Year of Darkness - An Introduction

For the next month and 3 weeks, we're trying something a little different on the Yorkshire Writers' Lunch blog. 

A few years back, prior to COVID, a few of our members collaborated on a project titled 'Year of Darkness', at the suggestion of Jo Cameron-Symes. This refers to 536AD, a particularly grim year during the Dark Ages where Europe, the Middle East and areas of Asia passed 18 months without sunlight due to abnormalities in the climate. 

As you can imagine, this provided quite a tantalising premise for our collaborators to adapt. As well as 536AD, we moved forward 250 years at a time, allowing elements of each entry to echo down the future plots.

There will be eight entries in Year of Darkness trilogy, featuring 6 collaborators. Here is the running order:

1. 536 by Nick Stead - 01 August

2. 786 by Nick Stead - 08 August

3. 1036 by Jo Cameron Symes - 15 August

4. 1286 by Vivien Teasdale - 22 August

5. 1536 by Vivien Teasdale - 29 August

6. 1786 by Annabel Howarth - 05 September

7. 2036 by Gareth Clegg - 12 September

8. 2286 by Owen Townend - 19 September

We will resume normal posting from 26 September onward. Until our next collaboration at least.

In the meantime, we hope you enjoy Year of Darkness collaboration. Lights, please...

Trying a Line by Owen Townend

 

In prose, I constantly admire a writer who is able to drop poetic sentences like jewels. Sometimes these aren’t entirely appropriate and may even slow plot momentum but they are no less beautiful for it. It’s the literary equivalent of stopping to smell the roses.

            However I’m not particularly adept at writing such stunning imagery, at least not for longer stories. When it comes to my more plot-focused fiction, each sentence serves to keep things moving. They’re often short, simple and riddled with inoffensive cliché.

            It’s in my character-focused fiction where I find the time to make a moment pretty and quotable. However this doesn’t always work, usually because I’m trying too hard to catch the eye.

            My most egregious offences include drawn-out metaphors that don’t comfortably apply to the matter at hand, and embarrassing misreads of the analogy.

            Example time. Let’s say I’m waxing lyrical about falling in love for the first time. In a fit of utter theatricality, I churn out ‘As he danced across the square, the world was in tune: each polite throat clearing and clink of al fresco crockery joining to become a sweet ballad bearing the name Katya.’ Such a love scene has been written a billion times though the moving parts within this example make it stand out in a twee way. For one thing I certainly haven’t thought how polite throat clearing and crockery clinks can join together into a ballad of all things. Have I actually ever heard a ballad before? Research is required before letting any other eyes see this.

            Another instance. This time I’m writing about guilt at murder. I decide to phrase it ‘The memories stalked her with the pitchforks and torches of her enemies.’ If these so-called enemies used their pitchforks for farm work and torches for lighting the way, then this attempt at a play on words comes across as weak. A dedicated reader may get a feeling of what I’m driving at but, at the same time, there is a definite failure to connect.

            There is a definite art to getting this emotional sentence right. Though I have managed it a couple of times now, I wouldn’t say I’ve mastered it. Perhaps I’ve become too pragmatic to be a true poet. More likely I’m too wrapped up in getting the central idea across in plain English, let alone language that could test the patience of even the most attentive beta readers.

            Every time I do exercise my inner-poet, I refer to it as ‘trying a line’. It’s an innocuous phrase that could be applied to a variety of contexts that have nothing to do with being a show-off writer, but I like it for its simplicity. Maybe that’s precisely the problem.

            I wish I could be the kind of writer who can slow down long enough to tailor a striking turn of phrase, but my storytelling brain is much too flighty. I do have such talent in me but my pun brain generally prefers to muck around in day-to-day life rather than contribute to precise creative moments. On occasion the two rustle up a pleasant surprise but not often enough.

            Edits are better for that. The pressure is off for taking out certain words and slotting others in. In fact, I’d argue that my editing brain is the actual writer of my good poetic lines because it has had time away to think about how everything joins together. While Draft 1 is a crude rush, Draft 2 is an educated pleasure.

            You see? I just tried for a line at the end of the last paragraph. Do you think it worked?

My Place, My Space by Anna Kingston

I leave the house and bury my cold hands in my coat pockets immediately.  My breath steams in the frigid air, and the returning inhaled icy breath shocks my lungs, nearly making me cough.  I’m almost tempted back inside for another hot coffee, but I’m pulled back by the magnetism of the place.

Walking gingerly on yesterday’s slush, now glistening and rock hard in the watery, early morning light, I walk down to the footpath that leads through the fields.  With each footstep I take, I slip a little on the ice, and it feels like hard going even though it’s a route I’ve taken hundreds of times, a path burned into the neural pathway in my brain.

The path up through the field crunches under my feet - frozen ice and grasses alike giving way at each step.  How silent it is! - no traffic sounds to break the stillness of early morning, not even a hardy dog walker, with their charge wrapped up against the cold. This liminal space is mine for a little while longer.

I reach the road now, the frosted greens of path and field giving way to iced roofs, Jack Frost-painted car windows, and frozen lumps of snow on the pavement.  The air is still but clear, no neighbours stir yet, all firmly tucked up beneath quilts and blankets agains the cold.  I pass crystal gardens, baubles of frozen ice and snow adorning the flowers that were fooled into blooming last week, chains of tiny diamonds making up spiders’ webs, even their owners nowhere to be seen (thankfully!)

Still further uphill, I’m now out of breath due to the cold and the aerobic effort - this IS a big hill, even though I’ve trodden it countless times over the years.  Part way up I stop, out of puff, turning to lean on the fence, and now I can see part of town laid out before me - only the closest bits, as mist still shrouds the rest for now.  The mist moves a little, like a liquid in slow motion, revealing and hiding, teasing little glimpses of rooftops and towers.  

Round the corner, and one final pull up the steps that aren’t steps, walking on the grass as the stones are glassily lethal.  Breathing slowing, finally, I make my way around the frosted paths and across crisp, icy grass and leaves. I’m warmer now, from the steep uphill hike, and even unzip my coat, welcoming the nip in the air for now.   I climb the steps to the tower door, frost coating hinges and keyhole like sparkly, white paint, and lean on the wall, surveying my place, my space below me.  How many times have I stood in this very spot, looking for my home, my school, friends’ homes, tracing pathways with my eyes, now tracing them back in time to my childhood?

I know the very stones of this place, the ghost of the building no longer there, the Big Dipper sweep of the old moat, and the little old trees that I played in as a child, years before my own children did the same.  This hill is ancient, the tower a mere 120-odd years, but they’re landmarks of my childhood and life - picnics, time with friends, angry escapes from family rows, and often just peace for me.

This is my place, my space, and for now it’s truly all mine in the early morning winter sunshine.

The Rime of the Amazon Wagoneer by Chris Lloyd

‘Tis a lonely Amazon Wagoneer

Who stoppeth for the first tyme

And he thinks unto hisself

“the first of four score and nine”

Sun was warm and day was clear,

Leather and brass were shone.

Waggoneer took a last look round,

Took his seat, egg’d his shire on.

With map read and route set,

And shire leading up front,

The first stop, up a long steep hill,

Made the animal snort and grunt.

On they went thru town and village,

Each parcel safely delivered

Into hands or to a safe place;

There was even one for a wizard.

Ev’ry road Wagoneer travelled

‘Til he was smote with sleep

So he sat him down upon a stone

And Eftsoones made not a peep.

So Wagoneer’s shire stood guard

In case varmints got too near

To all the booty in his wagon,

‘Til he woke for a cup of beer.

With beer drunk and cheese ate,

Feeling rested and ready to go,

The Amazon Wagoneer

Checked the remaining cargo.

Off they set, Amazoneer and shire

With the last one score and three,

When round a bend a highway man

Shouted, “I be going to rob thee.”

He was not afear’d of such speech

For he’d heard it many times,

So answered as he had before,

By shouting back in rimes.

“Thou should think hard merry friend,

Afore thou work your plan

For I am an Amazon waggoneer

And I fear no other man.

Why just last week at this very spot

I despatched one such as you;

Despite his fancy silver pistol

Though it looked good, to give it due.

So, I give thou fair warning varmint!

Do not try any tricks,

Or thou shalt be dealt with swiftly

And shall die among sticks.”

“Fie, Amazon man do you dare scold me?

Get thee down fight for your skin

But do not make me wait I say

All this talk wears my patience thin.”

The coarse voice of the scoundrel,

To our hero, mattered not a jot

He simply reached behind his seat and

With his crossbow the robber was shot.

With that tawdry episode put right,

The heroes of the day

Did deliver the final parcels

In their own inimitable way.

Small and large heavy and light,

Never a parcel left behind,

The Amazon Waggoneer

Delivered what was assigned.

At the hour of eight that evening

When the last parcel had gone,

The Amazon waggoneer

Stabled his Shire and said “well done.”

His recall was not of the rogue he shot

But the deepest look of joy

As he handed a large package

To a tousled haired little boy.

No more rogues encountered,

No more robbers shot.

The Amazon Waggoneer was tired

And looking forward to a tot.

©Christopher Lloyd

A Grotesque Story by Vivien Teasdale

I wonder how many of us wander around a town without ever really looking at the buildings? We look in shop windows, perhaps notice if the door is easy to open or not, but do we ever bother with the skyline? With the shapes of the roofs, the style of the windows or even what the buildings were made of?

Try it. Look up and see what is under the eaves. If you look closely, you might even spot a few grotesques or even a gargoyle glaring down at you. What’s the difference? Well, the terms tend to be used interchangeably these days, but technically a gargoyle is a grotesque, but a grotesque is not necessarily a gargoyle.

From Ely Cathedral

Grotesques were named after the strange heads found in the underground or buried ruins of Roman buildings known as Grottes. They often are in the form of animals, real or imaginary, such as lion heads or dragons. Others show human heads, such as monks, or possibly to honour the person paying for the building, though many seem to have a very different purpose.

The humans depicted could be pulling faces at you. You could try copying them if you wish; find your inner child and stick your tongue out. Others may be portrayed in more ill-bred postures – do not imitate these, at least not in public or you’ll probably find yourself in court.

The reasons behind these images are still being debated. The grotesques are thought to be there to guard the building against evil spirits by frightening them away. They could also be showing the sort of behaviour which, if you do indulge in ‘that sort of thing,’ could be your ticket to Hell. In medieval times, few ordinary people could read so images or carvings on walls were a way to push home the message.

When you’ve finished trying to find grotesques, turn your attention to gargoyles, they’re much easier to spot.

The term ‘gargoyle’ derives from a French word meaning ‘gullet’ or ‘throat’. Going back further is its Latin origin referring to the gurgling sound of running water. The Italians and, of course the Germans, have different words: gronda sporgente (protruding gutter) and Wasserspeier (water spout or spear), which are more accurate but less romantic. Just look up at the top of the building, and the fancy spout is probably a gargoyle. Have a look at Lindley Clock Tower – there are four of them there. Just don’t stand too close on a rainy day.

From Ely Cathedral

So where do you begin? Churches or old buildings, especially in the Gothic styles, will usually have some. The older grotesques are often badly weathered, so it’s not always easy to make out the image. They are much more individual since they would have been formed one at a time by a master sculptor. From the Victorian era onwards, you will find mass produced grotesques, though these may have been based on existing grotesques from earlier periods.

Towns or cities which have a large number of grotesques or particularly famous ones, usually have a guide to them. Buxton has a booklet describing two walks around the town to find just some of their approximately 200 grotesques. There are books printed about Oxford’s one thousand or more grotesques and also walking tours with a guide to explain them. And Huddersfield has the Ramsden Estate Office, opposite the railways station. Very ornate, the walls are adorned with a mass of carved fauna and foliage. And somewhere in there, if you look closely, you will find an image of a man’s naked backside. Beware of traffic while you are looking for it – and please let us know where it is, if you find it.

As writers, any or all of these images could (or perhaps, should) spark our imagination. What is that dragon doing up there? Is she suddenly going to launch into the sky and destroy the town? Or save it from unknown menace? Just what was the mason thinking when they carved ‘those’ images? A very small percentage of medieval masons were women, though many more worked as labourers on the site. What did they think of the carvings? Was it from their own brain or were they just following orders? What was it like to be on an ancient, a medieval, a Victorian building site? What stories could the grotesques tell?

But what is the point of gawping at all this imagery? Well, they are all fearsome, fantastic or funny. Isn’t that enough?