Sunday 28 February 2010

A view down the mysterious well

I am supposed to gracefully accept an award, but I want to think about it for longer to give it the proper answer. Telling my readership about me is something I do every day, it is difficult to find something new to write about. On the other hand, recently I got enough inspiration to blog about something like a dozen different topics. So I better get started.

Yesterday, my wife and I went with another couple, to a small English village, one of those picturesque villages that are lost in the middle of the country and therefore seemingly untouched by modern life (I hope I am not spouting clichés here, it sounds a bit too much like something from a bad tourist brochure). So much there was old, surrounded by English countryside, almost by wilderness. I was feeling like in a Dungeons & Dragons setting, or in a Hammer movie. We stayed about two hours, but I took enough snapshots to feed this blog for a few weeks.

We went to a local pub, a genuine traditional pub, an old building, with lots of real ales, old wooden furniture, a fireplace, etc. We sat at a round table and discovered that said table was built on a... well. Now how cool is that: a well in a pub? I blogged about it before: I love wells and what they represent in our psyche. Now, since the hole was covered by thick, solid glass, I could look into the well, stare at this black muddy water that was both fascinating and frightening. I felt closer to this imaginary (or not?) danger, into this gate to another world the well represents. Of course, I could still drink my beer above it, which diminished its frightening aspect. Or maybe not, actually. On a full moon, in a drunken state, my imagination might have ran wild and the irrational feeling of danger could have been enhanced. The pub and its well could be the setting for a great story, either a D&D adventure, or a classic horror story. The whole village reminded me of something I could find in one of M.R. James' ghost stories, to think that such a place really exists, especially in our modern age, is quite stimulating. I wish I had the talent for horror stories. I could make a good pastiche. Maybe I should try it. Until then, I still have the setting. As I said to my wife, we need to go there in Autumn, when Halloween is coming. We would then be in the perfect setting in the perfect season.

2 comments:

The Artful Gypsy aka Wendy the Very Good Witch said...

Ooh....I love this! I'd give anything to visit that place. But me thinks peering down into the well would be rather freaky. Call it seeing to many scary movies...but I can just see myself trying hard to make something out in the darkness below, only to have some vile, hideous man beast monster come pushing up and out of the glass to eat everyone. Yikes! My mind is way too over active to enjoy such a such thing...ha! I would want to check it out quickly...then go sit far away from it to have my drink, making sure not to turn my back on it! :o) Thanks for sharing that!

Guillaume said...

I knew you would love this post somehow...;-) I was fascinated by that well and I wouldn't have sat anywhere else.