Remains of Elmet

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Thus, with typical care and precision, Hughes chose as a symbol of his own role a creature which represents the powers of the Goddess here on Earth. Being amphibious, it moves with shamanic ease between water and land, linking the two worlds to which we belong – the watery world from which we came in prehistoric times and which also (for Hughes) represented the unconscious energies and our present land–based, reason–dominated world. Because of such shamanic powers, Hughes‘ prophecies of disaster are not untempered with hope. In his role of poet/shaman/alchemist, he not only poetically transforms the death of the Calder Valley society into a spiritual re–birth (‘Heptonstall Cemetery’ ( ROE.122)), he also brings to us some transforming imaginative energies which might allow us to attain our own enlightenment and spiritual release. Godwin appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs programme in 2002. Here’s what she chose as her eight favourite pieces of music. Murphy, Richard. "Last Exit to Nature by Richard Murphy". The New York Review of Books. Nybooks.com . Retrieved 29 January 2014. Most characteristic verse of this English writer for children without sentimentality emphasizes the cunning and savagery of animal life in harsh, sometimes disjunctive lines. After the annexation of Elmet, the realm was incorporated into Northumbria on Easter in 627. [5] Its people were known subsequently as the Elmetsæte. They are recorded in the late 7th century Tribal Hidage as the inhabitants of a minor territory of 600 hides. They were the most northerly group recorded in the Tribal Hidage. The Elmetsæte probably continued to reside in West Yorkshire as a distinct Brittonic Celtic group throughout the Anglo-Saxon period and may have colluded with Cadwallon ap Cadfan of Gwynedd when he invaded Northumbria and briefly held the area in 633.

Through these elders, through his attunement to the raw elemental freedom of the moors, and through his affinity with those, like the Brontes, who shared his passions, Hughes first learned to listen and respond to the music within himself which connected him with his roots and with Nature. By these means, he counteracted the destructive aspects of his early environment. Unlike the puppet singers, however, Hughes became aware of his ability to hear and transmit this music; and, alerted by his visions and by watching the death throes of the Calder Valley, he came to believe in its importance to Mankind, and of the dangers of seeking to repress this valuable link with the energies of the Source. Remains of Elmet, in fact, is far less simple than Hughes’ published statements about it would have us believe. There is a metaphysical aspect to it which has been almost overlooked; and, as in Cave Birds, it has a transforming alchemical purpose. It also displays as many congruencies of thought and belief between Hughes and Blake as were evident in Cave Birds. It is a sequence not only by virtue of the poems’ common geographical location, but also because of a consistent underlying cosmology and because it represents, as reviewer Richard Murphy perceptively realised at the time of its publication, Hughes’ attempt to “ re–sacralise” the world through poetry 8. a b c Smith, A.H. (1961). The Place-names of the West Riding of Yorkshire. Vol.4. Cambridge University Press. pp.1–3. The Academic Suppression of the history of the native British or Cruthin, the People of the Pretani Towards the end of the 6th century, Elmet came under increasing pressure from the expanding Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Deira and Mercia. Forces from Elmet joined the ill-fated alliance in 590 against the English of Bernicia who had been making massive inroads further to the north. During this war it is thought Elmet’s king Gwallog was killed. The northern alliance collapsed after Urien of Rheged was murdered and a feud broke out between two of its key members.

Hughes ties the death of his mother with the steady decay, of Elmet, at the hand of industrialisation, 'the last British Celtic kingdom to fall to the angles' — the remains of which being the Calder Valley where the young Hughes grew up. I ask Godwin about her relationship with the land, and what inspired her to start documenting it seriously.

criminals, a hide-out for refugees. Then in the early 1800s it became the cradle for the Industrial Revolution in John T. Koch, 'Elfed/Elmet', in Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia, ed. by John T. Koch (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2005), pp. 670–71. tall Brookes/Kindermann stainless steel dev. tanks taking four med format or seven 35mm spirals eachAround 1865, a Pillar stone with a 5th or early 6th century inscription was found at St Aelhaearn's Church, Llanaelhaearn in Gwynedd. The Latin inscription reads " ALIOTVS ELMETIACOS/HIC IACET", or "Aliotus the Elmetian lies here". It is believed that this refers to an otherwise unattested Aliotus from the Kingdom of Elmet who may have been active in the area before Saint Aelhaiarn founded his church. [14] [15] Legacy [ edit ] Poetry by Ted Hughes Remains of Elmet (London: Faber and Faber, 1979)/ Elmet (London: Faber and Faber, 1994) Her book, apart from The Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare, would be The Rattlebag, an anthology of poems by Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney.