A bullet from the blue at the British Museum

Last Saturday I was telling again at the British Museum. I wouldn't normally blog about a place I posted on before, but the museum is so big and so full of wonderful objects from all over the world that I set myself the task of finding something I'd never seen before. It led me to the Ancient Greece gallery and amidst all the urns and other classical antiquities I found these lead sling bullets which date from the 4th century BC....

Now this is a museum filled with priceless and sometimes unique objects, from the Anglo Saxon Sutton Hoo Helmet, to the Egyptian Rosetta Stone and the beautifully crafted Elgin Marbles, which I suppose stand out far more than these sling bullets. In fact they are quite common and can be found for sale on the Internet. But what appealed to me was the markings on one of them.. On one side is a winged thunderbolt and on the other the inscription "take that"!

It is that inscription that caught my eye, because it made me laugh and that's the point. It just confirms what I have found with stories and storytelling; that people in the past were not that different to us and I'm sure that the person who made the bullet over 2300 years ago enjoyed the sentiment just as much as I did last Saturday.

Thanks to Alice and her volunteers...

Fossilized Journeys at Thornborough Bridge

Last weekend (The 4th-6th June) I was telling at the Wychwood Festival in Cheltenham and on route I stopped at Thornborough bridge which I blogged about last year... For photos and blog click here.

Its a great stop off point for anyone going to or coming from Oxford from the east, for not only is there the history of the medieval bridge and much earlier Roman and pre-Roman archeology, but also its a real beauty spot and surprisingly relaxing when you take into account the roaring traffic on the nearby A421. But what caught my eye this time as I walked the length of the old bridge was the deep scoring that covers the two inside walls of the bridge and it seems to me that it can only have been made by many generations of carts that crossed the bridge long, long ago. Certainly the marks were made after the bridge was built, because many of them cross multiple stones and some must be fairly old because they are now encrusted with lichens.

Wavy scoring across the stones
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Some very deep grooves

Lichen covering the scoring, suggesting its been there some time

Some of the marks even follow a wavy pattern, up and down and suggest that the cart wheel was perhaps damaged and a bit wonky! That's' what really caught my imagination about these marks; they really are fossilized journeys. I'm used to looking for graffiti on old structures; words and pictures scratched on stone long, long ago, and sometimes we can tell a lot about the ideas and beliefs of the people who deliberately left these marks. But what of this accidental scoring, who knows? Perhaps some were caused by an unruly horse reacting to an overzealous whip. Maybe some represent a carters attempts to avoid a drunk stumbling across the bridge who didn't have the sense to stop in one of the 3 V shaped stopping places built into the medieval bridge for that purpose. Or perhaps some were simply caused by weary travellers whose overloaded carts were too big for the bridge or who were in a hurry to get home for their tea; we simply can't know for sure. It's fair to say that many of these marks were made by local traveller. Perhaps they were peddlers, merchants and farmers taking goods to and from the local market, but other than that we can only wonder about these journeys from long, long ago. We can only wonder about these travelers and their travels set in stone!

The Bishops Palace, Wells and Newark Castle

Last weekend was a busy one and I took itinerant storytelling to new extremes, by telling at both the Bishops Palace in Wells, Somerset and Newark Castle in Nottinghamshire on two successive days. It was six hundred miles of telling and traveling in all.

The Medieval Gatehouses
The Cathedral gate to the left, the Palace gate to the right
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Wells Bishop's Palace is like no other Cathedral complex I've ever been before, which is probably because of the moat that still surrounds the Palace.

The second defensive gate which passes over the moat

Its that moat which not only gives you a real sense of the past, but also gives the whole of the Palace a real sense of peace and isolation. Its ironic that I was telling there to draw in visitors, but there was just a little bit of me that wanted to keep it all to myself; the way it was when I was setting up.

The Medieval Moat

The back of the Palace

Obviously many of the Bishops who lived in the Palace adapted the building and rebuilt them to suit changing tastes and all put their individual stamp on the place - Men like Bishop Beckynton who built the late medieval well house and topped it off with a sculpture of his favourite hunting dog. The importance of the residence can be seen in the fact that the gate leading to the Palace from the market is larger and more ornate than the corresponding gate leading to the Cathedral.

'Inside' the the remains of the great hall


My tent 'inside' the great hall

As new buildings were added older ones went out of use like the great hall which has now been given back to nature. My storytelling tent was pitched inside the remains of the great hall with a lone spiral staircase tower sticking out the ground immediately behind my tent and in front of me the remains of its huge walls, windows and first floor fire places that now hang in the air; now mere scars that hint at this buildings once lavish past.

Remains of the defensive moat wall

That said this building was not just about beauty, because many of the structures are still dominated by crenelations (battlements) and we should not forget that the medieval Bishops who dwelt here were landed magnates in their own right. Noble men who often imposed great burdens on the commoners and sometimes felt their wrath. In my home City of Norwich the Cathedral was sacked by the citizens in the thirteenth century and during Cade's Rebellion in 1450 the Bishop of Salisbury, Ayscough was murdered by the mob. At Wells it was Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury who was awarded a 'licence to crenelate' in 1329 and other defences included a portcullis in the inner gatehouse and also 'murder holes' used for casting down rocks and boiling water on attackers. Its a fact that many Bishop's Palaces and Cathedrals complexes were built with defense in mind, which says a lot about the medieval religious hierarchy.

The rebuilt well house
With Bishop Beckynton's favourite hunting hound on top


Looking into the well house

My tent inside the great hall with spiral staircase tower behind

The swarm (Look closely!)

That said I'm not going to overstate the defensive nature of the Bishops Palace. With its meandering moat of clear crisp water is really is a place of beauty and I recently came across a medieval poem which confirms that people long, long ago had a the same love of nature we do today....

Green turf amid silent trees and soft light airs
And a spring of running water in the grass
They freshen a jaded mind, they give me back to myself

They make me abide in myself

12th century French poem, Marbod of Rennes, Meditation Among Trees

I couldn't have put it better myself!

Thanks to Helen for booking me and Debbie and all the very friendly staff and volunteers who dealt so ably with a swarm of bees that engulfed my tent for a while and also looked after me so well.