Field Notes #2
San Diego Natural History Museum. Photo: Tanya Clarke 2022
For the past couple of months, I've been reading the novel Fayne by Ann-Marie Macdonald. At 736 pages it's a big book requiring a big commitment. Strangely I wasn't put off by its size. My daughters laugh at me when I describe movies as being 'okay, but too long'. I get fidgety in films that are longer than two hours.
So every night since December last year, I’ve read a few pages and now I’m very close to the end.
Here’s a quick run-down of what the book is about:
Set in the late 1800s, Charlotte Bell is a 12-year-old girl who lives with her adoring father Lord Henry Bell in the large, rambling and lonely estate of Fayne House. The estate sits within a boggy moor, a disputed strip of land that exists between England and Scotland. Charlotte loves the bog learning about the flora and fauna from the elderly, mystical Byrn, who has tended the land for as long as anyone can remember.
Charlotte is kept away from school, family and friends due to an unspecified condition not revealed until further on in the novel. She is a curious, intelligent young person who has a vast appetite for learning and is desperately keen to attend university when she's older.
We learn early on that her mother died giving birth to her and her older brother died not long after at the age of two.
Family secrets abound in the book and sometimes it can be tricky to hold them all in mind but the characters are beautifully developed and connect intricately to one another in a fine network of story. I love that there are more than a few relevant themes to engage with that reflect ongoing conversations about the environment, gender and mental health in our contemporary culture.
As with many historical novels, there are words and places and people I know nothing about. About halfway through, page 300-and-something, I started creating an index in the back listing each word or phrase I came across that I needed to find out more. So far it's been fascinating.
Here's a list of some of the things I've discovered that you might find interesting too. If anything it'll give you some new words for a game of Scrabble or my favourite, Bananagrams.
Let's dig in.
What is a chimera?
Or chimaera depending on where you live in the world.
In Greek mythology, a chimera is a monster with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail. According to the dictionary, it's a 'wild or fantastic conception'.
Surprisingly there are also non-mythical chimeras. Thankfully they don't have the fantastical makeup associated with the greek myths but they exist nonetheless. Animal and bird chimeras are more common while human chimeras are rare.
So what makes them? Here's the best explanation I've found:
"Usually, just one egg will fuse with just one sperm. But in some cases, two eggs release instead of one. We call this hyperovulation. Thus, two different sperm cells may fuse with the eggs, forming two separate zygotes instead of one. If development proceeds from here, this process can give rise to fraternal twins. Fraternal twins are siblings that look different from one another but are the same age.
But sometimes one zygote can absorb the other. The zygote doesn’t know what it’s doing, and it’s not eating its twin, just absorbing its DNA. In the end, only one zygote remains. That zygote now has two sets of DNA, and will grow into a chimera."
Confronting Human Chimerism by Tazeen Ulhaque
What is a poultice?
Now, I have heard of a poultice but it occurred to me that I didn't know what it was.
A poultice also called a cataplasm, is a soft, medicated, usually heated mass applied to the body and kept in place with muslin to relieve soreness and inflammation.
For some reason, the idea of a soft, warm mass seems unpleasant but its application is for the greater good of healing. The mass is often made from herbs and other plants to make an anti-inflammatory paste applied to a bandage and placed on the affected area.
"Poultices were believed to “draw out” inflammation and infection. They were prepared for a range of complaints including boils, toothaches, bunions, abscesses, splinters, chilblains and styes. Even the treatment of serious illnesses, such as TB and cholera, often involved some form of a poultice being administered to the patient. Both doctors and nurses were trained in how to make and apply them."
What does folderol mean?
Trivial actions or words that have little meaning.
1. The box was full of clothes and shoes and all sorts of folderol.
2. The teacher spoke a load of old folderol at the end of class.
What does primogeniture mean?
I’m primogeniture, as in, being the firstborn child.
Also, you could say, in full right of primogeniture meaning ‘the right of succession belonging to the firstborn’.
Prince Charles became King Charles after the death of his mother because he was in full right of primogeniture. A wordy way of saying, he's the firstborn child of Queen Elizabeth II and heir to the throne.
Lochleven Castle
Is this real or imagined? It’s real! Which reveals my poor knowledge of British history.
You can still visit the ruins of the Lochleven Castle originally thought to have been first built in the 1300s. Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned in the tower house in 1567 for a full year before she was forced to abdicate the Scottish throne to her infant son James VI. She escaped in 1568 leaving Scotland behind to become an exile in England where she was convicted of treason and executed in 1587.
What is self-abnegation?
The habit of not allowing yourself to have what you want often so that other people can have it.
1. Led by a desire for self-abnegation, he became a monk.
2. If you have in mind a career in politics, then maybe there are limits to self-abnegation.
3. Their self-abnegation has always had a whiff of hypocrisy about it.
Examples from Cambridge Dictionary
What is a peregrination?
A long journey or a wandering in which you travel to different places, especially on foot.
I don’t think my daily dog walks count as peregrinations but they can sometimes feel like a long journey and I am always on foot.
What is a zoetrope?
I'd forgotten I knew about zoetropes until I watched a few videos of them in action on YouTube. Imagine a cylinder with narrow slits cut vertically all around the shape. Below the slits are a series of static images, drawings or photographs of something in motion, say, a running dog. As you spin the cylinder and hold it to your eye, the narrow windows become a wider screen and the static images of your dog appear to move in clear animation. You can even make your own. Don't worry you don't need to be able to draw that well. A simple wiggly line will still appear to move.
What does 'being in his cups' mean?
What on earth? I have never heard this phrase. I look it up in my Dictionary of English Idioms the result being...absolutely nothing.
Apparently, I then discover, it means drunk, or intoxicated. You can also say being in her cups or being in their cups or being in one's cups. It's an odd phrase. Do cups refer to the alcohol itself? I'm not sure. If you have any thoughts do let me know.
What is an avocation?
An interest or hobby that is not a person's daily job. As opposed to having a vocation which is often used to describe a spiritual desire to follow a calling.
What is a caesura?
A pause in a line of poetry.
That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Who was Silas Weir Mitchell?
Confusingly there is an American actor called Silas Weir Mitchell. I know him from the show My Name is Earl, you may know him from Prison Break or The Mentalist. Either way, this is not the Silas Weir Mitchell I’m looking for.
Silas Weir Mitchell from the 1800s was a doctor known for his treatment of nervous diseases. He developed something known as the Rest Cure for the diagnosis of neurasthenia (physical & mental exhaustion) and hysteria in women.
"...Women most often received the Rest Cure, which typically involved six to eight weeks of isolation, bed rest, a high-calorie diet, massage, and electrotherapy. "
Beyond The Yellow Wallpaper: Silas Weir Mitchell, Doctor and Poet by Johanna Goldberg
Meanwhile, men who were diagnosed with the same condition were treated with the West Cure where they would ‘head west’ and engage in vigorous physical activity and then spend time writing about it.
Yes. The difference is striking. The men got to have fun and the women had to have electrotherapy.
What does chthonic mean?
From the Ancient Greek χθών - khthōn meaning ground or earth (wordnik).
So with that in mind, the contemporary definition of chthonic is relating to or living in the underworld, literally dwelling under the earth.
If you’re interested in Greek mythology read this about the gods of the underworld: Who were the chthonic Greek gods?
What is an ossuary?
A container where the bones of the dead are kept. This might be an urn or a box.
Strangely, my Pocket Oxford Dictionary doesn't list the word ossuary but it does list these associations:
osseous - bony or 'of bone'
ossicle - the tiny bones of the inner ear
ossify - to turn into bone; to harden
What is an old man-midwife?
I thought maybe Macdonald had made this up. I was wrong. Up to the mid-1700s, the role of the midwife was left to women. For some reason that I can't quite find, male doctors began to take on the role of the midwife, becoming known as a man-midwife.
"The man-midwife, or accoucheur, was a fashionable, yet controversial figure, who entered into the realms of the cloistered pregnant female. For this, he was derided in public as his role subverted social mores. The practice was denounced in texts, such as The Danger and Immodesty of the Present General Custom of Unnecessarily Employing Men-Midwives, published anonymously, in 1772. The perceived ambiguous gender of the man-midwife was mocked in Isaac Cruikshank’s pamphlet, in 1793. The changing cultural paradigm prompted polarised discourse, with those against calling the practice unnatural, and those for the practice, denigrating female midwives’ professionalism and intelligence."
Honestly, fascinating. I continue to learn something new every day.
What does friable mean?
Something that is easily broken into small pieces; crumbly.
Feta cheese might be considered friable or the rotting bark of a tree. The older I get I’m starting to feel a bit friable.
We've come to the end!
Thank you for taking the time to stay with me on this journey of new words.
Until next time.
