Crag

“ He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls. ”

“ He may toil on until he is far above timber line, and is working his way over and around vast drifts and beds of perpetual snow and ice. Finally he sights his game—a fine handsome specimen—standing fearlessly on some jutting crag, deliberately feeding on some tender lichens or, perhaps, peering proudly out over the lower world. ”

“ Nucula oblongoides (hyperbarea) .
6. Of extinct crag forms, those marked with an asterisk, are new species of Mr. Wood.
From the beds at Bridlington, Mr. Lyell [19] enumerates 35 species of testacea, of which 20 were living forms, and 26 species common to the mammaliferous or Norwich crag. I have had an opportunity of examining a collection from this locality belonging to my friend Mr. Bowerbank, who, with his accustomed liberality, has permitted me to make use of it. It includes 28 species. ”

“ These forbidding and almost inaccessible crags are the favorite, and nearly the exclusive, haunts of this strange creature, and the hunter who follows it thither must indeed be a daring mountaineer. The goat is frequently found at altitudes of 10,000 to 14,000 feet, where the atmosphere is so rare as to render it difficult indeed for man to climb, yet this fearless creature nimbly leaps from crag to crag, over deep yawning chasms, with no more fear than the domestic lamb feels when bounding over the greensward in an Eastern farmyard. ”

“ It is a scene well suited to be the cradle of the hero of British myth—a tremendous crag standing out of the sea, which has bored a tunnel through it, and races in and clashes in subterranean passages under the crumbling walls which sheltered Arthur.
The crag is cut off from the mainland by a chasm once spanned by a drawbridge, but now widened by storm so as to threaten to convert Tintagel into an island.
Near Boscastle rises Pentargon, “Arthur’s Head,” a noble black sheer precipice, forming one horn of a little bay into which a waterfall plunges from a green combe. ”

“ His wet hair Streaming backward in the wind caught on the laurel boughs as he went down and down the tangled path that her homesick feet had worn to the crag which overlooked the Cove. Not there! He stood, himself enveloped in the mist, and gazed blankly into the folds of the dun-colored clouds that with tumultuous involutions surged above the valley and baffled his vision. ”

“ A few stepping-stones allow one to reach a place where some advance can be made along the foot of the cliffs. Then ford the stream at the shallow, and climb the jutting crag to the right. You are now in an amphitheatre of rocks. In front is the waterfall, its spray damping you through; almost beneath is the chinklike passage through which the water escapes. On either hand tall crags rise, all dripping with spray and hung with luxuriant mosses. Here and there a fern—hart’s-tongue or similar slime-loving variety—finds root-hold ”

“ And certainly the Pullwyke quarry crag rises most steeply from the meeting-point of the two highways.
Next as to the Outgate crag, which you have chosen. I am out of love with it. First, if the lads wanted to make sure of the ponies, they would not have ascended it, but would have stayed just at the Hawkshead side of Outgate, or at the village itself, at the point of convergence of the ways.
Secondly, the crag can hardly be described as rising from the meeting-point of two highways; only one highway passes near it. ”

“ Its home, and its favourite watchtower, for birds of prey have always some one spot to which, when they wish to be idle, they find their way, is some lofty crag. There seated aloft, they overlook the lowlands where{72} they find their food, without danger of molestation while in repose. For it is always up on the peaks, sometimes looking seaward over the nations of the sea-fowl, but generally inland, where, when the clouds leave it an unbroken prospect, it can sit, like some fierce old warden of the marches, to control the tribes of the valley. ”

“ Every year the Crag takes its toll of sheep, and sometimes a man goes over in the mist. It’s right beside the track and very slippery. Ninety foot of a drop before you hit the water. Best keep round the tarn and leave the Crag alone if there’s any mist about. Fishing? Yes, there’s some quite fair trout in the tarn, but it’s not much fished. Happen one of the shepherd lads from Tyson’s farm may give it a turn with an ‘otter,’” he went on, “once in a while, but he won’t stay for the evening. ”

“ At any time of the year many of the huge crags on the fells are dangerous for hounds, and equally so for the too venturesome follower. To mention but a few, there is the crag overhanging Goat’s Water on Coniston Old Man, Pavey Ark in Langdale, Dove Crag at the head of Dovedale, Raven Crag on Holme Fell, and Greenhow End overlooking Deepdale. ”

“ The great crag rising sheer almost from the water’s edge is a haunt of the raven, a bird yearly growing scarcer as the wildernesses become less wild, and as the shepherd gets more reliable fire-arms. But, says legend, there is one raven quite impossible to reach. ”

“ Near Hasborough it is much intermingled with chalk.
The second stratum, as we descend beneath the till, is the
p. 59Crag.
A layer of which, between the watch-house and coal gaps at Bacton, has been termed by Mr. Lyell hard ferruginous crag. It consists of several thin plates, containing compressed wood, fragmentary and whole shells, intermixed with clay, gravel, and white sand. This bed forms a dip towards the north-west, having a support of red sand on the one side, and green sand on the other. A section of the crag is more largely developed at Cromer, Runton, and Weybourne. ”

“ Each peering forth to meet the other.'
Raven-crag is well known,—H.C. Robinson writes of it in his Diary in 1818, as "the most significant of the crags at a spot where there is not one insignificant,"—a rock on the western side of Thirlmere, where the Greta issues from the lake. But there is no rock in the district now called by the name of Ghimmer-crag, or the crag of the Ewe-lamb. I am inclined to think that Wordsworth referred to the "Fisher-crag" of the Ordnance Survey and the Guide Books. ”

“ The Duke was desirous that a rocky crag, called Craigybarns, should be planted with trees, to relieve the grim barrenness of its appearance. But it was impossible for any man to climb the crag in order to set seeds or plants in the clefts of the rocks. A happy idea struck my father. Having observed in front of the castle a pair of small cannon used for firing salutes, it occurred to him to turn them to account. His object was to deposit the seeds of the various trees amongst the soil in the clefts of the crag. A tinsmith in the village was ordered to make a number of canisters with covers. ”

“ On this crag, probably for ages, a pair of ravens have annually had their nest, and though their young have again and again been destroyed by the shepherds, they always return to this favourite spot; and frequently, when one of the parents has been shot in the brooding season, the survivor has immediately been provided with another helpmate ”

“ The name *Shag, given in both Manx dictionaries, applies to both species; and both give also Fannag-varrey=Seacrow. Feeagh-marrey=Sea-raven appears in Lev. xi. 17. Arrag vooar or Arrag'ooar means P. carbo, perhaps only the young white-breasted birds. Cf. I. Siagaidh, Siogaidh; Sc. Gael. Orag; I. Odharog, "a young Cormorant." Various isolated crags round our coast are well known as "Shag Rock," "apricis statio gratissima mergis." ”

“ The crags and horns are six hundred and twenty-six feet high, and are of all the colors of the rainbow, from deepest black to red, yellow, gray, purple, and green. The formation is vast galleries or [24] amphitheatres, broken by the nature of the rock into rectangular shelves, on which perch myriads of birds, which are as the sands of the sea for multitude. Some of these birds migrate from Norway, lay one egg, and when the young are able they return home, only to come back again each succeeding summer. ”

“ On the slopes nearer, the leafless boughs, massed together, had purplish-garnet depths of color wherever the sunshine struck aslant, and showed richly against the faintly tinted horizon. Here and there among the boldly jutting gray crags hung an evergreen-vine, and from a gorge on the opposite mountain gleamed a continuous flash, like the waving of a silver plume, where a cataract sprang down the rocks. ”

“ Its scathed and gigantic crags are piled upon each other in a manner which seems to menace headlong destruction to whatever is in the neighbourhood; and the ruins which still cling to those crags seem more like eagles’ nests than the remains of the habitations even of Moors; whereas those of Monte Moro stand comparatively at their ease on the broad back of a hill, which, though stately and commanding, has no crags nor precipices, and which can be ascended on every side without much difficulty. ”

“ They are, for the most part, smooth and rounded in outline, the rocks being such as do not favour the formation of crags, though, owing to the rapidity of their descent, streams have frequently rent steep-walled craggy gulleys in their sides. The strength of the prevalent westerly winds has caused them to be treeless, except in some of the lower slopes, but they are clad with verdure to their summits. ”

“ Scraggs; "besides, he smelt awful. I don't seem to be able to bring back any mornin' I cared less for breakfast than that one. Suppose you was a happy rattlesnake, Charley, with a large and promisin' fambly; suppose, now, on a frosty thirteenth of October you crawled under the cook-stove to get warm the minute the camp cook opened the door, and, before you limbered up enough to bite him, cooky lays cold and unfeelin' hands upon you and Jams you into the stove—ain't the number thirteen goin' to carry unpleasant recollections for you from that on? Bet your life. ”

“ The sunlight deepened to orange and burned to red. The mountains were all garbed in purple. The sky above that splendid summit-line of the Great Smoky caught the reflection from the west and was delicately roseate. Cow-bells were clanking in Hazel Valley, faintly, faintly. A star, most serene, was at the zenith.
The sheep in the dark niche of the crags stirred, and huddled together again, and were quiet. The moon came and looked coyly in, as if she sought Endymion. The face of the mountaineer, its reckless spirit all spent, was gentle and young in the soft, shy light. ”

“ I have caught a great many crabs with only one claw—large crabs, too—and it seems to me that if they were going to grow a new claw, in place of the one they have lost, a little claw would have started growing. And this I have never seen.
Anyhow, by knocking the crab from Patter’s paw the claw of the sea-creature was broken off and left hanging on the dog’s foot, though it no longer pinched. The one-clawed crab scuttled off sideways, which is the way crabs “walk” on dry land, and also the way they often swim, though sometimes they dart backward in the water. ”

“ On our return along the sea-shore, we met with several large crabs. One big fellow had caught a snake, and was walking off with it wriggling in his claws, when down pounced a frigate-bird, and carried off both crab and snake together. Whole armies, too, of soldier-crabs, with their shells on their backs, were moving about in search of prey, or looking out for more commodious homes; it being their wise custom not to leave one home until they have found another. When they neglect this precaution, their soft tails are nearly sure to be nabbed by one of their numerous enemies. ”

“ The sun which retraces its steps is a crab; the moon which draws back, or draws out, is also a crab, and, in this [Pg 357] respect, seems to hold the same place as the sea-urchin with the hundred oars, or of the dolphin with the scythe-shaped fin, which draws the chariot of the solar hero, or the solar hero himself. In the fable of Kriloff, the crab draws the chariot with the pike and the heron (the latter taking the place here of the crane, which we have seen above in connection with the crab, and which is also called in Sanskṛit by the same name as the crab, that is, karkaṭas) . ”

“ Sarcand's laughter was like the sound of a mounting surf. "I follow the custom of my mother's people; and the crabs serve me with that which I require, summoned and constrained by the sea-god's ring."
So saying, he raised his hand and described a peculiar sign with the index finger, on which the ring flashed like a circling orb. The double column of crabs suspended their crawling for a moment. Then, moved as if by a single impulse, they began to scuttle toward us, while others appeared from the cavern's entrance and from its inner recesses to swell their rapidly growing numbers. ”

“ Edwin continued, “is why you call crab ‘toothsome delicacy’? Crab is crab, ain’t it? No one I never heard calls it such funny things.”
The old man sighed but did not answer, and they moved on in silence. The surf grew suddenly louder, as they emerged from the forest upon a stretch of sand dunes bordering the sea. A few goats were browsing among the sandy hillocks, and a skin-clad boy, aided by a wolfish-looking dog that was only faintly reminiscent of a collie, was watching them. ”