Cornwall Art and Culture from genius loci

Clies is a regular contributor to Genius Loci and also writes for 'Cornish World'

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1. THE DAYS OF SUMMER’S PASSED BY (by Clies Stevens)

I had thought for this piece I would try and describe a typical morning in our house, which starts when Finnegan decides it is long past the time when I should be up and about and seeing to the important business of the day, taking him and Barney for the morning walk!
Summer or winter this starts at around 5 a.m. with a dippy delirious dog snuffling with a cold wet nose in my face. Needless to say I am so pleased at being woken in this manner that I immediately spring to life and bury myself further down the quilt!

Finnegan however has learned from an early date that if he transfers the wet nose routine to Margaret she will utter a few well-chosen words and LO! My feet hit the floor and I glare at the happy wide-awake dog that is now prancing around the bedroom like a happy lunatic. This happens summer and winter!
Grumbling threats at him I dozily make my way down stairs where he has gaily thundered past me and is now doing the ‘crocodile’, to whit grabbing at anything with those long slim lethal (if you are a blade of grass) jaws.

The sound of the kettle coming to the boil is a most happy sound don’t you think? One strong coffee in hand I sit at the table and glare at this hound who pays no attention to muttered threats what so ever; he knows he is a spoilt brat and well loved. At last its on with my boots and his collar, and then the bit that always brings a smile to my face, I make a phone call across the road to waken the household where Finnegan’s best friend lives, and their door will open a crack and Barney dog will trot out, pink tongue lolling from his mouth tail firmly held high as he makes another spectacle of himself as I slip his collar

Looking at these two dogs that are firm friends suddenly the morning takes on a whole new perspective. The air is soft but cool, starlings are making that so lonesome sound of theirs and a female blackbird scolds us for disturbing her breakfast. We walk past silent houses and bungalows whose occupants are unaware of 05.30 a.m. and the first fantastic roseate pinks and glimmers of gold brighten the eastern horizon across the dark bay.
If I look to the West the sky will have blues and purple’s that surely no artist’s pallet could ever match and is still spangled with fading stars. At last we climb up the hill and here I always stand to look out across the bay, today hedge warblers and little Jenny wrens are singing, the bay has a bank of dense moisture (fog to you) lying like it sometimes does along the line of the Godrevy reef, and then flowing in huge gentle pearlescent curves inland across the Gwithian headland, a real ancient temple of Cornish heritage this, and further on until all the valleys are full of pink tipped billowing clouds of mist.

Time to move on, the dogs need the S.P.M. (sniffs per metre) and patience is in short supply while so many exciting night laid smells are out there in the fields! We walk (I walk they trot with barney yipping to himself in his throes of delicious excitement) up the first field path, luxuriant green and yellows and pinks with the white and blue of high summer now turned to pastoral mellow browns and gold as nature slows down from the hectic time of recreating herself. No wonder the ancients worshiped the female goddesses, because nature herself is definitely female.

More hedge warblers are singing, with robins mixed into the chorus now as the rooks and crows croak to each other high on the power lines. In the distance a cock pheasant is rasping that thrilling call of the wild from the steeple woods the sound of his call travelling smoothly in the still air. The pinks and gold from the rising of the master has now flooded the day with that most precious of commodities, light. I can see the tiny circular cobwebs glistening with the dew, and the long stemmed ancient wild grasses that man first learned to make bread with are bowed now with seed heads dripping with shiny diamond drops of dew.
A few weeks ago we came here to find an amazing sight.

The fields were full of thousands of fluttering white wings, countless thousands of the cabbage white butterfly had settled onto the abandoned cabbages in the fields and fluttered in clouds of lifting, falling shimmering purest white.
Swallows and swifts had found them too and with screams of high glee were feeding furiously, and soon as we watched the butterflies settled on us, and the three of us became covered in white fluttering dying insects, their egg laying done and now exhausted from the passion of creating new life settled on anything that offered a moments rest.
The earth became a carpet of barely fluttering white as they died in their thousands. I hardly dared walk but there was no turning back now and we walked on over a carpet of exquisite white wings and delicate bodies that lay thick on the rough brown earth. All kinds of birds now joined the feast and they had scant regard for our passing as we quickly left them to this feast. Such a thing I had never witnessed before and I felt privileged that hot sunny afternoon.
But now we walk on past the wild chicory plants and meadow sweet seed heads, towards lower Carnstabba farm where a proud bantam rooster lives. He terrifies the dogs, as he is afraid of nothing and owns the very ground he struts on. His hens follow him clucking in admiration of this gorgeous bird with those deep scarlet and flashes of vermilion and blue feathers, his bright red comb held high and his fierce eyes watching all around him. His spurs are huge and it would take a brave dog indeed to tackle this king of the old farmyard. The farm retains the name but has long since been sold to convert the place to accommodation, barns that once smelt of cattle and sweet hay now have cars parked in front and double glazed windows in the thick rough granite walls.

I usually have some of Margaret’s wild bird seed
In a bag for this demon of the farm, and he has learned that if he is loud I will feed him and his ladies with delicious offerings, the dogs staying well back in disgust! Next on the list is Annie, the hunter mare. I don’t know her real name but if I call her she will plod up the field to claim her apple, Barney whinging at the fact that I am giving food away!
Time is a precious thing, but if one can take just a couple of minutes to appreciate beauty in an animal, things somehow come into perspective, Annie’s coat rippling with muscle and shiny with health, such a powerful beast yet so gentle as she softly, delicately takes the sliced apple from my hand, her stiff whiskers telling her when to use the jaws.
This is just the tiniest part of one of our mornings but I don’t want to bore you as you read, so I will leave this morning here for your imagination. The sun has risen over the eastern hills and flooded the land with light and warmth; Barney is vainly chasing rabbits while Finn
Just stays aloof as befits one of his stature in the dog world. The buzzard family are now beginning to work the first thermals of warm air and the day has begun now, human life is moving, I can hear voices from the distant caravan sight. Time to go, home now and feed the dogs their breakfast of chopped chicken and sausage, and for me? A good coffee and a chance to try and tell you what it has been like.
Clies Stevens

THE MURDER OF THOSE MAGICAL DAYS
I was going to call this composition “MURDER ON THE MOORS”, but my wife thought that was not a good idea. However I insisted on keeping “MURDER” in the title. This is all about the magical stories I heard as a child, told time and time again by an elderly generation of adults to wide eyed youngsters who never tired of the oft times tall (some very TALL) tales of Goblins and Piskies, fairie folk and mermaids and Mermen, and all the hotch potch of little folk who came to life in our minds as the stories were told.

I could see in detail in my minds eye the finely worked waistcoats of emerald green with stitching of the finest gold thread in it, buttons of turquoise and breeches of finest black kid, the colours that ran through the wings of the fairies as they flew, flashing fire like brilliant colours, the dresses of the most exquisite gossamer shot through with stars; and the stories of the feasting and laughter, and the music, that magical mystical come hither music as the little folk sang and danced together on the special days of their year.

Of a winters evening my dog and I would sit and gaze into the flames of the coal fire, and I would discuss with him all I had been told that day while the old valve radio set played softly in the corner of the old bay window. I had heard all of this from my Grandparents, all this about the little folk and how they took a delight in getting humans to be “PISKIE LED” and it was serious stuff, while punch lay tight against me as I sat cross legged and we both watched the castles in the flames. Whenever I stopped talking he would whine softly and nudge me with his long black nose for all the world as if he was impatient to hear more.
To an imaginative 7 year old of course his best friend in the world new all that I was saying, Did he not always know what I was going to do and joined in with great enthusiasm? Later up in bed in the dark his eyes would shine as he watched me make up my own stories about all the folk of the moor, now sadly a dying race as children have forsaken those imaginative days for X boxes and TV, pop stars, games played on computers instead of trying to out run your dog who would bark in delirious pleasure as we ran across the pale golden sands in a cool north wind.

Sadly I can see the end of magic, the end of the days when a child’s imagination could build stories from the colours in a dragonflies wings as it hovered and flashed in the warm afternoon sun, the sweet smell of honeysuckle and sage fuelling the tale shared between friends as we all sat beside the old pond and tried to outdo each other with tall tales.

We take so much for granted these days, a child comes home from school and sinks to grinding halt in front of the TV and talks in grunts to the busy mother who is glad the TV is occupying the offspring. And in the meantime the little folk are outside with the nose pressed hard to the double glazed windows, the dog is fast becoming a pest who needs to be taken out as an obligatory duty instead of sharing an adventure or two.
A lot of the very stuff of life has gone and is still fast eroding from our lives every day, I am just so glad that I learned of the other side of life, the days of Fairies and hobgoblins, Piskies full of mischief and laughter and the magic they all could do.
My elders could remember tales from their own childhood as can I, but will our children? I hope so but I fear it will be of some computer generated game, not the delicate gossamer winged creatures of our yesterdays.
Clies Stevens (September 2004)

Where the heart is? By Clies Stevens
Have you ever felt that peculiar feeling of oneness, a sort of completeness of the inner spirit and a sense of utter well-being? No? then I must apologise because every single time I walk the hills around my home the sense of belonging to it is so acute that it takes a little while to get to grips with it. Now, being a member of the master race (Human) we have this annoying penchant to analyse 99.999% of all we see or hear or feel. ME too!
So at times I have sat at the top of Carn Uny or Trencrom or Rosewall indeed wherever I happen to be when that particular aspect of our personality hits and tries to take over.

For an engineer or a pilot perhaps this could be a normal way of life, analysing as you go along.
To someone like me when I get out of that particular mood I find I am annoyed to have wasted precious time trying to analyse something I have a deep and abiding love for.
The rain that drenches you as you struggle to make the slippery way down from the hilltop has in all probability arrived here from the Caribbean Sea, the wind blowing from the West brings the moisture laden clouds until it strikes the high black cliffs and makes the up draughts for the screaming seabirds and black hooded crows, watering the diverse plants that grow along our coast.

This pure fresh water that we all moan and grumble about is of itself a miracle of nature and for us to have it fall on our shores, well what more can I add to that?
See where analysing can get to you?
This is the pure soft water that the fruits of the wild will soak up, the wild grasses with nodding seed heads for the winter flocks of birds and the purple blackberry for all. Today the Curlews called above our heads as they flew to feed elsewhere as the tide pushed them off the mudflats, that wild oh so wild and lonely call sending a thrill down my spine in the brightening gloom of early morning.
Melancholy and wild is that call they make, the old lead bird keeping the flight in order as they go.
Crickets are heard now as the dawn rises, what a sound they make no wonder the ancient Japanese made delicate cages for them and fed them the very best their kind needs.
Further on is a small stream I have never known to run dry even in the driest of summers, choked now by watercress and mustard cress, and the horses know it too.
Today I followed the example they set me, and tried the flavour of the wild cresses as I stood ankle deep in the clear running water among them. A crisp and fresh taste stung my taste buds with a tang of mustard, and more was to come even if Barney dog winged in the background.
(When you are his size everything is bigger than you)
I noticed the ponies eating the white root stock they dragged from the watery gravel, so I cut a piece, smelt it and washed it (See the analyst there?) then finally tasted it. How fresh was that root? It was so clean tasting and so very crisp and white I shall keep this place a secret allways; jealously guard it so the ponies can enjoy it forever.
Early in the spring wild Garlic perfumed the breeze and the wild strawberry gleamed red among the brilliant green of fresh grass, and I munched those too as we ambled along, (though I was not very popular arriving home smelling of Garlic!) The celandine family studded the fields with the brilliant yellow of their kind, the old folk used these flowers to make a dye. White daisy has now given way to a tired old Mother nature who needs to rest, while her fruits of the summer sun and rain feeds the wild and spreads their kind further.
I just hope I can still analyse that day when I am too tired and old to take that walk, because home is where the heart is, and for me that home is my beautiful land of dreams and colour,
KERNOW!

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