REWILDING — ON BEING PLACE

I am Cumbria, and although this is difficult to define, I will say that I am cousin to rivers, lochs and aft-shot off the western isles. I am the waters of what is called the Solway Firth just north of Carlisle, that bring us the stories of smelt, flap-footed seals, basking sharks, blue mussels and curlew; Mona — Ynish Mōn — is known in a modern, shallow, know-less-ness, as the Isle of Man, that Tacitus, buddy to the bitter politician Claudius, writes of as a land of druids. I am standing stones and the first forests of oak and rowan, spruce and grave-dappling yew. And let’s not forget mo wee islands — named by the Norse — of Walney, Fowdray (Piel), Roa and Foulney, all laimrig-safe, for anchorage, amidst the terror of a beum-sléibhe from the west, on trade route currents, puffing out the main’sls of the big ships and bobbing insanity of the coracle and curragh, by ocean route twixt Éire, Breizh (Brittany) and, well, all lands traversable throughout the epoch known as the Bronze Age. Lands once also called Rheged. <a href="https://medium.com/@the_whitehorse/rewilding-on-being-place-a08ae037d638">Learn More</a>