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THE CANAL froze over yesterday but today it is milder and there's just a thin brittle sheet lying on the surface. You couldn't walk on it, you couldn't swim through it. It's at a chaotic halfway stage on the cusp of being solid or liquid.Look down into it's blackish surface and you see the reflection of the branches of the willow on the opposite bank, backed by clouds and the feeble yellow glow of the obscured winter sun. The ancient elements of earth, air, fire and water come together in one view.
A stumpy Elder, pollarded during recent hedge-cutting, reminds me of another legend. It's at this time of year - the winter solstice - that King Arthur's knight Sir Gawain must face the Green Knight, an immortal giant who carries a holly-bush club. In alternate New Years - meaning midwinter and midsummer - they have a pact to behead one another.
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In Norse mythology our world is fashioned from icy chaos. Odin and his brothers kill the frost giant Ymir. They make the sky from his skull, the seas from his blood and the land from his eyebrows.