#marthatirion

Martha, with her brother Albert, his children, and an unknown man ~1930. The boy in the middle is my great-grandfather.

Martha's last letter was never sent. It is dated a three days after her previous letter. "Albert and I spoke once more of the children [sent to Skerra] and he tried to re-assure me all would be well for them. I plainly told him I did not believe him, and which he stormed from the house. I returned to my packing". Here, however, the story turns. Albert, perhaps fearing their customs will become more widely known, or having taken counsel from another, returns to make a wild offer. "He proposed to take me to Skerra himself, and see all was well with the babes, subject to approval from the municipal authority." This is an incendiary revelation because it is commonly understood Martha was alone at sea when she disappeared. Here, we learn from Martha herself that it is her brother, with the resumed suport of the town council who volunteers to take her to Skerra. Martha was nervous, "My initial thought was to decline the offer. Perhaps becuase Albert and I had quarrelled, and these past days he has been angry and short with me. I put down these unkind thoughts and accepted and thought rationally : what harm would kind Albert do his sister?" Albert also knew how to persuade her and seal the deal ".... and he has offered to personally show me the ancient monuments that exist on the island. Of which, he assures me there are many."

The next part of the letter is just before Martha is due to leave. "We are set to leave and the weather is fair. We have packed a tent, and by luck I have been able to borrow some equipment to undertake a cursory survey of anything interesting we may find. Albert assures me there will be a great deal that I will find curious."

These are the last recorded words of Martha Tirion. There is no tender sign off of the letter this time. She never finishes or sends it. Perhaps she had to leave suddenly, perhaps she mislaid the letter. Perhaps it was stolen, as she momentarily left her desk of the kitchen table where she was writing.

Those last written words in her careful, beautiful handwriting feel ominous to me. Perhaps because it is clear, to me at least, that Albert killed his sister and her murder, was covered up as an "accident at sea". In the parish records for that year along with Martha four children are recorded as also having died that year through "misadventure". I cannot say for sure if these are the children Martha was so concerned with, but I am sure they too were murdered out on Skerra. Shortly after the Ministry of Defence took ownership of Skerra and were testing chemical weapons such as anthrax there by the early 1940s. Like many of the traditions Marth diligently documented, the Binding the Tied ceremony never revived publically after the war.

I do not know if Martha even set foot on Skerra or was killed whilst out at sea on her way there. There are no clues, no signs. Perhaps that is what has compelled me to go to Skerra myself. I have applied to join an archaeological survey that is heading to Skerra in June next year. It is is exciting, but will also be tinged with some sadness as I think of Martha. I hope I get to go. I want to do her proud.

Waking the sleepers at Thirndale 1923

In her book Early Death Practices of Britain & Ireland Martha made reference to folk traditions where she saw a direct link to the ancient past. Some of these traditions I am happy to say persist to this day, but many have been lost. The practice of "Waking the sleepers" at Thirndale is one example that Martha made reference to in Early Death Practices. In her photos I only managed to find this one photo. Without Martha's careful notation on the back: "Waking the sleepers at Thirndale 1923" it would be a rather random photo.

The practice centered around a neolithic chambered tomb locally known as "the Cove". The Cove itself was lost when the Thirndale reservoir was built in the 1950s.

Martha recounts how between 6-8 boys from the village would spend the night at the tomb, usually in early May. Creepy stuff, but from her account it seems that it was closer to a boy scout outing by the 1920s with "plenty of cake and cocoa around the fire to keep spirits high". Whether the spirits were as high at 2am in a cold ancient tomb I would doubt very much, but facing ones fears in the dark with others appears to have been part of the process. In the morning the women of the village would come for their sons. This is (I think) the image Martha snapped as the women marched across the fields to the Cove. Inside the tomb their children would lie as if asleep (or dead) until "touched lightly [by their mother] on the forehead and cheeks with ash from the fire" at which point the the words "You have crossed the barrier" would be spoken. In return, the child, sitting up would say "I have crossed the barrier". It is clearly a rite of passage.

Re-reading Martha explaining how the ceremony goes back to the bronze age and possibly the neolithic one can see why she attracted derision. The ceremony could as easily have been a nineteenth century invention. That said there is something in it. We now know neolithic communities such as those at West Kennet Long Barrow would visit their ancestors, touch and move the bones. We also understand through ethnographic study how farming communities use ancestors can "lay claim" to a landscape and imbibe it with fertility and abundance. The children lying in the tomb has echoes of this. Equally the timing in early May with Beltane and the re-awakening children speaks to the broader idea of world coming back to life. Perhaps the association Martha makes to a more ancient farming culture are not so strange. The Waking the sleepers practice stopped soon after Martha recorded it. Thirndale like many towns and villages lost many young men in the Great War and my guess is that it was too painful for the mothers who had lost sons who could never re-awaken.

Martha at Penros Feilw, Anglesey, Wales 1925

Penros Feilw, today - it hasn't changed much!

photo https://www.anglesey.info/penrhos-feilw-pair-of-standing-stones/

Martha in her Sunday Best at the incredible standing stones of Penros Feilw. Martha saw the site as some form of "ritual gateway" framing the Holy Head mountain. Unlike some of her contemporaries Martha discounted the idea the stones formed part of a stone circle. She also saw no evidence for the fabled tomb that was supposed to be between the pillars. We now know she was right on both counts and the site to be bronze age, not as Martha supposed, neolithic.