Chapter Five: The River of Death
The three friends, having left the Sanctuary at the top of the ridge behind them, had descended into the valley bottom down a path beside the road, edged with lush new grasses, to where the lazy river Kennet was beginning its meandering journey through Wiltshire on its way to joining the Thames at Reading.
Another half mile walk along the snaking river brought them to the farm cottages of West Kennet on the curve of the Bath road, where they crossed the stone bridge and continued through fields lined with early blossoming whitethorn bushes in which a cuckoo could be heard, a herald of summer’s approach; ahead the companions could now see, unobscured by intervening hills for the first time, the majestic rise of Silbury Hill. At this point the Kennet turned to their left, to the south, to its source, as Barfield informed them, at the ‘Kennit spring’, as it was named on Stukeley’s plan; while another small tributary, its origins further to the north, swung around and skirted past the bottom of the hill, which was casting a great shadow over the water-logged meadow in which it lay.
While Barfield and Lewis gazed in wonder at the mound Tolkien had idled a few paces away towards the sedge covered banks of the slow, clear, river, where he gazed a while on the sticklebacks flitting in and out of the rills of dark green weed swaying in the glassy shallows. Above him a pair of crows were cawing as they circled, then flew off to the south.
He crouched, gazing into its clear depths, its shallow bottom, in the dappled shade from the water weeds, flecked here and there with pieces of chalk. He removed his boots and socks, rolled up his trouser bottoms and dipped a tentative foot into the water; it was icy cold, but before long he had grown used to it, and he sat on the bank, moving his feet hither and thither, stirring up a milky cloud of sediment that floated gently away downstream.
‘Enlighten us Tollers’ Lewis said, striding over to where Tolkien was seated, ‘The river name, Kennet, means what?’ he looked back and winked at Barfield.
‘I know what you’re getting at, Jack, and I happen to disagree with that particular vulgar etymology!’ Tolkien leaned forward amongst the rushes and dipped his hand into the cool water.
‘The earliest record is Cunnit, but we’re not looking at a Saxon profanity –beyond Marlborough is a place named Mildenhall called Cunetio by the Romans, no doubt after the river. The name cannot therefore be Saxon if it was here centuries prior to the Adventus…’. The adventus Tolkien was referring to was the Adventus Saxonum, the coming of the Saxons, which tradition dated to AD 430, some 20 years after the last of the legions had left Britain for good. The conversations between these gentlemen were always peppered with such terms – Latin and Greek phrases, snippets of poetry from all ages, used not to impress, but as a kind of scholarly shorthand. A casual listener might be forgiven for wondering if they were often talking in code.
‘Cut to the chase, Tollers – Kennet means…?’ despite his seeming briskness Lewis was smiling. His shadow moved across the water, scattering the sticklebacks.
Tolkien nevertheless bristled at being cut short.
‘The first part is from Cuno the old British word for dog…’
‘The river Dog?’ Lewis roared with laughter. ‘What a strange name!’
‘That’s rich coming from you, Jacksie!’ said Barfield, referring to the fact that since childhood Lewis had insisted he be called after the name of his favourite dog rather than his given name, Clive.
Tolkien ignored their quips.
‘The second element stems from dagos,’ Tolkien continued, ‘linked to our word ‘day’, but it stems from an older word meaning bright; and so ‘bright-hound’ is my preferred translation. Cunodagos, Cunetio, Kennet – it’s the same name. Shining dog. Bright hound.’ He turned back to watch the waters plashing over his milk-white feet. It was an odd name. Something to do with the chalk, perhaps? But why hound?
Lewis, still amused, nevertheless tried to suppress his mirth for the sake of Tolkien who could be touchy about his subjects.
‘The river of the bright hound…That, I concede, makes some sense if we think in terms of this place as a funerary landscape; after all, the Greeks imagined the river Styx that separated the land of the living from that of the dead as guarded on its far bank by the three headed dog Cerberus… could he be the dog?’
Tolkien frowned, weighing up the possibility in his mind.
Barfield, looking across the valley, offered support for Lewis’s observation, ‘Actually, the idea of the river as a dividing line between the realm of the dead and of the living could work here - West Kennet Long Barrow… there,’ he said, pointing to a rise on the crest of the hill to their south ‘the burial place of the builders of Avebury, stands on that side of the river, and the stone circles lay on this. I’ve always thought of the circle as an expression of life…’
‘So, like the Roman, you think they buried their dead away from the settlements? A river is as good a barrier as any…’ Tolkien said.
‘So luckily any hell-hound guarding this river would be on that side!’’ Lewis observed, looking aslant at opposite bank of the bubbling waters, where in a nearby copse the cuckoo was still calling. Nothing could seem more incongruous on this beautiful spring day than the idea that this vale of green, spotted with the yellows and blues of meadow flowers and the creamy masses of whitethorn bushes fat with blossom could in any way be associated with death. All seemed alive, burgeoning with vitality and renewed growth.
Tolkien lent over the edge of the stream, where pieces of chalk and river rolled flints could be seen poking above the muddy depths of the clear water. He lent forward and plunged his hand into the cool depths, taking a stone from the bottom – a smooth river-rolled chalk pebble, and began to recite a few lines of verse:
In the depths stood dazzling stones aheap
As a glitter through glass that glowed with light,
As streaming stars when on earth men sleep
Stare in the welkin in winter night’
‘That’s beautiful,’ said Barfield. ‘It’s from The Pearl is it not?’
Tolkien nodded. ‘We have no recourse to rush to the Greeks to find mention of the River of Death, when our own poets express it so eloquently.’ He said, holding the white pebble between his thumb and forefinger and examining it closely, before placing it in his waistcoat pocket.
Jack nodded, more serious now. ‘I was always touched by that scene – one of the most haunting in any medieval lyric, I would say; and I suppose that poem is more fitting, for it is the garden of Paradise that lies over the river, not some dark hell inhabited by bat-like souls that one finds across the Styx in the Classical traditions.’ He gazed out over the fields, his eyes narrowed against the sun. The poem, which told of the dream of a grieving father in which he spies his deceased daughter, the Pearl of the title, across the river of death, had been read aloud by Tolkien on one of their Thursday nights at Magdalen at the tail end of the previous year.
‘But the river was wide, I durst not swim’ Tolkien quoted, touching the chalk in his pocket.
‘…I durst not swim…’
Tolkien’s voice was tinged with melancholy, and Barfield wondered what his quiet friend was thinking as he gazed across the river to the ruinous tomb on the crest of the hill, what pallid ghost he was seeing in his mind’s eye in place of the lost daughter of the poem, whose words continued to flow from his lips, but now in a whisper.
Barfield turned and once more took the path that headed westwards between the river and the road; and soon Jack was beside him, striding forward.
‘Is Ronald okay?’ Owen asked. ‘He seems distant; preoccupied.’
‘Oh don’t mind Ronald; he’s had his head in his books for so long he’s just taking a while to remember how to relax.’ He looked back to where Tolkien stood looking across the river.
‘But there is always something of the melancholic in him;’ Lewis continued ‘I think he pines for something; if I could put it in a nutshell I’d say he was homesick – homesick for a place he’s never been; nor perhaps ever could have, save in his imagination.’
‘The imagination is a powerful thing.’ Barfield said.
‘It is.’ Jack said. ‘But ultimately it is fancy, not blood and stone; not real.’
Barfield shook his head. ‘What is real?’ he asked.
‘My grumbling stomach is real, Owen. Spare me your metaphysics until I at least have a cup of tea inside of me!’
The three friends, having left the Sanctuary at the top of the ridge behind them, had descended into the valley bottom down a path beside the road, edged with lush new grasses, to where the lazy river Kennet was beginning its meandering journey through Wiltshire on its way to joining the Thames at Reading.
Another half mile walk along the snaking river brought them to the farm cottages of West Kennet on the curve of the Bath road, where they crossed the stone bridge and continued through fields lined with early blossoming whitethorn bushes in which a cuckoo could be heard, a herald of summer’s approach; ahead the companions could now see, unobscured by intervening hills for the first time, the majestic rise of Silbury Hill. At this point the Kennet turned to their left, to the south, to its source, as Barfield informed them, at the ‘Kennit spring’, as it was named on Stukeley’s plan; while another small tributary, its origins further to the north, swung around and skirted past the bottom of the hill, which was casting a great shadow over the water-logged meadow in which it lay.
While Barfield and Lewis gazed in wonder at the mound Tolkien had idled a few paces away towards the sedge covered banks of the slow, clear, river, where he gazed a while on the sticklebacks flitting in and out of the rills of dark green weed swaying in the glassy shallows. Above him a pair of crows were cawing as they circled, then flew off to the south.
He crouched, gazing into its clear depths, its shallow bottom, in the dappled shade from the water weeds, flecked here and there with pieces of chalk. He removed his boots and socks, rolled up his trouser bottoms and dipped a tentative foot into the water; it was icy cold, but before long he had grown used to it, and he sat on the bank, moving his feet hither and thither, stirring up a milky cloud of sediment that floated gently away downstream.
‘Enlighten us Tollers’ Lewis said, striding over to where Tolkien was seated, ‘The river name, Kennet, means what?’ he looked back and winked at Barfield.
‘I know what you’re getting at, Jack, and I happen to disagree with that particular vulgar etymology!’ Tolkien leaned forward amongst the rushes and dipped his hand into the cool water.
‘The earliest record is Cunnit, but we’re not looking at a Saxon profanity –beyond Marlborough is a place named Mildenhall called Cunetio by the Romans, no doubt after the river. The name cannot therefore be Saxon if it was here centuries prior to the Adventus…’. The adventus Tolkien was referring to was the Adventus Saxonum, the coming of the Saxons, which tradition dated to AD 430, some 20 years after the last of the legions had left Britain for good. The conversations between these gentlemen were always peppered with such terms – Latin and Greek phrases, snippets of poetry from all ages, used not to impress, but as a kind of scholarly shorthand. A casual listener might be forgiven for wondering if they were often talking in code.
‘Cut to the chase, Tollers – Kennet means…?’ despite his seeming briskness Lewis was smiling. His shadow moved across the water, scattering the sticklebacks.
Tolkien nevertheless bristled at being cut short.
‘The first part is from Cuno the old British word for dog…’
‘The river Dog?’ Lewis roared with laughter. ‘What a strange name!’
‘That’s rich coming from you, Jacksie!’ said Barfield, referring to the fact that since childhood Lewis had insisted he be called after the name of his favourite dog rather than his given name, Clive.
Tolkien ignored their quips.
‘The second element stems from dagos,’ Tolkien continued, ‘linked to our word ‘day’, but it stems from an older word meaning bright; and so ‘bright-hound’ is my preferred translation. Cunodagos, Cunetio, Kennet – it’s the same name. Shining dog. Bright hound.’ He turned back to watch the waters plashing over his milk-white feet. It was an odd name. Something to do with the chalk, perhaps? But why hound?
Lewis, still amused, nevertheless tried to suppress his mirth for the sake of Tolkien who could be touchy about his subjects.
‘The river of the bright hound…That, I concede, makes some sense if we think in terms of this place as a funerary landscape; after all, the Greeks imagined the river Styx that separated the land of the living from that of the dead as guarded on its far bank by the three headed dog Cerberus… could he be the dog?’
Tolkien frowned, weighing up the possibility in his mind.
Barfield, looking across the valley, offered support for Lewis’s observation, ‘Actually, the idea of the river as a dividing line between the realm of the dead and of the living could work here - West Kennet Long Barrow… there,’ he said, pointing to a rise on the crest of the hill to their south ‘the burial place of the builders of Avebury, stands on that side of the river, and the stone circles lay on this. I’ve always thought of the circle as an expression of life…’
‘So, like the Roman, you think they buried their dead away from the settlements? A river is as good a barrier as any…’ Tolkien said.
‘So luckily any hell-hound guarding this river would be on that side!’’ Lewis observed, looking aslant at opposite bank of the bubbling waters, where in a nearby copse the cuckoo was still calling. Nothing could seem more incongruous on this beautiful spring day than the idea that this vale of green, spotted with the yellows and blues of meadow flowers and the creamy masses of whitethorn bushes fat with blossom could in any way be associated with death. All seemed alive, burgeoning with vitality and renewed growth.
Tolkien lent over the edge of the stream, where pieces of chalk and river rolled flints could be seen poking above the muddy depths of the clear water. He lent forward and plunged his hand into the cool depths, taking a stone from the bottom – a smooth river-rolled chalk pebble, and began to recite a few lines of verse:
In the depths stood dazzling stones aheap
As a glitter through glass that glowed with light,
As streaming stars when on earth men sleep
Stare in the welkin in winter night’
‘That’s beautiful,’ said Barfield. ‘It’s from The Pearl is it not?’
Tolkien nodded. ‘We have no recourse to rush to the Greeks to find mention of the River of Death, when our own poets express it so eloquently.’ He said, holding the white pebble between his thumb and forefinger and examining it closely, before placing it in his waistcoat pocket.
Jack nodded, more serious now. ‘I was always touched by that scene – one of the most haunting in any medieval lyric, I would say; and I suppose that poem is more fitting, for it is the garden of Paradise that lies over the river, not some dark hell inhabited by bat-like souls that one finds across the Styx in the Classical traditions.’ He gazed out over the fields, his eyes narrowed against the sun. The poem, which told of the dream of a grieving father in which he spies his deceased daughter, the Pearl of the title, across the river of death, had been read aloud by Tolkien on one of their Thursday nights at Magdalen at the tail end of the previous year.
‘But the river was wide, I durst not swim’ Tolkien quoted, touching the chalk in his pocket.
‘…I durst not swim…’
Tolkien’s voice was tinged with melancholy, and Barfield wondered what his quiet friend was thinking as he gazed across the river to the ruinous tomb on the crest of the hill, what pallid ghost he was seeing in his mind’s eye in place of the lost daughter of the poem, whose words continued to flow from his lips, but now in a whisper.
Barfield turned and once more took the path that headed westwards between the river and the road; and soon Jack was beside him, striding forward.
‘Is Ronald okay?’ Owen asked. ‘He seems distant; preoccupied.’
‘Oh don’t mind Ronald; he’s had his head in his books for so long he’s just taking a while to remember how to relax.’ He looked back to where Tolkien stood looking across the river.
‘But there is always something of the melancholic in him;’ Lewis continued ‘I think he pines for something; if I could put it in a nutshell I’d say he was homesick – homesick for a place he’s never been; nor perhaps ever could have, save in his imagination.’
‘The imagination is a powerful thing.’ Barfield said.
‘It is.’ Jack said. ‘But ultimately it is fancy, not blood and stone; not real.’
Barfield shook his head. ‘What is real?’ he asked.
‘My grumbling stomach is real, Owen. Spare me your metaphysics until I at least have a cup of tea inside of me!’