MUSINGS ON A NAME

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22777, 10 July 1937, Page 13 (Supplement)

MUSINGS ON A NAME

An Exile Is T

By W.M.

/")N a recent Sunday 1 happened to be walking along an ordinary New Zealand street, not very far from. 'Auckland, when my eye alighted on a gate with a name upon it. Of a sudden I had left the asphalt and the trim hedges and 1 was walking among the sand-hills ten thousand miles away at Holy Island, set in the North Sea, off the coast of Northumberland. The Aame was Lindisfarne —a magic name, a name to carry you back over the years, a name that seems the very essence of what it stands for. A musical name upon which the tongue .and the mind linger fondly. So that when you see or hear the name Lindisfarne yon see the fishing boats lying snug between the Heugh and the castle, and hear the gulls circling above them. All names through use and association attain a personality; and the deeper the association the more individual does the name become to the hearer. To the passer-by the name is merely /a tag. Otahuhu might become Papakura for all I should care —"a rose by any other name"—but once the personal'touch enters, the name springs to life and acquires meaning beyond its letters. But in the word Lindisfarne there seems to be an intrinsic virtue on a higher grade still, irrespective of the personal element. Vista of Centuries On the mainland history is diffused —scattered in time and placo. On the islarcl (with the lilt of the emphasis on the "Isle") history is compact, and one seems to look back through a long vista of centuries to the time of St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert. Even then it was hallowed ground, this Holy Isle, and the long pageant of historical events has only served to steep the place and the name with more meaning. In the dim early days of Christianity in Britain two islands —lona and Lindisfarne—were chosen by the misp sionary saints as bases for their work. Thirteen hundred years ago Saint , Aidan his monastery at Holy Island. Thero it flourished, and wave after wave of Norse invasion could not put out the flame of Light that sent its beams over the greater part of Northern England. _ To-day the Priory is in ruins, but >ts stalwart Norman arches and cloisters still have an atmosphere of deep peace in a world of unrest and insecurity. Borders of delphiniums and daisies are flowering where once the aisles and covered ways echoed with the long-drawn religious ceremonies of eight hundred years ago. This is the fioul of the island but there are many other places on that low-lying strip of "and that recall memories as clearly snd as pleasant. Picturesque Survival is the castle set pn a promin- , ent rocky outcrop. A picturesque survival from hardier and more stalwart days. 1,1 my thoughts I can wander down from the end of the old grey vil*'lß P" m P ""here water is B «" drawn for household use by most or the,islanders. Close by is the little harbour' where the men are busy at thoir boats, and the nets are spread out drying above high-tide mark. A little crowd has gathered to see the fish unloaded from a boat laden deep to £ her gunwales with a surprise catch. ?i Hiorv the- stony track curves round the rock buttresses of the castle, and every cranny is flowering with thrift , and thyme and buttercups. Over on the lies Bamburgh Cas'tle. You should hear the burr of the islander •-A i " !!? '''' *' lf> vo ' oe ' n Bamburgh. And there far out to sen are the Fame Islands where Grace Darling and her jgjather once showed what island-bred can do when pitted against the ever-present sea. 1

These are some glimpses that flash through my mind while I stroll in my New Zealand street. But there are many more. There is an old sailor leaning his telescope against the wall opposite the "Iron Rails." The wall has been made lower there just so that one may stand gazing out to sea for a first glimpse of the returning herring fleet. If they are low in the water, the news will soon be flying from door to door. The North Sea Wind There is the Heugh where the couples are strolling in the. lingering twilight, and the children are playing hide-and-seek among the rocks and grassy dells. There is tho Steel End, and the dim figure of a sailor lifting the small brown sea-weed on the Ooze looking for.pullin, or small crabs, for bait for the morrow's fishing. There is a keen wind blowing from the North Sea as I tramp the sand hills over to Emanuel Point. The battered remains of a forgotten wreck loom strangely on the deserted shore line. And finally there is the two-milo walk at low-tide across the wet sands to Beal on the mainland, with my boots and socks slung over my shoulders and the pleasant crisp feel of sand on my unaccustomed soles. They tell me that motors drive fearlessly across the wet sands now, that the road from the village is tar-sealed, that the herring fleet is gone and that the tourist forms the island's chief trade. Never mind, I envy anyone who can sojourn there. But for me Lindisfarne means something further back and deeper than petrol pumps and picture postcards. „ . , , r My afternoon walk is finished. I hardly care where my feet took me, for I'have been a journey that annihilates the miles and years, transported by that lovelv lingering name. _ i; I wonder who lives at Lindisfarne. Blest be ye who put such names on your gates I