WATER DIPPER -- ARTEFACT SERIES -- NO. 6

This chained dipper or cup does not have a tag on it but there is a reference to it in a woman ancestor's notebook. She said it comes from a holy well where pilgrims could have a drink of clear, cool water and a rest before plodding on to the next monastery. She put the date in the 13th Century but since she was writing in the Victorian era, and since they were inclined to exaggerate, I cannot vouch for her accuracy.

Pilgrims in those days were not to be trusted, obviously. Not only was this chained to the well, it weighs 1.36 kgs or 3 pounds. It would be quite a weight to carry through the Scottish countryside. Ordinary drinking vessels at the time would have been made of horn or pottery.

Himself's ancestors were great scavengers and the gene seems to have been passed down to him. As far back as when Cromwell's troops were knocking down things, Himself's ancestors were there to cart them away. When we were first married I found him admiring an old book press which had been heaved out of a solicitor's office. You can be sure he got it into the car and brought it home.

The old tags attached to some of the things say "found at" or "dug up at." This says it all, doesn't it? More is the pity, I say, that they didn't collect gold coins or comic books. Since one of his ancestors is rumoured to have been run out of town for burning down a barn in the 1600s in retaliation for cattle theft, I don't know but that some of the tags should not read "nicked from."

I think I will end the artefacts series here and perhaps pick it up again at a later date. The object of the exercise, apart from blip pics, was to sort out and tidy everything but the result has been the opposite. Yesterday's keys will no longer fit back into the box from whence they came, for instance.

For the record: It is so foggy that there is hardly any light. The mists which follow the streams look like snow. The temperature is +3. Dismal.