There are many diverse denizens of Daedonas, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, the greatest strength and weakness of the Kinken are one in the same, trade. The Kinken are the most numerous and influential people of the Crescent Lands. With a high birthrate and the ability to adapt to many different climes the Kinken can be found almost anywhere, from the western highlands to the east coasts, living in anything from rural villages to ancient cities. Although not considered adept mentally or physically the Kinken’s make up for this is in their numbers and their innate understanding of trade and obsessive pursuit of wealth. This pursuit has led the Kinken to spread out all over the crescent lands, both peacefully and aggressivly, their settlers are far reaching and farms, hamlets and Kinken villagers are everywhere. This has led to the displacement of many Rohrak, Braymun, Grungi and Kukri, and has always led to much war and strife between other denizens and other Kinken. In the city they are the majority of the population and directly influence both government and trade, even if they aren't always leading it.

Living an average lifespan of up to 60 years, most Kinken spend their lives in squallid conditions, eeking out a farming life fighting beasts, other denizens and rival Kinken for each acre of land. The city folk Kinken are the labourers and craftsmen. Those that excel in trade do rise above their kin and live in the more structually safe higher reaches of the ancient cities. Being an avian genus, the Kinken are born from eggs, there are generally more females then males and leadership of the kindreds rests on a male figurehead, but since there are so many females an incompetant  leader doesn't hold his station for long.

This is a pretty durable creature, except for the parts of its blue flesh not covered by rock. When it wants to eat something big, it grabs it with its arms and holds it near its mouth. Because it only eats bones, it sprays an acid over the specimen that melts down to the bone. He then, obviously, eats it.

Yay! Video!

It also has very bad eyesight and is weak in the back, just in case it attacks.

From the Daily Mail -

Grazing quietly in the forest opening, this majestic creature seems gently oblivious of its radiance and beauty. With its antlers held high and its thick coat luminous in the morning light, the animal stops briefly among its fellow deer, turns and sniffs the air. While his brown companions blend easily into the landscape, he stands out bright, bold and exposed. For the precious moments he is still, he seems to have stepped out of a stranger, more mysterious world. Far from being just another deer, this is a white hart - an animal both rare and revered in equal measure - which was spotted this week roaming the New Forest.

The White Hart, seen in the New Forest - from the Daily Mail

Since time immemorial, the white hart has been a creature surrounded by mystery, a beast whose very existence is suffused with myth and legend. An inescapable part of British folklore, its mystical quality led to it being adopted as a symbol of royalty, which is why a multitude of White Hart pubs is scattered around the country. Some believe that this New Forest white hart could even be a direct descendant of the same white deer that Henry VII hunted in the area in the 15th century. And for forest keeper Andy Shore, coming face to face with animal was an awe-inspiring experience. "There's something quite eerie and beautiful about him that stops you in your tracks," he says. "He can be a ghostly-looking animal, especially if you come across him on a misty day, as I have on a few occasions."

He is white - but not albino - as a result of a rare genetic mutation resulting in a condition called leucism which changes the animal's pattern of pigmentation. The parents of a white hart can both be brown - they just need to have the same recessive gene to produce a white calf.

The sighting of this white five-year-old male fallow deer comes days after an equally rare Scottish equivalent, a white stag, was spotted in the Highlands of Scotland, ranging across a glen with a herd of red stags. "I thought it was a sheep when I saw it because of its mottled colour," says Fran Lockhart, 45, of The John Muir Trust conservation body. "I managed to get quite near to him, and he was even more magnificent up close."

But there is a high price to pay for this magnificence. The rarity of these beasts is such that their mounted heads and antlers can fetch thousands of pounds. And even though their location is usually a closely guarded secret, poachers are unscrupulous. Last October, they shot a treasured white hart, known affectionately as Snowy by local farmers and gamekeepers, on the border of Devon and Cornwall. The animal was found decapitated and hanging from a tree, its head and antlers taken as a blood-drenched trophy.

Those who killed this stag, however, may have got more than they bargained for. Like many legends, those surrounding the white hart come with their fair share of curses and prophecies of bad luck to anyone who crosses the creature. For the ancient Celts, the white hart was a harbinger of doom, a living symbol that some taboo has been transgressed or a moral law broken. To come across a white hart was to realise that some terrible evil or judgment was imminent. The white hart's reputation improved in Arthurian legends, where its appearance was a sign to Arthur and his knights that it was time to embark on a quest - it was considered the one animal that could never be caught so it came to symbolise humanity's never-ending pursuit of knowledge and the unattainable.

Soon, the white hart was appearing in stories throughout Europe.

To Hungarians, it was a white hart that led their ancestors to their homeland; in a French legend, anyone who killed a white hart was cursed with the pain of unrequited love. It was not long before Christianity managed to appropriate the white hart for its own purposes: the white stag came to symbolise Christ and his presence on earth. Fundamental to this myth was the story of David I, King of Scotland, whose encounter with this animal led directly to the establishment of the royal palace, Holyrood House, in Edinburgh. It is said that in 1128, a rebellious King David was warned by his priest not to go hunting on the Feast Day of the Holy Rood (Holy Cross). Stubbornly, he set off on the hunt and came across a large white deer, which he chased. Thrown from his horse, the deer charged him. David cried out to God to save him, and at that precise instant, the deer's antlers miraculously turned into a cross, and the animal vanished in a puff of smoke. The shamed King built a church to the Holy Rood on the spot where his the vision occurred.

From then on, the white deer became a symbol of purity, redemption and good fortune in Scotland, and eventually took a leading position in English heraldry alongside its cousin, the mythic unicorn, whose horn was supposedly endowed with magical properties. King Richard II adopted the white hart as his personal emblem. Even today, white harts are seen to be lucky charms, and anyone who spots one is said to have a dose of good fortune just around the corner.

From Reuters -

A mythical and ghostly creature has appeared in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands -- and has been caught on camera. [vodpod id=Groupvideo.1414743&w=425&h=350&fv=] The rare white stag, from the red deer species, is believed to be among just a tiny handful living in Britain, according to a conservation group.

The John Muir Trust is now keeping the stag's location secret for fear of poachers. "To see him amongst the other stags was truly thrilling because he does look like a ghost: you do a double-take," Trust Partnership Manager Fran Lockhart, who filmed the stag, told Reuters. White stags are seen as a magical and powerful force in many mythologies.

The animal's ghostly glow comes from a recessive gene which causes leucism, a condition which reduces the normal brown colouring in hair and skin. They are not albinos, which have red eyes due to lack of pigment.

In Celtic traditions, white stags represent messengers from the afterlife. Arthurian legend has it that the creature can never be caught -- King Arthur's pursuit of the animal represents mankind's spiritual quest.

It is also said that for those who set eyes on the animal, a momentous moment is near. "They say their appearance is meant to herald some profound change in life for those who encounter them -- but I am still waiting," said Lockhart. Her dog, though, stood transfixed for 45 minutes watching the white stag, instead of his usual scampering around.

Lockhart believes the Scottish Highlands' white stag is between 6 and 7 years old. She said he is maturing well, with a good set of antlers.

From Mary Jones' Celtic Encyclopedia -

The white stag is a familiar creature of myth and legend. Its origins are likely in the totemic period of early Indo-European society, particularly the northern societies of the Celts and pre-Indo-European cultures, whose subsistence was gained not only through agriculture, but through hunting.¹ This dependence on deer may be seen in the zoomorphic Celtic god Cernunnos, depicted as being a man with the antlers of a deer.

The white stag in Celtic myth is an indicator that the Otherworld is near. It appears when one is transgressing a taboo--such as when Pwyll tresspassed into Arawn's hunting grounds, or when Peredur entered the Castle of Wonders in his second adventure at the house of the Lame King. It also appears as an impetus to quest--the white stag or hart often appears in the forests around King Arthur's court, sending the knights off on to adventure against gods and fairies. (C. S. Lewis uses this device at both the beginning and end of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.²)

It also appears in French romance and lais as a similar indicator, such as in the lais of Marie de France, when Guigemar happens upon the strange sight of a white doe with antlers. He wounds the strange, hermaphroditic--note that word--animal, which curses him to grow up and fall in love.

[...]

To Christians, the white stag came to symbolize Christ, perhaps in part inspired by the St. Eustace legend, wherein the Roman soldier Eustace is hunting, and happens upon a deer with a cross between his antlers. Eustace converts on the spot, and is put through numerous tragedies, persecutions, etc., including the death of his family, until being miraculously reunited with them. However, it is clear that this pious legend has pagan predecessors. It is also worth noting that in Christian iconography, the unicorn is a symbol for Christ.

There is a close identification between the white stag and the unicorn, and it can be reasoned that the white stag is the equivalent of the unicorn in these northern cultures, which do not record the existence of unicorns.³

The white hart also was the heraldic symbol of England's King Richard II.

The first thing to examine is the color: white is a symbol of purity, while also a symbol of otherworldliness. The white stag in Pwyll penduc Dyfed has a white body with red ears--the typical colors of otherworld creatures (the hounds of Arawn are also this color). It is also associated with the sun; in Christian iconography, the stag appears with the sun between its horns.

Earlier gods associated with the stag were also nature deities: Cernunnos, Fionn, Gwynn ap Nudd. Santa Claus--that half-memory of Odin/Thor--is drawn by eight reindeer--who may or may not be white. (If they live at the North Pole, they most likely are ;-)

The deer, finally, was a source of life, an important resource for early man. Ultimately, the white stag is not only a creature of the gods, but is a god himself, symbolizing the creative life force of the universe--sex, life, and also death.

---

1. This split life between agriculture and hunting is readily seen in the Fenian Cycle of Irish literature--Fionn Mac Cumhill and his band, the Fianna, spend half the year in the forests, hunting, and the other half of the year in the service of the king. Fionn's original name was Demne, a word for dear, while his wife Sabd was transformed into a deer by a druid, and his son and grandson's names contain references to deer: Oisin "little deer," Oscar "deer-lover."
2. Oddly enough, the White Witch's sleigh is drawn by a white stag, and these are the first things Edmund sees when enterin Narnia, while it is a white stag which leads the children back to England. Perhaps this is an example of Lewis's occasional belief in relativism, that even the evil things of this world have some place in God's plan, though we can't see it. The white stag may be pulling the White Witch, but this is what draws Edmund, and then later the elder siblings, into Narnia. Otherwise, it is doubtful that everyone would have ever believed Lucy.
3. It is worth noting that the white stag in Peredur is described as having one horn--which is how it is described in the second continuation of Perceval. The Welsh version most likely originally described a white stag; the French turned that into the more familiar unicorn, and the later Welsh redactor of Peredur returned the animal to a stag, but keeping the odd image of a single horn.

His second customer appeared out of the north as well, pulling a large red wagon with two children inside, a boy and a girl, both laid neatly out and dressed formally, as if for a wedding, the boy in a black suit and a little red bow tie, the girl in a frilly blue dress with lacework at the sleeves.

Hello there! said Jimmy, scurrying up the bank to the road. This new visitor was large, bald, and broad-shouldered, and wore a charcoal Giants jersey and a pair of blue sweats, torn at the knees. He slowed, but did not stop, and fixed Jimmy with a hard glare.

...

The man snorted, and picked up his pace. He was leaving. Jimmy felt a thrill of panic. He said: You have lovely children.

The man stopped, dropped the wagon's handle, and, in one fluid motion, spun around and slammed his fist into the center of Jimmy's face. Jimmy heard his nose crack, and the world went dark. When he came back to it, he was on the street, and the man was straddling his chest, hitting him and hitting him. Every blow was seismic, the pain monstrous, and then incomprehensible. A gentle thrill of peace passed through Jimmy's body. He felt sure that he would die soon.

I am absolutely convinced that the characters in a Shehadeh story are good people. They are wrapped, however, in a strangeness that is at once terrifying and delightful. Go read him.

Deep in the marshes of the Illiak Wetlands live the Mou’Yyp.  This race of amphibians are savage, dim-witted, weak willed people and their technological peak is a sharpened rock. Yet many trespassers have underestimated their feral cunning and great numbers. In most cases those that wander into the glades are killed and eaten, although sometimes they may find themselves captured and forced to teach the Mou’yyp the mastery of fire. The primitive people greatly covet this art and while some have learned this basic need, the lack of opposable thumbs, short memory and their low level of intelligence reduces most to living in damp squalor. Those that can create fire are the leaders of the Mou’yyp kindreds. Unfortunately, to keep their status they never teach others and create it in secret, and usually that knowledge is lost when an upstart Mou'yyp murders the leader thinking the ability to make fire will be passed on.

The Mou'yyp generally don't live long, but with the effective reproductions methods of mass aquatic egg laying there are never a shortage of Mou'yyp in the Illiak Wetlands.

Of all people in the Crescent Lands the Degune are the only non-native race. They once lived in the land now known as the fell waste. After the cataclysmic destruction of it’s verdant rolling hills and grasslands, the Degune migrated into the Crescent Lands.

Standing at four feet tall and covered in soft numb flesh, the Degune were easy prey to the Pha'Druiin and soon after their arrival the peaceful prairie folk were forced into slavery. Under such oppression they developed their cruel intellect and lack of apathy. Now, living in the ancient cities of their old masters, they live as successful merchants and even more successful slave traders.

The coastal Grugni are natives to Daedonas and have always lived off the sea. Either living in sea side caves in the high sheer cliffs of the southern coasts, or in raised huts in the Urunti Archipelago and Illiak lake lands. Although considered bad traders because of their trademark gullibility the Grungi excel in fishing and lumaspore gathering. They live in great numbers and in relative peace.

Generally the men fish, trade and gather while the women govern and take care of the young. The Grungi are a mammalian race with two very exceptional abilities; first, their dual ears can block out sounds such as the constant sounds of waves breaking on the cliffs and the strong winds of the turbulent great sea. Second, the Grungi can have litters of up to 8 children, and are capable of controlling that number based on habitation room and food supply. 

-More to come!

Last weekend at Edgefest, I had planned on seeing some of the better known acts like Linkin Park, Stone Temple Pilots, Sam Roberts Band, The Bravery, Attack in Black and The Flatliners. Little did I know that I would stumble upon an amazing Pop/Funk/Post Punk band from Montreal by the name of Creature

.

Walking by the side stage I heard an awesome sounding pop melody, so I stopped to listen. The band made up of two males and two females appeared to be having a great time entertaining the crowd. At one point the lead singer/guitar player asked the crowd, “who was it that asked for more cowbell?” So they got out the cowbell for the song Who’s Hot Who’s Not.

The keyboard and guitar player took turns singing the verses which included a lot of rapping over infectious beats.

Each member of the band was fashionably glamorous in fedoras, vintage tees and the keyboardist even rocked a lycra gym suit and matching headband. They looked very rock n’ roll but stood out among the hardcore rock fans that Edgefest attracts.

I guess I’ve been paying more attention than usual to electronic dance pop music lately. Acts like Dragonette and the Ting Tings are constantly playing on my iPod. It must be those catchy melodies, hard-to-ignore danceable beats and the fact that I’m a sucker for pop music…yes I’ll admit to liking Miley Cyrus.

As soon as I got home I looked up the Edgefest lineup to learn who this band was, whose songs I couldn’t get out of my head.

It’s safe to say now that I am a fan of Creature and not Modernboys Moderngirls who I thought was the band I was listening to.

I was always fond of original ideas, even the fact of being different, off the patterns. I always appreciated an original person and/or someone who would come up with great ideas. I liked a lot an example given to me, of what's a great idea to make much greater profit. Let's take for example a company producing matches. What if, the producer would make certain the match boxes always had the company's logo on the side on which it opened for example. Then keep that on the market for some months, enough to form a habit for the customers using those matches. Then, all of a sudden, stop respecting that rule, or even put the logo altogether on the back. Everybody would open up the matchbox and have all the matches fall on the floor. They would get pissed off, but next, because it's  very cheap object, they would buy another one. Now think bigger / global. That could very well double the company's sales and with no affect to their brand, as the quality of the product remains the same and there's almost no extra expense in doing this. (If you ever use this idea or a derivative from it, i want my cut ;) ).

The above was only a starter to get you interested. What i noticed (and I'm sure you did too): people change. And they change in order to adapt, it's a law of nature. One of the things which changes a person most and so-to-say corrupts them is money. And not only money, but also power. Us, humans, are a very greedy race. Let's say someone got rich and really powerful. Instead of settling with that, we want more and we don't know when to stop. We almost never know when to stop, mostly because we overdue things we like. Take drinking alcohol for example.

And since we're talking about money, i was surprised to see that in my first month (in fact tomorrow will be a full month), this blog, made almost 1600 visitors. I find that great and i want to thank all my readers. I didn't put much effort in advertising it. I'm proud of what i've achieved and am seriousely thinking of moving it to a hosted location so that i can customize it properly and most most importantly put some google adsense on it. At least to recover my hosting expenses. This is good news for you as i'll be able to customize it's looks as i want and add plug-ins with polls and other interaction features.

Getting back on topic, another factor which changes us, is a mate. Now i don't mean that as a friend, but as in the guy with girlfriend situation (i don't know about the vice-versa situation, i'll let you grils tell me). But always a relationship changes someone, and, one of the things i noticed, women change you. A lot! Most of women are not fully satisfied with how their man is. So what do they do? Well they don't accept his faults (well at least not all), they try to tame us, make us better, change us. But not directly, upfront, noooo, the sneaky way so that we, the guys, don't realise it.
The best way to notice this is when a close friend gets to know a women and they end up together. Observe him over time, see him more rarely to notice the changes better (it'll happen anyways since she'll be given more time and attention than you). Oh and don't ever make him jealous, this could end your friendship.

Very few guys do that. We settle with what we've got. We're more lazy and practical and accept someone for whom they are.

Us, human beings are very interesting. I liked a lot what my father once told be: The Human beings are god's unsuccessful experiment. We're the only living beings which hurts itself intentionally, consciously and repeatedly. See smoking (and not only).

We're also very selfish beings. In fact all living creatures (who can defend and do something against it) are selfish. Some might be altruistic too, but deep behind we do if for ourselves because it makes us feel better about ourselves. Is that a bad thing, being selfish. I say: "Hell no!", otherwise would have we survived? But selfishness led us to deeply damage our planet (in the future maybe even destroy it, or put in another way, destroy ourselves).

I remember from high-school a very interesting topic we went into at the German classes. When talking about the book "Die Physiker" (don't remember the author right now, I'll update this). It's a great book, worth reading (for all you lazy dudes, it's short too :P ). The topic was the consciousness of the scientist. How responsible can a scientist be. This in the context after the nuclear bombs were dropped. But I'll give you a more innocent example: the refrigerator, or that substance in spray cans. No one even thought that could harm anything in any way. But later on, it was discovered, that it harms the ozone layer. They fixed it by replacing the active substance. Unfortunately the harm was already done. Nowadays, we have controversies on human cloning, AI and many others.

I'll leave you with this thought and I'll come back with to future posts: one related to AI, and that they achieved to have a computer ask itself if it is human and another one on world domination in conjunction with big corporations, google, etc.

Since i don't like to leave you on a negative note, i'd like to give you something my brother used as a status on yahoo messeneger (with the obvious link to hi5, see this post to see what i mean): "Do Not stand, sit, climb or lean on Zoo fences! If you fall animals could eat you and that might make them sick. Thank you!"

The dry spell did not seem to bother Mr. Booker, a Queens native who has sold his CDs on the streets full time for four years and has been invited by music festival organizers and nightclub promoters he has met to perform in cities across Europe. “It’s about keeping the positive energy flowing and finding the commonalities,” he said. “For every hundred noes there are 10 yeses, and that’s a hundred bucks.”

That's Creature - we've talked about him before.

Back in the Summer of 2005, I was paying my rent selling my mix CDs on the block. I would have been better off selling DVD bootlegs and nag champa. Lately, I try to keep a straight face when cats approach me for a sale. "You like hip hop?" They ask...

You should give me your CD. I might give you something for your presskit.

Poi, nel fine settimana c'è un bel festival a Lodi, il Creature. Inizia domani sera, finisce domenica, merita una visita perché a Lodi finalmente c'è qualcosa di produttivo e movimentato (vedi anche l'ultimo Wellington festival), e noi che bazzichiamo la provincia da più di un decennio non possiamo che esserne contenti.

Peccato che domenica, a fare concorrenza al Creature, ci siamo proprio noi, che suoniamo a Ospedaletto Lodigiano, festa della birra cum motoraduno. Per l'occasione abbiamo approntato uno spettacolo da big band, che ci vedrà all'opera con una formazione di ben SEI elementi: al quartetto-standard attuale (Chris, JLF, Gateaux, Atros) si uniranno El Guiro e El Corbe (percussioni e seconda batteria). Visto come sono andate le prove ieri sera, direi che potrebbe esserci parecchio da ridere.

Vedete voi che fare, domenica...

Clothing at RedBubble

An original character illustration drawn in Adobe Fireworks. © Copyright 2008 Vincent Low Y H. All Rights Reserved.

Also check out my pattern design at NakedAngry

© Copyright 2008 Vincent Low Y H. All Rights Reserved.

Name: Zappus Tenteclus; the Tentacled Zapper

Attitude: These monsters are very friendly, and they tend to make stupid jokes about Chuck Norris.

Example of Speech: "chuck norris can be a rectangle, but a rectangle cant be chuck norris"

Traits: Like many of the Intellectus species, these monsters gather electricty through the bolts and wires on its head. The more it collects, the more painful its sting, which is delivered through tentacles. Its teeth can crack even the hardest walnut.

Name: Bunnicus Blobbus Friendlius; the Friendly Bunny Blob

Attitude: This monster is very friendly, but is also very literal. This one thought that my blog had a point!

Example of Speech: "Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation Anyway … nice blog to visit."

Traits: Because it is friendly and smart, this really isn't a very interesting monster. You can usually find them in any city living in the standard apartment. And guess what! My blog is an apartment complex. This monster doesn't like to be disturbed, so don't go into room 1408.

Name: Wingus Unicornus Jawluss; the Jawless Winged Unicorn Monster

Attitude: This monster enjoys writing haikus. He also loves Jesus.

Example of Speech: "cacti are spiny, like some of our comments here, on this funny blog. I love Jesus."

Traits: This monster has artificial limbs which allow in to walk long distances without not having legs. The horn on its head turns whatever it touches into marshmallows and love, 2 critical ingredients in hot chocolate. This monster would play the fiddle, but it has no arms.

Name: Zennus Rattailicus Complimentus; the Complementing Rat-Tailed Zen Monster

Attitude: This monster is peaceful and is very fond of cars.

Example of Speech: "sweet car."

Traits: Not much is known about this monster. Oh look, he's waving to you. Oh look, he's smiling. Oh look, THAT THING HAS HUNDREDS OF TEETH!

I still need name and traits for this monster.

By the way, I have Spore Creature Creator Free Trail Version (I'll update eventually). I could use it for Monsterdayish thing. I'll make a creature a week!

humor-blogs

Here is a book review from the Times Literary Supplement, by John Fanshawe -

Roger Lovegrove
SILENT FIELDS
The long decline of a nation's wildlife
3520pp. Oxford University Press. £25 (US $50).
978 0 19 852071 9

In Silent Fields, Roger Lovegrove charts “the history of Man’s deliberate killing of terrestrial wildlife – specifically native birds and mammals – from about 450 years ago to the present”. Henry VIII’s Vermin Acts begin the analysis. Although Lovegrove acknowledges that our interactions with English, Scots and Welsh fauna can be traced back to the post-glacial millennia, it was this Tudor legislation that created a basis for the organized slaughter of competitor species until at least the Second World War. Lovegrove quotes a maximum combined population for England, Wales and Scotland of 3,310,000 people in 1525, less than half that of London in 2001. Sixteen years after Henry VIII was crowned, London was estimated to have 50,000 residents. Most people then were rural, a scene far removed from that of today when – for the first time – more than half the world’s population is urban. In fact, by 2001 only 20 per cent of people in England lived in the “country”. Such statistics are critical to unravelling the evolving social fabric that lies behind Lovegrove’s analysis. Modern concepts of wildlife and “wildlife watching” were way off on the horizon. People lived with and surrounded by nature.

Doctrine also played a crucial role. Before Darwin, no challenge existed to the Creation myth, and people believed absolutely in the biblical concept of human dominion “over the fish of the sea and the fowls of the air and over every living thing”. Lovegrove writes that animals “were here to be employed as beasts of toil, as food, for sport . . . or whatever other requirement”. Concern for animal rights or welfare, such as over vivisection, was negligible. Cruelty was rampant, as was poverty: provision for poor relief was yet to arrive, and rural people, especially in famine years, had a high dependency on what Richard Mabey called Food for Free in 1972. Berries, eggs, wild meat, fungi and fruit were lifesavers. Finding such food meant country people had an intimate knowledge of their home ground, of seasons, fauna and flora, and also the wherewithal to resist competitors that threatened crops and livestock. This was largely unwritten knowledge, but it represented a time when an instinct for nature rivalled that now confined to indigenous communities in Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Pacific.

Underlining Lovegrove’s book is a patient study of parish records. (Scotland is excluded from the analysis, and has a separate chapter devoted to killing there, including a section on the “wanton slaughter by English ‘sportsmen’ in the nineteenth century”.) Writing in 1768, Robert Smith described stoats as “prone to wanton killing”, and in the Cornish coastal parish of Morwenstow, Thomas Trumble specialized in killing these remarkable little mammals, taking thirty-four in 1694. Amazingly, gamekeepers on the Elveden Estate in Suffolk accounted for 8,883 in the decade beginning 1920. Numbers like these pepper Silent Fields and are a constant source of surprise. From Elspeth Veale’s seminal 1966 study, The English Fur Trade, emerges parallel evidence of excess killing in pursuit of regal finery. Henry VIII passed a final sumptuary Act in 1532 – the same year as his vermin law – regulating a hierarchy of who could wear which fur. Not that he stinted on his own account, using 350 (albeit imported) sable skins to line a single satin gown in 1530. Even this pales by comparison with his forebear Henry IV, whose “splendid robe-of-nine garments was made from 12,000 squirrel and 80 ermines”.

Lovegrove laments that the data he used for Silent Fields, derived from churchwardens’ accounts now held in municipal and county archives across the country, are by no means complete. Many have been destroyed, and even his hard work only scratches the surface of 10,819 potential parishes in England (he trawled through 1,429 of them). His study celebrates localness; the painstaking lists of vermin killed – documented by generations of churchwardens – bring to life an aspect of how people experienced wildlife at a time when parishes lay at the heart of everyone’s lives, when the parochial was reality and a basis for understanding biodiversity.

The core of the book is individual species accounts, dealing first with twenty-one birds; most are either raptors or crows, though some surprises, like kingfisher and dipper, appear. For mammals, there are eleven, and they are a roll call of the stars of children’s popular literature: hedgehog, mole, polecat, pine marten, fox, rat, wild cat, badger, weasel, stoat and otter. Many readers will struggle to avoid flashes of Nick Butterworth’s illustrations for his Percy the Park Keeper series. At first sight, curiously, Butterworth’s miscreant bunnies are missing from the list, but this underscores a constant theme of Lovegrove’s work. Perceptions and attitudes change over time. Rabbits have become pests comparatively recently, swapping places with species like wild cat and pine marten – current red-list causes célèbres. Introduced to Britain by the Normans, knowledge of rabbits’ reproductive capacities meant that their warrens were first confined to offshore islands (another demonstration of changing times, given the massive efforts now dedicated to eradicating “aliens” like cats, hedgehogs and rats from many of those same islands). As land-based warrens were established, often by monastic communities, rabbits dispersed and colonized with predictable success. They were soon an important source of food (and income) to the poor; so naturally a dim view was taken of their native predators, such as foxes and buzzards. Rabbits were an asset worth protecting too. David Dimbleby’s opening BBC flagship episode for How We Built Britain visited the robust and well-fortified Thetford Warrener’s Lodge. They meant significant money for landowners.

All the species accounts are fascinating. Among the mammals, an obvious example is the otter – beloved by wildlife cameramen, celebrated by Henry Williamson as Tarka. Lovegrove notes that otters are totemic of UK conservation success, so much so that the original Otter Trust, established by Philip Wayre in 1971, considers its mission accomplished and has not released captive-bred otters since 1999. Full legal protection for otters was only secured in England and Wales in 1978, and four years later in Scotland. This is again a far cry from the Tudor period, when kings had “Otter Masters”, and otter-hounds were bred for the chase. Otters then competed for freshwater fish on natural lakes and rivers, and plundered man-made ponds with glee. Adding to otter woe was their piscivorous diet which meant that the Catholic community conveniently considered their flesh fishy enough to be valid Friday fare.

Lovegrove’s introduction also considers the contemporary and changing value of money. All the species accounts chart sums paid, and the price per otter head ranged from 2d, specified in the 1566 Act, to the fairly high price of 7s 6d offered by the Prestbury vestry in 1731. Daniel Defoe’s 1704 definition of a “poor man” in Kent as earning “between seven and ten shillings a week” is cited – for Lovegrove “a figure that still applied in most areas, certainly in the southern counties, for the remainder of that century”. Hunting vermin was potentially very profitable. At Prestbury, wily cross-border sneaks were discouraged by having to “declare before a lawful magistrate that the said otter was taken and killed within the parish precincts”. Such strictures notwithstanding, there was considerable room for creative accounting.

Among the birds, two charismatic raptors, sea eagle and red kite – both the focus of successful reintroductions – have chapters dedicated to them. Lovegrove opens his kite account with some lines from John Clare – the poet deploys an early name, “paddock”, “riding in the sky, above the oaks, in easy sail, on still wings and forked tail”. Kite flight is always spectacular, and Mark Cocker’s account in Birds Britannica (reviewed in the TLS, December 9, 2005) captures its mastery perfectly with the word “languid”. Cocker also lists other former names, “glede” or “glead” (from the Saxon for “glide”), and notes that kites were once so common as to enter local place names, such as Gleadthorpe in Northamptonshire. Clare’s “paddock”, a variant of other colloquial names, “puttock” and “puddock”, was also used for buzzard, the origins of which Cocker says are obscure.

These days it is commonplace to see red kites on the wing close to the reintroduction sites over, for instance, the M4. Such new-generation kites wheel lazily over “John Clare country”. Clare “bemoaned its loss at the hand of Man in 1830”, and by the time he was buried in his beloved Helpston parish in 1864, kite numbers were in free fall. Only in 1903, when members of the British Ornithologists’ Club formed a Kite Committee, did the climb from a low of five pairs towards today’s population of more than a1,000 begin. If this success continues, some believe the red kite could again be our most common raptor and reach in excess of 50,000 birds.

Lovegrove quotes Clare a number of times. In recent years, the resuscitation of the poet has gathered momentum with new selections of his work – including The Wood Is Sweet (2005), produced by David Powell, with fine linocuts by Carry Akroyd – Iain Sinclair’s wonderful Edge of the Orison (reviewed in the TLS, October 7, 2005) and Jonathan Bate’s biography (reviewed in the TLS, November 7, 2003). As well as the red kite (twice – both in celebration, and acknowledging their skills at taking chicks, ducklings and goslings), Silent Fields has Clare lines on the hedgehog and the mole. But far more importantly, he is also quoted railing against the changing landscape: “Inclosure thou’rt a curse upon the land, / And tasteless was the wretch who thy existence planned”. Helpston was enclosed in 1820, and Clare’s Gloucestershire contemporary James Knapp wrote at the time, of disappearing wildlife: “Some of our birds are annually diminishing – population, plough, enclosure, clearance, drainage”. Although Clare was actually briefly employed to plant the hawthorn hedges we so often celebrate, it seems that he and others were recognizing that a semi-natural mosaic of wildlands and agriculture was to be transformed irretrievably. And all this before the modern conservation movement had begun; more than a century before Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.

Change flows through Lovegrove’s work like a tide; and his own career, as a prime mover in Welsh conservation – notably as Welsh regional director for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds – spans a period of remarkable change for many of these species. To quibble over his thoroughness seems ridiculous, but there is an irony in his subtitle “The long decline of a nation’s wildlife” given that many of his vermin species are now starting to thrive in what are otherwise days of extreme biodiversity loss. Some, like badgers, may once again become the target of centrally sanctioned control. Lovegrove tackles some of this in his final chapters, noting that the raven, for example, is recovering apace. But other species, birds that were never vermin, and that were so abundant over the early period of this analysis – like the lapwing, skylark and common partridge – are in decline which not even Clare could have foreseen. Lovegrove has a final section in which he reviews a whole series of current issues, including the rolling red-grouse-moor-versus-hen-harrier conservation debate, and the Hunting with Dogs Act.

The most moving point, however, lies at the beginning of Silent Fields, before the story really unfolds. Lovegrove’s dedication is longer than many, and he remembers a friend, Fred Farrell, “with whom I spent the joyous years of youth roaming the hills, marshes, fields and woods of Cumberland”. If Roger Lovegrove’s lessons are to be learned, then we need to see the story spun as emblematic of a far wider crisis. We need to return nature to the heart of our culture, to the centre of communities. This can only really happen if the rich mosaic of nature that Cumbria represented a working life ago is secured for all of us – in all our backyards, our parishes.
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John Fanshawe lives in north Cornwall, and works for the conservation charity BirdLife International.

I have this under control. Just don't touch that thing. I don't know where it's from...

The 300th post has already been made, but this is my own 300th post. I would do a victory dance, but that... Thing... is here.

humor-blogs

This creature is often found within or near large cities and is potentially older than 200 years. It has long, thin limbs and stands above average height (it's been estimated that he's 8'5").  It has been documented that the creature suffers from a speech disorder due to an abnormally small mouth and is also seems to lose and regrow teeth at an accelerated rate. Typically cold to the touch, this is presumably linked to a loss of blood circulation due to its elongated limbs...