“You are the lovely red rowan that calms the wrath and anger of all men, like a wave of the sea from flood to ebb, like a wave of the sea from ebb to flood”
Traditional Scots Gaelic Charm.
Aunty Betty, one of our chickens, has got a prolapse.
Now, I bet two things have sprung into your mind: firstly, you’re probably thinking that Aunty Betty’s days are numbered because you know that having a prolapse is like a death knell to a chicken; secondly, you’re wondering what Aunty Betty’s prolapse has got to do with a traditional Scots Gaelic Charm about rowan, wrath, anger and the flood and ebb of the sea.
Actually, in the split second it took you to read “Aunty Betty, one of our chickens, has got a prolapse”, your brain would have generated loads of other thoughts which would have flooded and ebbed like a wave in the sea of conscious awareness. Things like: why is she called Aunty Betty? What sort of chicken is she? How did she get a prolapse? How many chickens are there? Do they all have names? Why does a red rowan calm wrath and anger? What can you do with rowan berries? And so on. In nanoseconds your brain would have filtered through the almost infinite array of Aunty-Betty and Gaelic-charm related detritus and only allowed you to become aware of one or two of the thoughts most relevant to you.
All this makes me realise that I want to know some of the thoughts are that my brain is filtering out – the seemingly unconnected pictures give you an idea of what your brain is up to. But before we get to that, let’s go back to Aunty Betty and the Gaelic charm and answer some of the questions.
Until last week, Aunty Betty was a chicken with no name. There are 8 chickens in all: Dee dee, Blanche, Norma Bates, Lazy Sausage, Poppit and the 3 (now 2) un-named. She was still without a name when Bleddyn the Vet opened the door into the waiting room and called for ‘Chicken Lalic’. Examination was swift, diagnosis obvious, treatment probably futile and definitely expensive. But, as the great Rowli Pugh always says, what else can you do with money except spend it? Thus, Chicken Lalic had her prolapse stitched back into position with something called a ‘purse-string suture’. So here’s the answer to the first question. My mum’s best friend was our Aunty Betty and her surname was Pursey. Thus, on the way home from the vets, Chicken Lalic became Aunty Betty. Aunty Betty is a breed of chicken called a Warren. These are the unfortunates that end up in battery cages and are intensively farmed (but not here at Scarecrow Cottage). They don’t live long (even without the battery cages and the intensive farming) but they are lovely, docile birds who do a lot of contented cooing and – in their short lives – lay a lot of eggs. As a result, prolapses are almost inevitable. One of the saddest things about a prolapse is it brings out the dinosaur in the rest of the chickens. You can end up with a chicken run that looks like the gory bits of Jurassic Park. For her own good, Aunty Betty is now in isolation which she is quite enjoying, thank you very much.
The Rowan Tree – currently dabbed with scarlet berries in this wettest of summers in Wales – was once known as the Tree of Life. Its berries were thought to prolong life (but the seeds are poisonous to children) and boiled – the berries, not the children – they produce a strong orange colour dye. In Scotland, particularly, the wood was thought to have magical properties and many believed it to be a tree that protects against evil and violence. According to legend, rowan trees were guarded by dragons and dragons guarded by rowan trees. This is very interesting to me as I’m researching dragons for my next piece of Textile Art. It’s amazing how many books about dragon lore are available and how much of what has been written is from the standpoint that not only did dragons exist but that in some parts of the world, still thrive; that the only reason they have become creatures of myth and legend is because humans now dismiss the intangible as unreal.
The last time I did a dragon inspired piece of textile art was in 1983. Back in those days, I wasn’t very creative. I’d used space dyed threads to get the shading and my idea of texture was a couple of seed beads. The dragon wasn’t even my idea of a dragon but an image that I’d copied from somewhere. Now I’m busy collecting ideas
and textures
Then I’m going to sit in the sun with Aunty Betty and a sketchbook and slow the flood and ebb of the waves of my mind and see what happens. Happy Dragon Hunting!