The Lightning Bolt (13 page)

‘We've got five of the charms now, though,' Emilia said exuberantly, ‘and friends who've promised to help us.'

‘And maybe we can find that lawyer fellow the Graylings girl married,' Luka said. ‘A lawyer could be just what we need!'

Emilia thought of the last of the charms, the butterfly in amber. It meant change and transformation, Maggie had said. It made her heart leap with hope.

The cart crested a high hill and came to a crossroads. There was a way-stone, with a big letter carved so deep into it they could see it even in the dark, and an arrow pointing to the north. Emilia had never learnt to read but she had seen this letter on way-stones before. It looked like a man sitting down, at ease, his legs stretched out
before him. It stood for London, she knew, where everyone was so rich they rode about in carriages, instead of walking on their own two feet.

She smiled.

The Weald is an area of hilly country south of London, most of it in the county of Sussex. Small streams have cut valleys into the landscape, and a belt of iron-bearing rock can be found near the surface in many places.

Its particular geography means that iron has been made in the Weald since Roman times. Iron ore could be mined from the rock, the trees of the forests could be cut down to make charcoal, and the numerous streams were dammed up and fitted with huge waterwheels to provide power for the bellows and hammers of the forges and furnaces.

In Stuart times, the Weald was the main iron-producing region in Britain. At the outbreak of the Civil War, it was the first area to be secured by the Parliamentarians, because of the importance of the iron industry in the production of guns, cannons and cannonballs. At this time English
cannons were the best in the world, due perhaps to the moulds which were made from the local Sussex clay.

The iron foundry at Horsmonden was the largest in the Weald. It was owned by John Browne, and he and his two hundred workers produced guns for the army and the navy. In 1638 King Charles I visited the foundry to watch a cannon being cast. It was a forty-two inch long, bronze four-pounder, and is now preserved in the Tower of London.

During the Civil War, the Horsmonden foundry provided weapons for both sides of the conflict, and also sold them overseas, even to England's enemies. The foundry's blast furnace dominated the valley, being at least three storeys high, and constantly at work. In 1669, Edward Browne wrote ‘the flames rush forth with such violence . . . that they are seen about the country at ten miles distance'.

The foundry closed in 1685, and all that remains to show where it stood is the Furnace Pond, once the largest in the Weald, and the local pub, now called the Gun and Spit.

Today, the ruins of furnaces and forges, scatterings of slag, and the ponds that supplied the water for bellows and hammers are dotted all over the landscape of the Weald. In some places only the names remain, like Upper Forge Pond, Hammerwood, Gun Green, Furnace Farm, Smithy Wood, Minepit Lane and Cinder Cross, all meaning nothing unless you know the history of the Weald.

Apart from its guns and hops, Horsmonden is also known for the gypsy horse fair which has been held there on the second Sunday in September since the twelfth century.

This story appears in
British Folk Tales and Legends
– A Sampler
, collected by Katharine Briggs, and published in 1977. She cites her source as WH Barrett, who heard the tale from an old fen-man, Chafer Legge, in 1900 and collected it for his
Tales from the Fens
in 1963. I have no idea if it is true or not. I like to think it is.