S is for Saints

Well, just one saint, actually, Saint Bibblybibdib, the church dedicated to whom stands, in partial ruin, in sunlight that is forever dappled, as was Saint Bibblybibdib himself, usually, by all accounts. It may have been that Gerard Manley Hopkins was thinking of St Bibblybibdib when he wrote “Glory be to God for dappled things” in Pied Beauty, though in praising “all things counter, original, spare, strange” the Jesuit does not actually mention the saint by name, or indeed by inference, and it may be that I am just indulging in wishful thinking. It would not be for the first time.

His dappledom, whatever may have caused it, is one of the few things we know about St Bibblybibdib. As with many, though not all, saints, his life is more myth than history, and it is arguable that he never existed at all, being rather an amalgam of several shadowy figures obscured by the mists of time. Who those figures might be is open to conjecture. One recent hagiographer posits the possibility that the saint we think of as “Saint Bibblybibdib” is a combination of over two hundred persons of mediaeval times or earlier, who all got cobbled together through an error in the illumination of a codex in the scriptorium of an abbey perched on a declivity in the foothills of a large and important mountain range during a ferocious twelfth-century thunderstorm.

But just as I prefer to imagine Father Hopkins sprawled on the grass among the tombstones of Saint Bibblybibdib’s churchyard on a gorgeous springtime afternoon, contemplating the saint and writing his sprung rhythms, so I like to imagine a real, corporeal, dappled saint, roaming mediaeval fields and riversides, dressed in some sort of ecclesiastical garb, a battered halo hovering above his bonce, being saintly.

What else do we know about him? Not much. His symbolic attributes include a toasting-fork, a funerary urn, a finch and a robin, half a wolf, a bloody sword, a corrective boot and a medallion of beaten tin. These are arrayed around him, clockwise in alphabetical order, in his icons, some of which date as far back as 1937, when he was canonised, on the same day, coincidentally, as the Hindenburg disaster. That hagiographer I mentioned posits something else, as it happens. He claims the Hindenburg exploded in gigantic balls of flaming gas because one of the crew was heard to curse Saint Bibblybibdib as the airship approached Lakehurst Naval Air Station for its high landing, known as a “flying moor” because it would be moored to a high mooring point, and then winched down to ground level. As we know, there was to be no winching of an airship on that fateful day. The hagiographer provides no evidence for this grave charge, which must cause considerable pain to any living relatives of the cursing crewman, and which, it must be said, paints Saint Bibblybibdib himself as a petulant and vengeful saint, flying into a rage at the merest slight. I am sure there must be at least a few saints of whom that might be a fitting character sketch, but surely not dear old Saint Bibblybibdib! I prefer to think of him dappled, with his attributes, bestowing his patronage hither and thither. Alas, as far as I have been able to ascertain, Saint Bibblybibdib is the patron saint of nothing, of nothing or no one at all.

Few experiences are as alarming as sinking up to your waist in a quagmire. Having blundered into a quagmire, because you were not looking where you were going, your immediate reaction will probably be to shout your head off, calling for help, and to flail your arms in a haphazard manner, hoping perhaps to summon rescue by visual as well as auditory means. Unfortunately, it so happens that the overwhelming majority of quagmires are to be found in rustic settings, with low population density, rather than in the hurly burly of our crowded cities, where you could confidently expect at least one passer-by in the teeming urban throng to notice your pickle and dash to your assistance, perhaps with a winch. Out in the countryside, depending upon how remote from human habitation it is, hours or days or even weeks might elapse before some wayfarer comes striding past the quagmire to witness your plight. That is not to say that urban quagmires do not exist, but they tend to be spiritual ones, quags of moral turpitude, and they need not concern us here.

If it was shortly after dawn that you sank into your quagmire, bleary-eyed on a morning hike, you at least know that you have many hours of light ahead, and this knowledge should help you to keep your pecker up. After all, statistically, the longer the daylight, the more chance there is of a peasant passing by. I have not studied statistics, and of course there are all sorts of variables to take into account, but I think I can safely say that you have more reason for optimism if you have sunk into a quagmire early in the morning rather than at dusk, as the sun sinks in the west and the sky turns black. You can adjust the intensity of your hope or hopelessness based on what o’ clock it is when you sink, for of course it may be neither dawn nor dusk but two-thirty in the afternoon or one minute past midnight. If the latter, should you survive your ordeal, you would be well-advised to review your decision to go marching about the bleak countryside in the middle of the night, and resolve not to do so in future, if it can at all be avoided.

For the purposes of our blathering, let us assume it is mid-morning, and summer, and thus many hours of daylight lie ahead. You have spent, I would guess, about ten minutes bellowing and waving, to no avail, before you apprehend the futility of doing so. The effort you have expended has served to exhaust you. You are tempted to weep. Around you, the countryside is still and silent, save for a breeze rustling the leaves of the trees, the chirrup and tweet and caw and boom of birds, the scurrying in the undergrowth of busy moles and other habitués of field and mud and duff. For the countryside is never truly still, nor truly silent.

And the pong! I have not yet mentioned that. One of the salient features of the average quagmire is that foul mephitic fumes rise from it. You would naturally want to cover your nose with the embroidered linen handkerchief you keep in your trouser pocket, but of course both pocket and handkerchief, and indeed trousers, are submerged in the quagmire. You have no choice but to snuff up the noisome stench. After an hour or so, you will get used to it, so there is another reason to look on the bright side.

Another thing I have not mentioned is the possibility that, stricken with panic, you may have struggled to kick your legs, down there in the filthy gloop. This is a very bad idea indeed. If you do manage to move your lower limbs about, even a tiny bit, the resulting dislodgement of some of the sludge may make you sink further. It is bad enough having sunk up to your waist. Imagine how much more alarming it would be if you plunged in further, up to your neck. Actually, do not imagine that, because it will make you terrified, and it is absolutely critical that you keep your wits about you. A person in a quagmire is still a person.

It is a great pity that only in fairy stories do we find talking animals. As the day passes, any number of creatures may come to gaze upon you, their curiosity stirred, their tiny stupid brains wondering if you might be food. Squirrels, reindeer, puff adders, or, from above, vultures, to give just four examples. Would that one of them could comprehend human speech and relay a message on your behalf! Some beasts are more intelligent than others, such as dolphins and pigs and crows, but even they cannot speak the Queen’s English. You can at least take comfort that none of the animals that come to look at you is prepared to scamper or creep or crawl or slither or slink across the quagmire, there to devour you, flesh and bone.

From time to time, especially as the evening draws on, it is a good idea to resume your shouting and gesticulating, just in case a countryside person happens to be passing, on foot or by bicycle or astride a horse pulling a cart. But what if nobody comes?

What if nobody comes? One thing we can be sure of is that the sun will set, the sky will turn black, myriad stars will twinkle upon you, in your quagmire.

O is for Ozymandias

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, / Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!”

Now as it happens, I am mighty, and I was hanging around one Thursday morning on the boundless and bare lone and level sands, and I took the opportunity to look on the works of the King of Kings, and I did not despair. What I did was guffaw. Well, first I belched, for I had just finished eating a big pie, two dozen blackbirds baked in puff pastry, with a side helping of spring onions and marmalade. I belched, and then I guffawed. Not everyone is able to emit a full-throated guffaw, in all its glory, but I can. I used to be a chuckler, but that was before I embraced my mightiness, and developed a guffaw to go with it. I was taught it by a mountebank, on a seaside pier, far away from the sands on which I was prancing on that Thursday morning.

I had been sent to inspect the works of Ozymandias by one mightier than myself, if you can imagine such a personage. This unbelievably mighty wight was so mighty he would have flicked Ozymandias from his mighty presence as if the King of Kings were a mere fly, or a bluebottle. He, my mighty employer, had not had a moment to spare to go and see the works of Ozymandias, but he had heard reports, and was aware of the accepted wisdom that looking on them could plunge him into despair. Such a prospect confounded his mighty brain, so he took me on as a sort of surveyor-emissary, at a handsome salary.

“Go thou and look upon the works of Ozymandias, King of Kings!” he boomed in his mighty baritone at the conclusion of my interview, “And make haste to return to my mighty office on the top floor of this mighty skyscraper, and tell me of your findings. Though you are a mere speck of weediness in comparison to me, you are yet sufficiently mighty to be in a position to test the authenticity of Ozymandias’ claim.”

Before leaving the skyscraper, I called in to the PX to collect a wadge of pie-coupons. As I was counting them, and calculating how many blackbird pies I would be able to devour during my survey, it so happened that the mountebank who had taught me to guffaw popped in.

“I hear you are going to look on the works of Ozymandias, King of Kings,” he said.

“Gosh, news travels mightily fast in this skyscraper,” I replied.

“That it does, that it does,” said the mountebank, “But remember, this skyscraper, mighty as it is, will one day topple, or be toppled, and be nought but dust and ashes. In fact, I have it on good authority that such topplement may well occur before you have time to return from the boundless and bare lone and level sands for which you are headed.”

“Really?” I asked.

The mountebank tapped a finger on the side of his nose in the universal gesture of conspiratorial scalliwaggery, and then he swept away, his cape billowing behind him with controlled urgency and stylish élan.

And that is why, on that Thursday morning some weeks later, I guffawed as I looked on the works of Ozymandias, King of Kings. For the mighty skyscraper had toppled, and in its topplement my mighty employer had perished. I had my fat salary, and half my wadge of pie-coupons, and a belly full of blackbird pie and spring onions and marmalade, and I need never return from the boundless and bare lone and level sands. Here I could build my own mighty works, and guffaw at the universe! Now there was none mightier than me!