Songs of a Cragsman by George Basterfield Find!
After a very busy week at work I've been having a lovely time today being a Reading Detective! I discovered this book while having a hunt along the Local Studies shelves in Ulverston library a couple of weeks ago and have been dipping in and out of it ever since. Like Canon Rawnsley in my previous blog we have already met George Basterfield when I mentioned him in the Harry Griffin find "The High Places".
George Basterfield was not only a leading member of the Fell and Rock Club but also the Labour Mayor of Barrow-in-Furness in 1920-21 and again in 1936-37. When Harry Griffin died The Independent wrote:
"In 1929 he was taken under the wing of the jolly, effusive mayor of Barrow, George Basterfield, who happened to be one of the most prominent rock climbers in Britain. The mayor, of whom his peers quipped, "The hardest pitch will yield, when attacked by Basterfield", was the avuncular leading light of the so-called "Yewdale Vagabonds", a loose association of mainly Barrow-based elite climbers who pushed standards on Lakeland rock in the years immediately following the First World War. Their name came from their habit of meeting at Yewdale near Coniston, not far from their main proving ground of Dow Crag.
The social hub of the group, Basterfield was famous for writing and performing his own comic songs at the piano while playing, badly, with one finger, and spinning yarns rich in local dialect. Griffin was mesmerised by the charismatic mayor. "After that day it was all I ever thought about," he wrote later. "All I dreamt and lived for then was climbing."
"Songs of a Cragsman" was written and published by George Basterfield in 1930. This is one of my favourite songs:
Mountain Moods
Dedicated to "Great Gable".
Mists of the morning skies steal on thy crest,
Bury thy turrets high, muffle thy breast.
Mountian, I turn from my fleshbound jail
And I drape my soul in thy mystic veil.
Shafts of a summer sky, fire thy crest,
Burnish thy turrets high, jewel thy breast,
Mountain, I turn to thee out of the gloom,
And I warm my soul 'gainst crack of doom.
Snows of a winter sky white on thy crest,
Stiff on thy turrets high, cold on thy breast,
Mountain, I turn from the filth of the fight,
And I clothe my soul in thy mantle of white.
Blue of a tranquil sky boldens thy crest,
Sets forth thy turrets high, offers thy breast,
Mountain, I turn from the drab of the world,
And I feast my soul in thy glories unfurled.
Blasts of an angry sky beat on thy crest,
Crash on thy turret high, storm on thy breast.
Mountain, I turn to thee out of the stress,
And I gird my soul in thy nobleness.
Shades of a pageant sky loom on thy crest,
Darken thy turrets high, sail on thy breast.
Mountain, I turn from the heat of the day,
And I cool my soul in thy shadow play.
Rains of a sodden sky pour on thy crest,
Splash on thy turrets high, stream down thy breast,
Mountain, I turn from the wasted years,
And I purge my soul in thy cleansing tears.
Gold of the western sky gilding thy crest,
Flashed on thy turrets high, warm on thy breast,
Mountain, I turn to thee out of the night,
And I bathe my soul in thy passion of light.
Moon of the midnight sky silvers thy crest,
Sharpens thy turrets high, beams on thy breast,
Mountain, I turn to thee out of "the deep,"
And I wrap my soul in thy beautiful sleep.
11 October 2009 from Mary Rossall
Finds
- Grange-over-Sands: The Story of a Gentle Township
- The Silent Traveller: A Chinese Artist in Lakeland
- Red Ike
- Cumbrian Privies
- Ethel Fisher's West Cumbrian Dialect titles
- The Embalmer's Book of Recipes by Ann Lingard
- Nella Last's Peace
- Riding the Stang by Dawn Robertson
- Life on the Fell - a pictorial chronicle of a Lakeland community
- About Scout Scar
- William Wilberforce - A Summer Diary 1779
- Beatrix Potter - the unknown years
- Smoke over Shap by Margaret Potter
- Songs of a Cragsman by George Basterfield
- The Grasmere Dialect Plays
- The Grizedale Experience: Sculpture, Art & Theatre in a Lakeland Forest
- An Atlas of The English Lakes
- How Hall. Poetry and Memories. A Passion for Ennerdale by Tom Rawling
- Stumpy, Hero of the Lakes
- The High Places by A. Harry Griffin
- The Highest House in Wathendale
- Kendal by Roger Bingham
- Secrets and Legends of Old Westmorland
- Reminiscences of Wordsworth Among the Peasantry of Westmorland by Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley
- Little Gods by Jacob Polley
- A Lakeland Summer
- Hunter of Harter Fell by Joseph E Chipperfield
- And Nobody Woke Up Dead
- An accessible paradise
- The Fleming Family novels and Graham Sutton
- Excursion to Loweswater. A Lakeland Visit 1865
- Writing on the Wall
- Beyond Scafell by Alan Robinson
- Rogue Herries by Hugh Walpole
- Kendal In The Nineteenth Century by A Wainwright
- In There Somewhere
- The Bondwomen by W G Collingwood
- "Ah'd Gaa Back Tomorra!"
- A Cumbrian Copper by Ray Huddart
- The Arsenic Labyrinth by Martin Edwards
- Old Will Stories by Dudley Hoys
- The Shield Ring by Rosemary Sutcliff
- T'Bacca Queen by Theodora Wilson Wilson
- Furness and the Industrial Revolution
- The Shadow of Black Combe
- The Painted Letters of Percy Kelly
- Ivver Sen
- Lakeland in the 1830s
- Wasdale Climbing Book By Michael Cocker
- Riding High by Barbara Sneyd
- Deborah in Langdale
- Early Recollections of Grange
- Hazard's Way by Roger Hubank
- Yan, Tan, Tethera
- Talk of the Town
- Capturing the Mountains
- Hope On, Hope Ever
- Mildred Edwards: Our City Our People 1889 - 1978 Memories
- Lakeland Limericks
- Surrounding loveliness
- Haweswater by Sarah Hall
- Coast to Coast by Jan Minshull
- Sunshine To The Sunless
- Geese, cattle wallopers and secret Irish paths
- Anarchists, Angels and wet Bank Holiday Mondays
- A more unconventional kind of find...?
- Skiddaw Summit by Kathleen Jones
- Thorstein of the Mere: A Saga of the Northmen in Lakeland
- Wednesday Early Closing
- Smoke Across The Fell
- The Sand Pilot of Morecambe Bay
- The Chronicles of Boggerthwaite
- Carrock Fell
- Feet in the Clouds
- Hercules and the Farmer's Wife
- Shepherd's Warning
- The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices
- I've been so busy reading I haven't had time to blog!
Recent posts
- Thank you!
- Coffee and books at the Bluebell Bookshop
- Mary learns to blog!
- Lucky 13!
- Grange over Sands get reading
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