tale as old as time

The serpentine chain

The Appalachian Mountains are the oldest mountain range on Earth. These mountains are older than the rings of Saturn. They existed before fish, before bones. In prehistoric times when there was one big land mass, the Appalachian Mountains were one with the mountains of Scotland and Ireland, Wales, and even up into Iceland. How do we know? The continents are still drifting apart with plates on either side of the Midatlantic Ridge moving apart at the rate of about 2.5 centimeters per year, or about as fast as your fingernails grow. There is also evidence in a vein of green mineral that runs under the surface of the Earth through this mountain range from bottom to top. This green mineral is called Serpentine. 

The geological connection in these mountain ranges that are now separated by an ocean is unmistakable. But what's even more interesting is the cultural connection. Many people were driven out of Scotland and Ireland during the Highland clearances and the potato famine in the 18th and 19th centuries. They were sometimes given a day to pack and board a ship to America. These people arrived on the Eastern seaboard; took one look around and decided they had to move on. Many took the few belongings they had and traveled West. When they arrived in the vast expanse of the Appalachian Mountains, they felt like they were home. And they were. They found their way right back in the same mountains they had left across the ocean.

The fiddle tunes and the ballads, the ways of farming, the patterns in weaving and quilting they brought with them have been passed down and are still evident in Appalachian culture today. Interestingly, many of the ballads that are still sung in Appalachian communities today have been long forgotten in Celtic Britain where they originated. The people of Scotland and Ireland had the luxury of moving on and forgetting. Here we held on. We held on because the songs and ways of living were all we had to remind us of where we came from. 

Nobody tells the story of the connection between the mountains of Appalachia and the mountains of Celtic Britain better than author, Sharyn McCrumb. Her current project is a collection of essays that capture this connection from prehistoric times until the present day. She has asked me to illustrate this new book, The Serpentine Chain. and I could not feel more honored. We've worked on it for over a year with much of that time spent researching. The project is picking up steam now and I'll share more as it unfolds. 

This painting illustrates a Scottish Blackhouse from the 18th century. One of the essays is about a young woman who is preparing to leave on a ship sailing to America. She lives in a blackhouse like this one built of stone and covered in peat. She is packing her few belongings, probably in a market wallet. She will bring her family Bible, her shoes, and her chatelain with her sewing implements so she can continue her trade in the new world. The bird soaring overhead is a curlew. In Scottish folklore, curlews have long been regarded as messengers. Their calls were believed to warn of storms brewing over the sea. When Celtic saints were lost in the mist and fog while journeying by boat, they trusted the cry of the curlew to lead them safely to shore. In these traditions, curlews are seen as birds of salvation. But they carry a strange duality—folklore also links them to eerie, half-human goblins with long noses and thin necks, said to scamper across rooftops in the dead of night.