White Horse Pilgrim

An impractical dreaming

It's all very well to dream about the spring and summer that will come like two friends following one-another along a familiar trail. I may as well ride out and meet them. They will be there. So shall I, and we shall share happy times. We always do, it's in our nature. And it's in my nature to dream of other things too.

The roan stallion carried me along a grassy Downland track. We’d cantered along the level valley bottom then trotted up a short rise to rest in the lee of a beech copse. Low clouds scattered occasional drops of rain from a grey winter sky. Doru reached down to graze the thin upland grass. A good hundred meter sweep of grass separated me from the far eaves of the woods, a tangled mass of willow, spruce and beech. Not a sound disturbed us in this secluded spot. Then I saw her, and not for the first time. Off to my right, deep in the shadowy beech wood, a grey horse stood silent. On his back a tall woman watched me. I could make out little in the gloom, but I knew her flowing dark hair and dull green garb. She was a mystery, and that made her all the more beautiful.

I wanted to ride after her, as I had desired before. But each time I had felt as if a hidden hand restrained me. Then when finally I set off her horse was too fleet footed. Each time I had lost her. What a fine game she was playing with me! The romantic in me wanted to meet her, talk, obtain her phone number and meet again. Ride together, socialize and, to be honest, perhaps hook up too. Let’s be more subtle, then. I raised my right hand in greeting. She responded likewise. Then a roar behind captured my attention. I turned to look. It was the gamekeeper on his quad. That was no problem for me: I was riding on a right of way. As for the lady, she might have some explaining to do.

I turned back, but she had gone. I sighed, for I longed to meet her.

Well, we know of the pitfalls in relationships between Men and Elves (or Fairies). Strange partners apt to vanish then come back to snatch the children, marching to a different drummer, fickleness, jealousy. Come to think of it I've received all but one of those from humans, and she'd have taken the children if we'd have any. Oh well, a writing project can include some cleansed daydreams and might-have-beens.

I have done a little research for the writing project in progress - now that the text book is (almost) out of the way. What might have my equestrian nomads have worn? On one hand I have the Huns and Mongols as models, on the other hand Tolkien's Lord of the Rings characters. (There are also historical accounts as to how the Mongol Horde smelled, but let's not go there right now. It's not nice.) The LOTR characters are most romantic, of course, therefore best for my kind of book. The men are easy enough: think Aragorn or Boromir. Cloaks, boots, stuff like that. As for the women: well perhaps not quite as shown in the picture. I mean, at least she ought to be wearing leggings. However Arwen and Eowyn fared better. Patient not to mention obsessive people have done some interesting work to recreate the LOTR film costumes. A part of me is quite envious of Arwen - imagine her splendid layered flowing riding garb when she rescued Frodo. No, don't snigger, men are allowed to be envious of such things once in a while. Besides, all that has just given me a fresh idea for the developing book. I have a character who could look just a little better - indeed prettier - which I assume would have mattered to a bunch of equestrian nomads.

Parallel world

Slipping out between storms we explored the quiet ways of the parallel world out there amidst the chalk hills. An old farm track set off south, heading uphill from a village that has a pub but no shop or post office, then down into a dry valley.

Here the track leads gently downhill. We walked, my eye on an approaching shower. With a little luck it would pass by us to the north - and it did. The field on the right, behind the hedge, belongs to a racing stud. One day I cantered Brena up the track only to notice a group of young Thoroughbreds watching us. They did not move, and I imagined a thought bubble rising from them: "you call that galloping?"

Other tracks converged to join mine. Here's a view looking down into the valley. Many are the times that I have ridden here, and most often I see no-one else. Occasionally a farm worker is out in a field. However the tracks don't lead anywhere in particular, which is why they were never made into asphalt roads. Once, however, I did come across a group of Japanese tourists on foot with a map. They seemed to know where they were going.

Then we plunged into the tangled woodland that lines the valley bottom, an old coppice wood of spindly willows and whatever else can survive the dense vegetation and dry soil. For this is a chalk valley and there is no surface water. The surface remains just a little damp after two days and nights of hard storms. Once the villagers would have come here to cut osier for baskets and hurdles. But no more, alas, and probably the craft ceased to have commercial value half a century ago.

Here's a coppice tree that has just grown and grown. This one looks like recent growth that has been cut back - it may have begun to obstruct the trail - then thrown up a flurry of shoots. Caught at the right diameter, cut and trimmed nicely these make great riding crops. See how bright the foliage blooms after all that rain.

Away into the distance the trail led, rough and hoary. If Hobbits or Dwarves had appeared I might not have been terribly surprised. Tolkien was a local man after all. This is a place where the imagination can run wild, at least in a certain general direction. And very often it does just that. Like Aragorn I should be riding in long supple boots and a travel-worn green cloak.

Emerging onto an arable plateau at the valley head I gazed across a stormy vista. Grey sheets of rain swept across a sodden land. Wind gusted in mockery of man and beast, threatening a soaking. However I was not alarmed. My raincoat was tied across the front of Brena's saddle whilst she is quite waterproof. And a rainy day does make for undisturbed riding. A few gusts, a little rain, and the day-trippers scatter back to town.

Back on the ridge storm clouds sped past, a dark contrast to the bright canola fields and the righ green chalk-land grass. Now, the ride over, sun graced our stopping point. There was no more need to wield the mailed fist of storm, rain sheet and thunder. Brena and I had regained our transport and mobile shelter. "But look," the sky told me, "your parallel world can be a wild place. It will be just whenever I choose. You are the guest who treads these trails by nature's grace and favour."

Over the northerly vale a temporary blue sky smiled down, knowing full well that another downpour would follow a couple of hours later. But for now we basked in the sun here on the very fringe of our parallel world. Here mystery ended and modernity began, a surprisingly sharp division. Is that why most people who park here don't go a mile from the safety of their cars? True, a few ride bicycles or motorcycles off the beaten track, however speed and machinery tend to favour a certain blindness.

Here on the fringe we relaxed. Brena grazed. I drank coffee and lay in the grass. How much longer could I postpone our return to the busy modern world? At least until the next bank of dark clouds drew close.

Grazing upon memories

The sheep upon the hill-fort graze upon the memories of millennia.

For nearly three thousand years these concentric chalk ramparts have stood above the vale, in their organic simplicity surmounting rather than dominating. For a few centuries people lived here, then abandoned their home to shepherds and drovers. Invading Romans found the fort empty and disused, and passed by.

Here it is today. Abandoned to shepherds.....and to dreamers. Thomas Hardy knew this spot on the far north fringe of Wessex. Tolkien too was familiar with Uffington castle. It is Weathertop and stands not far from the Barrow Downs - the final photo in this post was taken in their midst. If you had seen the fort on a dark thundery night as I have, each blast of lightning silhouetting those ramparts, you too might have thought of Gandalf fighting off the Ringwraiths.

The sheep graze upon memories, and also upon the imaginations of dreamers both famous and humble.

Tolkien's local bar

It being my birthday, Danielle and I went to Oxford today. There are a few things to report on, however today I shall concentrate on a pre-dinner visit to the Eagle & Child pub - once the favourite drinking spot of J R R Tolkien and C S Lewis.

The Eagle and Child is a very small friendly  pub in central Oxford, and rather busy owing to its auspicious associations. Here I am outside looking a little like Indiana Jones, which was deliberate since I'd just visited the Ashmolean Museum. I feel the need to seem a litle intrepid passing through those august doors so as not to appear too ordinary a visitor. After all, once upon a time T E Lawrence was a regular.

 

A narrow passageway leads from the street, spawning a pair of drinking nooks to left and right, opening into a long thin bar with a counter to the right. At busy time a queue spreads into the passageway, leading to calls for assistance from the barman akin to Barliman's cries to Nob at the Prancing Pony. The ale is good, of course, and the food on offer looked wholesome.

Beyond the counter is the so-called Rabbit Room, where Tolkien, Lewis and their friends used to meet. It's a small space, homely and well suited to talk - and to the convenient placing of fresh orders with the barman. I can imagine Hobbits in here, and the occasional Dwarf and Ranger.

 
Visitors will, of course, be brought here. When will I see you here, Lytha? And who else will drop by?

Magical smithy

We breasted a sunny ridge then descended a rutted track to a warm broad valley. At the bottom we turned right, northwards, following an indistinct track between great fields of waving grain. This is a right of way, but so little used that the grass grows thick and high. We passed two hikers wading waist-deep through the vegetation.

 

Then at the head of the valley came the Ridgeway, here a winding strand of white chalk across a green rolling landscape. It may look like a well worn farm track, however this is the relic of a Neolithic trade route and perhaps the oldest road still recognisable on this island.

 
We reached a gate at the side of the trail, marked by a simple sign. I jumped down from Brena, tying her to a convenient tree where she could graze in the shade. For we had reached Wayland's Smithy, a well-known point on the Ridgeway. Of course, as we shall see, this is an ironic place to visit with a barefoot horse.

 
Wayland's Smithy is a Neolithic burial mound, around five and a half thousand years old, headed by impressive Sarsen stones. Behind lies an earth mound almost two hundred feet long by fifty wide. It is a strange, ancient place so old that its original purpose is obsolete and its ritual function - beyond interring a few bodies - obscure. Now the tomb looks like a peculiar piece of sculpture amidst a grove of trees. A convenient figure gives scale.

 
The figure of Wayland was a Norse blacksmithing deity. After all wasn't the forging of iron a magical activity that endowed power upon the smith and those who wielded that which he made? How Wayland became connected with this place I don't know. But a tradition grew up locally that a horse left tied outside with a silver coin in the evening would by morning be shod by supernatural forces. That's odd really: I'd have expected Wayland to have been busy fashioning blades.

 
From there it was a short ride up to the vast concentric earthen rings of Uffington Castle, then a longer and quite silent ride down the gentle dip slope of the ridge seeing no-one. Up here it is just the main ridge track that attracts visitors. Brena and I had a great sweep of wide open green countryside to ourselves. I responded by taking in the view, and Brena by trying to eat as much of the vegetation as possible.

 

 

 

Barrows and forts in racehorse country

Finally I have managed partially to negotiate the morass of incompatibility in which Internet Explorer 9 and Typepad flounder. At last it seems possible, sometimes, to post photos.

Yesterday Caroline visited again with her gelding Kevin. I arranged a ride down near Lambourn in racehorse country.

The hills are swept by the broad straights and curves of myriad racehorse gallops with their deep, springy and quite exclusive turf.

But the sparse sweep of the hills are dotted by Neolithic burial mounds and the concentric earthen ramparts of ancient forts. Indeed modern man calls these structures 'forts' however no-one alive knows what they were used for.

This landscape is a palimsest of journeys through the ages, most of them involving horses. Neolithic dwellers left the great drove route along the chalky crest. Romans added a few routes. Farmers from the Dark Ages onward added trackways. These all still exist, though most are now used differently.

Around Lambourn the gallops are the most obvious feature of the landscape after the hills themselves. Together with Newmarket, this is the core of the national racing industry. In each valley there is a racing stable, perhaps several, and the vast spaces needed to exercise the horses. Everywhere is grass - turf for exercise, grazing where fine calcium-bearing grass springs from the chalky soil, pastures for good hay.

The first photo shows the view as we rode uphill alongside an all-weather exercise track. This one must be at least a mile long, gently rising all the way.

The second photo shows a little-used trail, probably an old farm track, heading towards the concentric ramparts of Uffington Castle. The fort is huge but has quite a shallow profile viewed on the level.

The Neolithic Ridgeway runs from left to right immediately in front of the fort. This is the trail that we took, heading west with the wind on our faces and the sun on our left cheeks.

Here the Ridgeway is a narrow track of beaten chalk, quite unlike the wide turf way of the eastern sections that I know better.

There was a long distance walk in progress and a good hundred people passed us in the opposite direction. They were walking forty miles in the day, and a number did enquire in jest whether a horse may be hired.

We were walking on the right as there we found a wider grassy verge. It was natural, too, for Brena to walk on the right as she is a continental horse. I do have to remind her sometime that in this country we use the left side of the road.

Hedgerows are crowded with the frothy white of Cow Parsley, a snack beloved of horses (and, presumably, cattle). This is a lovely time of year. As T S Eliot wrote:

If you came this way in May time,
You would find the hedges
White again, in May,
With voluptuary sweetness.

So it is here in this season of rebirth. The land is white and green. Hedgerows are white with Hawthorn and Cow Parsley. The remainder is clad in green of various hues. It's a land of green and white dancing in the breeze.

The next stretch took us straight across a broad bright field, for here the farmer had not cleared the trail with herbicide. (They are supposed to do so across open fields such as this.) Here the old farm track has completely disappeared, now existing only in a legal sense and available to walkers, riders and cyclists. I trusted intuition to find the way, backed up by a map, and also found to my pleasure that Brena is happy for me to half-open a map whilst mounted.

It was an odd experience to ride across an open field such as this. Not much riding in southern England has this spacious character. Suddenly all references are far away. Plodding specks in a vast expanse, we could see for miles. It was like being on a small boat in the sea - freedom, exhilaration and loneliness all wrapped up together.

We were alone in a long, shallow valley where not a thing stirred - an agricultural wilderness. It was a little eerie, and I thought of the people and horses that must once have laboured here. What a bustling place this must once have been, in certain seasons anyway.

After the expanse of grass, we turned east again towards our parking place. There was one final ridge to climb, and here we "opened the taps". We must have cantered for the best part of a mile, enough to tire both horses.

A little experimentation showed me a good position with quite a forward seat, all my weight in the stirrups, giving Brena the freedom that she needed to use her body most efficiently. I had been looking forward to a good long canter for just this reason.

Then it was just a short mile's walk downhill to our vehicles, parked on a grassy square surrounded by gallops and the white railings peculiar to racing establishments.

The horses got the chance to graze on tethers, appreciating grass rich after an overnight rain storm. Indeed a good dousing has rejuvenated turf and crops alike.

Such are the rides that we enjoy in a landscape that inspired Tolkien's Barrow Downs.

Bluebells on Old Street

This is the perfect time to see bluebells carpeting the woods.

We started on the far side of the main ridge, in a shallow dry valley where I know a secluded place to park. Down there the breeze that bends highland grass is warm and gentle. Mews of buzzards carry through the air. Meanwhile bright sun reflects up off the track of beaten chalk. It's a hot still place.

It's strange to stop in a valley bottom that contains no watercourse. Probably no water has flowed here since the thaw at the end of the last ice age.

In tranquillity I prepared Brena. It took just a couple of minutes along a quiet lane to reach a historic drove road, the aptly named Old Street.

Probably this drove road fell into disuse when the great sheep fairs died out for which these hills once were famous. In part the trail remains as a great open swath of grass between the fields. But much of its length now bears many decades of woodland growth. Today's travellers enjoy a broad belt of trees, shady and pleasant, carpeted with bluebells each spring. It's a lovely place to ride.

In these parts abandoned roads are rare. Rather, roads tend to increase in size and develop ribbons of buildings. But this one died out. A map from the year 1940 shows this route simply as a path, the name Old Street shown in an archaic typeface reserved for ancient monuments. That would fit with the demise of the sheep fairs by the early 1930s.

Old railway routes contain relics of embankments, cuttings, bridges, tunnels and stations. In contract old roads leave little in the way of man-made structures, save in the mountains where heavier works may have been needed. (Back in Transylvania such upland routes, Habsburg relics, formed the backbone of my trails.) But Old Street contains not a building, not an inn, nothing.

Well, the route is short enough that a horseman could traverse it easily end to end in a day. Drovers alone, though moving more slowly and doubtless thirsty, being seasonal travellers could not sustain a hostelry.

So Old Street is a place to graze and picnic. Here one can stop and imagine a distant past. Rough-clad shepherds trudge by driving bleating flocks that snatch at every blade of grass. Heavily laden a creaking wain draws by, a pair of heavy horses straining and sweating. A tramp saunters by, stopping to ask for bread.

They must have been hot and thirsty in this warm April weather, and summer is not yet upon us. That must be the clue. What would they drink? There are no streams and few relics of dew ponds (I know but one). Whereas the villages to east and west have ponds still, wells and inns.

Old Street must have been the vagabonds' way. How ironic to ride up here on a fine mare, her thick white mane blowing about in the breeze.

Looking at the leisure walkers, cyclists and riders traversing the old drove road now, it seems to have come up in the world.

I do wish that old trails could tell tales. There would be some great stories from each of the ways through these hills. Those accounts would cover centuries and, in a few cases, millennia.

The grass and the thorn bushes, these would stand witness through the ages. So would a procession of horses, who have hauled and carried men and their goods through these hills since time immemorial.

On the other hand common tales may become tedious, involving what befell a farmer here and a shepherd there. Battles were few and far between, miracles too. This is the march of social history, for the most part, and not an epic.

So we have Tolkien, son of this county, and his epic. Names and places he borrowed. Nearby are the Barrow Downs, a little to the west lies Weathertop. The riders and steeds of Rohan would have thrived before the land was fenced. And then, adding to the given measure, my imagination is ready to create a magical mythical world to journey through.

Hillforts and campsites

I've spent two days and a night away with Doru, accompanied by Larynn and her horse Josh. We all went to that sweeping expanse of downland on the dip slope before White Horse Hill.

It is a broad open area devoted mainly to wheat and to the training of racehorses. Indeed this may be one of the few parts of our island where horses outnumber people.

However few with two legs or four were abroad on a July afternoon, and the landscape was nearly silent.

We stayed on a farm whose owner breeds horses, cattle and pigs, the three species mixing quite harmoniously on the tough dry upland sward.

The accustomed wisdom in this country is that horses are mortally afraid of pigs. However the farmer's horses did not mind their porcine companions, and nor does Doru object to pigs. Josh was wary at first but soon settled down. This fear of pigs is put down to "primitive instincts", however I've ridden where wild boar are common yet horses are unconcerned. Besides, do wild pigs predate upon horses?

We arrived and ate a hurried lunch, rested a little in the sun, then readied our beasts. Here is Doru prepared to set off, to explore these particular hills for the first time.

It's over ten years since I rode that far west within the downlands, and I was very happy indeed to renew that acquaintance.

Larynn wanted the opportunity to canter Josh despite the hard ground, so I led them to a place that I remembered. Ordinarily the racehorse gallops are quite out of bounds to outsiders, however there is one where a public right of way runs along the edge of a gallop.

The place is mapped however the landowners make no special effort to mark it. Anyway we found that mile of turf and pointed Doru and Josh along it.

In the midst of a wide open space the individual shrinks to a tiny spot, a beetle crawling across a great green carpet. So, even as our horses strove, we seemed to move but slowly across the turf. Indeed the two slowed to rest well before the end, for it was a warm day, the going not especially soft, and the ground slowly rising.

Then a gate led us to a narrow path, and that way carried us to a crest from where the great chalk ramparts of Uffington Castle were visible. Here is Doru gaining his first view of that splendid Iron Age relic that has fascinated people for so many years.

Crossing the Ridgeway we passed alongside the easternmost sweep of rampart, my mind filled with the imagination of ancient riders - strong robust people on sturdy mounts, equipped with blade and bow and full quiver.

Then we spied the White Horse, stopping to gaze across the slope towards the historic carving. It's hard to assess his form from ground level. But the perceptive may absorb the atmosphere of this old place where time almost stands still.

Then eastward along the crest of the hill, an undulating path where open stretches fall into curious wooded dips that shelter the traveller. So finishing our successfully navigated circular ride we returned tired and happy to the campsite ready for food, drink and rest.

Simple trail meals remind me of the Hobbits at Bree, with fresh bread and cheese, cooked meat and tart, good cider too. So we supped whilst our beasts grazed, the setting sun bathing all in soft golden light. Then talk flowed, tales of travels and far places, accounts of riding high and remote ways. Day ebbed and we became at one with travellers before, camping with our horses on a far grassy hillside wondering what dawn with bring. (I shall overlook the detail of Larynn berthed in her lorry.)

Fragmentary memories stand out. Opening an eye to gaze across a moonlit scene, both horses lain down to sleep. The sound loud through sun-baked earth of equine footfalls as only one slumbering on the ground can perceive them. Then an over-early dawn, for the elemental joy of the outdoors experienced closely brings also the penalty of being shackled to the revolving solar orb. The beckoning blanket of nightfall sent me to sleep and - too soon it seemed - a cold grey light roused me again. Ready for another day, a further ride, a new adventure.

South Country duality

I've encounted again my old friend Hilaire Belloc, a writer vibrant and varied. A man whose views could be odd (such as proposing abolition of modern democracy by recreated medieval guilds) or whimsical, nevertheless he makes me think. Sometimes one needs such a challenge, even if expressed curiously. I remember his exposition of the need for truth in advertising - a very reasonable call - illustrated by such examples as "Drink Bloggs' Ales - they make you drunk!"

There is a duality in his poems that expresses the loss and yet profit of the countryside, even as he perceived it decades ago - a man who walked and rode long leagues and remembered the great old inns where a traveller's horse might be stabled. Now that seems to belong to a nearly mythical past, though hospitality is still alive and well at certain inns in these parts.

There is the loss, of course, which I too feel on the open hillsides. Where are the voices and merriment, the music and dance? Are they not alike, the rustics missed by Belloc and the Elves imagined by Tolkien?

Wind and Thistle for pipe and dancers,
And never a ploughman under the Sun:
Never a ploughman. Never a one.

Then there is the goodness that may still be discovered. (Belloc was a Sussex man, lover of the neighbouring range of chalk downlands, so his verse might transpose easily here to this range of Tolkien and Richard Jeffreys and the Betjemans.)

I will gather and carefully make my friends
Of the men of the Sussex Weald;
They watch the stars from silent folds,
They stiffly plough the field.
By them and the God of the South Country
My poor soul shall be healed.

So, duality with melancholy staring one in the face and joy beckoning from the wings.

Isn't this, like so many things, a matter of perspective?

Still it is a wondrous thing to traverse these hills accompanied by a good horse whose feet fall light and free upon the rich sward. Even now the land retains its primeval mystery, its beauty, its strange combination of space and intimacy. Again - and rarely for this age - the traveller may feel unfettered as the breeze that whistles through the Hawthorn and past the Beech boles.

Here is timelessness intermingled with Belloc's duality and mine.

Bones of the hill transcendent

The fluid form of the White Horse flows across the rich sward like a placid stream.

At this proximity the fulness of the animal's form is unclear. Wandering the head and body and limbs, one is like a blind person exploring an object by feel. There is no close vantage point from which one may appreciate the wholeness of the White Horse, but only from the plains that sweep away from the sinuous foot of the chalk scarp.

Here is the top of the head, the branch climbing leftward an ear. Some steps to the right reveal the eye. Tracing the creature's layout one can but wonder at the vision of the makers. This is no pattern traced upon a flat canvas, but a design spread across a broad three dimensional surface this mimicking the rounded muscularity of a living horse.

The White Horse is massive and yet delicate, the narrow branches only a foot or two wide. The design is huge, but details meander at a human scale.

Inventive ones made the White Horse millennia ago, and others through the ages have cherished this symbol of speed and grace and civilisation. Neither did new religion despise this horse, nor modern people ignore the largest relic of neolithic creativity.

Throughout these thousands of years people have been involved in its upkeep. This is no pyramid made eons ago to stand mute amongst those ignorant of its purpose. It contains no buried treasure to dig up. There is no building stone to plunder. The value of the White Horse is in the idea of such a thing. Hence it has been conserved.

The horse has been connected with human life for perhaps the entire duration of the White Horse's existance. Provider of transport, conveyer of status, hauler of plough, steed of warrior, mount of jockey - many are the links between two types of creature. Thus perhaps one commemorated the other, and others maintained the memorial for the link - though changing - never once was broken. Now perhaps we need the horse materially less than ever before for the survival of our species, yet we seem to respect our equine neighbours more than ever. Thus has the relationship grown.

So perhaps this hillside is as meaningful as the archaeological site in the Ukraine where evidence was found of humankind's first domestication of the horse? As expressive too as the few places such as wildest Mongolia where ancient horsemanship is practiced still?