Candles for the Goose

For tonight in Hell, they are tolling the bell
For the Whore that lay at The Tabard
And well we know how the carrion crow
Doth feast in our Cross Bones Graveyard.

Text from 'Southwark Mysteries' by John Constable (Oberon Books, London, UK, 2000)

Imagine... an old graveyard, hidden in the midst of London's arty South Bank, marked only by red iron gates, forgotten like its tenants, this is Crossbones...


What follows is my personal take on the Crossbones story, very different to that experienced by John Crow, author of the Southwark Mysteries - and therefore, merely inspired by that work.

picture copyright to maxkolletive - see Flickr for original

The poor souls buried in the unconsecrated burial ground on Redcross Way, Southwark were 'single women', i.e. prostitutes, whores, professional ladies, women of the night, street walkers... not fit to lie in hallowed ground with the protection of the Mass said over their dead bodies, oh no, but the very Bishop of Winchester himself profitted from the Hoors of Redcross!  Having built his palace on the South Bank of the Thames outside the jurisdiction of the City of London, His Grace saw a right little money-spinner, his Pharisaical mind ignoring the fact that it was the pagans of Babylon who licenced prostitutes in the temples to Baal, Astarte, Isis, which were surely the ways of Sodom and Gomorrah, those ill-fated cities of the Levant.  But no, His Grace wanted his thirty pieces of silver for betraying their souls to the Earl of Hell, rather than preaching redemption and repentance to these poor women.  Children were born, they died, either in the womb or soon after, so many tiny skeletons, some whose soul was snatched into an uncertain eternity before any kindly person could say a blessing or making the sign of the cross above their heads.  The menfolk of London didn't really care for them - it was pleasure on demand; young lads from the higher reaches of society were sent off with money from their fathers to seek out the Winchester Geese - for a son who could not perform his duty with the right bride might be like those very inhabitants of Sodom, and therefore cursed and shameful!  Get practice, those girls will show you how, make a man of you, my lad! And so, when some got rough, indulged their violent perversions, some of the Geese paid the price.

And yet, the Holy One of Israel sought the company of whores and tax collectors in His own land - would He, if indeed His Holy feet did step on our shores in days of yore, surely have gone to Redcross Way, and seen all those wooden crosses - the markers of the dead for whom none care - and wept for them?  Yes, He would have seen them, the Geese, flapping white aprons to show their patronage, or not-so-pure white breasts tempting all who were not perfect like Him.  He saw women, souls, His Father's lost tribes; He knew them all, all their sad sordid secrets, and yet had a heart of Holy Love for them.  

And did the Goose herself, who came through the Portal at Crossbones to tell Old Man Crow of her existence, did She, goddess of all that was not holy, sometime feel a glance that saw the human, not the whore?  

  John Crow - the Hoors' Prophet and Shaman
photo copyright to again to maxkollective

Licence or Liberty, who can say, but some power allowed her in, to draw the snow-haired shaman to the Red Gates, and poured out her words of rage, anger, passion, at those who used her, but charity for her sisters, her children yet unborn, living now and in the time to come.

 Old Man Crow and a friend
photo copyright to maxkollective again

John Crow let the words flow - straight from her painted lips out through his pen, he could hardly keep up, as her old, knowing, but still feminine tones seduced his will.  'You will speak for us, sweet Crow, and tell them we are here - we are the unwanted dead!'  So he did, so he does, and now we know too, and light a candle on this night, when the sun lights the half either side of the earth, turning on the autumn equinox, looking for the coming of the Old Hag, who despises the lightsome antics of the Goose and her sisters.  'Help us keep the Cailleach at bay for a few months, more, my John Crow, and tell everyone we will not be forgotten no more!'

And we will not - no more forgetting.  Lust and Longing might have been all they knew, and again, perhaps they were wiser than all those fools they drew between their skirts, but the Winchester Geese fly again, from spirit world to here and now, let us remember the outcast dead of Crossbones...

An inspired piece of prose after a loooonnng absence from the Blogosphere!  This is inspired by the TRUE story of Crossbones Graveyard.  You can read the full and truthful account of it here - but please, SIGN the petition to stop Transport for London ripping up the poor remains of these long dead, and support the creation of a permanent memorial to the Outcast Dead of Redcross Way.   I have to admit to getting a bit confrontational about this - it's just me! The Friends of Crossbones are a kindly, wise bunch who are in dialogue with TfL about the situation, the latter sounding a more reasonable organisation than a certain business empire here in Aberdeen!!!

Aberdeen City Council are also guilty of building on a graveyard - the Quakers, or Society of Friends were severely persecuted for their non-conformist beliefs, and evicted from their meeting hall in the city's Gallowgate.  The council then authorised the building of houses on top of the Quakers' cemetery!  The Friends do not believe in permanent memorials on earth, perhaps perferring to look forward to when they will meet their loved ones in Paradise, but to the Protestant citizens of the Granite City in that day, it was an outrage.  Such hypocrisy from a city who had been staunch Jacobite supporters, but then Covenanters, but then again supporting the wicked Earl of Mar who defeated Donald, Lord of the Isles at the Battle of Harlaw in 1411, if London's bad, then gee whizz, our middle classes and ruling burgesses can NEVER EVER make up their mind!  Anyway, it would appear that the Friends of Crossbones are getting good hearing from the transport group, and I would hope, the present Lord Mayor.  Boris isn't a bad old stick, surely he has the sense not to let perhaps economically-concerned developers prevail over the last resting place of a poor minority in this day of diversity and tolerance.

It remains to be seen!

For now - on the full moon and the equinox, the candles burn in remembrance of the outcast dead, may they rest in some kind of peace.
  

Beannachd Leibh, Mnathan anns an t-ionad-adhlacaidh

with apologies to John Crow for my wild and wily use of what is an amazing story from the realm of the spirit past, I hope he will forgive me as a fellow artist. :)