In my last posting, I shared some personal reasons why I selected Aust as the home of my heroine, Lady Apollonia. Today I would like to discuss another unique feature of the region around Aust that inspired another early aspect of my first story, Effigy of the Cloven Hoof. There is on the Severn River an extraordinary natural phenomenon called the Severn Bore. I only became aware of it in March of 1993 when an English friend asked me and my husband to accompany her and her son to witness the best example of the Severn Bore which would occur in the 20th century.
A bore is a steep-fronted wave which is caused by the tide rushing up a narrowing estuary. When this occurs on the Severn River, it can be mightily impressive because the tide in the Bristol Channel and the Severn Estuary is one of the highest tides in the world, normally forty feet, sometimes 50 feet, second only to that in the Bay of Fundy in Canada. The tidal phenomenon acts like liquid being poured into a funnel when this enormous tide rushes up the river. Picture this funnelling affect by looking at the Severn River on the map of Lady Apollonia’s West Country. The tidal bore happens twice a day for about 30 days around the time of the equinoxes in the spring and autumn.
We travelled with our friend and her son from Devon up the Severn beyond Aust to a place called Elmore Back in order to witness the bore rushing upstream as a tidal wave. We were far enough upriver that we could see Gloucester Cathedral in the distance, and we could see surfers gather on the river hoping to ride the wave when it came. We could hear it approaching before we could see a couple of boats come around a bend, followed by the wave. When it got to the surfers, they were completely unsuccessful in catching the wave, and simply fell from their surfboards when it passed. The wave roared by us sounding like a freight train with objects as large as a big tree trunk floating upstream.
As a witness to this extraordinary natural phenomenon, I decided I must use a description of it along with a great storm near Aust to begin my story of Effigy of the Cloven Hoof.
For more information on the Severn Bore, click on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_bore
or on http://www.severn-bore.co.uk/ .
To view an example of the Severn Bore, click on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKA39LQOIck .
Tags: Chaucer's England, historical fiction, medieval mysteries