Poor old dormice - will it EVER be spring? ....



 

        The Hazel Dormouse is one or the rarest and most beleaguered species of small mammal in the Britain. As luck would have it, the area of southern England where Muddypond lives has a fair abundance of the little creatures, but they are rarely glimpsed. For one thing, they actually hibernate and sleep for about eight months of the year - even longer if the year is like this one with temperatures barely rising above freezing  right into early April!  

   You can read a brief account here of my recent adventures;  learning about successful breeding and  re-introduction programmes at  the 'Wildwood Trust' near Canterbury, Kent.

   Here is an oblivious dormouse, SO fast asleep and resplendent in his ginger fur coat still waiting for warm weather! He's safe in the hands of chief conservationist Hazel Ryan.

      Another reason for their apparent invisibility is that they are nocturnal, and loathe to venture from the shelter of bushes and trees onto the ground. They'll go long distances to find touching aerial branches to run along before they cross a path. Only at hibernation time do they venture down to search out hiding places; forming a circular, indented burrow in leaf litter and filling it snuggly with dried leaves and grasses.

 

      As always on this blog, hedgerow fae Muddypond would like to share with you some of her favourite 'golden age' children's book illustration on the subject in hand.

 

     Firstly from Oliver Herford, who was obviously fond of dormice - he has another poem on the subject "The Elf and the Dormouse" which I will give you soon ...

 

 





 

The Deceitful Dormice

Poem & illustrations by Oliver Herford from his book "Artful Antics" pub 1894

Sleepy Dormouse who had passed

The winter in her nest,

Hearing that spring had come at last

Got up at once and dressed.

And, hastening from her downy house

To hail the new spring day,

She ran against another mouse

That lived across the way.

 

The shock was such, at first the two

Could scarcely speak for lack

Of breath. The each cried "Oh, it's you!

Why, when did you get back ?"

"I've only just return'd, my dear,"

The sleepy dormouse said,

"From Florida - the winters here,

You know, affect my head."

      "Have you, indeed?" exclaimed her friend.

      "I'm glad to see you home.

      I, too have just returned - I spend

     My winters down in Rome."

     With many pawshakes then, at last

     They parted, each to say,

    "I wonder where that creature passed

     The winter  - anyway!".

 

 

 

One below from Margaret Tarrant, the dormouse on the table at the Mad Hatter's tea party.
From 'Alice in Wonderland'  Ward, Lock & Co.1916.

Lastly from Racey Helps in his charming "The Tail of Hunky Dory".
All about the dormouse's adventures with his slightly dyslexic friend the water-shrew 'Shewsbury'. Pub Collins 1958

 

 

 

Don't forget, you can read more about the dormouse re-introduction programme and see some different 'dormouse art' on Muddypond's main website.

 

 

 

To the Little Gentleman in Black Velvet - the folk-lore of Mole ....

   

Illustration - Margaret Tempest from 'Moldy Warp the Mole' by Alson Uttley pub:Collins 1940

 

    Among the madness of the deliberate devastation of  wildlife - the horrendous and stupefyingly unnecessary threat of the British Badger Cull, and the almost unoticed near extinction of our hedgehogs through pesticides and urban encroachment - one fellow at least is doing well! (Sign the largest and most urgent anti-badger cull petition here - or learn more) (Read more about the plight of British hedgehogs here on my blog)

 

     Moley - The Little Gentleman in Black Velvet - the Mould-Warp - still enthusiastically excavating our wild meadows and cricket pitches, still delving and delighting. Still with his place in the heart of folklore and children's literature.

     We can thank our relevant Gods that the cruelty of an ancient 'mole' superstition is now only a shadow over past times. Poor Moley's feet, you see, were believed to be lucky if hung about the neck, also advantageous in the cure of toothache in those terrible pre-dentist times! The main trouble with this being, the charm only worked if the feet were cut from the living mole, and then the little creature must be left to die, not dispatched.

   Why fairy-folk and wood guardians of the past allowed this nonsense to get about I cannot imagine - but then - won't those yet to be born ask that about the 2013  Badger Cull if  (Lord of the Greenwood forbid) we enable it to go ahead?

 

Three illustrations above by Johnny Gruelle from 'The Molehill at Menemshia Creek' pub:Volland 1917

Pleasanter beliefs run:
A mole making fresh hills in a meadow brings fine weather.
Deep burrows forewarn of a severe winter to come.
If you clear mole-hills on St. Sylvester's Day (Dec 31st), the mole will dig no more near that place.
Moles will not touch earth where blood has soaked.

Illustration: Margaret Clayton from 'Bunny Brothers' pub: The Fireside Library 1900

     More worryingly - folklorist Marie Trevelyan, in 'Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales' 1909 collected the following:
 'If a mole burrows under a wash-house or dairy, the mistress of the house will die within a year. If a molehill be found among the cabbages in the garden, the master of the house will die before the year is out.'

Illustration by Ernest Aris from 'Willie Mouse' by Alta Tabor - pub:Saalfield Publishing Company

        'Here's to the Little Gentleman in Black Velvet' - is actually an 18th century toast drunk by the followers of Queen Anne!
        In February of 1702, Sorrel, the war stallion of King William 111 fell over a fresh mole hill (or a Wanti-tump) thrown up by an eager 'mould-rat'. King and horse crashed to the ground, the King breaking a collar-bone which festered and within a month William was dead.
 
    Here are those first immortal lines from Kenneth Grahame's 'The Wind in the Willows' - to fill you, like Moley, with a promise of Spring:

     'The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing.'

The illustration is by the original  'Willows' artist - famed for his pen & ink, drawings - Ernest H Shepard 1879 - 1976.

   We faere-folk love you Moley the Mould-warp - a toast then of sweetest mead -
'To the Little Gentleman in Black Velvet'.  Cheerio!

 

 

Where have all the Hedgehogs gone - long time passing ? .....

   
Update:  March 7th 2013 - there's more about the hedgehog plight - and the wonderful artwork of  Franchesca Yarbusova for her husband Yuri Norstein's film 'Hedgehog in the Fog' on Muddypond's main website - new here.


  Well?  When did you last see one? When Muddypond was a faery-sprig no taller than the bracken - there were plenty of hedgehogs - don't you remember? Snortling little families, nosing their way through tall grass, rustling in the leaves and sleeping under log piles.  Once as visible in the evening light as the other inhabitants of the woods, although always shy.

Hedgehog Photograph © Henry Ausloos

      Now, how we miss them in the hedgerows and the gardens. How many, many plants did they save by chewing up the gristly slugs and happily eating up other delicious but malicious pests? Where did they go?

Vintage postcard - Molly Brett c1935

   I know things were never easy for them - what with those roads - and poor things, they never did understand that rolling into a prickly ball was no match for a lorry, or even the smallest car. But at least they were THERE!  So beloved were they, that the Royal Post Office issued a stamp to show them how much a part of us they were ....

The card on the left is one of a famous deck of Fairy Tarot, by Antonio Lupatelli.

The quotation means 'A Penny earned is a penny saved'.

On the right, a British postage stamp issued in 1977

 But now, the experts say -  (and you can read all about their plight here in The Guardian) - the hedgehogs have gone from a population of millions to just a quarter of their number in the last couple of decades. If something isn't done, they could be extinct in Britain in just as many moons!

Our beloved washer-woman - Mrs Tiggy-winkle, the tale told and drawn by Beatrix Potter in 1905

 The problem is, that  gardens in town and country have become inaccessible, fenced, concreted, surrounded by roads. The creatures need to rove widely, and now there are less and less places for them to go. 
   Out in the open country, the fields where they once adventured after dusk to find their fat caterpillars and crunchy bugs are drenched in pesticides.





 Old Hedgehog, Mrs Hedgehog and little Fuzzypeg from my favourite 'Little Grey Rabbit' books by Alison Uttley

Illustrations by Margaret Tempest

     What must we do as a matter of urgency?  The very first step is to stop using chemical slug pellets - the hedgehog will take a poisoned slug, and eating a few will be the death of him.

   And .... join in the nationwide scheme to make gardens accessible once more, by making a small hole in the hedge , wall, fence to join with neighbours and out into the fields so that these dearest of creatures can roam and hunt freely again  - Hedgehog Street.

 Find out more about the Hedgehog Street campaign here

More wonderful hand-felted figures from artist Natasha Fedeeva

   Perhaps, in time, and with a little care on our part - and a meeting with the neighbours around and about - we might be lucky enough to see a little scene like the one below. As a Wood Guardian and Hedgerow fae, Muddypond Green fervently hopes so.

Picture from the British Hedgehog Preservation Society Website

New this week on Muddypond's Website -   Ogham Trees - The Magic Apple

and on the Hedgerow Cooking page       -   Kentish Cobnut and Apple Cake

A basket full of wild cherries .....

 The wild cherries are nearly ripe!  Us'll need to keep an eye on them now and try to pick a bowlful before those birds get them - one day too late and whoooooosh!! all gone!
  Some of us know the fruit by other names - ancient epithets -  Hawkberry, Mazzard, Gean, Idath - folk names of long ago. And no - of course I will leave plenty for the birds - it's just that I want a little harvest first!

Detail from 'Cherry Wine Stomp' - illustrator Mary Kendall Lee

from 'The Eleventh Holiday Book' by Enid Blyton 1956 - pub. Sampson Low Marston & Co. Ltd.

 Wild cherries are essential for the fae - especially the Wood Guardian type. They're part of our medicine chest. Brew up slithers of cherry bark in a little black pot over the glowing embers of the fire with plenty of ripe fruits with spring water to just cover. When they have bubbled together for a while, strain the liquid into bottles with a big spoonful of honey, give them a shake - and there! Tonic for colds and snivels for all my woodland folks.

Wild cherries at the bottom of my lane

   If you thought Magic folks only drink dew from the dawn grass and hawthorn leaves - then pffffft! Think again! This fae at least will make a little quantity of Cherry Brandy to store up ready for colder days.

Sweets too I can make - and wrap them in crinkly wild-rose petals for my Eco Enchantments business - they come from the amber coloured resin gum which gathers if the bark is lightly cut - all chewy and long lasting.

From my collection of  faerie magic postcards : Margaret Tarrant 1923
Drawn originally for 'Wild Fruit Fairies' - poetry by Marion St. John Webb

Illustration by Cicely Mary Baker 1925 from 'Flower Fairies of the Trees'

                                           Hooray, hurrah and huzzah for the cherry harvest!!

Plant a wild cherry tree in your wild life garden!

You might also like my 'Wild Cherry Conserve' recipe - over at the Eco Enchantments website

English field poppies - perchance to dream ......

 

  Field Poppy - Corn Poppy - Common Poppy - call them what you will, they are a fragile herb of faery enchantment.  When I was but a faery-sprig, growing up as best I could in the 'modern-after-war-world' of anti-magic - I hardly ever saw them.

   Now it's quite startling to look down the lane which runs up from the stream and see crimson riots along the edges of the wheat fields .

  So what has changed?  Crop spraying has changed - just a little but it's making a difference. The farmers are beginning to leave the edges of the fields unpoisoned for wildlife. And farmers? May I say that wildlife appreciates it! How about a whole meadow here and there?

  Now the magics once more gather the poppy seeds for cooking, and stroke the white latex milk from the still green pepper-pot heads to use in dreaming, just as the ancestors did thousands of years ago. We might even give a dose of fresh scarlet petal tea for an elf with a sneeze or a cough. This flower is a gift to us from the dawning of awareness.

Illustration by Nellie Benson 1901 from 'A Flower Book'

Dumpy Books for Children

   Poppy is under the sway of Saturn, she is sacred to Persephone, Goddess of the Underworld and Innocence,  to Hypnos, God of Sleep and to Morpheus, God of Dreams.

Do you remember this?    The famous scene from MGM's 'Wizard of Oz' where Dorothy falls asleep in the poppy field sent by the Wicked Witch of the North to stop them reaching the Emerald City. Now that WAS magic. Refresh those memories and watch the scene on this link.

May the unblighted field margins grow ever larger, live long and even propser!