De Mirabilibus Pecci or The 7 Wonders
'Peak Cavern', image copyright Paul Evans
Byron's
Wonder
He was charming
to me in the Cave Mouth,
Holding me close as
water came slow-dripping
In long dives
from the rocks above. We played
At catching it on our
fingers and faces
Till a rope-maker
came to be our guide.
The shacks the rope-folk
slept in were no bigger
Than hen-coops;
everywhere smelt of pig-fat
And open privies. Byron
paid his money
And I followed
them both into the dark.
We were heading, he
said, for Hell's own river.
The boat was no bigger
than a child's coffin,
Or a pauper's. He
made me lie on top.
The rope-man's face was
almost kissing water
As he pushed us
through the crack. Byron swore
As we tried to do
whatever it was he wanted
And it didn't
happen. We were both glad
When we made it through
and could uncramp ourselves
From that leaky
crate of muck and straw.
The great poet had to
bribe the rope-maker
To keep dumb
about what we didn't do.
I felt drowsy
once we reached the big cave.
Byron told me some yarn
about a portal
In the castle
above. Prisoners were dropped
To fall and flay
themselves through a shaft that ended
Somewhere right
above our heads. Those that lived
Were left to crawl in
the dark until madness
Took them; then
slow death by hunger and cold.
He asked me if I still
admired the gentry
Now, but I said
I'd heard of far worse
Done to girls by
gentlemen. I wasn't lying.
At long last we came to
the Devil's Cellar;
You could hear
the River Styx from there.
The rope-man lifted his
candle to the ceiling
And it shone like
satin or snakeskin boots.
I'm not sure why, but I
let out a shiver.
'No one really
goes to Hell,' Byron said,
Pulling me close. 'Not
even whores and blasphemers.
All this is just
water, limestone and dark.'
He smiled; said my warm
body was the real wonder.
The dog! I saw
him once more after that.
Matt Clegg
'Thor's Cave', image copyright Paul Evans
Thor's Cave
The air blues, softens
from here; some days you
see stars
or their ghosts at noon.
Chris Jones
'Hen Cloud', image copyright Paul Evans
Cloud Lines
When snow mobs us half
way up Hen Cloud
so that rufous bracken
flowers white
and feet I land in are
the feet you leave
as if to make a
tightrope of ourselves,
I slow to take in
Blackshaw Moor, effaced
but for a peregine's
wing,
tracks of hares and
rabbits,
the last spoor of a
wallaby left in snow.
Chris Jones
'Kinder Downfall', image copyright Paul Evans
Kinder Downfall, 24 April 1932
The mass trespass on
Kinder Scout, in which 400 ramblers walked onto the plateau in defiance of the
landowner, the Duke of Devonshire, was the key catalyst of the Right to Roam
movement and the establishment of the National Parks.
The wind makes faces in
the grit stacks:
totems and gargoyles
squint and grimace.
The air here is half
water: mouths suck
and gape in the
rock. Bristle grass,
brown, bone-pale,
shudders like hide,
grips each edge and
cleft.
It is endless, a
stranded reef
which seeps and surges
indefinitely.
Paths slip under
streams; pools hover;
stones become sheep
become stones.
Look out. Follow
the water's drop
into green
distance. There is sun
glinting the reservoir,
its drafted edges
bright as a chalk horse;
there is a town
in the hills' shade that
was once
a gathering place.
The wind is hard from
the west,
a skein of voices in it,
thin but clear
as curlews'. Their
songs' rising
crests the brown moor
and flies.
Rob Hindle
*
In 1636 the Enlightenment philosopher Thomas
Hobbes, author of Leviathan, wrote a
poem in Latin called De Mirabilibus Pecci, which described 'the wonders of the peak
in Darby-shire, commonly called the Devil's Arse of Peak'. A new, collaborative
exhibition at Cupola Contemporary Art in Sheffield, Yorkshire entitled 7 Wonders
is an attempt to create a contemporary response to this poem, and to the
dramatic landscape of North Derbyshire that it describes, through a
collaborative process involving five poets - Matt Clegg, Rob Hindle, Mark
Goodwin, Chris Jones, James Caruth -
and Paul Evans, an artist working in paint. The poems and paintings
reproduced above are in that exhibition.
Hobbes wasn't the only great writer to wax lyrical
about the Peak District. Here is a letter written by Thomas Carlyle to his
sister following a visit to the area more than two hundred years later.
*
A
letter from Thomas Carlyle to his sister Jean Carlyle Aitken
Rawden, near Leeds, 17
Augt 1847-
Dear Jean,
From this
halting-point in our pilgrimage, I fire off a short Note towards you; who, I
doubt not, are very willing to hear how we progress. These two or three days I
have wished to write; but never till now could fairly get out my blottingbook,
or find a quiet corner.
Jane, I think, wrote
to you from Matlock, how we were minded to have a look at the Peak Country of
Derbyshire, and expected the Mr Forster of this place to join us in the
expeditions Forster appeared duly on the Friday morning last; a most cheerful,
honest, affectionate, long-legged young man, of really sociable, intelligent
and every way polite, and agreeable habits;-whom I, glad to escape the lark
myself, instantly constituted Captain of the expedition: so he settled
all bills and waiters and etceteras, engaged all carriages, and managed,
so far as might be, the whole business; leaving me to my own reflexions, and my
own tobacco; which was a mighty benefit indeed. The weather too had suddenly
dried up; and it kept dry and excellent just till we had done, and then began
to rain again, which it has last night been vigorously doing: so that in all
respects we were favourably circumstanced for our little expedition.
On the Friday we went
to a place called Dovedale, a little rocky valley on the River Dove,-infinitely
celebrated by Tourists;-which we looked at, without much criticism, and not
without a certain degree of pleasure, especially as the drive thither and back
was all along thro' beautiful green hollows and airy limestone heights, with
their queer clean old grey villages (all trimmed and cleaned to perfection),
their solitary mine-heaps (of lead-rubbish), saw-mills (of Derbyshire stone),
huge quarry-chasms &c &c. We got back again safe by nine o'clock to tea
at Matlock (it is some 12 or 14 miles off); and next morning we quitted Matlock
for good,-towards Buxton, which is another much more frequented watering-place,
about 22 miles nearer you. Of Buxton I will tell you various things when we meet:
it is a place all elegantly "for the occasion got up"; seemed likely to be
wholesome, lying high up among bare green hills;-and must, I thought, be the
chosen home of Donothing Wearisomeness for all the Northern Counties. We
dined at their "public table," "saw the Manners" (as Tommy Johnstone says); and
came away heartily glad that we had seen it all, and needed not, without
other errand, go again to see it.1 A most elegant; and I should imagine most
inexpressibly wearisome place!- Our next stage was to Tideswell (8 miles N.W.
from Buxton), where I hoped to have found in the Birth-Register of the
Parish the entry of "James Brindley, 1716" (the enormous Engineer Brindley, who
made all the Canal-business in last century); but, after search, it was not
there. I am to write, and try elsewhere.- From Tideswell, north 7 miles, in
Castleton, a beautiful secluded old Village (1,000 years old or more) in the
deep lap of the mountains; and close by is the most enormous Cavern in the
world, called now, in polite language, Peak Cavern, but formerly in
vulgar but expressive English The Devil's--i' Peak! To which
latter name, if one could conceive such an object as the said "--," it has
really fair claims.2 A huge Cave, runs 860 yards sloping down into
the bowels of the mountain, has running waters, pools that you go over in boat;
now narrow vaulted like a tunnel, then expanding into great expanses like
cathedrals (some seven hundred and odd yards below the ground): really a
curious place, this Devil's-i' Peak, and seen without difficulty for a little
money. Some rope-spinners have set up their wheels under the high vaulted
entrance, and spin there rent-free,-one of whom, an eminent Methodist, we heard
preach in the Chapel afterwards; or rather praying, it was, and very
characteristic of its kind.3
But in fine dear Jean,
to make my long tale short, know that we quitted Castleton and Derbyshire
yesterday morning; came spieling [climbing], in our own hired "clatch"
(a kind of Double Gig, such as the place yielded) over the hills to Sheffield
and Yorkshire; drove rapidly thro' Sheffield and its sooty flaming mills, and
screeching cutleries, to the railway station; and, just catching our train, were
duly whirled away to Leeds (some 40 miles), and then with 7 miles more in a
"neat fly" were safely lodged here, about dusk, on our hospitable Hilltop far
enough from all the smoke, in one of the most hospitable, pleasant and quiet
mansions, I think, within the Four Seas. I have not slept in so utterly still a
place these many years. Forster is off after breakfast to his business (Mill,
Warehouse &c) at Bradford some five miles distant; and here Jane and I are
left sovereigns of the Mansion, with nothing in it but a quiet old Quaker dame
of a housekeeper, and some maids &c who seem all to be shod in felt, so
still and noiseless are they, and look as clean as if they had just come out of
Spring wells: Really an excellent old House: it has belonged to some Laird
in old days when Lairds still were; and Forster has thoroughly repaired and
modernised it; and retires to this distance every afternoon, to be away from
Bradford and its noise and reek, and sit silent or converse with quiet friends
here. That is the end of our pilgrimage for the present; which surely has done
very well hitherto. Jane was in unusual heart all the way; did indeed break
down at Castleton, the night before last, and had to be brought hither to take
her breakfast (towards sunset) yesterday, and to commence sleeping
directly after: but she is now all alive again, and I suppose will do well, if
well let alone now.-- For the rest, I have entirely and unaccountably lost
James's Newspaper this week: it and my Mother's both! I received them both at
Buxton; carried them all day in my pocket yesterday; saw them near
Leeds, but could never see them again; they had hustled out of my Coat, which
was lying loose. I send you an Irish Nation4 instead; which probably will do almost as well.
My Mother's is a greater loss, for there was a smart review of D'Aubigné's Cromwell
in it (filliping his foolish nose very handsomely out of that job),
which I could have wished her to see.5
Today I will write my
Mother a small Note, to keep her in peace about us; and pray do you immediately
send off this to her, that she and Scotsbrig may know all the outs and
ins: I will tell her to expect it straightway. And then with a little Note to
Jack, merely to give our Address, I will conclude writing this day, and go out
to have a ride, for there is a horse, and the rain seems nearly done.
You may safely write
to us here; for I think we shall certainly stay a few days. Our future
movements, except that I am coming Northwards by and by, are all undetermined
farther than this point. Here we are to rest and be thankful for a time. I will
tell Isabella to write too, for my Mother was not very well.
And so enough, dear
Jean, for one day. You shall hear again in due Season. Jane salutes you all. I
add no more but my blessing; and am ever
Your affectionate
Brother
T. Carlyle
Address: W. E. Forster
Esq, Rawden, near Leeds
You can send my Mother the Nation too,-but
not till James has quite done with it.
*
7
Wonders is on display at Cupola Contemporary Art, 178a Middlewood Road,
Sheffield S6 1TD until 9 May (www.cupolagallery.com).