Diary of Pip Rippon

Met with Van this evening in one of our favourite bars on the Middle wood road to finalise some details of his early life that I felt I didn't have enough detail on. As usually is the case with these meetings, we ended up consuming our fair share of ales and Van, as is also usual on these occasions, had to smoke and slurp his way through numerous narcotic substances. Yet, it has to be said, that this is when he is at his most lucid and then I am able to glean those little nuggets of information which would otherwise become lost in the ether of time. Being an offworlder, I am not always tuned into the subtleties and nuances that to a native can mean something entirely different, so on evenings like these, one word said in a different way can make all the difference to my understanding and subsequent transliteration, that makes it available to you, dear reader. Tonight's word: Mardy. Said in context: Thas reyt mardy, as a scratcher, which basically translates to: You bad tempered cat.

Out for a proper yomp along the Loxley valley, then up to Stopes by the track, and then joining up the dots over the back of Stannington to finally head back down to the Rivelin valley and back into Hellsborough; a good outing. No significant sighting of anything especially interesting, but Van was in the bar afterwards, and he had this to say, whatever this is: "I sees the dulolyn and the dulolyn won, I sees the dulolyn and the dulolyn won, squawkwings and things, batten 'em up, batten 'em up, batten up them squawkwings, they ain't no good to us or them, they ain't no good. Batten 'em up."

Up to the top and out the back of Stannington, on the look-out for The Xin, but no sightings, as per usual. The Head stone was my target and what a fine thing it is. According to local lore The Head Stone is also known as Stump John, the Priestley Stone or the Cock Crowing Stone, and I found it this time at the head of the Rivelin Valley -- it is said to move depending upon the migration of curlbeak. The murk was particularly heavy for the time of year, especially of the descent back through some sort of stickle wood, and I lost my way for quite some time; luckily, as always Shad was with me, so despite not knowing where I was, I didn't ever feel like I wasn't safe.

I was in the shower this morning and thought of someone who I haven't thought of in my waking thoughts for at least 20 years, probably nearer 30. I wonder what that means? Either they just died and it was some sort of psychic message from the murk, or the hive mind is injecting thoughts into my head?

Up on Wadsley common, there is a hidden glade. Its location shifts readily in time and space, so unless you are there at the correct time (of the year, or of the day, I currently have no idea) and in the correct place -- from what I have discovered, in relation to the white obelisk atop Loxley Edge, then you are likely to never find it. If you do, however -- as I did today, then you will see the Sentinel stone (worshipped by some, notably the Moor and Ley clans, as the Shaman stone, see humans in the nether lands -- the nethermen). From what I have been told, that is where you are supposed to feel closest to Dunlockslyn, and who am I to deny that feeling, having now visited that hallowed earth. The strange thing was though, once I had seen this mystical thing, as if shattered, I wandered the common aimlessly and without direction, my only solace the view of distant Wilkin hill, to which my gaze kept returning. Despite knowing the place like the back of my hand, I experienced places never before seen and through tears of sweat, had an otherworldly experience. Maybe I grazed my shin and took in some rockcrust or some spore, since like the shifting of the bracken dunes up there, the paths suddenly unfolded before my eyes, my buddy Shad and an ever present redfront my only guides.

This is third part of a journal entry in which I talk about my interests in folklore (read part one and part two)

In order to do some proper research on The Legend of Van Hallam and the Loxley Kraken of Hellsborough Hole, I had to get my hands dirty, and get myself down to the places that might be mentioned in the legend and see for myself whatever there was to see after all this time. As somewhere that was instrumental in the industrial revolution, and various earth works will have been undertaken, I wasn't expecting much, but field work is part of the job.

There are several goals of active folklore research. The first objective is to identify traditions within a social group and to collect their lore, preferably in situ. There are many old boys and gals that remember this legend, but details are so generic these days, that anything specific is just too long gone.

There are many other tools I have at my disposal as a folklorist to do my research, but front and centre, is getting down and dirty at the site in question. Which meant really immersing myself into The Masons Arms (properly, The Freemasons), and understanding any shared vocabulary, which could vary by sometimes somewhat divergent shades of meaning; this I needed to use thoughtfully and consistently. I know, a terrible hardship, I'm sure you'll agree.

As a folklorist I also tend to rub shoulders with other researchers, we share tools and inquiries in neighbouring fields. No-one was particularly looking at my Kraken research, but I spoke to many other folks interested and researching the literature, anthropology, cultural history, linguistics, geography, musicology, sociology, and psychology of the Hallamshire region.

As the pub mentioned in the legend still stands, it was at the invitation of the current tenants, that I ventured into its vast underground catacombs. Those tunnels stretch deep, long and fetid beneath that most liminal of junctions above at the crossroads. Those dark archways and blind passageways take you way, way beneath the Loxley river, the red brick channels oozing the dampness and silt of the river. It is like going back in time a thousand years or more. Dark, dank and oppressive with fumes of wet sulphur, mist and murk saturating the ether, clogging your lungs, making you cough heavy phlegm with every forward step.

It was stumbling through this vile snoughing damp, with just the beer light to guide me, that I happened upon a small sarcophagus.

Buried behind a lifetimes collection of brick-a-brack, rubble and detritus, lodged in a tiny hole which could have been made to home it, possibly washed there from Dale Dyke when the reservoir collapsed and caused the Great Floods of 1864 -- but likely not -- in all likelihood, that parcel had survived in its hiding place for generation after generation, going back all the way to shortly after 66 Ma. That package had lain there all along, since it was originally deposited. Lain to rest there by Milting, guardians of The Hinge.

Opening that sarcophagus was nothing if not an anti-climax, I have to admit.

A few pumice blocks, if it wasn't for their uniform shape, and rubbing them with my fingertips -- noticing they were carved rather than formed, I'd probably have discarded them there and then as unimportant shards of worthless rock.

Luckily, those slight indentations sparked my interest.

The smallest of scratches -- but to the untold experience of all those professionals, all those discussions, all those inebriated chats with anthropologists, cultural historians, linguists, musicians, sociologists, psychologists, and the rest, they paid their price in gold. My fingertips recognised something, something of significance. Small, insignificant, tiny scratches on rough stone.

Maybe the most important indentations ever realised? I don't like to blow my own trumpet, but, it's significant, I know.

Lucky they were noticed. Had I not, those semagrams contained in the pumice, the liminal importance of the junction, and ultimately, Hellsborough and The Dark Peak wouldn't have been discovered.