Our Lady of the Peat Bog*
*A short piece inspired by Jessica Law
The lady of the Bog does not give out swords, that her sisters job, the one who hangs about in lakes. The lady of the Bog hands out ancient half rotten tree roots, from the long-vanished forests, with which to cudgel enemies of her soggy land.
The Lady of the Bog is a tad grumpy about this as she believes her sister got the whole ‘sword that gives you the right to rule’ gig because she is the pretty one While she got lumbered with handing out half rotten tree roots that give you the right to rule the bogs.
She is wrong of course, under all the blacken peat, rotten twigs, and crawling insects in her hair, The Lady of the Bog is truly beautiful, rather than merely ‘pretty’ like her sister in the lake.
Sadly, manifest incarnations of earth goddesses are just as prone to self-doubt and body dysmorphia as the rest of us So remember people, tell your local peat goddess she is beautiful every day, and smile when you see her.
And beat her enemies to death with rotten tree stumps, obviously…
The small piece above is based on a Twitter chain I wrote on a whim in reply to a perfectly sensible post by Author Jessica Law about a peat bog which included this picture of her pointing at a peat bog (for reason I will never understand many of my friends seem to enjoy pointing at things).
I mentioned, as authors who research this kind of thing are apt to do, That peat bogs were excellent places to dispose of bodies and asked whom she was point at… Jessica replied that she was not in fact pointing at the body of a former lover she had thrown in the bog, but she had in fact been hoping a lady of the lake type would appear and give her a sword… A sword struck me as not a weapon a lady of the peat bog would hand out… In my defence, I am weird, what do you expect?
In any regard, hence the short piece above, which was written across a series of short tweets.
To Clarify , Jessica is not in fact the manifest incarnation of a theoretical immortal mythological figure of possibly pre-celt origin known to us now as The lady of the Peat Bogs. She just enjoys pointing at peat bogs, which is perfectly normal and not in any way strange…
Probably…
But if anyone was a immortal mythological figure of possibly pre-celt origin I suspect it would be Jessica Law.
As to why she is pointing at a peat bog on this particular occasion it is because she has a new children’s book coming out, published by Barefoot Books called The Rattlin’ Bog
The Rattlin’ Bog: a rhyming picture book for young children which aims to inspire appreciation for these underrated but vital ecosystems. “Rattlin'” is an Irish word for “brilliant”
You can pre-order it from waterstones with the below link , or at most online booksellers in the UK, US and Canada.
The Passing Place 
I love this.
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I now have a page or two of notes and a story sketched out that is told by a beautiful but earthy woman sat on bar stool about her life as a manifestation of bog spirit. that is forming into a chapter of Scarlet Sometimes (the passing place sequal I am very slowly writing between other projects)
Chapters come to me like this, at random, and then just seem to be right for the book, as if they have been there all along…
This is very much in the vain of the Eskimo at the bar…
So may end up told in the form of pictish pre-celtic oral tradition myth saga
Though being Passing Place one can never tell until one has written it exactly what it may become. It will however, in context, fit perfectly with the wider story of the main character of the new book.
I doubt Jessica has any idea what she has started by having her picture taken pointed at a peat bog and posting it this morning.
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That’s entirely wonderful.
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