'Crying The Neck' at St Columb Major (2008)

The Clay and the Flint

Horace Bolingbroke Woodward, 'A geological map of Great Britain and neighbouring islands (excluding Ireland)' (Detail), from Stanford's Geological Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland (London: Edward Stanford, 1904)

For Kipling, the distinction between the ancient Britons "of the clay" and "of the flint" was significant. 

London is of course built on clay. Those of us who have lived in south London all our lives know this well. Every Victorian house has cracks in its plaster work. Every semi-suburban pavement is at least slightly crazy. The Sussex Weald - which in Kipling was Puck's 'secret Weald' - is also "clay". And thus we have Julius Fabricius in 'The Land', for example, addressing Hobdenius 'a Briton of the Clay', whereas the flints that we find 'now and then' when 'cleaning ditches' are from Lewes. It is perhaps a pity then that the land where Kipling's house stands today is about seven hours' walk from Lewes, rather than twenty, and that it's probably on Hastings sand rather than clay - although the South Downs are indeed (famously!) chalk!*

In 'The Knife and the Naked Chalk' we learn the imaginary prehistory of a "flint man" from the South Downs who kept sheep there some three thousand years ago. Since his people's clumsy stone weapons are inadequate to protect the flock from the encroaching wolf-pack, he makes a journey to the Weald, to parley with the men of the forest for their magic knives, which are of course forged out of Kipling's "cold iron". In exchange for the new weaponry though, he agrees to sacrifice one of his eyes, and thus he returns to the Downs as the saviour both of his flock and of his people. But the price of his success is that he must live out the rest of his days effectively as a god - a venerable but lonely existence!

This is of course an interesting early spin on Norse mythology, implicitly presenting an origin story for the myth of how Odin sacrificed his eye (not to mention Tyr and his hand). Perhaps more interestingly, Kipling tells his story - in a "proto-Tolkienian" manner - in quite deliberately Christian terms. There can be little doubt, after all, about the origin of the idea of the good shepherd defending his sheep against the wolves and then sacrificing himself not just for his sheep but for his people as well.

It is also quite probably the eeriest of all Kipling's "children's" tales.

*Perhaps we can put such things down (or, er, chalk them up) to poetic licence.

Devil's Bridge, Worm's Head, Wales

Church in St. Etienne, France

Vajrakali, 'Scrying Mirror'

The King in Thule

Pierre Jean Van der Ouderaa, The King of Thule (1896)

Es war ein König in Thule,

Gar treu bis an das Grab,

Dem sterbend seine Buhle

einen goldnen Becher gab.

Es ging ihm nichts darüber,

Er leert' ihn jeden Schmaus;

Die Augen gingen ihm über,

So oft er trank daraus.

Und als er kam zu sterben,

Zählt' er seine Städt' im Reich,

Gönnt' alles seinen Erben,

Den Becher nicht zugleich.

Er saß beim Königsmahle,

Die Ritter um ihn her,

Auf hohem Vätersaale,

Dort auf dem Schloß am Meer.

Dort stand der alte Zecher,

Trank letzte Lebensglut,

Und warf den heiligen Becher

Hinunter in die Flut.

Er sah ihn stürzen, trinken

Und sinken tief ins Meer,

die Augen täten ihm sinken,

Trank nie einen Tropfen mehr.

There was a king in Thule,

Was faithful till the grave,

To whom his mistress, dying,

A golden goblet gave.

Nought was to him more precious;

He drained it at every bout;

His eyes with tears ran over,

As oft as he drank thereout.

When came his time of dying,

The towns in his land he told,

Nought else to his heir denying

Except the goblet of gold.

He sat at the royal banquet

With his knights of high degree,

In the lofty hall of his fathers

In the castle by the sea.

There stood the old carouser,

And drank the last life-glow;

And hurled the hallowed goblet

Into the tide below.

He saw it plunging and filling,

And sinking deep in the sea:

Then fell his eyelids for ever,

And never more drank he!

['Der König in Thule', by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]

The poem was later set to music by Franz Schubert. (The visuals in the video are from Fritz Lang’s 1924 film Die Nibelungen: Siegfried, and are not directly related to the poem.)

Trank nie einen Tropfen mehr? Well, I've just given up alcohol for St Martin's Lent. (We'll see how that goes.)

John William Waterhouse, The Crystal Ball (1902)

UPDATE: The "Christian" counterpart of this painting, finished by the artist in the same year, is here.