text. Listening to a story also allows me to enjoy the story, rather than become frustrated at my slow reading speed. I often listen on my commute to school or whilst doing chores around the house. If you go to the library section of Sharepoint, you’ll find a bunch of science-y podcasts on the chemistry reading list that I highly recommend. However, here’s what I’ve been listening to recently that has very little to do with science (most of these are most appropriate for Sixth Formers and staff):

• Not Past It: Each week, the host picks a moment in history that happened that same week and how it continues to impact our lives today. I thoroughly enjoyed a recent episode on the history of blood banks – who knew being a blood donor was a job in the 1920s! Another recent episode on the history of Barbie dolls was also fascinating.

• The Outlaw Ocean: This podcast is an outstanding collection of investigative journalism about how utterly lawless the sea can be. From illegal fishing to modern-day slavery and piracy, this podcast opens your eyes to these often overlooked and under-reported crimes. I have to warn you that this one is pretty dark and certainly not one that you can binge-listen to. However, given that many of the goods and food we consume are transported across the sea, it’s an important listen.

• The Happiness Lab with Dr Laurie Santos: So, this one has a bit to do with science… What do you expect though – I’m a science teacher! I’ve been following this podcast for a few years now and I always learn something new. The host, Dr Laurie Santos, is a Yale psychology professor who brings the latest scientific research together with ideas from philosophy to explore what really makes people happy.

If you have a chance to listen to any of these, let me know what you think! I’m always trying to find new podcasts to listen to so please let me know if you have any suggestions too.

Film Reviews and Recommendations

But her friend is nowhere to be seen

Now she walks through her sunken dream

To the seat with the clearest view

And she's hooked to the silver screen

The Royston Picture Palace is the community-run cinema not two minutes walk from my house. I saw Frozen there in 2013, the year after it opened, and I’ve attended infrequently ever since. It was almost ten years later at a showing of Spiderman; No Way Home, which I attended with my younger brother, where I first saw an advert about volunteering but the influence the cinema - both the people and the building - has on me has increased so dramatically since 6th March 2022 that previous visits seem almost insignificant.

I find something incredibly satisfying in making sure everything is in the right place, in asking people whether they want still or sparkling water but what I really love about volunteering is the films. As a volunteer I can watch all the films for free. I do tend to skip out on children's films, biopics or anything related to the royal family and a combination of illness and holidays mean I missed some of the films I was most excited for (you won’t see Fire of Love or Aftersun on this list) but I think I’ve been to the cinema more times in the past year than in the previous sixteen combined.

In a clip from the press tour for Don’t Worry Darling Harry Styles famously says that his favourite thing about the movie is that ‘it feels like a movie’ . What he was actually trying to say was that the film felt like it was made for the cinema. Whether this is true about Don’t Worry Darling or not is debatable, but some films are made to be seen on the big screen. I spent a good proportion of lockdown watching movies (using platforms of varying legality) on my laptop but there is something so magical about the moment when the curtains roll open a little wider after the adverts, about the big screenevery face so comically large - and about the second of taut silence - while the credits begin to roll - as everyone processes what they have just watched.

I don’t know anything about film theory, I have watched a good number of the so -called great films but I wouldn’t consider myself a critic or an expert in any way. Cinema is about shared experiences, shared enjoyment and so, although I can’t comment too far on the quality of a film, I think I am qualified to compare the experience I, as a member of a shared audience, got from watching each film.

- Hannah Wicks

Parallel Mothers

A film about two mothers in very different circumstances who have their children on the same day, in the same hospital and how their relationship progresses. The second best of two Spanish language films starring Penelope Cruz I saw this year. The premise was interesting but I think the film focussed too long on the wrong things and I was unconvinced by the romantic subplots that seemed to be there for little reason. However, overall if you are particularly interested in Spanish language and history I would recommend this film.

The Godfather: 50th Anniversary Screening

It’s the Godfather. What else do I need to say?

I would definitely recommend seeing it in a cinema if you get the opportunity though. I guess I’m waiting until 2025 to see the next one.

The Batman

I am not a superhero movie kind of person. I hated the Dark Knight because I watched on a school whiteboard on one of the sunniest days of the year and could not see anything that was happening. I suppose if I’d watched this movie in the same setting I would have hated this too because around 85% of it takes place in the middle of the night in torrential rain but I did enjoy it and for a superhero movie I think that’s an achievement.

La Traviata (National Theatre Live)

It turned out that my godmother was in the audience of this opera in person as I watched in the cinema. The National Theatre Live programme is an excellent way to see theatre and get the atmosphere without going to London. I can’t remember too much about the opera but obviously I didn’t hate it.

Operation Mincemeat

This film is about the real-life operation to fool the Nazis about the location of the D Day landings. The plot failed to be consistently compelling - as did the romance - but the writing and acting were excellent, and I think this managed to achieve the same balance of humour and suspense that Killing Eve does so well. This was the first film I saw where the cinema was more than half full and so despite the fact, I was sitting right at the front on one of the more uncomfortable seats I remember the experience of this film positively.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore

The third instalment in a series of Harry Potter prequel films. A total waste of time. I would be concerned about how JK Rowling is going to manage to save the convoluted mess that is the plot of this series in the next two instalments but I’m so uninvested that I’m not sure I care.

Benediction

This was an exploration of the life of war poet Seigfried Sassoon after he returned from the war. It wasn’t bad but it took itself more seriously than it should have. It was almost two and a half hours long and you felt every minute of it. If the script had been edited a bit more (and most importantly the montages of thematically irrelevant real World War One footage had been cut) then it might have been an incredibly touching movie. If you’re willing to sit through it, both Jack Lowden and Peter Capaldi are very convincing.

Everything, Everywhere, All At Once

I have been purposefully ignoring the public opinion on this movie which seems to s eesaw every week. The fact that this film is my favourite of the year is such a pain because I have to attempt to say its name. I’m not sure all the other volunteers agreed with me though (especially after the stress of the credits rolling mid movie) and t he audience certainly looked dazed as they left the cinema but I loved it. The plot worked despite all its convolutions; every idiosyncrasy felt like it belonged; the visual effects were amazingespecially given what they were working with - but most of all I think it was the characters who really sold the movie. Even the most outlandish parts of the film worked because they felt so real. Michelle Yeoh and Stephanie Hsu’s characters, especially, felt like normal people trapped in a movie. This is definitely a film to see in the cinema.

Thor: Love And Thunder

In my opinion some Marvel films verge on movie length adverts for merchandise, He-man style. For every WandaVision you get a Thor: Love and Thunder. It had nice music, bright colours and a couple funny jokes but overall, this movie felt like it was made to sell toys to seven year olds.

Brian and Charles

This film was heartwarming and funny and original, but it was originally a short film and what works as the plot and content of a short film does not work for a feature length. It was about a man living in rural North Wales building a surprisingly sentient robot out of, amongst other things, a washing machine. The explorations of loneliness were really touching but the plot felt weak, and a lot of scenes felt like filler or workshopping. A sweet film nonetheless but if you’ve seen the short film, you’ve seen the longer one.

Where The Crawdads Sing

This was the second film I saw where the cinema was almost sold out. It’s about a girl in the swamps of North Carolina who is accused of murder. Her trial is interspersed with flashbacks to her childhood where she is abandoned successively by all her family members and ostracised by those in the neighbouring town.

Taylor Swift was my top artist on my Spotify Wrapped in 2022 so I was very excited for this film as she had written a promotional song for it. I had borrowed the audiobook from the library and listened to it during the first week of my long GCSE summer whilst I painted a fence. The book was alright - although fairly unnerving given the author’s own alleged involvement in a thematically similar murder - and I think the movie was an excellent adaptation in preserving the slightly mediocre spirit of the book. My only strong feeling about this film is disappointment that the Taylor Swift song was played in the credits which I, as a volunteer, don’t watch.

Bullet Train

Another book-to-movie adaptation. I hadn’t read the book for this one but I’m not sure that making most of the characters in a Japanese novel white was entirely the best idea. This film followed a collection of intelligence workers and assassins and their misadventures on a bullet train. It was trying very hard to be a nineties style action blockbuster and it did have a lot of grandeur and I do have a general memory of it being quite funny but overall, it failed to leave a lasting impression on me.

Where Is Anne Frank?

This is an animated film about Kitty, the girl Anne Frank addressed her diaries to, who wakes up in the present day with no idea what has happened. I haven’t yet cried at the cinema, but this film got me close. The plot felt quite heavy handed in places - although maybe it works for a children’s film - but the animation style was beautiful. It felt so different to what’s currently on trend and I think it beautifully and effectively communicated character and tone. I wouldn’t call this a must see but it’s definitely worth the watch.

It Snows In Benidorm

The Spanish Government wasted their money sponsoring this film. At very best it makes Benidorm seem like Great Yarmouth but 10 degrees warmer. I actually did enjoy the beginning of the film and especially Timothy Spall’s character’s weather obsession and I was curious how all the threads would be tied up neatly. But they just weren’t. I’m not against ambiguous endings but this film felt like it was completely missing the final ten minutes. Not a single theme or plot was satisfyingly wrapped up. This film had so much promise, but it just felt confusing and lacklustre.

See How They Run

Maybe it was just seeing this film after a run of mediocre ones, but I actually really enjoyed this. It was funny, the characters were compelling, the mystery worked. Overall, I had no complaints.

Starring Sam Rockwell and Saoirse Ronan, it follows a police officer and inspector as they attempt to solve the murder of an incredibly unlikeable man - the director of the planned film adaptation of the Mousetrap - in 1950s London.

Visually it felt very Wes Anderson but the plot very much felt like an excellent Doctor Who episode or, thematically, an Agatha Christie novel. Not a Great Masterpiece but I would recommend this film to anyone wanting something to enjoy.

Official Competition

This film was about an eccentric movie director, a proud stage actor, a sell out and the interaction between the three of them. The better of two Spanish language films starring Penelope Cruz I saw this year.

The ending felt a bit rushed and the rest of the film felt like it lacked momentum but other than pacing issues it was a very decent movie. Penelope Cruz shone in this one (I’m slightly confused why she was nominated for Parallel Mothers and not this at the Oscars) and I think it was her acting and her character that sold the movie.

Ticket to Paradise

Starring Julia Roberts and George Clooney as a divorced couple attempting to stop their daughter from marrying a guy she just met, I was very excited for this movie as Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again is one of my favourite movies and this was directed by the same director - also Kaitlyn Denver and Billie Lourd both star in Booksmart, another of my favourite films - but it was a real disappointment in the end.

It felt very awkwardly white - much more so than Mamma Mia which still feels uncomfortable - none of the jokes hit - although maybe I’m too young to be in the right demographic - and there were no ABBA songs - sadly this is the case for far too many films. Also, I saw the trailer for this film at least five times and it included every single major plot point and twist in the entire movie, which wouldn’t have been a problem if it were a compelling film but it wasn’t.

Don't Worry Darling

Don’t Worry Darling was the second film directed by Olivia Wilde whose first film was Booksmart (previously mentioned as one of my favourite films). This film, and Olivia Wilde’s name, will forever be better known for the drama surrounding it. I have nothing new to add about either the drama or the film which hasn’t already been said. Harry Styles’ accent was hilariously bad, Florence Pugh was brilliant and she can do no wrong, the plot verged on nonsensical. I don’t see enough people talking about incel Harry Styles though which I think is a shame.

Amsterdam

Another film I watched for Taylor Swift. I had less hope for this one - given the poor reviews - and my expectations were proven right. It thought far too much of itself and the casting was slightly ridiculous. Just because you can get so many famous people in your film doesn’t mean you have to. It was somewhat unnerving to meet a new minor character and it would be Rami Malik or Anya Taylor Joy or Robert De Niro and it was never someone you didn’t recognise. It just took me out of the film. If you were considering watching this I would instead watch See How They Run as it is a much better movie with a fairly similar premise.

Emily

I am as anti-biopic as I am anti-superhero film (hence why you won’t see Elvis or Blonde on this list) but I think this one breaks the mould. I read Wuthering Heights in Spring 2021 (partly because I liked the Kate Bush song so much) and it was one of the first grown up

classics I’d read. Although it is not an adaptation I think this film so accurately captures the hopelessness and unnerving spectacle of Wuthering Heights. In the current Jane Austen/Bridgerton regency romcom renaissance this film feels like a welcome, depressing break (and they actually wear shifts with their corsets if you care about that sort of thing).

Triangle of Sadness

This is a classic example of good premise, poor execution. This film is essentially Lord of the Flies with the survivors of a luxury shipwreck. The plot was passable, the acting was fair, but the film dragged on a lot. Reviews seem to think this film had a whole new view on privilege, but I don’t feel like it was saying anything particularly original. Also, I’m never going to be able to take a film with so much vomit in it seriously.

It’s a Wonderful Life

I am not a great watcher of Christmas films - I haven’t seen Love Actually or Gremlins or the Grinch or Nightmare Before Christmas - but I have always enjoyed It’s a Wonderful Life. The anti-suicide message might have been more effective if George wasn’t such a nice, selfless guy. Overall, I think people tend to view this film as either too old fashioned or too depressing and, although it is those things in part, it’s also a strong film that still holds up today.

Matilda the Musical

The combination of a majority full audience and a large proportion of children meant that we were practically cleared out of popcorn (although thankfully not too much was spilled). This is the film adaptation of a stage musical adaptation of a book which already had a nonmusical adaptation and I don’t think this was necessary.

I am an Emma Thompson hater to my core and if someone better had played Miss Trunchbull, I think this film would have been fun and camp and preserved the atmosphere of the musical. As it was, the tone felt confused, and they cut a lot of the best songs and characters in favour of a shorter run time and a slightly mediocre extra ballad.

I Wanna Dance With Somebody

I try to avoid biopics when possible, but I saw this one. As someone who never listened to much Whitney Houston and who knew precisely nothing about her life, it was at least interesting. What I genuinely hate about biopics is the fact that - because they have to cover someone’s entire life - they cannot be a cohesive film with a convincing plot and themes because that isn’t how real people’s lives work but they also cannot be an accurate portrayal of someone’s life because that’s not something you can do in less than three hours. If you are less anti biopic than me or if you really, really loved Bohemian Rhapsody then you’d probably like this film. At least the title of Bohemian Rhapsody was semi-clever, I’m still struggling to work out whether this one has a double meaning.

Till

Although this is another film based on real life events - the lynching of Emmett Till in Mississipi in 1955 - in this case I think the more focused time period meant you were able to properly understand the characters even if the plot wasn’t totally cohesive throughout. Maybe this was also down to the superb acting from Danielle Deadwyler. She was the standout element of this film. I do think that a lot of the messages from this movie are really important and shouldn’t be overlooked but her performance was one of the best I’ve seen all year. (It should definitely have been Oscar nominated)

The Banshees of Inisherin

Even the second showing of this on a Sunday evening (usually a quiet shift) got a decent turn out. Despite the fact it’s, at first glance, about two men and their petty quarrels on a remote island off the coast of Ireland in 1923, this is one of the most popular films of the year. I do think the hype surrounding this film meant that it was slightly disappointing for me. It was funny in places, it was thought provoking in places, it was original throughout, but the plot felt mainly contrived and I wouldn’t say it’s the best film I’ve watched this year. Still, I think others might get more out of it than I did, and I would recommend it - although not for the faint hearted (the horse scene in The Godfather was nothing in comparison to the pony scene in this film).

Tár

This film made me feel something and I’ll give it that. It’s about a conductor and composer, Lydia Tár - played by Cate Blanchett - who is accused of grooming. I and other people I talked to found the ending to be rushed, which stood in direct contrast to the meandering pace of the rest of the film.

I think the director wanted the film to prompt ‘nuanced’ discussions about the Me Too movement and if I’m being cynical I think Tár was written as a woman to create sympathy for her character. However, her gender is only directly mentioned in a few throw -away lines and I think it would have been really interesting to see more how the accusations levied against her interacted with both her gender and her sexuality. For example, the film did not overtly bring up the fact that straight men who are accused of things similar or worse (ie. David O. Russell) are still handed amazing opportunities (ie. being able to direct Amsterdam).

At the beginning of the film Tár tells an interviewer that - to paraphrase - she doesn’t think that being a woman has had much effect on her life and work. When watching I thought this view would be challenged but unless a subtlety was lost on me it was only reinforced. I think by trying to subvert expectations the film lost a more interesting storyline. Cate Blanchett sold the character entirely. Also her costume designer really understood how to dress her; there wasn’t a single miss in her entire wardrobe.

The Fabelmans

The Fabelmans is Steven Spielberg’s attempt at a semi autobiography. I could call this film derivative Oscar bait or I could call it a celebration of cinema and I would be right on both counts. I loved the parts of the film that dealt with film making, film watching and film editing. The more character driven side of the plot however had the content of an eightepisode TV show and by packing it into two and a half hours any nuance the plot might have had was smoothed out making it seem cliched and predictable. I don’t want to sound like a broken record complaining about the portrayal of women, but all the female characters felt like they were only in the film to be laughed at other than Michelle Williams’ character who still felt quite one layered.

The Whale

This film was primarily about the link between mental and physical health or more specifically about the main character using overeating as a form of self-harm to cope with grief. It was just as - if not more - depressing than it sounds. The first and last scenes both felt slightly out of place and Sadie Sink’s character was very dimensional and overall, poorly written but both Brendan Fraser and Hong Chau were very convincing in their roles. This is not a film for everybody, but I think in a sense it did capture the same cathartic experience as an Ancient Greek Tragedy.

Blue Jean

I was the only volunteer who stayed to watch this movie (and we only showed it once) but I think everyone else was missing out; at least, I loved this film. It’s the type of movie you’d expect to find scrolling through BBC iPlayer or All 4; it’s set in 1988, in an unspecified area near Newcastle and the main character - a netball teacher - spends the film coming to terms with Clause 28 (prohibiting teachers from ‘promoting homosexuality’) and the fact that, due to the nature of society, being a lesbian cannot be apolitical. The blue tones throughout this film were beautiful (if you like that in Twilight you’d like this movie) and the long shots of Whitley Bay made the whole thing stunning to watch. The best scene in this film was an argument between Rosie McEwen’s character and her love interest. They argue on the street as the instrumental section Blue Monday plays from inside the bar and just as the argument finishes the verse plays (‘I see a ship in the harbour / I can and shall obey’). It’s difficult to convey the absolute brilliance of this film and partly I think it’s objective - this is very much my kind of movie - but if you enjoy low stakes introspective dramas then I would highly recommend this movie.

Women Talking

This movie does what it says on the tin. A group of Mennonite women discuss whether they should forgive the men in their colony after discovering the culprits behind a series of attacks. I am, in fact, the kind of person who is very much up for watching women sit in a circle and talk for a hundred minutes but I did feel that the script was a bit lacking in places. The characters spoke more like authorial mouthpieces than real people and the attempts at humour were so incredibly jarring and not actually very funny anyway (they seemed uncannily Joss Whedon which was very off putting). I started to think they were meant to be unfunny, but I couldn’t quite convince myself.I did think this film had something interesting to say and I think the cast did as well as you would expect (given it included Claire Foy, Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand) but I couldn't really get over my problems with the writing.

What’s Love Got To Do With It?

This follows Lily James’s character in attempting to make a documentary about her best friend’s arranged marriage. I think the final twist was handled fairly well (despite being pretty predictable) but other parts of the plot (which I will avoid spoiling) were brushed under the rug which really annoyed me. Nothing about this film was particularly egregious and maybe it would resonate more with someone else but for me this film just lacked something to make it good or to make it interesting.

I might recommend some films more than others but what I really recommend is going to the cinema. Compared to streaming, cinema tickets are far more expensive but cinemas, especially independent or community ones, appreciate every visitor and there is something uncapturable about the cinema. A number of these films might have been saddening bores but I wouldn’t say I have ever not enjoyed going to the cinema and I’m still hooked to the silver screen

A Plea for the Classics

Arguably chronological precedence does not necessarily reflect the value nor worth of any piece of writing. However, any literary text whether it be prose, verse, or any other form of written expression, cannot always be separated from its historical and contextual origins. Thus, it is sometimes novels that reinvent a theme and discuss it in an original context that are the most evocative. Of course, it would seem quite monotonous if I were to suggest the reading of the sempiternal Dickens, everenduring Shakespeare, and the plurality of authors of the ‘Classics’ of English (or equally of international) literature – despite their undeniable merit. Instead, I would rather suggest a return to what these ‘Classic’ authors would have considered to be the Classics, namely what we would refer to as Classical Literature. Whilst I am possibly biased on this topic, it would be worth mentioning that many authors across a range of literary movements and eras, would have at least read if not drawn inspiration from the epics (The Illiad, Oddyssey and later The Aeneid) or been influenced by the prominence of ancient Greek and Roman tragedy and comedy. I strongly believe that any student or lover of literature ought to read the essential works of the ancient world. Even if the settings may seem distant or obscure the themes and ideas within them are often recurrent in later writing. Thus, the magnitude of these works forms an unavoidable foundation to the history of literary endeavour. Furthermore, not all translations of ancient texts follow the same rigid style or structure, for instance certain translations of ancient comedies might surprise with their modernity of language and expression. It is certain, therefore, that Classical Literature should by no means be isolated as archaic or obsolete, but rather as eternally relevant and surprisingly contemporary at times.

- Carole Tucker, ed.

Some of the pillars of ancient literature:

Greek and Roman Epics

The Illiad and Odyssey of Homer

The Aeneid of Virgil

Greek Tragedies & Comedies

The Orestia, Medea, Oedipus etc.

The Frogs, Lysistrata, The Wasps etc.

Roman and Greek Poetry – Ovid, Sappho, Horace, Hesiod etc.

There is of course an extensive list of the many different texts that comprise Classical Literature, not including all of the later literature based around themes of mythology or ancient history. Many translations are available online on sites such as Poetry in Translation, or of course in the school library and Classics department. Additionally, there are several interesting stage adaptations of ancient drama some of which are available online, as well as dramatic readings of major works, which I greatly recommend.

Closing Notes

ver erat aeternum, placidique tepentibus auris mulcebant zephyri natos sine semine flores; mox etiam fruges tellus inarata ferebat, nec renovatus ager gravidis canebat aristis; flumina iam lactis, iam flumina nectaris ibant, flavaque de viridi stillabant ilice mella.

Spring was eternal. Flowers which had never been planted were kissed into life by the warming breath of the gentle zephyrs; and soon the earth, untilled by the plough, was yielding her fruits, and without renewal the fields grew white with the swelling corn blades. Rivers of milk and rivers of nectar flowed in abundance, and yellow honey, distilled like dew from the leaves of the oak.

- Ovid Metamorphoses Bk. I Lines 106-112

Nam tener ac lactens puerique simillimus aevo vere novo est: tunc herba nitens et roboris expers turget et insolida est et spe delectat agrestes. Omnia tunc florent, florumque coloribus almus ludit ager, neque adhuc virtus in frondibus ulla est.

In early springtime, the year is tender and milky, resembling the age of our childhood: the grass is fresh and swelling to fullness but wanting in firmness and strength; the farmer delights in its promise. Everything then is in bloom, and the nurturing fields are a riot of bright-coloured flowers, though the leaves on the trees still lack any vigour.

- Ovid Metamorphoses Bk. XV Lines 201-205

As this issue and term draws to a close, it would be fitting to reflect on the symbolic nature of rebirth which accompanies every spring. There is something remarkable in the perpetuity of the natural world and its enduring character in all periods of time. With little of our own doing, the world seems to revive and become green again, almost without us noticing flowers and buds peek up from the earthen ground and burnt umber branches It is comforting to know that alike the sun seasonal change will endure without concerning itself with our mortal deeds.

And yet with the various environmental challenges we face today even this synchronised order might seem threatened. Ovid, although arguably far removed from the troubles of today reflects on a similar concept throughout his Metamorphoses. In the first and last book he notes the contrast between the ver aeternum eternal spring of the beginning of the universe, and the new established order of the four seasons. Springtime is likened to puerique … aevo the age of childhood. It is a time of rebirth and growth, and yet it is still tender and fragile.

To me this represents the contrast between the constant aspect of Nature and the unpredictable sense of change. Spring is at once a time when boughs of greenery shoot up from the trees and when delicate blooms brave the still frigid mornings and wavering rain and hail.

And yet, it is interesting that the seasons are likened to the course of life. Indeed, however variable the challenges of nature might be, what remains is the force of evolution, both within one’s own character and the rest of the world. It is important therefore to remember that the thriving and burgeoning of nature is also representative of one’s own independent progression and adaptation. Thus, spring lends itself to personal development and growth as well as the general flourishing of nature. It is a time where weaknesses can be strengthened, and independence of thought and spirit can be fortified.

Whether this may come with a newfound broadening of ideas, or exploration of new interests, or observation of an undiscovered landscape, there are many different ways in which one can expand and cultivate the intellectual and spiritual facets of the mind. Writing (and of course reading) often fulfils this quest for newfound knowledge and ideas.

I hope that this issue of Synthetic Violet might convey the occasion of exploring and foster imagination, inspiration, and literary endeavour throughout the Lent term break, and I thank all those who have contributed to this term’s issue of the magazine as well as all the readers who will take the time to share and appreciate their work.

Hence, I shall conclude this issue with the hope that the holidays might bring rest and recuperation but also the flowering and invigorating strength that follows the tide of the seasons.

I wish you all a florescent Easter break.

- Carole Tucker, ed.

Art

- Tengyu Zhao

Notice

Synthetic Violet the Perse Literary and Cultural magazine will be accepting submissions for the summer term issue throughout the term and Easter holidays.

Here is a reminder about the genres we accept (you may be published under a pen name or your own)

• verse (poetry of all kinds)

• fictional prose (short stories, creative writing etc.)

• essays on varied subjects

• book recommendations/reviews

• art (both for the covers and within the magazine)

Please email any contributions or queries to cmtucker@perse.co.uk.