Bog Myrtle & Peat

Autumn began with a sense that all was well in the world. Bracken fell upon itself like clockwork; lapwings called in the fatly ripened moon and it was time for everything which had been laid out with such care and expansion to be gently tidied away. With a smell of beechmast and pigeon down in the sea-breeze, it seemed like there was nothing to fear from a descent into shortening days.

But then there were maggots in the fleeces, and the sudden loss of four fat lambs which should’ve been sold through the market. Their bellies burst like rotten pears, and several were only saved at the expense of deep holes carved in their sweaty, stinking wool. These ones lived, but they’re almost mad with recovery now, swathed in scabs and papery-wastes of purpled parchment skin. They’ve forgotten how to run away from me; instead, they roll their eyes and lie apart from the flock like ghosts.

In the same twenty-four hour period, all my hoped-for apples fell to rot in the tumbling undergrowth; above them, firm brambles sank to sloppiness and the grass was darkened with wasps. Reaching for a sloe, I took the quarter inch steg of a blackthorn in the ball of my right hand’s index finger. Now most of that arm is useless; tight and pounding with frustrated blood, and a leak of pus from under the offended nail. 

In the corrupting accumulation of these rots, there have been weird, unnerving dusks around the equinox – a crowding tint of eldritch light which lingers far into the evening like dust or an envelope which you know is bad news even before you’ve opened it. The ducks are discomfited by these evenings – the migrant geese which returned to the Solway on Thursday last week are wary; they stay high and show small interest in the land which rolls uneasily like a feverish sleeper in his bed. There’s no season of mellow fruitfulness here, and even the pigs which I killed in their sty saw me coming. They bumped their gums and took the moment from me. Afterwards, their long bodies were so dramatically harassed by blowflies that I had to butcher them both in less than twelve hours with the fear of waste and sour-meat close on my heels. And now I hardly trust the salt to cure their hams – I keep checking on the sides of bacon and belly-pork because surely nothing can go according to plan in this weather.

Then turning from the sudden crumble of summer, I found two hares lying dead in the garden. They were clean, immaculate young things, with no sign of violence, depredation or injury. Hares often die for a host of complex bacterial reasons, and it’s not unusual to find them dead or approaching their last gasp in the hedgefoot at this time of year. But it was jarring to find two in such close proximity, both discovered in the same gelatinous twilight… and if you were looking for portents and ill-omens, I suggest you take your pick from the selection above – because nothing is right here, and no consolation to be found in expectations of a crisp and rosy-cheeked trot into winter.