{"id":113,"date":"2019-11-17T14:53:53","date_gmt":"2019-11-17T14:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=113"},"modified":"2019-11-17T16:43:45","modified_gmt":"2019-11-17T16:43:45","slug":"the-cefn-wen-farm-hoard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/the-cefn-wen-farm-hoard\/113\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cefn Wen Farm Hoard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Inspiration for the story<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Ben it was who found them, whimpering and circling the freshly turned sods like he was shepherding  our black Welsh  Mountains. ..   sheep that is. The slope in that field is treacherous for a tractor. Ben was my rescue service in case I turned turtle.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thinking it over, leaving it to the last of the day was\nfoolhardy after 10 hours ploughing. But I can’t resist the evening light\nslanting over the hedges, particularly after an electrical  storm, with the brown damp smell of the land\nand the sun catching the earth’s drops of moisture, throwing it back in rainbow\njewels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dad had always said that this field held more promise than\nbeing left to lie fallow. Just plough a portion of the field and across the\nslope so that the ridges would make the water \u201cwalk off not run off\u201d-\nanother  from Dad’s tomes of witty\nfarming wisdom. That way you  stopped all\nthe richness of the top soil cascading down to gather at the slope bottom.\nWhat’s more Mystic Meg had  this morning\npronounced that today would be  \u201ca day to\nremember…. when all your dreams come true.\u201d A pot of gold at the rainbow’s\nend will do me I thought. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The decision was made. \nAfter the rain stopped, dividing the field into a rough nine equal\nparts, we started on the exact central 5th <\/sup>segment.  I saw the rainbow’s end but not the boulder\nit had targeted. On impact the tractor tipped. I just had time to register a\nglance from the setting sun charging the objects, – a consistent rosy red\nrather than the expected full spectrum of Welsh rain.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ben barked and barked till the Romanian labourers cropping\nin the next field came over and extracted me from underneath the overturned\ntractor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nine weeks in hospital, then 3 months residential rehab,  gave me more than enough time to\nresearch.   Three  Middle Bronze Age  twisted gold torques, -chokers to you and\nme,- probably  belonging to a local\nchieftain, three or four thousand years ago. Incredibly delicate and finely\nwrought. Of course, it was Treasure Trove; we couldn’t keep our pot of\ngold  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t plough much these days.  Manning the field entry-booth for all those\nmetal-detecting -machine toting enthusiasts is good enough for me, and much\nmore financially rewarding  than farming.\nBrexit or No Brexit we are now independent of EU subsidies! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My reading preferences have changed. Mystic Meg  is replaced by Treasure Hunting\nMagazine.  Guess we are all looking for a\nslice of immortality. That’s why they come, hoping to find something and have\nit named after them.  The money and\nreading the story of the   \u201cCefn Wen  Hoard\u201d at The Welsh Museum of National Life\nis good enough for me. Dad would have liked it too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ben it was who found them, whimpering and circling the freshly turned sods like he was shepherding  our black Welsh  Mountains. ..   sheep that is. The slope in that field is treacherous for a tractor. Ben was my rescue service in case I turned turtle.   Thinking it over, leaving it to the last of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[51,53,54,52],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2","category-november","tag-cefn","tag-farm","tag-hoard","tag-wen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-1P","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":174,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions\/174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}