On hoards, hiding and history – a personal memory

Still on the discovery of the golden hoard: Reading the discoverer's (Terry Herbert, metal detectorist (thank you, Karen : ) thoughts reminded me of something quite amazing that happened in my childhood.

Mr Herbert tells in a BBC article that there is "… this phrase that I say sometimes; 'spirits of yesteryear take me where the coins appear' … 'I don't know why I said it that day but I think somebody was listening and directed me to it.' "

When I was about eight years old, in the late seventies, our family lived in Lappeenranta, a small, old military based town close to the Russian border in South-Eastern Finland. Lappeenranta was founded in 1649, and being a strategic spot between East and West bears a stormy and colourful history under both Swedish and Russian rules. Many of the town's old military structures are still intact, alongside the current base (which was still famous for its garrison with horse stables and the handsome cavalry when we were kids).

Part of the Lappeenranta fortress is built around an old church on a hill, on the edge of town. Our guide group used to get together at the basement there, and often also spent time on the surrounding grounds. One evening in the spring (I remember that leaves were just appearing in the trees then), there was still light and we were playing hide and seek in the dusk. I climbed down to one of the old trenches with cobblestone walls, 6 ft deep or so, labyrinthing around the park, and ran along the soft grassy bottom as far as I could. I must have done a good job hiding, as I waited there for a long while but no-one came.

Sitting there alone and quite happy, I thought about the soldiers and townspeople who had been huddling in the same shelters, and wondered if anyone had ever stopped on the same spot as I was now. All of a sudden – it really was a flash-like thought out of nowhere – something made me look at the stone wall I was leaning into; my hand lifted itself up and went directly into a little opening between two smallish, mossy rocks. There, at the back of the tiny cave, half-filled by sand and pebbles, I felt a rusty pile of metal. I pulled it out and saw six or seven very old keys bundled together!

I don't have a photo of the keys (they are not with me anymore), but they were the simplest type of old key, with one or two straight teeth at the end of an iron rod, and an oval with perhaps a little lip to hold them by. All of them had obviously been lying there for a long time as they were covered by a deep patina of brownish rust, some of them slightly etched, stuck, together.

So it still moves me to think that I happened to be at the exact place where someone, perhaps a hundred or more years ago, had stood and thought to hide their keys for a while. They had quickly scanned the stones and decided on a place, pushing the keys as far into the crack as they could. But they never came back … or maybe they forgot the exact location. I wondered for some time what to do with the bundle; we even spoke to my friend's mum who worked at a local museum, but eventually I just kept them, and played with them from time to time. However, I sometimes ponder, did I too somehow connect with a "spirit of a yesteryear" – was there something particular someone wanted me to do with the keys …?

Maybe I should attempt to forge one and see what happens. After all, while we're making, many of the tools and the processes still very much, strongly and vividly, proudly, connect us with the past, thus bringing it to our presence. Maybe that is the whole point, something to think about, that daily connection and what it means for us, and for those in the future who stumble upon our pieces.
Somehow, somewhere …




Some bits and pieces on the history of Lappeenranta fortress

PS. If anyone knows about the history of keys and how to date particular makes and materials, please let me know.

PS 2. I was wondering why I found the news about Terry and the recent gold hoard slightly comical (in a good way). And then I remembered: The Mildenhall Treasure by Roald Dahl, fantastic illustrations by Ralph Steadman (yes we're sure he only ever drank water : ) It's a true story about an English farmer who discoveres a treasure in his field.

resting, not stuck

In Finland where I grew up, changes in natural seasons were always distinctive. Each year was a cycle of familiar parts with their own rituals, from light filled milky green summers, mosquitos and pine trees, to closed, silent, dark winters with air so cold it sometimes hurt to breathe (but only for a while). In between them the strong, ancient springs and autumns; like sharp cuts of a blade that draw blood, uncompromising contrast in their light and shadow, times strictly about being born and needing to die.

I think each Finn carries these natural cycles in some personal way, our song lyrics, poetry, literature, visual art and every day expression all repeat the collective experience of moving through a year in a certain way. Weather equals our emotional landscape. There is no house, unit, tent or a temporary hut without a thermometer outside the kitchen window. Most of us, regardless of whether we live in a village or in a city, also list "walking in a forest" as a serious, favourite hobby. We all own gum boots. This says something.

15 years in Perth, Western Australia, were about sunlight that can blind and burn, and sudden arrivals of major seasonal periods. In a few days' time, often, it was suddenly another universe. The dry heat of our long summers there, our warm, sand covered salty skins after long afternoons, the eternally blue skies (sometimes I called this the "dull sense of happiness", it could feel like irony at times of sadness, or oppressive, day after day stuck between the ocean and the desert), switching within a week to the damp, green winters that smelled like wood smoke.

As much as I've now realised I grew to deeply love that climate and place, there always was a sense of being a strange animal in a new territory, not able to cling to patterns, familiar plants, trees, scents, predictable changes. A tangible sense of having left one's home. And maybe it was that I never tried hard enough to study the small, new details that help our roots grow and bind us to our new land, as I always thought I would not stay. (It must have been a self-numbing belief that we in WA lacked seasons, and a sign of some kind of "urban alienation"; The Noongar, Indigenous people of South-West Australia, name and recognise SIX definitive times during the year. [see below])

Here in Melbourne, two and a half years of trying to settle, I've caught a glimpse of that seasonal feeling of my childhood again. We have trees with leaves that change colour and fall away, we have dramatic cloudy skies in a constant change, we have warm coloured, tad melancholy autumn light with powdery, dusty air like on Friday afternoon; the last fling of May before giving it up to June, the first month of winter. I sat outside our uni building and enjoyed how the Melbourne blacks (the coats, the minis, the stockings, the hats) looked deeper than ever in that light.

And I wonder if this somehow affects me by bringing up old things of my country left behind -- autumns were always a time of noted change from lightness into deeper waters, and often about a feeling of restlessness, that something is brewing just under the surface, but it's impossible to know what. Sometimes I wondered if this was an age old sense, body strong and independent of our conscious will, of wanting to conceive, just before the darkest time of the year, so that new life would emerge in the beginning of the warmest and most fruitful period. I don't know, but it is the kind of feeling that keeps you awake at night, in a goodbad way, and you wake up exhausted in the morning from a pure strength of emotion. Im there right now.

So, come cool winter after all this, I sometimes long to be resting -- not stuck, not frozen, but resting, and reflecting. I think that soon, I need to curl under the dark soil with mute roots of plants and trees for a while to gain a sense of belonging, and self. Perhaps I need to find a home that is not bound to a place.

IK


PS. 1
A beautiful blog by a Finnish friend, about the seasonal changes in nature, by pictures of her & her family's personal environment:
http://bjorkbacka.blogspot.com

PS 2.
"The Noongar ... have a close connection with the earth and, as a consequence, they divided the year into six distinct seasons that corresponded with moving to different habitats and feeding patterns based on seasonal foods … :

• Birak (December/January)—Dry and hot. Noongar burned sections of scrubland to force animals into the open for easier hunting.

• Bunuru (February/March)—Hottest part of the year, with sparse rainfall throughout. Noongar moved to estuaries for fishing.

• Djeran (April/May)—Cooler weather begins. Fishing continued and bulbs and seeds were collected for food.

• Makuru (June/July)—Cold fronts that have until now brushed the lower south-west coast begin to cross further north. This is usually the wettest part of the year. Noongar moved inland to hunt, once rains had replenished inland water resources.

• Djilba (August/September)—Often the coldest part of the year, with clear, cold nights and days, or warmer, rainy and windy periods. As the nights begin to warm up there are more clear, sunny days. Roots were collected and emus, possums and kangaroo were hunted.

• Kambarang (October/November)—A definite warming trend is accompanied by longer dry periods and fewer cold fronts crossing the coast. The height of the wildflower season. Noongar moved towards the coast where frogs, tortoises and freshwater crayfish were caught."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noongar)