Doom & Gloom...
Sep. 1st, 2011 06:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
endlessraritiesI was looking forward to getting home this evening for a cup of coffee and a sit-down after a hard day spent monitoring the cemetery excavations.
Unfortunately, life had other things planned for me this evening...
J had found an injured jackdaw wandering around the garden this afternoon. Its wing was displaced and it couldn't fly. A rescue attempt was mounted, which involved a sortie into the neighbours' garden (amazing how an injured bird can make you start talking amicably with your clematis-killing neighbours). The jackdaw was run to ground, picked up by Yours Truly, packed into a box with some straw, and taken away to the Hessilhead Wildlife Trust for treatment.
Unfortunately, it seems likely that the poor bird has broken its wing, and it's Hessilhead's policy to euthanase all birds which have no chance of recovery, So I fear that Casualty # 2278 will be another one of our wildlife failures. It's for the best - our friendly Hessilhead worker (in between being pecked and bitten by the distraught jackdaw) informed us that the poor thing was starving. Considering we have the best-fed birds on the block, this is peculiar - I wonder if the poor thing had been suffering for a while before it finally found an (un)safe haven in our garden.
Following on from this morose news, I shall post some pretty pictures of some gravestones now. I reckon they're all 18th century in date, though I have no details about the individuals they're commemorating, as the sandstone was very badly eroded on the E side, where the memorial was carved.
They're extremely ornate, and well worth close inspection. They don't seem to be as easy to interpret as your average 18th century gravestone - the imagery is very complex.
And here we have, alongside the standard winged soul at the top and the skull and crossed longbones below - BUNNIES!!!!
More gravestones tomorrow....
Unfortunately, life had other things planned for me this evening...
J had found an injured jackdaw wandering around the garden this afternoon. Its wing was displaced and it couldn't fly. A rescue attempt was mounted, which involved a sortie into the neighbours' garden (amazing how an injured bird can make you start talking amicably with your clematis-killing neighbours). The jackdaw was run to ground, picked up by Yours Truly, packed into a box with some straw, and taken away to the Hessilhead Wildlife Trust for treatment.
Unfortunately, it seems likely that the poor bird has broken its wing, and it's Hessilhead's policy to euthanase all birds which have no chance of recovery, So I fear that Casualty # 2278 will be another one of our wildlife failures. It's for the best - our friendly Hessilhead worker (in between being pecked and bitten by the distraught jackdaw) informed us that the poor thing was starving. Considering we have the best-fed birds on the block, this is peculiar - I wonder if the poor thing had been suffering for a while before it finally found an (un)safe haven in our garden.
Following on from this morose news, I shall post some pretty pictures of some gravestones now. I reckon they're all 18th century in date, though I have no details about the individuals they're commemorating, as the sandstone was very badly eroded on the E side, where the memorial was carved.
They're extremely ornate, and well worth close inspection. They don't seem to be as easy to interpret as your average 18th century gravestone - the imagery is very complex.
And here we have, alongside the standard winged soul at the top and the skull and crossed longbones below - BUNNIES!!!!
The Bunnies of Mortality, perhaps??? As ever, I throw the floor open for interpretations and comments. If anyone out there knows why bunnies might be employed as symbols of death, mortality and rebirth, please let me know. Hares as fertility symbols, yes - bunnies as emissaries of death? That's a new one!
More gravestones tomorrow....
