For good or for ill, and I’m of the opinion that it is not entirely one or the other, with the development of various technologies and changes in the way the natural world was viewed, many societies have become quite literally disenchanted. And yet…
I am introducing a new section to The Well-read Naturalist with the title “More Things” in honor of the famous quote from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet;” a play and a sentiment both of which I very much admire.
B.B.’s novel “The Little Grey Men,” originally published in 1942, as it was the recipient of the Carnegie Medal that same year and was later adapted into a television series in 1975, is most likely to be his most popularly known amongst his many books. It recounts the story – as directly received from one with personal knowledge of it, as he tells it – of the last four gnomes in England who live inside an old oak tree beside Folly Brook in Warwickshire.
John Lawton’s “Inn Search of Birds” recounts his discoveries from his eleven year survey of 711 British pubs in search of their respective names, or some other aspect of them, being associated with birds. Quite frankly, as an avid naturalist, an enthusiastic reader of British folklore, and an ardent believer in the importance pubs to their communities, I’m not sure whether to be emerald green with jealousy or kneeling in awe (much more likely the latter).