We dig down to find things, to hide others and ourselves, to discover faster ways to cross space, to build, to trap, to plant, to harvest. We dig for many reasons.
I remember, when I was a peedie thing, even before moving to Orkney and discovering the word peedie, I read the Ladybird edition of Journey to the Centre of the Earth, by Jules Verne. After reading this, I decided it was obvious there was a tunnel down into this incredible place below (with dinosaurs! A mastodon! Prehistoric man!), located near the door in my sisters’ bedroom. I knew this, because we could roll the carpet back and there, by the door, was a crack in the floorboards. Of course, the logic of a six or seven year old never needed to incorporate the fact that this bedroom was not on the ground floor, but above the living room. That didn’t matter, the adventure did and we would dig to find it.
Ever since, I’ve been fascinated with tunnels, tunnelling, digging. So much so that one could argue I took a degree in the subject (Archaeology and Prehistory, University of Sheffield).
I would dig traps for weasels (never caught one and, to be fair, they could probably get out of the five centimetres [two inches] deep hole), break up the concrete near the gate to trap robbers (or the postman), tunnel into the ash from the fire dumped by my dad and hidden behind the dark shroud of leylandii, and excavate stones from drystone walls in Stenness, Orkney, replacing them with a much thinner rock as camouflage, in order to create a network of caverns and tunnels for a band of intrepid Lego adventurers heading on their own journey into the centre of the earth, with handsewn panniers on their horses for all their equipment, tiny handsewn sleeping bags and cloaks, included.
We dig. We have done for a very, very long time. A digging stick is probably one of the very first tools we learnt to make, to harvest roots, for example, or to dig holes for shelter posts—when you know how to use one, the process is relatively straight-forward.
Children and adults alike share a fascination and, at times, fear, of those places we hollow out; I still remember my terror of being stuck in a tunnel—my Dad telling me of all the children who had perished from digging in sand dunes—so much so that I quickly learnt how to brace such spaces, make sure the earth or sand was held up by more than simple compression and luck. I’m not convinced the structural integrity would have held, but still, the thought was there and I survived.
We are not alone in digging, either. It is remarkable to me, how many animals dig their own tunnels, lairs, holts, dens, setts, earths, warrens, or burrows. There are so many words, a veritable mine of terms, all meaning the same thing—places which have been hollowed out of the earth.
Walking through a woodland, many people fail to notice those hidden entrances to the below, holes which look too small for a fox, a badger, a wolf, a bear. Cross a meadow and see rabbit or marmot or ground squirrel heads, popping up like jack-in-the-boxes with fur, watching and checking where you are. Or idle along a river and see the polkadot patterns of the work of sand martins—bank swallows—their colony burrows mostly safe from predators by their location, tunnels and holes excavated by tiny birds. Puffins also nest below the ground, as do others: shearwaters, little penguins, burrowing owls.
Each of these subterranean homes is added to, filled in, collapsed, extended and repurposed, over and over and over.
I remember reading that there are badger setts in England which are hundreds of years old, staples of the environment, surviving all those centuries, until the current government decides to exterminate the population, based on exceptionally dubious science (and that is perhaps being generous) and, perhaps, a need for votes and donations.
Then, I read that there is one studied badger sett in Germany which has been in use for at least ten thousand years.
Some of those places are huge, labyrinthine palaces, freshly furnished with bedding, over and over, night after night, decade beyond decade. Imagine your family living in the same home for that length of time—here, in Europe, taking us right back to the years following the melting of the vast ice sheets, years when Doggerland was very much in evidence, and what is now the UK firmly anchored to the European mainland.
A long, long time.
These places, dug by animals, rather than the tools of our species, crop up in literature as entrances to the fantastic—Alice and her rabbit hole—or as cosy and welcoming homes, perhaps Mole’s in The Wind in the Willows, or the glorious illustrations in Brambly Hedge. In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
We dig, and we watch others dig. We add and excavate layers of meaning in each act, something Seamus Heaney knew all too well: going down also means going backwards, it is a gateway to time, to what came before—for us and for nature.
To make sense of those holes, to seek to understand the depth, that is a magic of its own—and one we need to have the right words to enact. The spell is there, it is simply waiting to be excavated—the adventure awaits.
Do you like to dig? To unearth new things, treasures from our past or those from nature? What sorts of things have you found, whether as a child, or an adult? Have you discovered burrows or dens or tunnels of your local wildlife? What is your favourite story set, or featuring, a below place, something beneath the surface of the earth?
The Words Below
I want to tell you of how I got the coin, the first step on my path to treasures, to riches beyond your understanding, and to the predicament I currently find myself within.
It was late August, 1947, and it was hot.
The tunnel, as all good tunnels seemed to do, went in and it went down, the edges blurring into disappearance some distance from the sunlight. Who knew what lay beyond, in that dark space? A whole other world, that much was sure.
It was a dare, a double, triple dare, and one I could not shirk, for fear of being called all manner of names, many of which I had no idea as to their meaning.
We knew Old Fox had once lived here, but that had been before Jimmy Kirkham the milkman had hit it with his treasured float.
‘’E just sat there, in t’road. I thought ‘e’d move, but nay, must’ve known it were ‘is time. Swear ‘e were saying see thee.’
Old foxes got to choose their manner of death, after all, everyone knew that.
What lay beyond in the inky dark, was anyone’s guess. Mark and Tom were Big Boys, and a dare from them was impossible to get out of, especially when doubled or tripled.
I took the battered torch—a genuine flashlight, pinched from Tom’s Dad’s shed, itself pinched from a GI who Tom’s Dad had found in a ditch, passed out drunk one night—and was careful not to mention the fact it looked just like the Eveready torch my own Dad had, only painted a dull green. The light was poor, at best, and I wondered how long it would last down there in the below-world.
I shone the beam, as much as it was a beam, down into the dark, but it merely enhanced that sucking shadow, swallowing all within a few yards. What was clear though, was that the tunnel went in and it went down.
My shoulders fit easily, I was not much bigger than a dog fox, after all, and I could crawl at first, brushing away tendrils of roots, gritting my teeth and using the torch—the flashlight—to push away the shroud of a spider’s web.
In I went, inhaling the earth, that rich scent of damp soil and mouldering plants I knew so well from the allotment. Here, it seemed drier soil than there, for which I was grateful. Probably the tangle of oaken roots above and around and below me, slowly drinking all the moisture, adding arches and vaulting all around. For all I knew, this place was a maze of dwellings, homes and tunnels, setts and dens.
I could hear the muffled laughter of Mark and Tom from above, but I couldn’t turn around to look, then what little sunlight there was disappeared and I knew they’d tricked me, blocked the hole and left me below to slowly but surely starve in the dark.
I wasn’t expected home until suppertime, and that was later at this time of the year, so starve I would. I knew it. Those hours would pass and I’d be wasted away to a skeleton, all yellowing bones, grinning skull, and gristly bits.
The light was rubbish, but enough to see six feet in front of me. The tunnel stopped descending and seemed to curve around to the right, and I had little choice but to continue—back up and call and beg would only result in mockery or, worse, not being allowed to go to Mark’s house when his Dad brought home the first television in the village, two weeks from now. There were reasons I was tagging along with the big boys, and hearing about television was one of them. I had heard it was like the pictures, only smaller, but I still wondered how they were going to fit such a thing into the living room. Perhaps, if I did not starve to death, forgotten, I’d still be able to find out.
The tunnel rose a little, then widened into a small cave. At least, I told myself it was a cave, but it was probably actually just where the fox had dug out a cosy chamber for itself and its family. It was warm down here, but cooler than up on the surface, where it had been hot for weeks now. I loved the heat, the sunshine, the summer holidays, just as I had loved the months of snow earlier in the year, eight weeks with no school! The grown ups complained. Too cold, too hot, too much snow, not enough rain. They were never happy.
And that was where I found it, the feeble light reflecting first from something white, then flashing off something bright, beyond.
As I crept closer, I realised the white was the white of bone and fear began to well inside me, only to immediately vanish when I saw it was only the skull of a fox. An ancestor of Old Fox, perhaps. There were other bones around too, some bits of bird, some rabbit and hare, even what looked like a leg from a lamb. I knew bones, all the village boys did, we’d collect and trade the best ones, along with birds eggs, cigarette cards, and marbles. I didn’t care for birds eggs, but bones I loved.
The flash was not a bone, it was metal. What was metal doing down here, in a fox’s home? I crawled and reached out, moving a few bones to reach the object. It was a coin, but not like the ones we used, this was larger, and it was shiny yellow. I picked it up.
In the stories, the heroes always came away from the treasure cave with pockets full of gold which, I tell you now, is nothing but lies—that coin proved to me that, if you fill your pockets with many similar, there’s no way the stitching would support the weight. Gold is bloody heavy.
I knew it was gold, just by the weight and, although I was tempted to bite it to test, as I’d seen them do in the movies, I didn’t for fear of some sort of ancient disease lurking on the coin. We’d recently been taught about bacteria and penicillin, after all.
I could see there was some sort of writing on one side around a head and, on the other, a key.
The chamber was large enough for me to sit in, although the air felt musty and stale nearer the ceiling. I didn’t know what to do—not about being stuck underground with only bones and an ancient coin for company, but about what to do with the coin.
I’d seen what happened when we found exciting things. It was always the same, whether unexploded bombs, crashed Jerry planes, elfshot, or the Roman brooch Mark’s cousin, Jack, had found at the far edge of Woodall’s field, green and bejewelled: the grown ups simply took them away. I’d seen it. Over and over, always. Everything was taken away.
This was my payment, this and the skull, at least—to go under the oak, to be stuck down here, in the dark and thick air, with only a feeble light for comfort, was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Well, maybe the second hardest, the seven times table was proving tricky.
As if to hammer home the difficulty, the torch began to dim further, if such a thing was possible.
There was another tunnel, leading off the chamber, and it seemed to head upwards. Picking up the skull, I held it tightly in my hand as I crawled, careful not to lose any of the precious teeth. The coin, I decided, was simply too much of a reward to lose, so I wrapped it carefully in my handkerchief and put it in my shirt pocket, the only one with a button.
Like the tunnel I had followed, I found this one curving around and followed it for what seemed a considerable distance. Eventually, there was a patch of light ahead and I turned off the now almost useless torch. This tunnel was certainly wider than the first I had descended, and there seemed fewer protruding roots, a more regular floor. Perhaps this was the route the fox usually left his lair.
A little further and I could hear voices, Mark and Tom, from somewhere nearby, and they were no longer laughing.
‘’E’s dead, I’m sure of it.’
‘We’re gonna get leathered, I’m sure of that.’
Then there came the sound of sobbing. Mark and Tom, the Big Boys, were crying. I crept closer to look, this was too good to miss.
I was behind them, somehow, and realised I was on the opposite bank of the holloway, nestled in the roots of another of the big oaks. At some point, I must have passed beneath their feet. I was also unsure whether I’d be able to squeeze through the opening in front of me—it looked much tighter than the one I’d entered. Perhaps I’d have to go back, or dig a little, widen the entrance.
There were more tears from the Big Boys, more questions of what they should do, whether to conceal my apparent death, or to run for help and, it seemed, no answers were forthcoming. I learnt something that day—how, just because someone is older, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are somehow wiser or a better person. Adding that to my knowledge that, should I show the coin to the grown ups, they’d take it away, and I developed a healthy mistrust of almost everyone.
The light was fading, the sky a scarlet red, clouds to the west reflecting the setting sun. I had little time before I had to be home, I knew that much, but I still didn’t know how best to get a satisfactory revenge on Tom and Mark.
They had now removed the large flat rock they’d rolled into position over the other hole, so I could always get out there, if I needed to.
As I considered my options, a noise behind me made me start. Perhaps there was another tunnel, and a fox, or badger, was getting ready to head out into the balmy August air.
I crept back a little, turned, and sat up, risking the torchlight. Having rested for a time, it seemed to be a bit stronger than before, although I also wondered if my eyes hadn’t somehow become used to the gloom.
The first thing I noticed was that the wall to my right, the one furthest away from the holloway, was not earthen, but worked stone.
The second thing I saw was the open door.
And the third thing was a tiny figure, a grown man who was somehow half my own height.
‘You carry the token, but do you know the words?’ he asked, his voice strange, and creaking, like hinges long unoiled. My head knew what he said, yet when I thought about it, I realised the words themselves were not entirely what I translated. I shook my head and paused, unsure how to answer.
The little man looked at me, head tilted slightly to one side.
‘You carry the token, but do you know the words?’ he repeated.
I have never been anything but creative, even back then, before I did know the words, and I had read and heard enough stories that I knew words were important, that certain things opened certain doors.
‘Abracadabra! Open sesame! Alakazam! Hey presto!’
The little man looked at me, his head straightening and a frown appearing on his forehead. He said no more, but took a few steps back through the open door and closed it behind him, silently.
I crept forward, noting the prints in the soil. I had not imagined him as I feared—starvation does strange things to the mind; I’d read about it.
The door was shut and, seemingly, made of stone itself. No matter how I pushed it moved not at all. I needed to find the right words.
First, though, I needed to get out, and head home for supper. I knew I would be scolded for the state of my clothing, for the soil in my hair and, I suspected, all over my bare knees, face, and arms but, I also knew, it would be worth a smacking—I had the token, I just needed to find the right words. I suspected I might have to read, a lot.
It took me another decade before I found them but then, well, that’s the story I have begun to record here. That’s the story of how I find myself in a cell—a relatively well-furnished cell, but a cell nevertheless—and that’s the story of how I learnt of the other realms, and of the doorways between those spaces. Beneath and under and alongside.
You just need a token and the right words. That’s all.
Many thanks for reading. And a big, big thank you to everyone who commented on last week’s personal post for Mental Health Week/Month, your words and shares really mean a lot to me.
What a great story! I want to know the rest.