The Birdman of Mortonhampstead
Now you may be wondering what on earth this fellow was doing, turning up to a Church Ale. Of course, it could just be that he happened to enjoy a beer or two – but no. That’s not the point.
The thing is, a couple of years ago, he had an expensive owl that went walkabout. This hawker was mortified, and did everything he could to find the darned thing, and in the end, at a loss, he tried one last person. A man who was known as a local dowser.
Don’t know what a dowser is? He’s a man who can find water underground. You know what I mean, one of those lads who marches about the place with a forked piece of wood in his hands, and when the bit of wood goes haywire, that’s where the water is. Now it sounds daft, I know, but people have been using them for years. Centuries in fact, so you can assume that there must be something in it.
Personally I can vouch for it. I had some water problems in my house, and went to this gentleman. He not only told me where the water was under my property, he could tell me roughly how fast it was moving, how deep it was, whether it was pure enough to drink, and even where it moved in a spiral fashion which was, he reckoned, where someone had once had a well.
The birdman didn’t know all that though, so all he had to go on was a recommendation. Which he took. He phoned my friend John and told him the problem. John agreed to try to find the bird. He called the birdman back a short while later and gave him some map co-ordinates. He went there, and found his bird in the spot, in a tree.
Sadly he couldn’t tempt the daft bird back. Next day, the bird had flown off, so he called John again. John called him back with new co-ordinates, and when he went there, he found the bird once more. Again he couldn’t tempt it back, and again next day the bird had moved on. Once more he asked for help and got it. But this time, when he tried to get the owl, and it refused, he gave up. It was enjoying its freedom, so the hawker allowed it to stay wild.
And how had the dowser known where to look? Well, all he did was concentrate on the bird’s name and soon he gained an impression of where it was, and when he looked at a map, he could see exactly where the creature was sitting.
Personally, as a trained mathematician, with a scientific bent, I find this hard to believe. But I’ve seen John in action, and next course he runs, I’ll be joining it.
And why the birdman? John didn’t want paying for finding the bird three times, but both agreed it could be fun to have the birds there for a church ale, so there he was. And you can see from the kids’ faces, it was worth it!