I began with "Chevrefoil" - the title of a lai of Marie de France. Chevrefoil is an altered version of the French word "chevrefeuille," which translated to "goat leaf" (their term for honeysuckle). Like most of Marie de France's works, it focuses on an adulterous relationship - one between Tristan, a knight, and his uncle's wife, Iseult. Tristan and Iseult's love has been told in many stories, but Marie de France is unique in that she sets the story in South Wales, rather than Lyonesse.
This leads us to "Lyonesse." I had never heard of Lyonesse before, but it turns out that it is a land mentioned in many folktales, which is said to have "sunk beneath the waves" long ago. It is believed that the tales of Lyonesse demonstrate an amazing "survival of folk memory of the flooding of the Isles of Sicily and Mount Bay near Penzance." Its Cornish name, however, derives from the Cornish name for the Seven Stones Reef, which was the tragic site of the wreck of the Torrey Canyon.
This brings us to "SS Torrey Canyon." When the Torrey crashed in 1967, the oil tanker was the "largest vessel ever to be wrecked" up to that date. She spilled 110,000 tons of crude oil along the coast of poor Cornwall after striking Pollard's Rock on the Seven Stones Reef. In an effort to contain the spill, the oil was lit afire - multiple times, as the tides and waves continued to put it out.
This leads us to "Containment Boom." A containment boom is essentially a big floating barricade used to contain spills in water. The goal is not only to contain the spill to protect nearby areas from pollution, but also to keep it concentrated in hopes of recovering as much as possible with vacuums and skimmers.
 |
| Photo of a containment boom |
No comments:
Post a Comment