In its long history, the river Thames has frozen solid forty times. These are the stories of that frozen river.
So begins Helen Humphrey’s superb collection of short fiction based on true events: forty vignettes spread between 1142 and 1895, each of which brings us into the lives of those who experienced a phenomenon that we are unlikely ever to see again.
The collection opens with an account of Queen Matilda’s escape from Oxford Castle (wearing only a white nightdress to camouflage her against the snow), and ends with lines deleted by Virginia Woolf from an early draft of Orlando. In between are many fascinating meditations on ice and the small transformations that occur - natural, social, personal - when winter reaches its full force.
Several stories unfold against the backdrop of the Frost Fairs - in which the Thames played host to fox hunting displays, bull baiting, skating parties and hog roasts - while others are altogether more muted in subject and tone. There is a poignant description of two lovers meeting on the ice during an outbreak of plague, an evocation of the collapse of London Bridge caused by the pressure of breaking ice, several rescue attempts of those who did not read the signs of an impending thaw, and tales of those who drew inspiration - musical, literary and scientific - from the remarkable spectacle.
Humphrey’s language tends toward the spare: she makes no attempt to “period-ify” the first person accounts that make up most of her collection, and this unpretentious yet eloquent style immediately draws the reader in. Take, for example, this extract from the piece set in 1408:
The birds fall from the trees. They tumble from the roofs and chimney-pots where they have perched. They are heavier in death than they were in life. Solid and flightless, they fall to the ground like dark, feathered apples, with exactly that weight, the weight of an apple.
Or this, an oarsman’s account of the removal of the body of Charles I from the execution ground to Windsor:
To kill one’s king is a solemn business. Even though many wanted him dead, I can attest that there was not a man who was not saddened by the sight of the sovereign’s head upon the block. We need to believe in the power and justness of the Crown, and when that is thrown into question, so too is everything else and we are as we are - sailing down a frozen river with a headless man at the helm.
Medieval woodcuts, Elizabethan still lifes, eighteenth-century broadsheet advertisements and sketches by Blake and Hondius add an extra dimension to the vignettes, cleverly illustrating various scenes without overshadowing the text.
A neat quarto binding makes this elegant little book equally at home on a coffee table, by the bedside or tucked into a bag. A pleasure to hold and linger over, its modest physical proportions belie great things between the pages.
The Frozen Thames; Helen Humphreys, McClelland & Stewart 2007, 181 pp. ISBN 978-0-7710-4144-0
What a stellar idea for a book! To cover such a vast time period, one would need a connecting thread & to choose an unusual natural phenonmenon would give it a truly unique flavor. I hope I can find this one, just the review casts a spell, so imagine what the actual book would do.
Own the book and I love it!
Wow, this sounds fantastic. I very much look forward to ordering it in and reading it. What a great idea for a book, and the first excerpt - feathered apples - is extremely good.
This does sound good. At first I thought it was non-fiction, but a collection of short fiction on the subject sounds even more intriguing. The frozen Thames section in ‘Orlando’ is one of my favourite pieces of prose, ever, which makes me especially intrigued. I particularly remember the description of the carnival and frozen woman with her apples (I copied this text from Project Gutenberg):
‘But while the country people suffered the extremity of want, and the
trade of the country was at a standstill, London enjoyed a carnival of
the utmost brilliancy. The Court was at Greenwich, and the new King
seized the opportunity that his coronation gave him to curry favour with
the citizens. He directed that the river, which was frozen to a depth of
twenty feet and more for six or seven miles on either side, should be
swept, decorated and given all the semblance of a park or pleasure
ground, with arbours, mazes, alleys, drinking booths, etc. at his
expense. For himself and the courtiers, he reserved a certain space
immediately opposite the Palace gates; which, railed off from the public
only by a silken rope, became at once the centre of the most brilliant
society in England. Great statesmen, in their beards and ruffs,
despatched affairs of state under the crimson awning of the Royal Pagoda.
Soldiers planned the conquest of the Moor and the downfall of the Turk in
striped arbours surmounted by plumes of ostrich feathers. Admirals strode
up and down the narrow pathways, glass in hand, sweeping the horizon and telling stories of the north-west passage and the Spanish Armada. Lovers dallied upon divans spread with sables. Frozen roses fell in showers when
the Queen and her ladies walked abroad. Coloured balloons hovered
motionless in the air. Here and there burnt vast bonfires of cedar and
oak wood, lavishly salted, so that the flames were of green, orange, and
purple fire. But however fiercely they burnt, the heat was not enough to
melt the ice which, though of singular transparency, was yet of the
hardness of steel. So clear indeed was it that there could be seen,
congealed at a depth of several feet, here a porpoise, there a flounder.
Shoals of eels lay motionless in a trance, but whether their state was
one of death or merely of suspended animation which the warmth would
revive puzzled the philosophers. Near London Bridge, where the river had
frozen to a depth of some twenty fathoms, a wrecked wherry boat was
plainly visible, lying on the bed of the river where it had sunk last
autumn, overladen with apples. The old bumboat woman, who was carrying
her fruit to market on the Surrey side, sat there in her plaids and
farthingales with her lap full of apples, for all the world as if she
were about to serve a customer, though a certain blueness about the lips
hinted the truth. ‘Twas a sight King James specially liked to look upon,
and he would bring a troupe of courtiers to gaze with him. In short,
nothing could exceed the brilliancy and gaiety of the scene by day. But
it was at night that the carnival was at its merriest. For the frost
continued unbroken; the nights were of perfect stillness; the moon and
stars blazed with the hard fixity of diamonds, and to the fine music of
flute and trumpet the courtiers danced.’
(Oops, didn’t mean to hijack Trilby’s comments with Virginia Woolf…)
It sounds beautiful … There is something magical about the whole idea of the great River Thames frozen.
Incredible idea for a book. Really fascinating. Agree with Mhairi, the frozen Thames does seem somehow magical. Will definitely look for this in the library.