‘Chilly Finger’d Spring’
Spring - such an obvious name! So delightful that the English language settled on a word so simultaneously descriptive, self-evident and cheering. But there are other names, of course. Here are a few: vernal equinox, emergence, daylight saving, the start of British Summer Time, clocks spring forward, seed time, spring fever, primaveral, vernalagnia, frondescentia, repullulate, Chelidonian winds. No, Terroir’s vocabulary is not that extensive and we owe a debt of gratitude to a wonderful page on the BBC website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/rMcWv9V1wWWNXxmbLkQW5P/12-spring-words-to-celebrate-the-new-season
Spring is also a time of religious celebration: Easter, Pacque, Ostern, Πάσχα, Pasg, A 'Chàisg, Cásca, Easter Tide, paschal festival, Pesach, Nowruz (Iran), Holi (Hindu), Vaisakhi (Hindu/Sikh).
Some aspects of spring are best avoided, however: gowk-storm (snow fall or gale which coincides with arrival of gowk or cuckoo - Scottish dialect), lamb-storm (spring thunderstorm at lambing time), blackberry winter (American spring cold snap). Again, thank you BBC.
More secular celebrations tend to get less exciting names: Easter holidays, spring break.
Terroir has spent many late winters watching for the signs of spring. We are not very good at phenology - the study of biological cycles and how they are influenced by seasonal variations - because we never keep proper notes. The only key information we can remember from year to year is whether the garden daffodils are out for St David’s day. 2021 qualified for an ‘only just’; one miniature bloom was sacrificially plucked for the Welsh lapel.
For some time now the old-fashioned enjoyment of a warm spell bringing an early clump of snow drops, or the traditional agony of a cold snap delaying the first pussy willow buds, has been tainted by the spectre of climate change. Phenology has become witness to a sad confusion of seasons and global influences. Watching the quickening of the local landscape from dormancy to a riot of activity is no longer the simple pleasure of our childhoods.
Lockdown, however, has changed our attitudes to spring even more thoroughly than climate change. And, so, this year we kept a pictorial record of our journey from winter to spring, from Christmas to Easter, from winter solstice to vernal equinox.
Our pictorial voyage is exhibited below, in fairly strict chronological order. We have broken it into three sections in accordance with our crazy, traditional calendar which does it’s best to ignore the lunar cycle, although the relationship between the moon and the earth is perhaps the most steadying influence in our currently topsy world.
January: a revealing month, showing details and patterns which are either hidden or overshadowed by the riots of spring growth, the ripening of summer or autumnal reveries. We found natural sculptures, spots of colour, fungus and seed heads, the loss of an old hedgerow tree veteran, extremes of weather and, yes, new life.
February: a month which started well but rapidly became the victim of strong meterological contrasts. The days continued to lengthen, but none of us in Terrior-land really noticed as the snow fell to a mixed reception. We - adult humans and nascent nature - bided our time until, finally, the sun came out again.
March: sunshine, cold and long. The gardens did their best to cheer us up, but the countryside held its breath, drab khaki beneath the yew, juniper and pine. Farmers and schools started work again, and finally, finally the rest of us were rewarded with green shoots, early blossom, thoughts of eggs and spring flowers aplenty. At the end of the month the sun came out and so did we.
“… for the choir
Of Cynthia he heard not, though rough briar
Nor muffling thicket interpos’d to dull
The vesper hymn, far swollen, soft and full,
Through the dark pillars of those sylvan aisles.
He saw not the two maidens, nor their smiles,
Wan as primroses gather’d at midnight
By chilly finger’d spring.”
John Keats Endymion Book IV
I think Keats would have hated climate change…
Happy Easter/Spring Break to you all. May the English and Northern Irish ‘Rule of Six’, the Welsh freedom to roam, and staying local in Scotland bring health and happiness.