Walking to Camelot Read Online Free PDF

aided the nation in numerous wars. The massive stone sculpture will portray in bas-relief pigeons, dogs, monkeys, horses, donkeys, even glow-worms. Chiselled into the stone is the chilling proclamation “They had no choice.”
    A mudflat we pass is covered with tracks — the etchings and scratchings of little creatures that resemble a Trafalgar Square–like meeting place. As we leave the brook and follow the path through the copper beech grove into a copse, a furry white creature suddenly rushes out of the bracken and does a merry dance around Karl, at one point even crawling partway up his boot.
    â€œIt’s just a ferret, and I think he’s blind,” Karl laughs. “I have read that they are often born blind.”
    The ferret, however, is known for its ferocious bite, being a member of the weasel family, and I suggest that Karl steer the animal away from us. He takes his walking stick and gently flicks the creature to the side of the path, where it sits pondering the situation.
    â€œNow,” I say, “all we need is Mr. Toad, Mole, and Ratty to trundle by, Karl. I can see where Kenneth Grahame received his inspiration.”
    There is a North American connection here. Sales of
The Wind in the Willows
did not take off until President Theodore Roosevelt publicly wrote to Grahame in 1909 to tell him that he had “read it and reread it, and [had] come to accept the characters as old friends.” So popular is the anthropomorphic genre in England — and the world — that British author William Horwood has written two entrancing sequels to the Kenneth Grahame classic, which continue to captivate children and adults alike. And with his multi-volume Duncton Wood series, Horwood has brought tears to the eyes of millions of readers over the life and plight of English moles. Indeed, I will never kill a mole again — let them have my lawn, they deserve their tunnels and homes. Oh, crikey!
    We divert slightly off trail to visit Bowthorpe Park Farm in Manthorpe, where stands the largest living English oak tree by girth, the Bowthorpe Oak. This tree boasts a circumference of some forty feet. Now, next to North America’s giant firs and sequoias, you might think this rather short, stubby tree would appear dwarfish. But it has a majesty of its own, and its veined, textured bole and gnarled gnome-like branches remind one of a scene from Mirkwood in
The Hobbit.
The tree is estimated to be over one thousand years old and has made it into the
Guinness Book of Records
. The trunk is hollow; a former farm tenant built a roof and door — the tree held within it thirty-nine people standing or thirteen people tucking into high tea.
    There are older trees in Britain, since the estimable yew outlives all other species. The record so far belongs to the Fortingall Yew in Perthshire, estimated to be between three and five thousand years old. Other notable specimens are the Gog and Magog oaks at Glastonbury and the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Tree in Dorset, a sycamore beneath which six poor farm labourers formed the first trade union in Britain, in 1834.
    â€œNot much challenge to a logger, though, Karl.”
    â€œLog it, burn it, and pave it, John.” But Karl has a twinkle in his eye.
    We amble back to the main path. Our next destination is Wilsthorpe. The inhabitants must all be asleep here, together with their dogs. Not a soul stirs. We search for a landmark Roman villa ruin, but it eludes us. The word
village
is derived from the Roman
villa,
as many settlements grew up around the several thousand homesteads built by Roman merchants and soldiers who remained in Britain after Caesar’s conquest.
    There are so many similar-sounding names in this country that it all makes for great confusion. For example, a few miles to the west lies the village of Woolsthorpe, where you can stop and visit the house where Isaac Newton lived, and even sit on a bench under the apple tree — actually,