The Grassling

by Elizabeth-jane Burnett

  2 William Camden, translated by P. Holland, Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (1610).

  3 W. G. Hoskins, The Making of the English Landscape (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986; first published 1955), p. 95.

  4 DAFFODIL

  1 Robert Herrick, ‘To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time’, Hesperides: or, the works both humane & divine of Robert Herrick Esq. (1648). Contains the lines, ‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may/Old time is still a-flying.’

  5 EXE

  1 Plantlife Online, at ; accessed 18 June 2018. Plantlife undertake surveys of wild flowers as part of their work protecting plants and fungi.

  2 The description of my first swim was first published in the Outdoor Swimming Society’s blog, at ; accessed 29 October 2018.

  8 HARRIERS

  1 N. W. Alcock, ‘Devon Farm Houses: Part 1’, Transactions of the Devonshire Association, vol. 100 (1968), pp. 13–28.

  2 H. A. Bryden, Hare-hunting and Harriers (London: Grant Richards, 1903), p. 62.

  3 See the Encyclopaedia Britannica, entry on ‘lupins’ for evidence of this ‘more recent research’, at .

  9 INDIGO

  1 Caspar A. Hallmann, Martin Sorg, Eelke Jongejans, Henk Siepel, Nick Hofland, Heinz Schwan, Werner Stenmans, Andreas Müller, Hubert Sumser, Thomas Hörren, Dave Goulson, Hans de Kroon, ‘More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas’, Plos One, 18 October 2017; at ; accessed 18 June 2018.

  2 G. Vogel, ‘Where have all the insects gone?’, Science, 10 May 2017; at ; accessed 9 July 2018. The article provides the figures for the Southern Scotland insect catches.

  3 ‘Pollination,’ Buglife Online at accessed 18 June 2018.

  11 KULUNGU

  1 See, for instance, the tree listening project by UK artist Alex Metcalf. Alex Metcalf Online, at ; accessed 11 July 2018.

  SOIL MEMOIR FOR DRUID’S HILL

  1 The ‘Soil Memoir for Druid’s Hill’ is based on the concept of soil memoirs as described in B. Clayden, Soils of the Exeter District [Sheets 325 and 339] (Bungay, Suffolk: Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd, 1971). As the front jacket states: ‘The Soil Survey of Great Britain prepares maps showing the distribution of soils, and memoirs, bulletins and records describing the properties of the soils mapped, both from the scientist’s and agriculturist’s viewpoint.’

  16 PROTOZOA

  1 OuLiPo is the Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, or Workshop of Potential Literature, a group of writers and mathematicians known for their use of language constraints. The S+7 method is where each substantive or noun in a given text, such as a poem, is systematically replaced by the noun to be found seven places away in a dictionary; at ; accessed 18 October 2018.

  17 QUARTER

  1 World Wildlife Fund Online, 2018, at ; accessed 18 June 2018. This site provides statistics on the numbers of dairy cows worldwide.

  2 ‘Sustainable Dairy Farming: Kajsa Petersson’, Arla Online, 2018, at ; accessed 18 June 2018.

  18 RITUAL

  1 Michelle Starr, ‘Birds Can See Earth’s Magnetic Fields, and Now We Know How That’s Possible’, Science Alert, 1 September 2018, at ; accessed 29 June 2018.

  21 UNDER WOOD

  1 W. G. Hoskins, English Landscapes (London: BBC Books, 1973), p. 23.

  28 WOODED FORT

  1 A. N. Winckworth, ‘Memories of Dunchideock’, Genuki Online at ; accessed 12 October 2016.

  34 XYLOTOMY

  1 M. Brayshay (ed.), Topographical Writers in South-West England (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1996), p. 8.

  35 ELK-SEDGE

  1 M. Halsall (ed.), The Old English Rune Poem: A Critical Edition (McMaster Old English Studies and Texts 2) (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981).

  37 YEOMEN

  1 Donald Burnett, The Archers of the Teign Valley (n.p., n.d). The Archers can be found in the records as ‘an ancient and honourable race’. 1. This information is drawn from Revd Daniel and Samuel Lysons, Magna Britannia: Being a Concise Topographical Account of the Several Counties of Great Britain, vol. VI: Devonshire (London: T. Cadell & W. Davies, 1822).

  38 YMBCLYCCAN

  1 The history of Devon hedgerows is mentioned in Rosemary Horsman, Jottings from Ashton, a compilation of articles from Unity Parish Magazine (n.p., n.d.).

  2 Information on Devon’s species-rich hedgerows is provided in Devon Biodiversity and Geodiversity Action Plan Online (Devon County Council, 2009), at ; accessed 11 July 2018.

  3 ‘New research exposes secret cocktail of toxic pesticides in hedgerows and wildflowers’, Soil Association Online at ; accessed 29 June 2018.

  39 YMBGEDELF

  1 The 1803 Survey Map of the Manor and Book of Court Rolls (D and C Church Commissioners deposit 41/75986C) are located in the Exeter Cathedral Archives.

  43 ȲTEMEST

  1 Dennis O’Neil, ‘Adapting to High Altitude’, Palomar College Online, 2012, at ; accessed 18 June 2018.

  44 ȲÞ-WŌRIGENDE

  1 See Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson, A Guide to Old English, 5th edn (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1996), p. 271. ll. 2–4 and 5–6 for the Old English text. The translation is the author’s own.

  45 ZOIC

  1 Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (New York: First Mariner Books, 2003; first published 1962), p. 42.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My deep thanks go to my editor, Josephine Greywoode. Thanks also to my agent, Cathryn Summerhayes, and to others who have offered expert advice: the geologist Peter Grainger; the artist Lucy Rock and the ornithologist Nigel Hewitt. Thanks for the work of Organic Arts at West Town Farm in Ide, the Soil Association, Writing West Midlands, and Penguin Random House’s WriteNow.

  Thanks to Clive Adams, at the Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World (CCANW), whose Soil Cultures project first encouraged my experiments with soil. I am also grateful to the community at Sheldon who welcomed me during my private writing retreats, particularly Sarah Horsman, and to Newman University, Birmingham, for a research sabbatical. Thanks to Helen Davies and Colin Burges, to artist Rebecca Thomas for our day in the field and to the Archivist at Exeter Cathedral for assistance with the Survey Map.

  Thanks for encouragement to David Launchbury, Doug Young, Jessica Woollard, Samantha Walton and Karen Butler; for advice, Bernadine Evaristo, Siena Parker and Charlene Allcott; and for encounters: the deer, birds, worms and grass at Strangaton.

  Special thanks go to my family, particularly my mother, Polly Burnett; the farmer John Reddaway and family; and my uncle, Harold Burnett. Thanks also to my brother Nick and sister Sarah. My heartfelt thanks go to my father, without whom this book would not exist and who did not live to see its publication. He is ever-present.

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  ALLEN LANE

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  First published 2019

  001

  Copyright © Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, 2019

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Cover image: textile design by William Kilburn c.1788–92 (w/c on paper) © Private Collection / The Stapleton Collection / Bridgeman Images

  ISBN: 978-0-141-98963-1

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