The Origin of Semagrams - Part 2 & the First Crossing of The Hinge

From My Journal at hellsborough.com, I have started to make collections of related posts to make reading easier. This is the second of a two part collection, that you can read it online here.

The Origin of Semagrams - Part 2 & the First Crossing of The Hinge

79.hail-ripperthroat.8.17

In order to do some proper research on The Legend of Van Hallam and the Loxley Kraken of Hellsborough Hole, I had to get my hands dirty, and get myself down to the places that might be mentioned in the legend and see for myself whatever there was to see after all this time. As somewhere that was instrumental in the industrial revolution, and various earth works will have been undertaken, I wasn't expecting much, but field work is part of the job.

There are several goals of active folklore research. The first objective is to identify traditions within a social group and to collect their lore, preferably in situ. There are many old boys and gals that remember this legend, but details are so generic these days, that anything specific is just too long gone.

There are many other tools I have at my disposal as a folklorist to do my research, but front and centre, is getting down and dirty at the site in question. Which meant really immersing myself into The Masons Arms (properly, The Freemasons), and understanding any shared vocabulary, which could vary by sometimes somewhat divergent shades of meaning; this I needed to use thoughtfully and consistently. I know, a terrible hardship, I'm sure you'll agree.

As a folklorist I also tend to rub shoulders with other researchers, we share tools and inquiries in neighbouring fields. No-one was particularly looking at my Kraken research, but I spoke to many other folks interested and researching the literature, anthropology, cultural history, linguistics, geography, musicology, sociology, and psychology of the Hallamshire region.

As the pub mentioned in the legend still stands, it was at the invitation of the current tenants, that I ventured into its vast underground catacombs. Those tunnels stretch deep, long and fetid beneath that most liminal of junctions above at the crossroads. Those dark archways and blind passageways take you way, way beneath the Loxley river, the red brick channels oozing the dampness and silt of the river. It is like going back in time a thousand years or more. Dark, dank and oppressive with fumes of wet sulphur, mist and murk saturating the ether, clogging your lungs, making you cough heavy phlegm with every forward step.

It was stumbling through this vile snoughing damp, with just the beer light to guide me, that I happened upon a small sarcophagus.

Buried behind a lifetimes collection of brick-a-brack, rubble and detritus, lodged in a tiny hole which could have been made to home it, possibly washed there from Dale Dyke when the reservoir collapsed and caused the Great Floods of 1864 -- but likely not -- in all likelihood, that parcel had survived in its hiding place for generation after generation, going back all the way to shortly after 66 Ma. That package had lain there all along, since it was originally deposited. Lain to rest there by Milting, guardians of The Hinge.

Opening that sarcophagus was nothing if not an anti-climax, I have to admit.

A few pumice blocks, if it wasn't for their uniform shape, and rubbing them with my fingertips -- noticing they were carved rather than formed, I'd probably have discarded them there and then as unimportant shards of worthless rock.

Luckily, those slight indentations sparked my interest.

The smallest of scratches -- but to the untold experience of all those professionals, all those discussions, all those inebriated chats with anthropologists, cultural historians, linguists, musicians, sociologists, psychologists, and the rest, they paid their price in gold. My fingertips recognised something, something of significance. Small, insignificant, tiny scratches on rough stone.

Maybe the most important indentations ever realised? I don't like to blow my own trumpet, but, it's significant, I know.

Lucky they were noticed. Had I not, those semagrams contained in the pumice, the liminal importance of the junction, and ultimately, Hellsborough and The Dark Peak wouldn't have been discovered.

79.hail-ripperthroat.4.2

There is drug taking in Hellsborough and The Dark Peak, mainly a thing called rockcrust, which will jack you into the murk and let you experience what is known as scerm, apart from that, there's alcohol and weed, so it makes the off-world almost seem dangerous by comparison. I don't curse much, there is very little cursing on this website, or in Hellborough in general to be fair -- it's all pretty tame, really.

Why do I tell you this? Well, it's all to do with my first time. The first time I came through The Hinge. When The Hinge claimed my virginity, is one way I could put it. That first time is exhausting. All that unknown. All that trepidation. All that excitement.

I uttered those incantations, the ones I had deciphered from the milting semagrams -- a semagram that I held onto tightly as the world began to shift, and with no bodily movement, I transgressed The Hinge and came out on the Hellsborough side. Or at least I thought that's what had happened since, moving between parallel universes is nothing but a non-event.

There were no great claps of thunder, no bolts of lightning, no sign from the universe that I had done anything that I shouldn't have done, that I had broken any rules, that any rules had even been broken.

There were two questions in my mind: Had I crossed over at all? And, what now?

To answer the first question, yes, I felt exhausted, but was that just nervous energy being expended after what I had thought I had done? If I had done anything?

Then I fainted. It was then, as my consciousness began to ebb away and my frail mind clutched at the fading straws of my awareness, that I realised -- physiologically, if not in a cognitive sense -- that I was being poisoned.

The murk. It was not initially evident to me when I "stepped" through The Hinge without moving, but within seconds, it had wrapped itself around my alien form, curling up my legs and enveloping my chest; smothering my face.

And then my eyes were open again and I breathed, fitfully at first, then deeply, from the psycmask (as I now know it) that covered my face, purifying my air supply, and filling my thoughts and brain with strange images and sounds that made me feel like I had been transported through some new portal to a world more alien than I could ever have expected to experience.

I passed out again from the sensory overload.

When I next awoke, the psycmask's sensitivity must have been reduced, since the sounds and pictures that now flooded into my mind had a calming effect. Rivers and hills, trees, flowers, flappers and creatures of the forest -- familiar sights to someone not unused to doing a bit of exploring of one's locale.

Words whispered into my feeling: Mutable, fluid, transforming. Informing, advising me of where I am, what I am, where I'm going, where I've been, when and what, and how and who.

And then I am sat upright, aware of my surroundings. I am in a room, it is an old room, possibly the oldest room that I have ever visited. It reminds me of a museum, except it is a museum that is genuine, not one that been thoughtfully curated and dusted down everyday before paying visitors arrive; this room is a lived in room. I am reclining on a chaise longue, my back supported by its back, my legs horizontal. There is a huge mirror, I see myself in the mask out of my left eye, I am an abomination. There are paintings, portraits, military figures; they wear masks, like the one I wear.

What appears to be a giant hand bangs the chair beyond my shoeless feet (where are my shoes, I wonder, I had shoes when I arrived here, I'm sure I did), making me and plumes of dust jump. Then I realise my senses aren't attuned right. The hand is normal sized, it belongs to a slender form with a grizzled chin, and it was a pat, not a bang -- a self invitation for this person to take a sitting position beyond my toes.

Damn good job I took that crust when a did, young'un, that Murk had tha good, was only cos I was surfing t'scerm that a found thee when I did; lucky n'all this old 'ouse sits right on t'junction an we still 'ave these 'eadbangers kickin about, I reckon tha'd been crozzled.

From that day until this, I have never forgotten how Van Hallam managed, largely by accident, to save my life, but I will be forever grateful.

Previously serialised here, The Legend of Loxley Bottom — The Gabbleratchets of Sophie Hinchcliffe is now available as a free ebook download in ePub and Kindle formats from Hellsborough library.

In other news, Hellsborough Chronicles book one “Dark Peak” is now available on Kindle and paperback.

If you can leave a review of Dark Peak on Amazon, I'd be more than grateful.

Hellsborough Chronicles book two “Darker Peak” is now being worked on — look out for early releases.

Cheers, until next time,

Pip :)