Whence these stories?

It had been a long, long, dreary summer, and Algy had often found himself hopelessly lost in the dense Scotch mist which smothered the land and the sea, blown hither and yon by the gales and drenched by the persistent rain, but as the world turned and the wind swung round to the north at last, a bitter squall from the arctic swept down across the ocean and drove all before it as it chased the clinging mists away. And when the wind finally dropped the sun came out and lit up the land in all its autumn glory, and Algy found himself safely at home once more… Tired but happy, he picked a comfortable spot on a bed of drying grasses and fallen leaves, and settled down comfortably in the sunshine to enjoy the unusual luxury of a quiet afternoon’s reading:

Should you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest,
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations,
As of thunder in the mountains?
I should answer, I should tell you,
“From the forests and the prairies,
From the great lakes of the Northland,
From the land of the Ojibways,
From the land of the Dacotahs,
From the mountains, moors, and fenlands
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
Feeds among the reeds and rushes.

[Algy is reading the famous opening lines from The Song of Hiawatha by the 19th century American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]

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The Secret Song

Algy flew into the edge of a forest beside the great sea loch, and found a cosy spot where he could recline on a soft bed of grass and dry bracken. Lying back among the autumn foliage he stared up at the tall trees towering above him, listening to the sounds of the birds and tiny insects who were going about their daily lives in this peaceful environment. It was much calmer inside the forest than on the shores of the loch, and he could hear many wee rustling noises and murmurings of the forest folk. Algy reflected on the amazing complexity of life that went almost entirely unnoticed most of the time… It reminded him of a children’s poem which he had discovered recently:

Who saw the petals
drop from the rose?
I, said the spider,
but nobody knows.

Who saw the sunset
flash on a bird?
I, said the fish,
but nobody heard.

Who saw the fog
come over the sea?
I, said the sea pigeon,
only me.

Who saw the first
green light of the sun?
I, said the night owl,
the only one.

Who saw the moss
creep over the stone?
I, said the grey fox,
all alone.

Algy hopes that you all have a calm and peaceful Sunday xo

[Algy is quoting the poem The Secret Song by the early 20th century American writer of children’s books, Margaret Wise Brown.]

Algy could see from the rapidly darkening sky that another shower of heavy sleet was approaching, so he tucked himself into a large hollow beneath the battered old gorse bushes, made a cosy bed of dry bracken to rest on, and settled down to wait for the skies to clear again.

Algy hopes that you will all find a cosy place of shelter this weekend too, especially if your own skies are looking black…

The gorse was altogether too prickly for his tail feathers, so Algy hopped down to a more comfortable perch on a clump of heather which overhung the burn, and gazed at all the water rushing away to the sea. The local landscape almost always had a plentiful supply of fresh water, as there were only a few days in the year in which it did not fall out of the sky. But it was a different matter for many of the local human residents, whose water supply systems were dependent upon very basic collection facilities which routinely became blocked by storm-swept vegetation, some unfortunate frog, or even, on one occasion, an eel… In fact, it was very often the case that the more water that fell – whether as rain, sleet, or snow – the more likely it was that the humans’ homes would be without a water supply!

Have a happy weekend, everyone, with a plentiful supply of fresh water 🙂

Source: adventuresofalgy

Algy flew around the ridge and down to the burn, which drained the water from the steep, rocky slopes and the peat bogs safely into the sea. Despite the mass of prickles beneath his tail feathers, Algy perched in a large gorse bush and settled down to watch the burn playing in its pebbly bed and the light playing on the gold and russet grasses. There were many periods of bright golden sunlight, but from time to time the sky turned entirely black, and almost immediately the heavens opened, drenching the ground – and Algy – with yet another shower of icy sleet.

Source: adventuresofalgy

It was mid-November and a gale was blowing up, bringing suddenly blackened skies carrying torrential showers of slushy sleet, or sometimes rain mixed with icy hail. But when Algy stopped to look carefully at the heather bushes growing in the shelter of the rocks on the hill, he was thrilled to see some tiny purple bells still flowering there. Winter was approaching rapidly, but it was not quite here yet 🙂

It was mid-November and a gale was blowing up, bringing suddenly blackened skies carrying torrential showers of slushy sleet, or sometimes rain mixed with icy hail. But when Algy stopped to look carefully at the heather bushes growing in the shelter of the rocks on the hill, he was thrilled to see some tiny purple bells still flowering there. Winter was approaching rapidly, but it was not quite here yet 🙂

Source: adventuresofalgy

As the weather forecast for the week ahead was grim, Algy decided to make the most of a brief spell of sunshine, and go for a wee ride in the birch tree while it was still relatively calm and comfortably dry. As he looked at the colours of the leaves around him, he felt that for once he had almost achieved a state of satisfactory camouflage, but unfortunately it could only last for as long as the leaves still clung to the tree, which would not be very long at all if the forecast was correct…

As the weather forecast for the week ahead was grim, Algy decided to make the most of a brief spell of sunshine, and go for a wee ride in the birch tree while it was still relatively calm and comfortably dry. As he looked at the colours of the leaves around him, he felt that for once he had almost achieved a state of satisfactory camouflage, but unfortunately it could only last for as long as the leaves still clung to the tree, which would not be very long at all if the forecast was correct…

Source: adventuresofalgy

Algy left the forest and flew back towards his home by the wild ocean, fighting against the roaring north-east wind all the way. In the distance he could see the dual peaks of the Isle of Rum, dusted white with the first snow of the coming winter. It felt bitterly cold, and he wondered whether it wouldn’t have been wiser to have stayed beneath the cover of the great forest. He dropped down to the ground to rest by one of his favourite birch trees, amid a shower of falling leaves that were whirling round and round in the wind. Fascinated, Algy watched as he quickly acquired a pretty coverlet of russet, red and yellow, which glowed like pure gold in the autumn sunlight…

Algy wishes you all a very happy Sunday, and hopes that if you too live in these northern lands, you will manage to stay cosy and warm 🙂