Autumn Read online

  The other shrub, juniper, is secretive with its scent. It has an odd habit of dying in patches, and when a dead branch is snapped, a spicy odour comes from it. I have carried a piece of juniper wood for months, breaking it afresh now and then to renew the spice. This dead wood has a grey silk skin, impervious to rain. In the wettest season, when every fir branch in the woods is sodden, the juniper is crackling dry and burns with a clear heat. There’s nothing better under the girdle when scones are baking – unless perhaps small larch twigs, fed into a fire already banked. Once, striking thick loose snow from low juniper bushes before walking through them, I surprised myself by striking from them also a delectable fragrance, that floated on the wintry air.

  Birch, the other tree that grows on the lower mountain slopes, needs rain to release its odour. It is a scent with body to it, fruity like old brandy, and on a wet warm day, one can be as good as drunk with it. Acting through the sensory nerves, it confuses the higher centres; one is excited, with no cause that the wit can define.

  Birch trees are least beautiful when fully clothed. Exquisite when the opening leaves just fleck them with points of green flame, or the thinning leaves turn them to a golden lace, they are loveliest of all when naked. In a low sun, the spun silk floss of their twigs seems to be created out of light. Without transfiguration, they are seen to be purple – when the sap is rising, a purple so glowing that I have caught sight of a birchwood on a hillside and for one incredulous moment thought the heather was in bloom.

  Among drifts of these purple glowing birches, an occasional rowan looks dead; its naked boughs are a smooth white-grey, almost ghastly as the winter light runs over them. The rowan’s moment is in October, when even the warmth of its clustering berries is surpassed by the blood-red brilliance of its leaves. This is the ‘blessed quicken wood’, that has power against the spirits of evil. It grows here and there among birches and firs, as a rule singly, and sometimes higher than either, a solitary bush by the rivulet in a ravine.

  October is the coloured month here, far more brilliant than June, blazing more sharply than August. From the gold of the birches and bracken on the low slopes, the colour spurts upwards through all the creeping and inconspicuous growths that live among the heather roots – mosses that are lush green, or oak-brown, or scarlet, and the berried plants, blaeberry, cranberry, crowberry and the rest. Blaeberry leaves are a flaming crimson, and they are loveliest of all in the Rothiemurchus Forest, where the fir trees were felled in the 1914 War, and round and out of each stump blaeberry grows in upright sprigs: so that in October a multitude of pointed flames seem to burn upwards all over the moor.

  Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland, 1977

  Two hours of sailing off the glorious Isles of Scilly in October had landed us with a fair few gulls, a random juvenile puffin, some guillemots and four harbour porpoises. As the autumn plodded on, the chances of encountering huge rafts of seabirds had greatly diminished; a few weeks earlier sailors on this route would have encountered skuas, petrels and Sabine’s gulls; now, we had a solitary juvenile puffin. Even the gannets had dispersed. Our best hope was a glimpse of the purple sandpipers that hang out on the far-flung rocks to the west; the pelagic summer season was well and truly over.

  We were out on the Sapphire, a local tripper and wildlife watching boat. To most people, a sapphire is a precious gem: deep blue, flashy and expensive. My Sapphire is far more than that. She’s still deep blue, flashy and I suspect gloriously expensive; but she has shared my happiest memories with me, while also cradling me through some of my wobblier moments.

  By the time we cleared the top of the archipelago, being a rather unseasoned sailor, my face was starting to pale. The gentle, monotonous bobbing and swaying was beginning to induce a familiar weakness in my legs and shakiness in my hands as my stomach quietly protested. I’ve never actually been seasick, but it’s been a close run thing at times. As we rounded the bottom of St Mary’s, the largest of the Scilly Isles, we faced the full force of the Atlantic Ocean and things were looking far from peachy.

  An ‘avian desert’ wasn’t helping the situation. With nothing to distract the eye and excite the mind, I was beginning to gaze with longing at the cloudy shape of the islands looming to the north, two or three miles away. The frenzied flocks of feeding gannets that had haunted the sea for weeks now quite simply weren’t there. Even Bella, the boat’s resident spaniel, seemed listless and bored.

  Then the cry went up from the boat’s captain, Joe: ‘Dolphin!’

  Sickness forgotten, adrenaline pumping, I snapped into action. As every other passenger ran to port side, scanning the horizon wildly for the tell-tale white water, I threw myself towards the bow of the boat, scrambling over fenders and nearly impaling myself on a fishing rod in the process. No matter – there was time for pain later. Lying stomach-down with one arm wrapped around the railing, I leant forwards (probably quite dangerously, in retrospect) over the side of the boat, breathing hard and waiting.

  One second passed, then two, and then:

  ‘Here they come!’

  Three, four, five, ten elegant shapes crested the water only a couple of feet below my outstretched fingertips. My head and shoulders lay a good foot beneath the edge of the boat, as I gripped hard with my left arm, stretching the right out towards the surface of the sea; where there had been turquoise only a few seconds before, now powerful and exquisite creatures skimmed the water, sending clouds of mist and spray into our faces as they broke the surface. Deep creamy yellow down the side, stormy blue and slate grey; the classic dolphin shape, smaller than many species but surprisingly large at such close range: the common dolphin.

  So near the water, it felt as if we were travelling at considerable speed, although it was probably no more than 10 knots; dolphin after dolphin skimmed the surface, sometimes completely clearing the water in a skilled leap, flicking their tails expertly as they landed to propel themselves forwards. Occasionally one would flip over to lie on its side, and a moment of understanding, or recognition, would pass between us as eye contact was made. This might sound anthropomorphic, but surely this is why there are few human beings who do not smile when they see a dolphin – and not in the patronising way we do with some animals. We see in their gaze an intelligence that is inherently familiar yet completely alien. For us, it is almost inconceivable how creatures can live and prosper beneath the sea; we envy their freedom, their spirit, their obvious love for life, yet we love them for it, too.

  It could have been minutes, or hours, that the dolphins rode beneath the bow wave. As they sliced the water the spray caught the setting sunlight, so that it looked like sparks of fire were erupting from the surface. So close to them, I was oblivious to everything else; I knew that there were others around me, but I felt completely alone, almost like I was flying. The only thing I was aware of was Bella, who ‘sings’ to her ocean friends: a frenzied stream of yelps, yips, barks, snaps, howls and whines combines to make a truly ear-splitting racket. I suspect her canine ears can hear the dolphin’s echolocation and she’s hopelessly tormented by them. To make it even better, the ocean had by no means calmed, and I was soaked as wave after wave broke over the boat, drenching my head and torso; this only made me feel closer to the dolphins, just out of reach beyond my outstretched finger tips. A soft voice from my partner whispered in my ear: ‘Look up.’

  I tore my eyes away from the spectacle beneath me. From every direction dolphins were streaming in towards the boat – countless in number, it seemed. As each pod beneath us peeled off or shot forwards like torpedoes, easily outstripping the boat, another moved in to take their place. It was as if they sensed the sheer, unadulterated joy that was radiating from the front of this little vessel and the bodies both on and below it, separated only by a few inches of air.

  Afterwards, it was estimated that there had been as many as 150 individuals around the boat, including many calves. As the autumn progresses the number will increa
se, sometimes creating ‘super pods’ that contain many thousands of individuals.

  I’ve seen many photographs and videos of those magical few minutes, and (not to discredit the takers – some were superb) not one of them conveys the entire spectacle. It would be impossible to do so with an image: in this case, words manage it better.

  I lay lost in this world for an age, so close and yet so far away from these most wonderful of animals. Gradually, the last of them peeled away, and then with a final flick of the tail, we were alone again.

  Standing, shaking, freezing and wet through, I realised that my cheeks were soaked with tears. Salty water mingling with salty water.

  Lucy McRobert, 2016

  Oct[ober] 21st. 1803. Friday Morning. – A drisling Rain. Heavy masses of shapeless Vapour upon the mountains (O the perpetual Forms of Borrodale!) yet it is no unbroken Tale of dull Sadness – slanting Pillars travel across the Lake, at long Intervals – the vaporous mass whitens, in large Stains of Light – on the (Lakeward) ridge of that huge arm chair, of Lowdore, fell a gleam of softest Light, that brought out the rich hues of the late Autumn. – The woody Castle Crag between me & Lowdore is a rich Flower-Garden of Colours, the brightest yellows with the deepest Crimsons and the infinite Shades of Brown & Green, the infinite diversity of which blends the whole – so that the brighter colours seem as colors upon a ground, not colored Things.

  Little wool-packs of white bright vapour rest on different summits & declivities – the vale is narrowed by the mist & cloud – yet thro’ the wall of mist you can see into a bason of sunny Light in Borrodale – the Birds are singing in the tender Rain, as if it were the Rain of April, & the decaying Foliage were Flowers & Blossoms. The pillar of Smoke from the Chimney rises up in the Mist, & is just distinguishable from it; & the Mountain Forms in the Gorge of Borrodale consubstantiate with the mist & cloud even as the pillared Smoke/a shade deeper, & a determinate Form. – (Cleared up. the last thin Fleeces on the bathed Fells.)

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, diaries, 1803

  There is an air of fulfilment and rest in the landscape and brooding weather of October. It is like a ghost of summer evening all the time; the faint spears of shadow, the sun’s shield tarnished and hanging low, and under the trees, instead of shade, pools of their fallen colours. The fields, being mostly stubble, have still the straw-gold light of summer, but the ploughs move there, as in the very afterglow of harvest, and the earth is gradually revealed again that has not been seen since spring. Other men are at work cementing and closing in the gains of the year against the weather turning enemy. The thatcher mounts his ladder many times with his burden of straw, roofing the corn built to be its own storehouse: over the hedge, the spade of the man earthing up the root-clamp is visible at moments; with regular rhythm it appears suddenly, slaps a slab of grey clay upon the straw, and vanished for another, till the long hump is a fort against frost, neatly moated, too, where the earth has been cut out. The hedger is there also, defeating the hedge in its summer attempt to usurp a yard of the field all round; it is still warm enough for shirt-sleeves, working, and he is a summer figure yet. The farmer, with his gun and dog, is walking the stubble for partridges before they get too wild, to prove to himself that he has not lost his aim since January last, nor his dog her nose. As to the city man his tennis-racquet as he takes it down on a summer’s evening, his business done, so to the farmer his gun in the evening glow of autumn. He goes out with it, but for survey of his fields as much as to shoot. He never closes both eyes to his job. The eye he doesn’t aim with is seeing that another harrowing is necessary here for wheat.

  All the harvest the men have been working as one gang in the fields, but now they are apart at different jobs again, working alone all day, many of them, observing different meal-times; labourers having dinner at one, ploughmen at two-thirty; the cheerful fellowship of the summer is over, and its many voices. No coloured pinafores in the fields either, fluttering like blown petals, for the children have gone back to school. There the youngster of thirteen sits immured, learning to spell, but dreaming of how he drove two horses and a loaded wagon in the hot days, which he considers the only work worthy of a man such as he. His teacher finds him obstinate and dull.

  Adrian Bell, Silver Ley, 1931

  There are reasons to love every season: the rebirth and renewal of spring; the welcome warmth of summer; the ritualistic parting of winter with the promise of a new year to come. But I think of autumn as the ne plus ultra of seasons.

  Tendrils of summer heat creep into these months. The change in colour is a world remade. We sense its gradualness, the minimal shifts that quicken until green gives way to amber, then red: nature’s traffic lights. I live in a city that’s full of parks and tree-lined roads, but to get a real sense of autumn’s flux, I make for the Dublin Mountains. When I was growing up my family would go for Sunday drives, the gears straining as the car climbed up towards woods with names like Kilmashogue, Car-rickgollogan, Barnaslingan and Slievethoul (slieve or sliabh is the Irish word for mountain). High above the city, with the sea visible in the distance, the forests were heavy with the weight of change, of imminent abscission. I’d go home with pockets full of pine cones, and fallen leaves to trace onto paper.

  I still visit often, even more so in autumn, and I head straight for two forests that are side by side, bisected by a road. Massy’s Wood – once home to a grand family dwelling with an icehouse and walled garden – is now in ruins. What has endured is its magnificent trees from all over the world: monkey puzzle, giant sequoia and western hemlock. Oaks rub shoulders with Monterey pine, while beech and cedar race each other to the clouds. Trunk-knotted yews keep company with drooping willows.

  A look at Ireland’s place names – not just roads or towns, but entire counties – reminds me that so many owe their names to trees. Derry (Doire) is an oak grove or wood; Kildare (Cilldara) means ‘the church of the oak’; and Mayo (Maigh Eo) is ‘Plain of the yew’. The ancient Celts divided trees into four categories in order of importance: Nobles, Commoners, Lower Division and Bushes. Some folklorists also believe that they used an Ogham calendar of thirteen months to measure time, each represented by a tree. From September to early November, the corresponding species are hazel, apple, elder, yew and pine. All but one (elder) are classified as Noble or ‘chieftain’ trees, and all five are present up here in the mountains. An arboreal kingdom, the lungs of this land.

  At this time of year, the stagnant summer air is replaced with something more kinetic. Perhaps falling leaves add movement to the space around them. For the first time in months, I can smell frost. The days shorten, but the light is brighter: the foliage of spring and summer make for a heavy canopy, but now the sky is revealed as leaves begin to part ways with their branch hosts. Most deciduous trees drop their leaves, but beeches cling to theirs all through the winter. Reluctant to let go, the leaves move along the spectrum from green to gold to copper, until new buds sever the old. I kick through carpets of fallen rust, of purple, carmine and ochre. I wander among shaded moss and fern, breathing in the damp scent that I’ve always found comforting.

  Across the road is Montpelier Hill, and at the top stands the Hell Fire Club, an old stone hunting lodge, dating back to the early 1700s, that has supernatural connections. It was once the destination of my annual school walk, a round trip of 10 miles in summer heat. On the slow trek upwards, we’d pass St Colmcille’s Well, which pre-dates Christianity. Now encased in concrete, it had a metal tumbler on a chain and, parched, we’d scoop up cold mouthfuls of the water, which was said to cure illness. The Hell Fire Club is a spectacular forest, predominately coniferous, of Sitka spruce, larch and noble fir. Each species of pine has uniquely shaped cones: the rose-like larch and the elongated scales of the Sitka. Last winter, the stumps of newly cut trees were like hives on the landscape. Under the Brehon laws of Celtic history, there were penalties for cutting down noble or commoner trees, usually payable in cattle. The Hell Fire land is owned by Coillte, the national
forestry organisation (pronounced ‘Kweel-cha’, meaning ‘woods’) and I know this is the cycle of life for a tree up here. But the landscape looks scarred, lacking in height, not itself. The soil floor, once needlestrewn, is now littered with broken branches. Logs are piled high, telling concentric stories of each tree’s life. It’s not the view of my childhood any more, and by counting the circles, I realise that many of these felled trees were saplings when I was young.

  I climb upwards, the path punctuated by giant boulders, to what everybody comes here for: a panoramic view of the city: the crescent of Dublin Bay and the tessellated landscape below. The trees are packed more tightly on the hill, and there are warrens of paths. I’ve often encountered shy sika deer and rabbits, but there are grouse and kestrel too. During the day, you can find yourself alone in this elevated forest, but it’s never silent. The wind rushes through hundreds of branches, a hypnotic symphony, reassuring and eerie all at once. The dark nights roll in with Halloween and, in the forest’s charcoal depths, it’s hard to ignore its supernatural, Watcher in the Woods feel. The hills and trees are spooky in the evening gloam.

  The Hell Fire Club itself is a favourite haunt of ghost-hunters. Rumoured to be a den of iniquity, it’s mired in stories of dark forces and apparitions. When I was a child it was said that if you ran around the house three times and looked through the doorway, you’d see the devil. We’d scare each other with tales of how his cloven hoof betrayed him during a card game. I’ve been up here at night and while the lights of the city twinkle, the Hell Fire light is opaque. It’s hard to see very far in front of you, unless the moon is up. Next to the car park at the bottom of the hill, there used to be a popular restaurant that was supposedly haunted by a black cat with fierce, red eyes. But the supernatural is not just for buildings; there is magic and superstition in birch, hawthorn and rowan, too. In Ireland, people tie ribbons to rag trees (or ‘cloonie trees’) so that fairies or spirits will grant wishes.