'Old Knowing'

Hello, I hope you enjoyed yesterdays post, I certainly enjoyed gaining the inspiration behind it and the wonderful thing is, as I said yesterday, in a week's time I get to go collecting in earnest. However, after having spoken to my mother over a cup of tea last night about the abundance of Blackberry's, I'll be going out to collect as many as I can find for her later this afternoon. Gathering fruit for my mother has always been a pleasure, not least because I get to eat whatever she makes, she's my mum after all and If it wasn't for her, my Grandmother's, Great Grandmother's, Aunty's and so on, I wouldn't have the first idea about any of it. The same of course goes for my Father, Grandfather's,  Great Grandfather's, Uncles and many of the old ones in our community, each has their own very specific wisdom to pass on, everything from how to read tracks and signs to the plants that are good to eat, when to find them and the correct conditions to pick them in so that they taste their very best. They taught me how to fashion just about anything I could ever possibly need, how to make fire, to build places to live, and of course the all and ever important lesson, 'Food, Water, where to find it and how to make it safe'. The truly wonderful thing about all this as I was growing up was and is, the stories, told in many situations, quite a lot around the fire, whether we're gathered around the home hearth or in the middle of the wild places (fire means home anyway), the stories always came out. There are so many of these stories that I'm surprised they fit in my head if truth be told, some of them are so old that nobody remembers exactly who's stories they are. My Grandad told me a story once, nothing that could be described as grand in the conventional sense but never the less incredibly important, as it tells of the hunting of a hare by one of my ancestors. My Grandfather and I were about to prepare a rabbit for cooking, it was about the same time of year as this, the leaves were at their fullest just before they turn to autumn colour, he handed a ten year old me the rabbit and said "Half a minute, what do you know about skinning without a knife" I remember laughing and saying to him "Without a knife?", this earned me the stern but kind gaze that let me know it was time for me to be the pupil, "Look for flints with me, bout the size of my fist", I looked at his leathery hands and  went to a stand of Ash saplings knowing that where their new trunks were breaking the earth there would probably be a flint or two pushed to the surface (the result of a previous lesson) and proceeded to look about. It didn't take us more than a couple of minutes before we had the stones my Grandfather required, then the lesson began. We found a shaded spot under a beech tree, glancing up before we sat down as they have a nasty habit of dropping their limbs at any time, it was only a glance my Grandad gave though so I knew we'd only be there a little while. Under the beech tree with a flint in one hand and the other pressed against a log with his foot my Grandfather spoke, "My Grandad showed me the same thing when I was your age and he began this story with my Grandad too, so this is old knowing, watch carefully", as the last word he spoke left his bearded lips one of his hands steadied the log and flint and the other hand, grasping the rounder of the two flints came rushing down and with a ringing crack the flint on the log shattered leaving behind all sorts of different but equally razor like shards. He beckoned me to come closer and showed me how sharp the pieces were  while selecting the right one for the job, "Pass the rabbit over and look well for a minute" he said, then with the dexterity of any butcher and in no time at all the rabbit was ready for the pot, "See if you don't have a knife then you must use the old ways to do the same". The man in the story, my Grandad told me, had caught a hare after having devoted a lot of time and energy to getting it in the first place and had forgotten his knife, and so the story goes he gave the hare to his dog and went without his super, he told his Grandfather about the hare and how he'd forgotten his knife and was no doubt scolded quite severely, given that wasting food is seriously frowned upon where I'm from. He was then taught the same lesson. These and many other stories are of course more detailed and I've only given you the bones of one of them but the point is still the same, we must learn from and respect our old folk, lest we forget. My Grandfather Kenneth was born in 1922, his father Hamlyn was born in 1890 and his father George nearly thirty years before that, roughly 1860 and this was a story from Georges time told by a Grandfather, like my Grandad said 'Old Knowing'. Remember the ancestors.

An update on picking by the way, my father, nephew and myself went for my mothers Blackberry's and Apples for pudding this Sunday dinner time.

Success!

 

 Peace In All