Had It Not Come As A Complete Surprise, The
Emotion Experienced And The Resultant Mental Image Would Not
Have Been So Vivid; As It Is, I Can Mentally Stand In That
Valley When I Will, Seeing That Green-Wooded Hill In Front Of
Me And Listen To That Unearthly Music.
Naturally, after quitting the spot, I looked at the first
opportunity into a guide-book of the district, only to find
that it contained not one word about those wonderful illusive
sounds!
The book-makers had not done their work well, since
it is a pleasure after having discovered something delightful
for ourselves to know how others have been affected by it and
how they describe it.
Of many other incidents of the kind I will, in this chapter,
relate one more, which has a historical or legendary interest.
I was staying with the companion of my walks at a village in
Southern England in a district new to us. We arrived on a
Saturday, and next morning after breakfast went out for a long
walk. Turning into the first path across the fields on
leaving the village, we came eventually to an oak wood, which
was like an open forest, very wild and solitary. In half an
hour's walk among the old oaks and underwood we saw no sign of
human occupancy, and heard nothing but the woodland birds. We
heard, and then saw, the cuckoo for the first time that
season, though it was but April the fourth. But the cuckoo
was early that spring and had been heard by some from the
middle of March. At length, about half-past ten o'clock, we
caught sight of a number of people walking in a kind of
straggling procession by a path which crossed ours at right
angles, headed by a stout old man in a black smock frock and
brown leggings, who carried a big book in one hand. One of
the processionists we spoke to told us they came from a hamlet
a mile away on the borders of the wood and were on their way
to church. We elected to follow them, thinking that the
church was at some neighbouring village; to our surprise we
found it was in the wood, with no other building in sight
- a small ancient-looking church built on a raised mound,
surrounded by a wide shallow grass-grown trench, on the border
of a marshy stream. The people went in and took their seats,
while we remained standing just by the door. Then the priest
came from the vestry, and seizing the rope vigorously, pulled
at it for five minutes, after which he showed us where to sit
and the service began. It was very pleasant there, with the
door open to the sunlit forest and the little green churchyard
without, with a willow wren, the first I had heard, singing
his delicate little strain at intervals.
The service over, we rambled an hour longer in the wood, then
returned to our village, which had a church of its own, and
our landlady, hearing where we had been, told us the story, or
tradition, of the little church in the wood. Its origin goes
very far back to early Norman times, when all the land in this
part was owned by one of William's followers on whom it had
been bestowed. He built himself a house or castle on the edge
of the forest, where he lived with his wife and two little
daughters who were his chief delight. It happened that one
day when he was absent the two little girls with their female
attendant went into the wood in search of flowers, and that
meeting a wild boar they turned and fled, screaming for help.
The savage beast pursued, and, quickly overtaking them,
attacked the hindermost, the youngest of the two little girls,
anal killed her, the others escaping in the meantime. On the
following day the father returned, and was mad with grief and
rage on hearing of the tragedy, and in his madness resolved to
go alone on foot to the forest and search for the beast and
taste no food or drink until he had slain it. Accordingly to
the forest he went, and roamed through it by day and night,
and towards the end of the following day he actually found and
roused the dreadful animal, and although weakened by his long
fast and fatigue, his fury gave him force to fight and conquer
it, or else the powers above came to his aid; for when he
stood spear in hand to wait the charge of the furious beast he
vowed that if he overcame it on that spot he would build a
chapel, where God would be worshipped for ever. And there it
was raised and has stood to this day, its doors open every
Sunday to worshippers, with but one break, some time in the
sixteenth century to the third year of Elizabeth, since when
there has been no suspension of the weekly service.
That the tradition is not true no one can say. We know that
the memory of an action or tragedy of a character to stir the
feelings and impress the imagination may live unrecorded in
any locality for long centuries. And more, we know or
suppose, from at least one quite familiar instance from
Flintshire, that a tradition may even take us back to
prehistoric times and find corroboration in our own day.
But of this story what corroboration is there, and what do
the books say? I have consulted the county history, and no
mention is made of such a tradition, and can only assume that
the author had never heard it - that he had not the curious
Aubrey mind. He only says that it is a very early church
- how early he does not know - and adds that it was built "for
the convenience of the inhabitants of the place." An odd
statement, seeing that the place has every appearance of
having always been what it is, a forest, and that the
inhabitants thereof are weasels, foxes, jays and such-like,
and doubtless in former days included wolves, boars, roe-deer
and stags, beings which, as Walt Whitman truly remarks, do not
worry themselves about their souls.
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