Winter Solstice Celebrations

Well, the Winter Solstice is almost upon us, and this Friday Druids and Pagans of various types will probably be vainly attempting to discern the disc of the Sun through an impenetrable layer of cloud at Stonehenge. If they are lucky, they may well avoid a thorough drenching, but it strikes me that if there is not already a god or a goddess in their pantheon that rules over the rain, then one should certainly be invented or adopted: Thunor perhaps? Surely, if Britain were to have a national deity, it would take the form of a cloud. The foreign stereotypes of ‘foggy Albion’ need to be updated to a more appropriate ‘sodden Albion’. We do not enjoy, contrary to the assertions of some predicting certain climatic shifts a few years ago, a climate akin to that of Provence.

Last week’s census results illustrated some interesting shifts in religious affiliation across England and Wales, with a notable surge in the number declaring themselves to have ‘no religion’ whatsoever. However, there was also growth in the number of those following fringe religious beliefs, which although claiming deep historical antecedents, are in reality relatively modern creations that have drawn upon scattered historical references, as well as in some instances the customs and practices of non-Western Shamanistic cultures, to create systems of belief that many find to be symbolically and emotionally satisfying. Some find that they possess a need for what they would term the ‘spiritual’, and so far as ‘spirituality’ goes, neo-paganism in its various forms is generally relatively benign. 

Across England and Wales the 2011 census revealed that the number of people identifying themselves as Pagan rose to 57,000, with an additional 18,000 describing themselves as Druids, Heathens and Wiccans. All of these share a certain romanticised view of nature and the past and are deeply rooted in a sense of attachment to place and people. It isn’t quite a British equivalent of Shinto, but it’s about as close as it gets. Thankfully, the negative elements of the old religions such as human and animal sacrifice alluded to in fragmentary fashion in the texts of Tacitus and other contemporaneous authors are absent from their re-imagined variants, but even amongst such a disparate body of people as neo-pagans, the occasional ugly demand that their beliefs be ‘respected’ can be encountered. In 2006 for example, Paul Davies from the Council of British Druid Orders described as “immoral and disrespectful” the display of Neolithic human remains in Avebury’s Alexander Keiller Museum and requested their reburial. Quite why he, rather than you or I, should be able to say how they ought to be treated is beyond me, for it is no more likely that he bears any closer relationship to those bones than we do, and I would prefer that the remains of our distant ancestors were made available for scientific analysis rather than reinterred.

As we move towards what looks set to be an unenviably soggy rather than a white Christmas, my thoughts will for a few moments this Friday morning turn towards Salisbury Plain, as I ponder the fate of the pagan party braving the elements early on a wan December day. If nothing else, it will bring a little colour to a drab time of the year, which quite rightly has over the ages given birth to a host of celebrations, whether they happen to have been focused upon the Solstice, Yule, the Saturnalia or Christmas. Personally, I’m happy to celebrate them all, partaking of the good humour that comes with festive food and drink. Anyone for an ale or two? Talking of which, take a look at this delicious and appropriately named beverage. Cheers!

Whilst on a wintry note, for your enjoyment below is Laura Marling's wistful 'Goodbye England (Covered in Snow)'. Alas, a good part of it may once again be covered in flood water instead.

Druids celebrating the Winter Solstice at Stonehenge in 2009

Channel 4 Alien Investigations: Video Clip and Review

This evening, Channel 4 starts its series 'Alien Investigations' in which it examines a number of famous (amongst ufologists and cryptozoologists presumably, as I hadn't previously heard of them) cases involving the alleged discovery of 'aliens' here on our planet. Whereas advances in planetary science, biology and genetics suggest that our galaxy is likely to be teeming with life, at least of the primitive bacterial variety (it is rumoured that we me be receiving an announcement from NASA shortly regarding the discovery of signs of extant life on Mars thanks to the Curiosity mission), that is quite different to stating that we have been visited by creatures from another world. The latter cannot be ruled out of course, but the evidence to date is lacking. Whatever happens to be revealed in the programmes that comprise this series, they are ought to make for a few evenings' good entertainment, even if they do little other than shed a little more light upon the social, cultural and psychological aspects of the belief in alien visitation.

The clip below provides a flavour of the first episode.

Review of Part One

As anticipated, the programme turned out to provide the best part of an hour’s engaging entertainment, focusing as it did upon three alleged alien sightings, with two of them furnishing specimens of the alleged aliens that could be subjected to scientific examination of one sort or another. All three originated in the Americas: the first from Metepec in Mexico; the second from the Cuzco region of Peru, and the third from Montauk on Long Island in the USA.

Images of all three alleged aliens looked intriguing, and it was the stories attached to the Metepec ‘alien’ that proved to be of most interest. Eyewitnesses claimed that in May 2007 a ranch hand was startled to discover the ‘alien’ captured in on of his rat traps (which for all the world resembled a miniature early nineteenth-century mantrap). In all, there were five witnesses who claimed to have seen it alive, with the animal being described as about 19 inches long (the remains certainly didn’t seem to be that large, so perhaps they meant to say centimetres) with a hairless pink body and luminous eyes. It made a noise that nobody could identify. The remains looked interesting, and a number of 3-D scans had failed to ascertain what it was. Its spine bore some human characteristics and it possessed humanlike hands, but no opposable thumbs (the thumbs were incomplete). On the second night after its discovery, it was stated that the creature was “drowned in acid”, which seems rather cruel. Drowning is bad enough, but why also add to its distress by using acid? Another such ‘alien’ was said to have been sighted on the ranch eight days later.

Initial tests upon the Metepec ‘alien’ allegedly suggested that it may have possessed a ‘human mother’, and the ranch owner where it was caught died two months after the event in a freakish and explosive car accident. Conspiracy theorists attributed this to alien revenge, whereas the more prosaic explanation centred upon a debt that he owed to gangsters. In all, some six tests were conducted upon the Metepec specimen, a number of them suggesting that its DNA was very close to that of humans, and indeed it was, for the final test revealed it to be a marmoset. Moreover, its skull matched that of a marmoset. Towards the end of the documentary, Angel Nuñez revealed that he had faked the whole affair, using a buffy tufted marmoset. Being a primate, it should therefore not come as a surprise that its DNA was close to that of humans.

The Peruvian ‘alien’ was found at an excavation on a mountain some 70 miles away from Machu Pichu amidst ‘fragments of meteorite’. The narrator noted the widespread belief amongst Peruvians and traditional Inca culture that their origins lay in the stars. The mummy that was discovered possessed a peculiarly elongated skull together with what appeared to be adult teeth and yet an open fontanelle. A Peruvian Ufologist named Dante Dios Tambini claimed to be convinced that it was an alien, and also produced some alleged footage of a UFO (which looked as if it was simply the product of pointing a handheld imaging device at the full Moon in daylight and waving it about) and a picture of an alien (nothing more than a red blemish atop a picture of a stone shack).

The narrator noted that skull deformation of this sort had been practised in a number of cultures for at least 9,000 years in Africa, including in Ancient Egypt. Closer to home, the Huns too practised this type of skull deformation in the fifth century. The remains of the Peruvian ‘alien’ were not submitted to testing, but according to Dr Anna Williams, it appeared to be a deformed child of about the age of six, judging by the state of its teeth. This seemed a far more likely explanation than the artist’s impression of a large-eyed ‘grey’ (or ‘gray’ I suppose Americans would term them) that was provided alongside the skull.

The third and final case was that of the so-called Monatauk alien washed up on a Long Island beach in July 2008. Once again, a number of conspiracy theories circulated, the most favoured being that this (and two subsequent carcasses) were aliens, and another being that it was the freakish product of US military experiments in labs on Plum Island that from 1953 until 1969 conducted biological experiments focused upon the poisoning of Soviet livestock presided over by an ex-Nazi scientist just to add a little additional lurid colouration to the tale. Although the carcasses looked odd, why anyone should have thought that they might be ‘aliens’ baffled me. A number of zoologists concluded otherwise: partially decomposed racoons. Not as exciting as an extraterrestrial, but a rather more convincing explanation.

All in all, the programme illustrated the public hunger for tales of alien visitation, a contemporary phenomenon that could be said to parallel the mediaeval thirst for miracles and visions of the Virgin Mary. It would seem that our own scientific age is giving birth to its own set of folk beliefs, fuelled by a voracious media and the general public’s desire for strange and fantastical tales.

The St Osyth Lion

The sleepy Essex village of St Osyth is today the centre of an unusual drama in which a police helicopter has been scrambled and a cordon set up by the constabulary near the fields in which it is claimed a lion has been sighted. A family staying in a caravan are said to have taken a photograph of the beast last night, although the BBC reports that it is of such poor quality that experts cannot make out what it is; it is said to be of a sandy colour. Roaring is also reported to have been heard in the vicinity. The eyewitnesses say that it was "several hundred yards away" when they saw it "preening".

None of the lions at Colchester zoo are missing, and the circus that visited the locality of late did not possess such creatures. What then, could account for this sighting? My hunch is that they spotted a large labrador or golden retriever. If not that, it could have been a beefy ginger tom, someone playing a prank dressed in a lion costume or, if the holidaymakers were real urban types, they may even have mistaken a bellowing Jersey cow indistinctly glimpsed through some trees or bushes for a big cat. Then again, the Shepley Lion may have ventured down from Huddersfield for a bank holiday outing.

UPDATE
By Monday evening the police had called off their hunt, with zoologist Anthony Tropeano concluding that the 'lion' was most likely to be a large dog. The picture of the 'lion' taken by a couple and handed to the police for examination is reproduced below. As you can see, it bears a striking resemblance to a ginger tom, but the video report from the BBC proves that this too is a misidentification.

The St Osyth 'lion' is, apparently, a Maine Coon cat called "Teddy". Does he terrify you? No? Me neither. Looking at this soft furry creature whose natural habitat seems to be the carpet beneath his owner's bed, I think that I would be rather more afraid if I came face-to-face with the two witnesses of the 'lion'. What must have been going through their heads to have mistaken this ball of fluff for a terrifying predator from the savannah? More importantly, just what must the police be thinking? Perhaps it is time for the Essex constabulary to check what the couple had ingested on the night of the sighting. What with this and Pussy Riot, it's been a rather feline month for blogging.

The St Osyth 'Lion': a Maine Coon Cat

All hail the Queen of the May!

Today is May Day, when thoughts turn not to the international labour movement, but to the regenerative forces of nature. Thus Lord Summerisle would have it, at any rate. Alas, it proves to be the case that I am unable to embed the code for the video of Britt Ekland's memorable invitation to Sergeant Howie, so instead present here an audio recording of Willow's Song, one of the many atmospheric pieces composed and arranged for The Wicker Man by Paul Giovanni. Being short of time this evening, I shall have to leave you to seek out the delights of the film's varied score including a chilling climactic rendition of Sumer Is Icumen In. Prepare to reverence the sacrifice! Poor Edward Woodward went through hell shooting the final scene, for a startled goat peed upon him from above. For further information, please turn to "the Rites and Rituals of May Day, chapter five."

The Shepley Lion: a new Variation on an old Theme?

Yesterday afternoon reports that “a lion and cub” had been sighted on the railway line in Shepley near Huddersfield led to a police hunt that has as yet found nothing. Although the 16:50 train between Retford and Huddersfield stopped at Shepley Station, passengers were only allowed to board and not to alight, such was the strength of apprehension that such beasts may indeed have been abroad. Thus does Shepley join a long list of locations in Britain where alien big cats are said to have prowled, the most famous examples of which are probably the Beast of Bodmin, the Beast of Exmoor and the Surrey Puma.

Despite the media notoriety associated with the three aforementioned cases, no conclusive evidence of their existence has been forthcoming; yet, unlikely as it may seem, large alien felines have indeed on occasion been captured in the British Isles. Imagine the surprise of the Golders Green householder who spotted a lynx lounging on her garden wall one afternoon in May 2001. The creature was later sedated and captured by staff from London Zoo. Another, rather less fortunate lynx, was reported as having been shot in Norfolk in 1991. As for lions though, thankfully no example of their kind has been found roaming the British countryside.

Reputed sightings of alien big cats lend a certain mystique and charm to often unexceptional places such as Shepley, and contribute to the re-enchantment of our matter-of-fact contemporary landscape, both urban and rural. They are being woven into the rich folkloric tapestry of our island, their ‘existence’ appearing in certain respects to resemble an older tradition associated with another creature: the phantom black dog, the legend of which provided the source material for Conan Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles. An infernal hellhound of preternatural dimensions and supernatural provenance possessed of flaming eyes and shaggy black coat, going by such names as Skriker, Padfoot and Barghest. Black Shuck, perhaps the most famous of their number, clawing at the church door and bursting in to wreak death upon the parishioners at prayer in both Bungay and Blythburgh during a mighty storm in August 1577. What of the ghost of Sir Francis Drake, rattling across Dartmoor in his carriage accompanied by headless baying yeth hounds? 

Black Shuck

The clocks, recently turned back for winter, have brought darkness to late afternoon, and amidst the gloaming we may glimpse indistinct shapes. Even in a world of neon and the sodium streetlight, shadows may flit through our peripheral vision, igniting our imaginations. How soundly will the people of Shepley sleep tonight? Will they look furtively over their shoulders when walking the streets? Who knows what may lurk there? A lion? A phantom black dog?  In nearby Huddersfield I own to having seen a lion in the broad light of day, and to prove it, the picture below stands testament to the veracity of my statement. What might be its prey? Could it be depicted in the second of the photographs shown?

The Huddersfield Lion

Its Prey?