Tale of love and tragedy on a plate

This cropped up recently in a conversation with some friends who wondered about the identity of the two blue and white birds which are shown flying in the central top area of the design. Are they swallows? Or pigeons? Some kind of song bird perhaps? Love birds maybe? Or no particular species? Certainly, their flying style is peculiar to say the least, though both do appear to have long forked tails.

Most of us are familiar with the famous blue and white willow pattern design on pottery, but few know the story which is supposedly depicted within the familiar picture.

First, it must be said that the picture is not all it seems. Though it appears to contain scenes from an authentic Chinese story, it is in fact the work of Thomas Turner of Caughley, in Shropshire who, in 1779, produced this imitation of the Chinese-style of decoration. This may, however, be his interpretation of a known Chinese story, though the pattern's name comes from the willow tree which features in the picture. Incidentally, the weeping willow is a native of China.

There are several verses which seek to summarise the story and perhaps the most common is this one:

Two little swallows flying high; a Chinese vessel sailing by;

Weeping willow hanging o'er a bridge with three folk, if not four;

Chinese temple there it stands in the view of many lands;

An orange tree and palings strong; a pretty fence to end my song.

Variations of the verse suggest the birds might be doves or even eagles, while the Chinese temple is otherwise described as a pagoda or even a castle.

The Chinese ship is sometimes called a vessel or merely a ship while the tree is either apple or orange. Close examination of any willow pattern design will highlight all these features.

In spite of these variations and despite this being an English creation, there is a story behind this famous picture.

However, I am not sure whether the story is a genuine Chinese folk tale which inspired Thomas Turner, or whether it has been produced to complement his willow pattern design.

Whatever its source, it tells how Koong-Shee was the daughter of a rich Chinese merchant. He wanted her to marry a wealthy man whom he knew well and whom he regarded as highly suitable as a son-in-law. The girl, however, had fallen in love with a poor clerk called Chang who worked for her father.

Even though her father tried to force Koong-Shee to give up Chang, she refused and so her father devised a plan by which he hoped she would forget him.

He forced her to spend her time alone in a small summer house at the end of a beautiful garden. There was little for her to do with her time except to work on her spinning wheel and needlework, but outside was a willow tree and beyond was a fruit tree.

And so it was that the lonely Koong-Shee spent her days without any companion and no-one to talk tom with nothing to do other than her spinning and needlework, or to watch the the trees burst into leaf and then into blossom, or the birds flying by.

Then she received a letter from Chang asking her to run away with him. He had not dared to post the letter in case it got into the wrong hands and her father learned about it, and so he had placed it in a coconut shell and erected a small sail upon it. He placed it in the water and watched it float across the lake towards Koong-Shee. And she saw it.

She managed to retrieve it and read it with delight, then replied in the same way, pushing the coconut shell back across the lake. In her letter, she said she would go away with Chang if he was brave enough to come and take her.

Chang then went gallantly to the little summer house, took her hand and began to lead her away. But while they were crossing the bridge, they met Koong-Shee's angry father. They ran, but he chased them.

Koong-Shee ran ahead with her distaff as Chang ran behind carrying her jewellery box. The father chased them with a whip in his hand. The happy pair managed to outdistance the father and eventually, after a suitable lapse of time, they returned to the summer house to live happily ever after.

But that was not the end. The rich man who had wanted to marry Koong-Shee discovered their hiding place and set fire to it. The lovers could not escape the terrible blaze and both died in the flames, being turned into a pair of turtle doves.

This timeless drama can be seen in the ever-popular willow pattern crockery.

Pint of slape

I came across an interesting dialect word this week, one I have not heard used for this purpose. The word was slape, but it was used to describe a cheap type of beer. Even in recent times, beer drinkers who had little money would buy the cheapest pint in the pub and this was called slape. A pint of slape was considered a good purchase for a hard-up but thirsty chap.

The man who provided me with this word has origins in the East Riding, and I wondered if the word was widely used in that part of the world. I must admit, I have not come across it in that part of the North Riding in which I used to live, though it is fairly close to the East Riding.

None of my dialect dictionaries provides this interpretation of the word.

Instead, they confirm that slape means slippery, though it can also mean polished or smooth. Slape is still widely used in the winter to describe the slippery conditions of our roads due to ice, and it also appears in some place-names, like Slapewath (meaning slippery ford) or Slapestones which I believe is near the Chequers Inn above Osmotherley.

Slape appears in other words too, such as slape-tongued meaning devious or untrustworthy, and shape-shod which often described a horse with new shoes as it skidded upon smooth road surfaces.

A slapescaup was someone without principles while slape-faced meant someone with a shifty appearance or even someone smoothfaced, ie without hair or whiskers.

And of course, there is slake, meaning to satisfy one's thirst, so I wonder if the drinkers' slape is a mis-pronunciation of slake?

Bonomi

I have received more information about the County Durham architect, Ignatius Bonomi. His father, Joseph, was born in Rome but travelled widely as he became a 1eading European Egyptologist. He befriended the Lambton family of County Durham and it was they who provided the young Ignatius with his first building contracts. This placed him in contact with other leading families of the area and soon he was appointed architect for Durham Cathedral (1827-1834).

He was also appointed surveyor of bridges for County Durham and it was this experience which led the Stockton and Darlington railway pioneers to contact him about building a bridge across the River Skerne, with the first stone being laid on July 6, 1824. Bonomi became known as the first railway architect and, doubtless from his skill in building large country houses for the gentry, he was later regarded as one of the most influential people in North-Eastern English history, even if his contribution was later forgotten.

He worked on Durham Castle, Lambton Castle and Durham Cathedral and even built Durham Prison and Courthouse (1810), but his masterpiece is said to be Burn Hall near Croxdale, which Queen Victoria described as the finest looking estate between the Humber and the Tweed.

Hedgehogs

And finally, are hedgehogs scarce? A survey suggests that numbers have plummeted dramatically during the last decade. One figure suggests we might now be down to fewer than one million of these delightful creatures whereas, about a century ago, the figure was into tens of millions. It has been said that hedgehogs mirror the quality of our countryside, a statement worthy of deep consideration.