An Irish mist can move mountains
“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”, indeed. Last week, I commented on autumn’s fruitfulness; today, one can’t see the hedges for the mists. We hear that, inland, the sun is shining out of blue skies over golden fields, blessing the late harvests. Not here, where, drowned in coastal fogs, we see no sun. But there is a sort of alchemy in this weather. Through alchemy, base metal is turned to gold; here, it’s the reverse; the gold of the sun is turned to base metal, and the outlook is as grey as lead. But it has its uplifting moments.
The sea is silent, flat calm. A ghostly figure stands chest-high in the channel, fishing for bass. Beyond him, water gives way to mist. There is no sound; it is suspended in the drenched air. There is no rain, only the soft air which one imagines one could cut with a sweep of one’s arm as one might slice through a gauze curtain. But it doesn’t work, the billion droplets of water vapour fill the space. We are 70% water ourselves, and 70% of the earth’s surface is water. We’re blest with water in this sodden country of ours and cannot complain. But tell that to the man or woman managing the clothesline. In the nocturnal and diurnal rains, clothes are washed once, washed twice, and if left out long enough the colours are washed away.
Myles na gCopaleen, real name Brian Nolan, the celebrated Irish Times columnist, often spoke of the nocturnal and diurnal rains constantly falling on poverty-stricken Corcadoragha, the setting of his tale of the terrible misery and deprivation visited by God on the unfortunate Irish in his satirical novel, An Beál Bocht — The Poor Mouth — a parody of the Blasket books of Tomás Ó Criomhthain and Peig Sayers. Each chapter opens with a description of the day’s rain, and the direction it is coming from.
Regarding the illusions conjured by saturated air, I recently came upon an amusing piece in the Irish Medical Times by Dr Garret FitzGerald MD, writing about his youth and early scientific training.
“In the more scientific days of my childhood, I was tutored to observe Galteemore from the Kickham monument in downtown Tipperary. My mentor, a known lunatic, suggested a notebook to record the apparent distance of the mountain from the town. He explained that on the wet days, the air was thicker — so the mountain would appear to be nearer. It followed, he pointed out (with some small degree of froth appearing at the angles of his mouth) that, when the air was thinner, Galteemore drifted off towards Mitchelstown and Cork.
My findings were that Galteemore didn’t stir at all that summer. It did, however, disappear entirely on many occasions. [. . . ] In 1952, a fine day intervened. It was definitely a Sunday. To my amazement, the mountain had retreated almost as far as Fermoy. Citizens left Tipp in droves to travel up the Coach Road to witness the expansion of the Glen of Aherlow below the now distant mountains.”
Meanwhile, further to last week’s theme, yesterday I went into a hazel wood, not, like Wandering Áengus, “because a fire was in my head” but because I hoped to harvest some nuts. They littered the forest floor but when I broke them open, they contained nothing but air. Why the trees bother to turn out the perfect but empty shells I cannot imagine. It must be distressing for squirrels. One would hope sweet chestnuts will compensate, or beech mast, plentiful this year.
When ripe, the beech nuts beneath the trees open their four spiky ‘petals’ like flowers. Sometimes the three-corner fruits inside are as fat and swollen as pine-nut kernels. They have a bitter, but pleasant taste.
Sweet hazelnuts turned bitter for young William Wordsworth, when having collected a harvest, he saw the destruction done to the small trees. Related in his poem, Nutting, it was a cathartic moment in the making of one of the greatest nature poets ever.
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