Antiques

All’s well in search for clean water

PAGAN VIEWS by JO BELASCO

Most people have heard of Glastonbury Tor and the red and white spring water which is said by some to have healing properties. The history of Glastonbury mixes Christianity and paganism with a flourish. People of all faiths and none at all come on pilgrimages from all over the world. Some seek healing for themselves or others, some forgiveness, some guidance and strength. Luckily, we have many lesser known but equally magical watering holes to choose from in West Dorset. Some like Upwey Wishing Well and the silver well at Cerne Abbas are well known, others not so much. In my Pagan view it’s good to have a few elemental H2O places you can walk to from your home. Places you can pause and recharge. Recently, there seems to have been a lot of new scientific evidence explaining why we feel better near water or ‘blue spaces’. The closeness of water apparently lowers our blood pressure and slows the heart rate. Probably, the ancient racememory equivalent of the relief you feel when you get the wifi password in a new area. Often villages were built round a village pond, as Portesham is. And tellingly the house next to Portesham village pond is called Lawtie. Before churches and courts were built, marriages or handfasts and land disputes were probably performed by the pond-side. There were many wells called Lady’s or Our Lady’s well, which were dedicated to The Virgin Mary. In certain periods of history the worship of Mother Mary was disapproved of so the adoration of Mary or The Mother went underground – quite literally! Sometimes I find old wells and springs in my wanderings and feeling a special connection with the place I choose to make it a personal pilgrimage. When there is a full moon I may take a few gem stones to soak up the beams and the wild running water as seen in the photo. Other times it’s not so solitary. Sometimes it’s the liminal draw of crossing from one place to another across water. Stepping stones or a huge tree trunk bridging two sides of land. In the photo you can see just such a tree at Happy Island in Bridport. It was there for many years and provided such joy to children and adults alike. In this time of world drought we are reminded why water has always been such a valued resource as it is essential to life.

ROARING: The lion’s head fountain at Glastonbury HOME: Lawtie Springhead is the house name next to the pond in Portesham BOOST: Gems and crystals recharging under running water in Abbotsbury

HI HO SILVER: The sliver well at Cerne Abbas and, right, just standing in water feels good to me (welly boots essential.)

The West Dorset Magazine, August 26, 2022 51 Down to earth Everybody loves a sunflower, and why not?

Sally Cooke lives in Tolpuddle with her husband, two grown up sons and her spotty rescue dog. You can follow Sally on Instagram at Sparrows in a Puddle

It’s hard not to love a sunflower. Looking like the sun itself from a children’s picture book, buzzing with bumble bees all day long and growing tall enough in just a few months for even my 6ft 2 son to look up at, it’s easy to see why they are so popular. This year though, as we all learned that they were the national flower of Ukraine, growing them has been a show of solidarity with the people from the war-ravaged country, and there are even more sunflowers than usual in the gardens of Dorset. Sunflowers are associated with folklore all over the world, representing happiness, optimism, peace, admiration, and devotion. Although we tend to think of the sunflower as one big flower, it’s actually a large flowerhead made up of hundreds of tiny flowers or ‘florets’. If you can keep the slugs off them they are perfect for growing with schoolchildren with prizes often given for the tallest flower. I’ve seen some very tall ones this summer, but nothing approaching the current Guinness World Record height of an incredible 30ft 1 inch (9.17m)! It was generally believed that sunflowers followed the sun’s passage across the sky during the day. But in fact, only young plants will do this and researchers have found that fully grown sunflowers will face east. By facing the sun first thing in the morning they warm up quickly and are more attractive to the bees. A friend of mine grew some tall sunflowers at the back of a border one year but was not impressed when they flowered facing into her neighbour’s garden. My garden sunflowers are now going to seed, and the sight of their bowed heads makes me feel a bit melancholic. But having watched the bumble bees have their fill of nectar and pollen earlier in the summer, it’s now time for the birds. Sunflower seeds are extremely nutritious and birds love them. I like to put the seedfilled head out on the bird table. Before long the sparrows are pulling out the seeds and using their strong bills to break open the outer case to feed on the heart inside. I’ll keep a few seeds though for growing next year’s beautiful sunflowers.

Excuse me while I rabbit on a bit about rabbits

JOHN WRIGHT is a naturalist and forager who lives in rural West Dorset. He has written eight books, four of which were for River Cottage. He wrote the award-winning Forager’s Calendar and in 2021 his Spotter’s Guide to Countryside Mysteries was published.

Considering what a great nuisance they can be, it is difficult to believe the rabbits ever struggled to make a living in Britain. Rabbits, however, are latecomers to the British landscape, having seen the last ice age through in the Iberian Peninsula. Used to the balmy climate that characterised the Mediterranean region in the 12th century, they struggled with the British weather when brought here by the Normans. To keep the poor darlings alive and protected from predators and poachers, they were provided with purpose-built quarters known as ‘pillow mounds’. Dorset is fortunate in still possessing several of these relics, the most notable being atop Pilsdon Pen where they look like the burial mounds of giants. A mound would be built, perhaps with some readymade tunnels or rudimentary doorways made from two brickshaped turfs positioned to form an inverted ‘V’, and the rabbits left to make the best of it. The mounds and the enclosed area around was managed by a warden and thus called a ‘warren’. The reason that so much trouble was taken was that the rabbit was an introduced luxury and owning a warren a symbol of wealth. And it was not just the lords of the land that treasured their rabbits, the Church kept them as a Friday comestible, rabbits having been declared a type of fish. ‘Pillow mounds’ is what we now call them due simply to their shape, but previous names directly referenced their inhabitants. In Britain we use the word ‘rabbit’ but this was once only used for young rabbits. ‘Coney’ was for the adult rabbits or rabbits as a whole, and believed to be derived from ‘cunning’. A pillow mound was thus called variations on ‘coney’ plus ‘earth’, giving us such delights as cunningerthe, coningarth, conyger, conigree and the slightly eye-watering cunnery. Rabbits inevitably escaped their comfortable quarters and wild populations quickly became acclimatised, by which I mean only those that could survive the weather had offspring. The monetary value of rabbits dropped from the modern equivalent of £12.50 to next to nothing and their status-value with it. Rabbits became the food of the poor. Warrens, with or without custom-built quarters, survived to within living memory and my old friend Gerald told me of the farm he worked on which had a low, close fence all the way round. It was rabbit-proof but punctuated with little doors that opened only inwards. Rabbits could get in but not out.