Donderberg Mountain overlooks the Hudson River just a bit above Sleepy Hollow and is in the thick of the Hudson Highlands. The legend of the Imp of Donder-Berg comes to us from the early Dutch settlers of the region, and was made somewhat famous by Washington Irving. According to the story, if the skipper of […]
On fairy tales, American kitsch, Bullwinkle, Rock City and where I found enchantment
Top: Fairy tale architecture at Rock City, atop Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, Tennessee blended an enchanted style with the natural surroundings. + + + I grew up in a place, and currently live in a place, where the word enchanted is almost taboo. Saying something is enchanting here would get you weird looks, and people […]
Sunrise, the gift of stillness
The river Avon, somewhere in Wiltshire The sunrise is stillness. It’s why it’s so easy to remember a morning like this one. You just need to be still and wait for it. You can hear the memories of a sunrise if you listen, thumb back through your index cards of previous sunrises, till you come […]
Running from the storm
I was living on Long Island, a hurricane was bearing down. The question was, would it strengthen or weaken? The consensus was it would weaken, so now evacuations took place. I had the weekend free, I wanted to be in New England for the storm. It was Thursday evening, I decided to be on the […]
Today’s Marginalia: Station Two of the Glencolumcille Tura, a pilgrimage on the edge of the world
Glencolumcille, or in the Gaelic, has been a religious site for over 5,000 years. It was one of earliest Christian sites in Europe, dating to the sixth century. The landscape around the village is dotted with ancient sites from the neolithic period, but the Christians turned the landscape into a stations of the cross, based […]
At Monkton Farleigh, the ghost of a very thirsty monk
There once stood a priory in the village of Monkton Farleigh, in Wiltshire. This small village is blessed, or cursed with a handful of hauntings. The building above, built in the eleventh century was a conduit for water to run to the priory, which now sits in ruins near the site. It is said that […]
