Even as recently as my grandparents, we lived in a world that could contain both scientific understanding of things and fairy stories.
It’s not that grandma believed there was an elf in the oak tree outside her flat, as such. She was a science teacher. It’s that she could access a world where that level of enchantment could still illustrate a landscape. It was an oak tree broad enough and beautiful enough to deserve an elf. And it’s harder to be casual about a tree being chopped down if you can still imagine that much magic.
Not an oak. The oak outside grandma’s house is gone a decade or two. I’m not actually 100% sure what species this tree, catching a spring sunset, is. But you cannot tell me it doesn’t deserve an elf in it.
Traprain Law could be a perfectly normal volcanic plug, where archaeologists found a bronze age hoard. And it could be a fairy mound and the gold something that really shouldn’t have been taken, and it could also be the relic of where people tried to sacrifice St Tenau and failed, and that could be a folk tale that hinted at earlier gods.
And when you know all three stories you care about them.
I think part of the disenchantment is that we don’t hear those hyperlocal stories any more, and the landscape has become un-described.
Schiehallion, for example, is the Fairy Hill. Schie – Sidh – fairies.
Schiehallion. No fairies were seen on our trip, possibly because it is impossible to be ethereal around my children.
Originally most lumps and bumps would have had names, and those names would have had stories.
I wouldn’t have told you it’s 1083m, I’d have been able to tell you what happened when someone fell asleep on that ridge, or which boulder my grandfather met the Caillach on.
Actually, Schiehallion might not be such a good example because I can tell you that it was essential in the development of contour lines and the earliest attempts to weigh the earth, so it’s kept some stories.
There’s a brilliant book on the landscape and its magic, called The Bone Cave, by Dougie Strang. The book weaves hikes (far harder than the ones I do), folklore, myth, archaeology and talks about how our ancestors related to landscape. It paints a picture of a people who clung to animism for centuries, burying it deep into their religion in public, but who could tell you that the scars on the hillside had been a giant boar killed by a hero and what specific magic wove these hills.
Part of this is that our ancestors – even our grandparents – could name things. My great grandfather could name every path and every flower, dad said. His father could name most useful plants and most birds. Dad could tell weather coming, and name common flowers and obvious birds.
I reached adulthood with little bird lore beyond “duck” or crow, and no flower knowledge more detailed than "bram”le" and “nettle.”
So one way I have been bringing the magic back is by learning names.
Cowslip - protecting your cows from fairies, associated with the goddess Freja, pretty spectacular.
And given the rant I’ve just ranted, you might be surprised that AI powered apps are part of that. But they are, for me.
Merlin has revolutionised my walks. It’s a bird identification app, built by Cornell University but with a pack for British birds. It can identify birds by birdsong, by photo or by taking you through a step by step identification process. And although not foolproof it’s far easier than trying to flick through a book.
And it does make things more magical if you hear birdsong and know that that song is a robin, or a wren. After a while, you start being able to guess what you’re hearing – that blackbirds sometimes sound like an overwhelmed mother who just discovered someone had broken a box of eggs, that Great Tits nag.
Being able to say “aye, the chiffchaffs are back” in spring certainly helps the hobbit vibe.
Pretty sure this is sulphur tuft. Don’t eat it. Most of the folklore I can find for it is modern, but that doesn’t mean it’s not magical - apparently it has some symbolism around not following all the lights you see, which is pretty much core fairy tale advice.
And for flowers, some are paid. But google lens does a decent job if you’re up close. And again, I love being able to say “there are cowslips over there” or “I think that’s honesty.” And indeed that – if you had brought good gloves with you – you could make decent soup from the nettles that you didn’t get around to weeding out of your garden.
Cowslips might not be quite the same thing as elves in oaks, but they’re a step on the same path. They’re part of seeing the land properly, and not just as something you stride through, or drive through at speed.
It’s my first step towards re-enchanting my world, and it seems to be working.