Book Reviews Information

A Ghost in Cornwall


This land is my memories. For two thousand years this valley has been mine alone.

I know every rock, every stream and every tree. I know the forces that shape this land and the people who inhabit it.

A billion years ago this land was a migratory trail for the animals of Western Europe. They roamed freely across the huge land of one continent. Millennia passed as the rivers washed silt to the ocean and the sun raised rain to the sky. At that time the mass of Eurasia was joined. The tectonic plates shifted and islands formed, raising proud, green peninsulas on green water, thrust out to the ocean. Long before my time the forces of nature battled along the coasts of Western Europe. From the Southwest, the Gulf Stream warmed and opened the land with summer heat. From the north, ice raged and cracked the rock of what would become the British Isles.

The land tells me it was an epic struggle. The generous heat of earth, venting her spleen, the wash of the water, cooling and circulating air. Rain succoured the land and ran back to the sea, endless cycles, repeating endlessly. The earth shifted, chasms opened and the sea swept in, submerging areas and separating the islands of Britain and Ireland from the mainland.

Spouts of boiling lava spewed from the molten centre of earth to create granite formations, a source of wonder till the end of time. A great rift opened up what is now the Bristol Channel and the Irish Sea, separating the land into distinct areas. Many characteristics still connect Brittany, Ireland, Wales, and Cornwall. Their joining can still be seen in place and people. But veins of power run through the sea, a matrix of energy criss-crosses the land and reaches out around our planet.

The Phoenicians, Egyptians and Greeks journeyed to these coasts even before the Iron Age, in search of Keltic wisdom, since long before the time of my youth. They followed the trail of gold and wisdom across the sea to Cornwall and then to Wales and Ireland. Later, tin trade followed these routes across Brittany and the journeys of wise men and saints to the west of land, the land of setting sun, of Gods and the quest for immortality that haunts us all. Ships and boats from the French and Spanish coasts often sailed to rivers on the south coast of Cornwall in search of trade and journey with the friendly and civilised Keltii, hopefully avoiding the pirates that have ravaged these coasts for millennia.

2000 years ago I was killed trying to save my mother from Portuguese raiders on the river, who stole the gold that came from Ireland. My story is located in the valley of one of these rivers, now called 'River Fowey'. It is a story that I have not been able to tell until now. My own story starts with the visit of Jesus of Nazareth to the river Fowey in 30 AD (according to the Julian Calendar and allowing for a seven year miscalculation). He was twenty three years old. He journeyed on a vision quest to the west-of-land, in search of the wisdom of the Keltii and union with his father spirit. I have spent much time thinking about this moment and my brief encounter with a man who claimed to be Son of God. For hundreds of years I puzzled at his smile, the light in his gaze. He had a quality of being rare in the extreme, an utter and unconditional compassion for all life.

Who am I? A ghost; Fintan, born 2000 years ago and caught in the matrix of nature unable to tell my story until now. I am here, waiting for you.

A Cornish ghost story, 'The Lily' available only at http://www.simonthescribe.co.uk/Lily.html


MORE RESOURCES:
Google

Book reviews: 'It's a Crime;' 'Islam: The Religion and the People ...
Detroit Free Press, United States - Sep 7, 2008
A strangely comic morality tale, "It's a Crime" features a telecom outfit, its acute accounting foibles and the $140 billion the shareholders lose when the ...


Children's Book Reviews
Publishers Weekly, NY - 12 hours ago
Shea (New Socks) makes a hilarious commentator as his hero, a small red dinosaur, elevates everyday encounters into a series of matches worthy of the WWF. ...


Book Reviews: 'Yesterday's Weather' and 'The Heretic's Daughter'
International Herald Tribune, France - Sep 5, 2008
'The ways we miss our lives are life," Randall Jarrell observed in his poem "A Girl in a Library." Anne Enright, the Irish writer who won the 2007 Man ...


Book reviews: 'The Corpse Walker' and 'Fine Just The Way It Is'
International Herald Tribune, France - Sep 5, 2008
The Corpse Walker Real Life Stories, China From the Bottom Up. By Liao Yiwu. Translated and with an introduction by Wen Huang. 320 pages. $25. ...


Book Reviews: 'One More Year' and 'The Nightingales of Troy'
International Herald Tribune, France - Sep 5, 2008
The short stories in Sana Krasikov's first collection unfold in two contemporary landscapes: the former Soviet Union and New York City and its suburbs. ...


The Main Event Comic Book Reviews 09.06.08: Secret Six #1, Fables #75
411mania.com, TX - Sep 5, 2008
General: Having originated just before Infinite Crisis in the Villains United miniseries, the Secret Six go from quasi-editorial limbo to their own regular ...


Book Reviews: 'American Wife' and 'The Good Thief'
International Herald Tribune, France - Sep 2, 2008
Would we be interested in reading Curtis Sittenfeld's new novel, "American Wife," if it weren't obvious that the narrator, Alice Blackwell, is modeled on ...


Bottom of the Barrel Book Reviews ? Special Operations Team Raptor
Slashdot - Sep 2, 2008
If you like stories about maverick billionaires, cliche mercenaries, government sponsored super hero teams, leading edge technology and the ultimate evil of ...


Mystery Book Reviews
Monsters and Critics.com - Sep 4, 2008
By Sandy Amazeen Sep 4, 2008, 23:24 GMT Picking up the tale of obsession begun in her chilling debut Heartsick, Cain continues developing the relationship ...


Metro Santa Cruz

Book Reviews
Metro Santa Cruz, CA - Sep 4, 2008
"Wish you were here." The ur-sentiment of postcard scribblers since vacations immemorial doesn't always apply. The average traveler--unless we're talking ...

Book-Reviews - Google News

home | site map
© 2006