“The rolling stone rolls echoing from rock to rock; but the rolling stone is dead. The moss is silent because the moss is alive.”
– G.K. Chesterton, ‘Heretics’
I have a bit of a confession; I rather like fence posts. I recognise this piece of information probably makes me a bit weird, but it is, nevertheless, the truth. We have some great fences round here … gnarled, weatherworn, and deeply grooved. I mean, just look at that texture!
Sometimes it’s the post itself, but most of the time, it’s what’s growing on top that really makes my day. Atop these characterful posts, there are tiny little worlds just waiting to be explored. Lumps and bumps of vibrant green. Velvety cushions strewn across hardwood floors. There are red tipped lichenous spikes, an orchestra of grey-green trumpets and many slender, fragile columns holding aloft the foundations of the next generation.
On the day I took these photos, everything was sprinkled with a glitter of diamond bright droplets. Not from rain, but from mist. Or low-hanging cloud. Or mizzle. Or whatever name we were using for it that day. Somehow, it made the moss look alive. I mean, I know it is alive, but it started to seem sentient. Tentacles reached out from behind tuffets of green, each one topped with an eye and bejewelled along its length. Even the velvety cushions seemed to be small furry creatures, hunkered down against the rain.
As a kid, I read a book called ‘The Forest of Bowland Light Railway’, in which my favourite characters were called cowzies (Looking back, they form a very tiny part of the book, but they were the bit that stuck with me!). Small bundles of fluff, they lived deep in the forest alongside the gnomes, the leprechauns, and the wild animals;
A cowzie is about as high as a rabbit sitting up on its hind legs. It has no arms and no legs to speak of, and its eyes though small, are hidden under long hair like a toy terrier, the kind old ladies and old maids loaves to carry about and which are always yapping.
The cowzies’ teeth, though hidden in their long hair, were as sharp as needles and about the sane length.
– BB, ‘The Forest of Boland Light Railway’
To me, tiny lumps of moss always remind me of cowzies; there’s no telling what teeth, eyes and features might hide under their fluffy exterior; they’re incredibly resilient, surviving hot dry summers, soaking wet autumns and freezing winters; they huddle together for warmth, and look incredibly cute and whimsical throughout all of it.
I mean, this one basically has whiskers to sense the world around it.
“A Clerk could tell what years have flown SinceAlexander fill’d our throne, (Third monarch of that warlike name,) And eke the time when here he came To seek Sir Hugo, then our lord: A braver never drew a sword; A wiser never, at the hour Of midnight, spoke the word of power: The same, whom ancient records call The founder of the Goblin-Hall.”
– Sir Walter Scott, ‘Marmion’
Unlike most of my wanderings which are spontaneous to say the least, yesterday’s walk was a full eight months in the making. I first heard of Yester Castle about eight months ago, when someone sent me a video of a walk to a ruined castle, deep in the woods, with a creepy underground hall called Goblin Ha’. I immediately wanted to visit (why wouldn’t I?), but when I suggested we visit in December, I was scathingly informed that the path would be neck deep in mud, and I was an idiot for even considering trying to walk down it.
Families are fun!
Cut to yesterday and it was a nice day in Scotland, so what else would we do, other than go looking for a mystical castle that was reputedly built by goblins, at the behest of a necromantic sorcerer? The weather having been approved by both mum and Katie 🙄, we set off for Danskine Loch. The journey across the Lammermuirs was beautiful; the heather was just about to burst into full purple, the grass was still a brownish shade of green, and the Rosebay Willowherb added a touch of bright pink. With the white of the newly shorn sheep and the swathes of equally white wind turbines, it was nothing short of picturesque. We parked up at the southern end of the loch and then followed the path away from it. I still haven’t actually laid eyes on the loch itself, but I saw the pathway that allegedly led to it.
The path we followed was wide and gravelled. It led through an area that had clearly been decimated in one of the frequent storms that pass through this area, had been clear cut, and then replanted with saplings. We debated how hard it would have been to plant anything on the steep sides of the valley and decided that, if it had been up to us, there would still be no trees! After a few hundred yards, we entered a wooded area with both coniferous and deciduous trees, including some yew trees with fabulous columnar trunks.
The path, as well as being more shaded here, was definitely holding on to considerably more of the previous day’s rain and was a little squelchy underfoot. Secretly, I decided that if it was this wet and muddy at the end of a heatwave, they had probably been right not to visit in December. Not that I would ever admit this to them, even under torture! Just because they were right on this occasion, doesn’t mean I want to set a precedent of paying attention … they’ll only get big-headed!
We carefully picked our way through the mud descending alongside a small, fast flowing stream that meandered along, trickling over rocks and constantly switching which side it was on. Our path crossed numerous bridges, each of which was beautifully built out of stone, bedecked with moss, and draped with plants. I don’t know whether I just had goblins at the back of my mind thanks to our destination, but it was beginning to feel a lot like walking through fairyland.
We eventually reached a fork in both the path and the stream and struck out, over yet another bridge, upwards again, following the new stream which, slightly disconcertingly, seemed to be flowing the wrong way. Here, the trees were predominantly beeches, huge old giants, gnarled and twisted, but soaring above us in emerald splendour. These were Tolkein’s ents made flesh (including the one in the final photograph of this series which had run out of puff half way up the hill and stopped for a rest!) Given that we were heading sharply uphill, the ground underfoot had dried considerably, and tree roots provided some traction.
After following another steep downhill path to cross the stream again and then an immediate uphill, we finally came across Yester Castle. A tall hillock on our right was surmounted by unmistakable stonework. Not a lot was immediately obvious, but after scrambling like mountain goats up a precipitous pathway, the extent of the castle started to reveal itself.
The approach ran under a large stonework arch, with a fireplace built into the left-hand wall and a large arrow slit to the right-hand side. Once we passed through this entrance, we were suddenly faced with one of the biggest expanses of stone wall I’ve ever seen. It must have been four storeys high and stretched fifty feet from end to end.
Cut into this wall were several openings; a huge open archway leading back “out” of the castle, a couple of windows, and then, down a long flight of steps, two barred windows which looked into the underground Goblin Ha’.
Having done my research, I knew that the door “out” led to a narrow path that wound down the side of the hill and around to the entrance tunnel to the Goblin Ha’. This is the section of the castle that is said to have been built by an army of hobgoblins on the orders of one Sir Hugh Gifford de Yester, known as the Wizard of Yester. Sir Hugh, or Hugo as he is called in some records, was reputed to be a necromancer who made a pact with the Devil to gain control of the hobgoblins which he then used to do his bidding and build the castle at some point prior to his death in 1237.
The goblin sized tunnel (I may not be very tall, but apparently I’m taller than a goblin and had to crouch down for the first litrle bit!) was pitch black and led through the hill for about eight or nine metres, before opening up into a much larger, but incredibly dark space, lit only by the two small, barred openings (and our torches)! The photos make it seem much lighter, but that’s after applying torchlight and camera flashes. The ceiling, which arched way over our heads, was beautifully vaulted. There were a number of niches cut into the walls, most of which contained the remains of extinguished candles. Black, obviously. I mean, what other colour candle would anyone bring into a dark creepy hall built by goblins? Opposite the entrance tunnel, there was another arched doorway, leading to a set of (very crumbled) steps that descended deeper into the darkness. I explored as far as I dared, but the steps had collapsed about twenty feet down, and even I decided that it was probably not wise to push my luck and scramble any further without a proper torch. We were a long way from any reliable phone signal and even further from the emergency services!
We emerged, blinking in the sunlight, and thoroughly satisfied with our explorations. The path through the forest was just as beautiful on the way back, full of plenty of spaces in which a goblin could lurk. None remained visible for us, though, so we had to be satisfied with our imaginations.
absolutelynotnormal 