For a good night’s sleep, make a fuddling cup
NATURE CRAEFT by Alexander Langlands (Faber £20)
During the World Snooker Championship-in April 1997, 21-year-old ronnie O’Sullivan scored a maximum break in a record-breaking 320 seconds.
Watching him wield his cue with pace and precision, spectators at the Crucible, in Sheffield, knew they were witnessing one of the world’s greatest sporting achievements. But archaeologist Alexander Langlands saw something else: ‘A celebration of mankind’s perfection at stick usage.’
Our species’ uniquely skilful use of sticks and stones forms the basis of Langlands’ earthy new book on ‘craeft’.
Although his definition of the word is wide enough to embrace the modern vogue for craft beers, he’s really reaching back to what ‘craeft’ (pronounced ‘creft’) meant when it first appeared in English more than a thousand years ago: an elusive combination of knowledge, power and physical skill.
it meant the wisdom to know when to harvest a crop and an expertise with the handmade, handheld tools required to do so.
Langlands first became immersed in this kind of craft as a presenter on the BBC’s popular Historic Farms series.
initially cynical of the cosy nostalgia the programmes promoted, he became increasingly convinced that modern, mechanised society was depriving us of the deeper satisfactions of a simpler, more sustainable relationship with the world. ‘ We are,’ he realised, ‘ increasingly constrained by computers and a pixelated abridgement of reality that serves only to make us blind to the truly infinite complexity of the natural world.
‘Most critically, our physical movements have been almost entirely removed as a factor in our own existence. now, all we seem to do is press buttons.’
His hymn to the horny-handed arts is essential reading.
Although many of the old ways were more time- consuming and labourintensive, Langlands shows that they can also be more beneficial in the long-term.
The bee ‘ skeps’ he weaves from straw and bramble maintain happier and more productive colonies than the classic wooden hives that became popular in the middle of the last century.
Willow baskets make beautiful use of garden waste and can be left to rot when broken — unlike plastic trugs.
Langlands is eager to connect his readers to their local environments, finding the ghosts of pre-industrial society in old ponds or flint mines.
He marvels at the pitchforks made from a single plank of nettle tree in the Cevennes region of France.
To generate wood of the optimum suppleness, the toolmakers think ahead, lopping each tree when it turns five and harvesting the regrowth for their world-famous forks.
Yes, it’s idealistic. Such items — and the time required for their creation — are luxuries in the modern world.
But there’s no denying our instinctive attraction to the raw materials that kept our ancestors alive: the feel and smell of heather beneath a crofter’s thatched roof, or the crumbly heft of Cotswold limestone, slotting perfectly into a dry stone wall.
The old words used by historic crafters are almost as delightful as their products. The pottery chapter alone includes: costrels, fuddling cups, piggins, alembics and Long Toms.
Langlands makes you yearn to get in among the hawthorn and feel the pride in slicing each branch at the correct, 45-degree angle.
On a planet of diminishing resources, argues the archaeologist, a new ‘craefty-ness’ is required. It may soon be more efficient and affordable to dump the mass production and return to manual labour.
If that happens, we may learn to find ourselves living more fully and sleeping more deeply.
Instead of dialling up meditation apps on our smartphones, we may see that the simple acts of haystacking or ditch- digging can exercise and synchronise mind and body in a silence and solitude that brings true peace.