The Salt of the Earth

And of the sea.

Salt. It is a substance we have craved for millennia, forever, a chemical formulation whose name gives us ‘salary’, gives us ‘soldier’, it has been mined and harvested since long, long before records began, prehistoric miners leaving behind artefacts (and, sometimes, their own bodies) preserved in the salt, leached of liquid, salted in time.

At the remarkable site of Provadia-Solnitsata, in what is now Bulgaria, the first recognised European city was built to house and protect an important source of salt. This city lasted for over a thousand years, and the first salt production there is dated to over seven thousand years ago. Yet most people have never heard of it.

We need salt to survive. We always have, even if we occasionally forget the depth of this need.

If you have been reading through this series of journeys along our coastlines, through time and space, you will have spotted the word ‘salt’, sprinkled throughout the text, over and over. It is infused in the waters, crusted along cracks in rocks, and scents the very air. It dries on the skin, gets into the fabric of your clothing, and charms its way between beachside kisses.

Salt may no longer be a literal currency, but it does still underscore tourism, the beach getaway, the growth of sleepy fishing villages into something vastly different, something a product of our need for sun and the sea, a product which provides employment for many and two weeks of memories for many, many more.

When I talked of the selkie, of the seal, and my own relationship with these remarkable creatures, I mentioned the Brough of Deerness:

Not too far away from our home was the Brough of Deerness, a large, 30m (100 feet) tall sea stack, with a Viking age chiefly settlement and chapel on the windswept top. This is a special place. Current research suggest there was likely to once have been a bridge connecting the stack to the mainland, and that the earliest inhabitants were the enigmatic Pictish peoples, 1500 years ago.

We used to play here and in the surrounding area, moving up and down the precipitous, crumbling cliffs in thick Wellington boots and no safety equipment. We would lick the sea salt off our palms and trace the fault lines in the rocks, running hands over the places where the ripples from an ancient lake bed were trapped for millions of years. If you are quiet, you can sit and watch the resident otters also play nearby and, if you climb out along a ledge above the waters of Little Burrageo, the inlet almost separating the Brough from the mainland, you can watch seals swim by, almost close enough to touch.

There is no salt I have tasted since which comes close to my memory of that we would collect from the sun heated black rocks, those depressions and crevices each a tiny natural salt pan, the long hours of summer sunlight in Orkney baking and swiftly evaporating the water, leaving behind delicate, non-uniform crystaline structures. Each location of fleur de sel production around the world provides a slightly different flavour and chemical composition, depending on its origin—some are white, most are off-white. This is the best salt in the world and, I believe, those tiny pockets of naturally-produced salt in Deerness, Orkney, the best of the best.

Why, though? Why do I think that? Is it because I have a fierce loyalty to the place of my upbringing? I am not sure I do, precisely. I have not lived there in decades, after all. Is it because it was my first experience of such a superior salt? Perhaps.

The romantic within me thinks, however, that it is due to that particular salt being the one to infuse its way into my own growing body, in much the way that the Mont-Saint-Michel agneau de pré-salé (salt marsh lamb) does, merrily munching on the halophyte pasture surrounding the famous island. I ate things which grew with that salt, I inhaled it daily, ergo it became a part of me.

Salt is the invisible link between all the posts I have shared in this series over the last few months, it is the chemical glue, the foundation underpinning each aspect of our coastline I have discussed—and all those stories or thoughts and memories which have arisen from those aspects.

It is rare we see the salt of the coast, yet we know it is there. We do not need to see a thing to acknowledge its presence, after all, we are a creature of faith, of blind trust and even blinder hope. The salt serves as a metaphor, something deep within us, something preserving memory and flavouring our every bite of life, yet these days it is all-too-easily taken for granted. There are other givens within our lives, other structures of nature, which are similarly essential, similarly oft-forgotten, similarly outwardly invisible.

Today, however, I shall leave this here. I think, by now, you know where I could take this piece. Therefore, by now, I think I do not need to. The question, of course, remains—how can we demonstrate the importance of that which we take for granted, that which we cannot always see, that which affects each and every one of us? And how can we do that to those who do not necessarily want to see? Today, I shall leave that to you.

Do you have a favourite salt? Why is it your favourite? Do you have memories of coastlines and beaches past, salt-crusted and preserved? Have you collected salt of your own? And how can we change the course of our world when we feel so small, our voices so tiny? What can we do—what can you do?

They would be bringing down the sheep from the high pasture within half a moon. The air carried a hint of colder days ahead, of the shifting of the year, the trees now tired, their leaves curling at the edges, the green becoming less vibrant, other colours cladding certain branches.

Utrik had seen a bear the day before and it had ignored him, head down, berry-crazed. Soon would come the long sleep of winter.

Today, though, it was Andril’s turn to descend into the earth, to hack at the rock and gather the salt. He was supposed to go with Utrik, but he had not arrived when he set off into the dark underworld. Perhaps he would catch up, perhaps he had found something better to do.

For Andril, anything was better than the descent into the mine. He hated the darkness, he hated the air, the way sound was distorted and hated the kobolds who danced at the edge of the light.

Yet it was needed. He had spent too long away over the summer and had yet to fulfil his obligation.

The darkness enveloped him, the rush and fat light barely keeping it at bay, oh how he hated it.

Today, he wanted to try the narrow passage he and Utrik had found late last year, a passage deemed unworthy of investigation by the others, too small, too dangerous, but he was sure he could smell better rock down there and his nose was rarely wrong.

It was not easy, especially without the companionship of Utrik, their whispered conversation keeping the fear at arm’s length. Eventually, however, the passageway widened somewhat, until he could kneel within the tunnel, then crouch, then stand.

He moved the light closer to the walls and ceiling, examining the marks left behind by whoever had first explored this way, someone always seemed to have gone on ahead, even if the people had no memory of the place. These marks seemed different to that of the pick he used. He muttered a prayer, he did not want to upset the spirits of the mine—if this was their work, perhaps the others had been right, perhaps it was best to leave and stick to the usual tunnels.

It was then he noticed the rockfall ahead, a flare of the flickering lamp highlighting rubble piled to waist height, large blocks and small, the way ahead narrowed and hidden from view and there, at the edge, a prone, motionless figure wrapped in strange clothing, partially covered by debris, an antler near its hand, a woven bag fallen beyond.

Andril was terrified. This was not one of his people. It was something other, something older perhaps, or maybe something less human. Fear, he knew, could control the heart and tell the mind to take irrational action. His father and mother had instilled this within him when they had taught him the spear and the shield, how to control that instinct, how to push beyond and it was not a lesson he had forgotten.

Instead of turning and fleeing, he approached the rockpile and knelt for a closer look, careful not to get the flame too close.

The face was withered and dry, eyes long shrunk to stalks, hair braided and kept back by a leather strap, a long beard likewise plaited. The clothing was all skins, beautifully sewn and constructed, subtle decoration and patches of other colours unlike any design he had seen before. At least he was human. At the man’s hip was a scabbarded blade, the handle of antler.

He pulled at the knife and it slid free. The blade was of a dark stone. Moving the scabbard revealed a small pouch below, and Andril reached to pull it out. Perhaps it held gold, or jewels. Something to make his fear worth it.

It was then that he heard the kobold, the knocking, tock, tock, tock. The warning. He paused, one hand on the pouch. He tugged, preparing to flee back up the passage with his riches.

He was too late. He should have heeded the warning immediately. A hiss of dust began as a trickle, then as a roaring cascade. Andril dropped the knife, let go of the pouch, and turned. He made it a total of seven steps before the ceiling collapsed on him. As his life fled, to be guided to the light by the spirits of the mine, his last thought was that at least he would have company on his journey, at least his body would rest with that of another, even one as strange as that he had found. The thought was oddly comforting and, as he closed his eyes, he smiled, wondering how long his smile would last in the dry air.

Recently, there has been a rise in voices clamouring for a ‘nature’ category here on Substack. This is something needed, something essential. For those of you who are readers, and do not have your own letter here, we writers need to select two different categories for our work. This letter, The Crow’s Nest, sits in ‘Fiction’ quite comfortably, but uneasily within ‘climate and the environment’.

Yes, I talk of the changing world around us, but I do not feel this category fits. Semantics—the science or study of the meaning of language—shows how ‘climate and the environment’ is inherently political, it is inherently geared towards a certain readership and certain sets of beliefs, whether positive or negative. It is, in effect, a loaded phrase, one which demonstrates the ongoing issues we naturalists face when trying to share our work, one which influences the reader’s thoughts even before they read a word, simply because of the location of the piece.

Nature covers all manner of sins, all manner of joys. It is, after all, all. We come from nature and we shall return to her when we are dead. We can’t change that, energy doesn’t really go anywhere, after all, it is merely recycled.

I’ve spoken about this need on Substack Notes ever since the platform launched, and I know it is something the design team are aware of, so I have patience. This said, it is reassuring to see so many voices talking about this need now, the more letters and writers who join in this call, the better—and, crucially, the better for nature.

The writer Rebecca Wisent has begun to compile a list of letters and authors identifying their work as ‘Nature’, and I suspect you might find it interesting and useful. Have a look here:

Nature on Substack

This week marks the final post for this portion of Edges and Entries. Next time, I shall be moving to ten weeks of posts on the topic of the underworld, of caves and tunnels and cracks into the very structure of the land around us. To pass from the above to the below is an act almost as ancient as when a distant, tiny shared ancestor decided to cross the shoreline and try breathing air.

Coastlines, the thoughts they bring, the memories they stir, these are places—special places—which will no doubt return, to be further discussed here. They feature heavily in my stories, especially the novel I’m currently finalising, day-by-day, scene-by-scene, my own relationship with this crossing from sea to land, land to sea, distilled and fictionalised, adding depth and character to the work.

There is much I still want to talk about—some subjects, or facets, of the coast which I have yet to share, in some cases simply because I couldn’t find a good enough photo.

On which note, the photo for today is from the salt pans at Gruissan, in Aude, southern France. It was taken when a summer storm gave just the most perfect light, the pink of the waters bright against the darkness of the sky behind—the only thing which could have made this photo better, in my opinion, is if the flamboyance of flamingos who passed over the pans twenty minutes later had perhaps done so before I began my dinner, before the light changed. This is the way of life, however, and I am not unhappy with this shot (no filters touched this image!).

Until the next time, take care of yourselves and each other, and a huge thank you for reading my series of posts on the topic of coastlines. If you have enjoyed this series, do please share or subscribe, if you aren’t already.