How many people, I wonder, will be out this evening watching for spawning vernal lantern fish after listening to Radio 4's Living World from Swanage Bay at 6.35am this morning? These glowing fish 'reputedly' spawn only once a year on April 1st. It was fun lying on bed listening to the tide wash over Peveril Point; was Tourist Information informed? colluded?
Posted by Anonymous to swanage view at 10:48 A
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do they only spawn on 1st April?
I travelled down from Hertfordshire today to try and see these fish but it was a wasted journey - stood there for 2 hours but couldn't see anything!
I suspect you would have more luck seeing them glowing if you wait until dark..
Oh dear!
See:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/livingworld.shtml
There is a bit more to it. These fish are very hard for most people to see because the human eye is not particularly sensitive to the wavelength of light they emit. However, for thousands of years they formed a major part of the diet on this part of the coast at a time of year when there was not much else available. When cured and dried they kept for several months and provided a useful source of illumination in both cottages and quarries. Those who were able to see them were at a twofold evolutionary advantage as their kids had better nutrition and more of them survived through the lean months before harvest time and equipped with a free source of light they were able to quarry more stone. The result was that the prevalence of the gene involved grew in the purbeck population especially along the limestone ridge. This was helped a great deal by the custom of marrying cousins and, it has to be admitted, an unusual level of incest, and the general narrowness of the local gene pool. Remarkably over three quarters of south purbeck "locals" are able to see these fish compared with a tiny proportion of incomers. The proportion north of the purbeck valley is scarcely higher than the national average showing how narrow the gene pool was.
I spoke to a local fisherman today at Pev Point and he said he has only ever caught a couple but to be careful and handle them with gloves because they have a nasty sting.
There used to be a lot more but back in the nineties the Polish and Russian fishing fleets came and hoovered them all up. Tinned in oil and spices I believe they are a delicacy in Eastern Europe.
You used to see the fishing fleets anchored in Weymouth bay and looking like rusting hulks. When they were not catching all the fish in the channel the crews were buying up all the old Ladas they could find to take home for spares.
Yeah I was amazed, I was over the Eastern part of Europe - best not say where - buying up some Ivory Towers and Rose covered dachas.
My host offerred me some local delicacy. Yeah you've guessed it!
It took me back to my childhood, when we considered this to be a rare treat. Fresh in April and then salted away for special family occasions - least said the better.
I'm considering importing them.
There is an east european food shop just up the road from Bournemouth station. I wonder if they have them there.
Gosh I hope not, or that's scuppered my latest money making ploy.
As we're a Fair Trade town, can't we band together to help out our local fishermen?
Your readers may be interested to know that "Vernal" in the vernacular name of the species is a corruption of the original "Avernal" referring to the celebrated Lake Avernus, traditionally the entry into Hades, the classical underworld.
In Dante's Inferno, this sacred fish symbolizes Christ, or the logos. It lights the way for Dante and Beatrice to descend into the helical series of circles that constitute Hell (and of course Life). Beneath the eerie green and red luminescence of the mystic Lantern, the damned writhe in perpetual torment. It is by this light that Dante reads the fateful epigraph of the Inferno - "Lasciate ogni speranza ...."
The intensity of the Avernal Lantern's illumination is not recorded, but if we are to accept Holman Hunt's later interpretation in his painting "The Light of the World", it shone brightly indeed till the end of the 19th century. It is good to hear that this light still glows, however faintly, off Peveril Point at least once a year.
See it at:
http://www.snackbarswanage.co.uk/hunt.htm
dear 4:02
So obvious, I'm surprised that you needed to post that, but thanks.
A big thanks to 4:41 for reproducing the Hunt icon so beautifully. It serves to elucidate the meaning of the whole "in a new Light." Manifestly, the Christos figure clutching his Vernal Lantern is knocking at the portal of Hell itself (Dante's Inferno), and Satan is in for a big surprise. It is clear that the Christ is about to harrow his domain. I feel sure this interpretation is destined to supersede more traditional ones, typified by such implausible versions as the U.S.: "Somebody's knocking at yo' door"
"harrow his domain".
Words like that haven't been spoken for some time, and maybe that's a good thing!
This obscure but remarkable fish has been part of popular belief in Purbeck for many centuries, possibly back into pre-christian times.
St Alban's chapel on the headland of that name has long been something of a puzzle. Its orientation is not he same as the vast majority of churches, suggesting it uses the position of an earlier building and one has to ask why would any one build a substantial structure so far from any settlement unless there was a reason connected with its position? In fact it occupies a site sacred to Belenos, the Celtic god of light and is an example of how christianity assimilated earlier beliefs rather than engaging them head to head.
The present, Norman building has a cross on the roof. Originally there was some form of open sided vessel filled with lantern fish whose noctural glow acted very much as a lighthouse. An interesting combination of the practical and the holy. This suggests the existence of a pre-christian building devoted to the cult of Belenos. It is not hard to imagine the awe with which worshippers would have looked at a glowing sea, on three sides, as the shoals of lantern fish passed by and the keenness of early christians to incorporate this popular practice into their rituals.
At the centre the worship of Belenos at Worth was the notion of the god giving part his fishy offspring as a sacrifice through the fish that were caught and then saving the lives of fishermen and sailors by working an apparently miraculous lighthouse. The parallels with early christianity are obvious. The god who offers himself for sacrifice in material form, salvation, even the symbolism of the fish and the idea of god or his relatives, as a light to the world.
Now that has to be a fabrication.
What the hell are Christians?
Ancient beliefs have a remarkable power to survive and the cult of the glow fish is no exception. When the reformation swept away cults of saint's bones and the phials of Virgin Mary's breast milk were quietly disposed of Purbeck men saw no reason to desert the supernatural protection of their unusual fish and so the cult went, quite literally, underground. Veneration was maintained in quarries and secret places. Each succeeding generation saw the light a little brighter as the genes involved became concentrated. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries all non-conformist faiths led a semi clandestine existence and so far as the outside world was concerned Purbeck men, and a good few women, were no more than enthusiastic Presbyterians and later Methodists. t was at this time that Purbeckians got into the habit of greeting each other with the phrase "can you see the light" nowadays corrupted to the curt "orright?" we hear every day.
With the religious revival in the nineteenth century it looked for a while as though the cult could come out. The Gothic revival changed church building and the Oxford Movement gave hope that old practices could be revived, or in this case admitted to. The Wellington Tower, re-erected close to Peveril Point was intended to have a metal basket of Lantern Fish in its cupola but religious fashions went the other way. Exponents of the extreme end of the Oxford Movement went to Rome something that was locally unacceptable.
The cult survived into the twentieth century. Swanage has one of the very few First World War memorials not to take the form of a cross or piece of sculpture. Instead we have a flat topped pyramid overlooking the sea, quite obviously intended to have a light on its top.
In 1940 builders along the coast were ordered to build gun emplacements. Naturally the local ones interpreted this as an invitation to put up buildings in which adherents could gather to watch and worship. The gatherings of young people there which continue to this day are best seen as a combination of sacrifice of precious fluids to the fish and fertility cult.
We have had an interesting discussion in these blogs about what constitutes localness. The secret of it is the ability to see in the light of the Lantern Fish and membership of the cult. Adherents would rather not have this fact publicised and so have been utterly evasive when asked to define a "local" as distinct from someone who happens to live here. This discussion was quite incomprehensible unless you knew what it was really about.
The ability of followers of the cult of the lantern fish to keep their existence secret was far reaching. Wordsworth originally wrote:
"One impulse from a vernal fish
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can."
It had taken some time for the ideas of the enlightenment to penetrate to Purbeck and in their characteristically confused way members of the fish cult had conflated light and reason, morality and salvation. Wordsworth's publisher was "persuaded" to alter fish to "wood" which makes no sense at all.
Again Wordsworth wrote:
"I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn
Have sight of glow fish coming from the sea,"
This very nearly gave the game away. Glow fish had to go and in its place the modern text reads "proteus" which again has nothing to do with it.
Conspiracy Theory?
You know all those new Pelican crossings?
"Each light organ, known as a photophore, is connected to the Vernal Lantern fish's nervous system which, perhaps together with some form of hormonal control, dictates the flashing sequence of these organs".
Any possible link?
And just to think - when I postd the original comment I thought it was an April Fool. Have I seen the light now?
Dorset had a deep influence on Wordsworth. He lived at a place called Racedown with his sister from 1795, although it seems to have been a second home.
Poems inspired by this stay, and his encounter with the Vernal Lantern Fish were edited out of his work subsequently. Thus we have:
"I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o'er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A shoal of golden fish. What thrills!
Beside the shore, beneath the waves,
Fluttering and dancing in both bays."
being changed to something about daffodils which were not even gold in colour in Wordsworth's time!
Doubtless scholars will find many more examples of this curious censhorship.
I've been looking into this and:
Three Movements - William Butler Yeats
SHAKESPEAREAN fish swam the sea, far away from land;
Romantic fish swam in nets coming to the hand;
What are all those fish that lie gasping on the strand?
The original last line was:
The Vernal Lamprey lies gasping on the strand?
Yeats' connection to Swanage, well, he had his portrait painted in Studland by Lady Ottoline Morrell. I can't prove that it was late March early April, buuut.
The Lost Pyx, by Thomas Hardy is of course viewed as a medieval legend, but I wonder.
The Hardy family - not the Swanage branch - have many of his original notes. I was lucky enough to be granted the chance to view them, and I was rather shocked to see the editing done by the publisher to the above poem.
Now, as I'm sure you know, The Lost Pyx is a long poem so I'll only post the last verse.
And when by grace the priest won place,
And served the Abbey well,
He reared this stone to mark where shone
That midnight miracle.
BUT, in his original notes the 2nd line ran;
The lamprey glowed so well,
This idea of Lampreyism is fascinating.
I feel this is a risk worth taking.
I'm posting from a Internet Cafe in a foreign land. I've hacked the server and set up a Virtual one, so I should be safe.
I've been looking thro' some very secret files and have found out that the Lamprey is revered in Newmarket and Wales.
There also seems to an area that maybe we have overlooked, I quote:
"Lamprey and hagfish swimming in glass cases".
I'm worried.
People think of hagfish as scavengers and parasites, probably due to their habit of burrowing into dead or dying animals and eating them.
Are we missing something here?
I hope the good folk at Snackbar are not on the warpath now the image of "Light of the World" at http://www.snackbarswanage.co.uk/hunt.htm has been revealed to the world.
They might not be too keen on the world knowing about their participation in the cult of the lantern fish. After centuries of persecution by the church they have every reason to be sensitive.
By the way, Wordsworth was here during the wars of the French revolution when there was a paranoia about French spies so when he started to take an unhealthy interest in matters vernal the locals put it about that he was a dangerous leftist and agent of the revolution so he had to beat a rapid retreat. Its in the Home Ofice archives at the Public Records Office. They had someone keeping an eye on him as he was regarded as a dangerous figure. You can't be too careful when it comes to poets.
Chaucers "The Fisherman' Tale" has been omitted from editions of the Canterbury Tales since eighteenth century editors decided it was grossly exaggerated. Perhaps it should be restored now. Its protagonist Cebrup, who is best described as a hygienically challenged fisherman, is competing for the hand of Eganaws the fair daughter of the ailing owner of a run down quarry. The latter sends him on his way with the remark that he "is lowwe borne and stinketh high". The quarry is described as making "only birde byathe and paving cracked and crazed"
Cebrup befriends a small glowing fish while sitting disconsolatly in his boat and after many adventures the denoument comes when he is led by the light of the fish through underground tunnels and shown the location of a vein of purest, shiniest marble. "Veriest, truthful fonte ston". The fortunes of the quarry are transformed and naturally enough Cebrup gains the hand of maiden fair. What really upset eighteenth century editors is that at this point the father swallows the fish whole and is miraculously restored to health. He also starts to glow and smell like a fish. Victorian editors, to who cleanliness was next to godliness took exception to this passage and the Tale was more or less forgotten for two centuries.
Thank God we've managed to sidestep those Christians.
I'm not sure that we have.
Most of the postings here refer to christian times.
As has been said before, have not the Christians - whoever they are - just hijacked another local tradition?
Belanos bless the fish.
I must apologise for using Lamprey as opposed to Lantern.
Still at least can can now ignore the hagfish.
As it was Easter Sunday, so no Living World broadcast, Vernal Lantern Fish live to serve a further week on the radio4 website, just in case anyone wants to listen again. Is there an ulterior force at play here?
May the fish be with you, as they say in these parts.
It is perhaps time to wrap up this amazing conundrum of Saint Alban’s glowfish or “Lost Piscis” which has spread like a wild St. Elmo’s fire to fright the Swanage fisherfolk and amaze your devoted viewers – an enchanted Will o’ the Wisp that has led our local historians a merry dance through their well-quarried Purbeck lore. As with Da Vinci and others, the ultimate meaning of this codex mirabilis remains an occult mystery to be revealed perhaps only when the last Trump sounds over Peveril, but an outline, an adumbration of deeper truths is beginning to emerge. What follows is an honest attempt to find a path through the rustic maze and haze of traditions alluded to in these pages. Have patience with its labyrinthine byways; forgive its lack of footnotes and appendices. I write it in the hope that this humble sketch may prove to be only the first of many more distinguished and authoritative exegeses.
Our story begins with the “licked stone” (lambitus petrus = Lamprey) of the Templars (so named from the usual obeisance of the faithful before the altar). The conflation of fish (Symbol of Christianity) and stone was not long in appearing, compounded by vulgar confusion with a lamp’s ray and “glowfish” on analogy with Manta Ray. It is not entirely . clear how the succulent lamprey, the favorite fast-food of Bishops, petrified into symbolic incandescence. However by the time of Dante , it had become a wise virgin’s stone lamp replete with oil, to light the way to the infernal regions. The association with marble quarries and tunnels derives from this, and Chaucer ingeniously combined these elements in his charming Fisherman’s Tale of Cebrup, which is undoubtedly fanciful, despite its warm legendary overtones. Nonetheless, we cannot wholly discount a linkage with Al Adin’s Lamp and the fabled “Torch” of Belenos, so movingly depicted on a hill near Cerne. At some point the Celts evidently conflated the common Lantern Fish, which spawns whenever daffodils begin to peer, with the sacred Lamprey. From Aldhelm’s head onwards a swelling tide of Vernal Lantern Fish brighten the constricted lives of Purbeck peasants, pundits and quarrymen. Celebrated by Wordsworth, Yeats, Holman Hunt and the Swanage Snack Bar, the “Lost Piscis” of Hardy’s poem, Hunt’s “light o’ the World” stir the genes and light the Pelican crossings of our purblind lives.
Very good.
Hidden cultural references abound, right into the twentieth century. Who could forget the Frank Sinatra lyric actually written as:
"On the road to Swanage Bay
Where the glowing fishes play
And the dawn comes up like thunder
Out of Bournemouth across the bay."
"These are the last days, the worst of times: let us keep watch
Behold the menacing arrival of the Vernal fish.
To Peveril, It is coming to end evil, crown the just, reward the light, set the worried free, and give them pies".
The original words of Bernard of Cluny, who was a monk at Cluny in the time of Peter the Venerable (1122-1156).
He probably wrote: Consuetudines Cluniacenses.
Most famous of course for: De Contemptu Mundi (On Contempt for the World) .
"Forthwith the Sounds and Seas, each Creek & Bay With Frie innumerable swarme, and Shoales Of Fish that with thir Finns and glowing Scales Glide under the green Wave, in Sculles that oft Bank the mid Sea: part single or with mate Graze the Sea weed thir pasture,"
Milton, Paradise Lost, Book VII
It's been fun, thank you and goodnight.
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