Dream the Waves

Life Buoy (Circle Poem) (2006) by Alec Finlay

The moment we had weathered the angle of the Essex coast, bearing to the north, we found ourselves in another element. The waves began to enlarge, with a sullen and angry look, like sea-horses of an enormous size; insultingly they approached us, rolling one after the other with elevated crests and foaming jaws, as if they would swallow us at once. For my part I did not like it ; I could not look in any direction but these monsters presented themselves, and I grew sick at the sight. I was quite horrified, laid myself down on the deck, and shut my eyes till the next morning. A thick fog came on the next day, and bore down the turbulent waves, which was more agreeable to me.

from Music and friends: or, Pleasant recollections of a dilettante (1838) by William Gardiner.

Fenland at Full Moon

Fenland at Full Moon (c.1947) - Artist Unknown

A Fenland superstition is that public dinners should always be held at the full moon, or tragedy will follow. Knowing the Fenland roads, with the wide ditches on each side and the total absence of lights, the authors can well believe it. Driving along these roads in the dim light of a waning or waxing moon is an operation fraught with considerable peril-especially after a public dinner, at which the wine has flowed with the generosity of Fenland people.

from Encyclopedia of Superstitions (1949) by Edwin Radford and Mona A. Radford

As radioactive as an old joke

UK nuclear sites at risk of flooding

     Governments fall from sheer indifference. Authority figures,
deprived of the vampiric energy they suck off their constituents,
are seen for what they are: dead empty masks manipulated by
computers. And what is behind the computers? Remote control.
Of course. Don't intend to be here when this shithouse goes up.
Nothing here now but the recordings. Shut them off, they are
as radioactive as an old joke.
     Look at the prison you are in, we are all in. This is a penal
colony that is now a Death Camp. Place of the Second and Final
Death.
     Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only
those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed
in can hope to escape.

from The Western Lands (1988) by William S. Burroughs.

A Straunge and terrible Wunder

From Rev. Abraham Fleming's account of the appearance of the ghostly black dog "Black Shuck" at the church of Bungay, Suffolk in 1577

This should be a morning to set the church bells ringing in 
that vanished village of Shipden which lies beneath the sea! 
But all I can hear above the roaring of wind and sea is 
the scream of a sea-bird and the song of a lark which the 
storm cannot keep from soaring. If there were any truth 
in those old legends of tolling bells in the sea depths, such a 
gale as this should make the East Anglian coast as musical as 
the "City of Churches" on a Christmas Eve ; for many a ham- 
let, and many a church which was a landmark to seamen, has 
gone down cliff between Aldborough and Lynn. But now 
it is the children only who listen for the bells, just as it is
the children only who go about at night in fear of Black Shuck. 
If this were a stormy night instead of a stormy day the old 
fisher-folk of the coast would say it were just the time for
Black Shuck to be abroad ; for he revels in the roaring of the
waves and loves to raise his awful voice above the howling of the 
gale.

Oh let the frogs and miry bogs destroy where they do enter

A Map of the East & West Fenne (1661) by Wenceslas Hollar, from William Dugdale's The History of Imbanking and Draining of Divers Fens and Marshes

Come, Brethren of the water, and let us all assemble,
To treat upon this matter, which makes us quake and tremble;
For we shall rue it, if''t be true, that Fens be undertaken
And where we feed in Fen and Reed, they'll feed both Beef and Bacon.

They'll sow both beans and oats, where never man yet thought it,
Where men did row in boats, ere undertakers brought it:
But, Ceres, thou, behold us now, let wild oats be their venture,
Oh let the frogs and miry bogs destroy where they do enter!

Behold the great design, which they do now determine,
Will make our bodies pine, a prey to crows and vermine:
For they do mean all Fens to drain, and waters overmaster,
All will be dry, and we must die, 'cause Essex calves want pasture.

Away with boats and rudder, farewell both boots and skatches,
No need of one nor th'other, men now make better matches;
Stilt-makers all and tanners, shall complain of this disaster,
For they will make each muddy lake for Essex calves a pasture.

The feather'd fowls have wings, to fly to to other nations;
But we have no such things, to help our transportations;
We must give place (oh grievous case) to horned beasts and cattle,
Except that we can all agree to drive them out by battle.

Powte's Complaint (c.1611) by an anonymous author and sometimes attributed to the "Fenland Tigers", this ballad was included by William Dugdale in his History of Imbanking and Draining (1662). Another version:

Leave the Lands to the mercy of the Thames

A Prospect of the Breach in Dagenham Level as it appeared Feb. 3 1707

Having given this Account of their Prostration let
us lastly enquire into the Manner how these Trees came 
to be interred, which is a difficulty more easy to be re-
solved than the last. And this I take to be from the
gradual increase of the Mud, or Sediment, which every
Tide of the Thames left behind it. I presume those Trees
might be thrown down before the Walls or Banks were
made, that keep the Thames out of the Marshes; and
then those Trees were over-flown every Tide. And by
reason they lay thick, and near one another on the
ground, they would soon gather a great deal of the Se-
diment, and be soon covered therewith. And after the
Thames- Walls were made, every Breach in them, and
Inundation would leave great quantities of Sediment be-
hind it; as I by a troublesome Experiment found, in
going over some of the Marshes, soon after the late
preach, where I found the Mud, generally above my
Shoes,and in many places above my Knees. And it is
a practice among us (of which we have divers Instances)
that where a Breach would cost more to stop, than the
Lands over-flown will countervail, there to leave the
Lands to the mercy of the Thames; which by gradu-
ally growing higher and higher, by the Additions of
Sediment, will in time shut out the Water of the River,
all except the biggest Tides. And these Lands they call
Saltings, when covered with Grass; or else they become
Reed-ground &c.

From Observations concerning the Subterraneous Trees in Dagenham, 
and Other Marshes Bordering upon the River of Thames, in the
County of Essex. By the Revd. Mr. W. Derham, Rector of Upminster
in the Same County, and F. R. S. (January 1, 1753) published in the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society

Vanished from the fen when the pools growed up

Marsh White (1975) by Margaret Mellis

" Hob-o'-Lantern," or the " lantern-man," seems to 
have vanished from the fen when the pools "growed up," 
No one appears to regret this, for he is supposed to have 
been a dangerous sprite to encounter, and only foolhardy 
persons went out of their way to make his acquaintance. 
As old Ben once said, "If so be as how you went a-nigh 
him, he would 'come for you' like as though he wor a- 
goin' ter knock you down." This had not been his own 
experience, for he had always kept away from the fen 
when the lantern-man was in possession ; but he had 
known a man to go down into the fen at night with a 
lantern, and have a lantern-man " go right tru him and 
take his breath right away." He had heard people say 
that the lantern-man was only a kind of marsh gas ; but 
he did not believe it, for no matter in what direction the 
wind might be blowing, there were times when the light 
was seen going against it ; in fact, it used to " mamder 
around" in all directions, and then suddenly go "a- 
slidderen orf as though it wor a flash o' lightnin'."