CAPITALISM:

 

Nowhere was that vision more inventively expressed than in An Orkney Tapestry, a book that, as its title suggests, weaves together a series of lyrical essays on the topology, wildlife and art of the islands, with meditations on the twin aspects of Orcadian folk beliefs (which Brown divides into 'Midsummer' and 'Midwinter' lore) and, perhaps most powerfully, a panoramic history of the Hoy settlement of Rackwick, from the arrival of the first longships to the present. Rather daringly, he adds to this mix a running stream of incidental poetry and even a self-contained play, entitled 'The Watcher', about a cobbler of Hamnavoe (the old name for Stromness), a pompous laird and a mystery at sea. What binds all this together is the author's poetic sense: even the stage directions of 'The Watcher' are slyly lyrical, with one character's smile described as 'a momentary brightness like buttercups over a grave'.

It could be argued that Brown took his regional sensibility one step further by creating a land-based metaphysic that seems even more urgent now than it did in 1969, when An Orkney Tapestry first appeared. Increasingly troubled by what he called the 'new religion' of progress - 'concerned only with material things ... a rootless utilitarian faith, without beauty or mystery' - he offered in An Orkney Tapestry (originally commissioned by Gollancz as a tourist guide) a lyrical investigation of all the ways that our connection with the land (or lack of it) determines our sense of belonging. In the chapter he dedicates to 'Lore', for example, he observes: 'The rhythms of art were closely related to the seasonal rhythms, to a dark potent chthonic energy that raised cornstalk and rose from their roots underground. Grave and womb deepened the mystery; in those darknesses, too, new life quickened and burgeoned. Ploughing and love have always been linked in the imagination of farmers' - and he adds:

Death was the third part of this trinity; and all three were gathered up into the crowning idea of resurrection. The crofter could not fail to be impressed by this. For him life and death were not stark opposites but woven the one into the other, a seamless garment ... These profound frightening mysterious energies lay deep in the earth the crofter tilled. The same energies were present to him in a delightful way in fiddle music and ballad. He was a part of the earth, he was a part of the dance.

Britain's Ancient Capital Episode 1 from Justin Kelly on Vimeo.

Tweet   @brothersjudd