Tolmen and tor

We’ve been sorting our books – the hardest of tasks for a bibliophile, but fortunately for me it wasn’t mine, but husbands’ that we took off the shelves and began to sort out. I should have counted them, but it seems he has hundreds of books on art and artists, from Achenbach to Wyeth (Andrew) and including the less well known such as Doris Hatt among the famous from around the world. As well as having taught art in schools for all his working life, he then went on to lead a group looking at twentieth century artists, and he was forever researching them and finding out more about their lives and influences. We have so many books, so many, now in piles in the sitting room. He’s tried his best to make a pile of discards, to be sold or donated to charity shops, but we still have a mighty number of volumes, some very big and very heavy.

In among them, were a few intruders from his other books about the sea and naval things, Cornwall, history and aeroplanes, and then a couple he had no idea how or why he had acquired them. One of these I lighted upon,  ‘Uncommon Ground – a word-lover’s guide to the British landscape by Dominick Tyler. It’s a lovely little book, with quality paper, beautiful photographs and interesting content. The blurb explains how from being a child he loved rambling through the countryside, and began to want names for places he explored.

And so he began collecting words for landscape features, jackstraw and zawn, clitter and cowbelly, shivver and swag, tolmen and tor. Words that are as varied, rich and poetic as the landscapes they describe. Many of these are falling into obscurity, some endure only by haunting place names and old maps.

It continues that Dominick gathers them into “an enchanting visual glossary of the British landscape.” The book is arranged in areas, starting with my present neck of the woods, the south-west, and as well as exploring language and tradition, it’s also a travelogue with each word illustrated by one of Dominick’s own stunning photos. The first word is the Cornish ‘zawn’ which describes a chasm. From  the south-west he progresses round different areas, highlands, lowlands, lakes and dales, Wales and shires, south-east, and finishes on my home ground, the Fens where I was born and grew up. His very last word is ‘eagre,’ a tidal bore which runs up the rivers from the Wash, rivers I remember well.

I’m looking forward to reading this little book, and it’s begun to trigger some creative thoughts, maybe I could use some of these words, maybe i could try and use of all of these words – I’m not sure how I might, writing stories, or something more lyrical, or reminiscent… Yes, I’m getting some rather interesting ideas…

Tolmen – “The two things absent from all tolmens – the stone that used to be where the big round hole is, and an indication of  how it was removed…”
Tor – “Granite tors are icons of endurance, riding out millions of years of erosion when softer surrounding rocks are washed, blown and cracked away to reveal the last stones standing.”