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account and photographs of Brian Spenceley, official photographer on Owen Beattie’s 1986 research trip to Beechey Island

 [+ Dinneen’s Irish Dictionary (1904)]

#I did not know they re buried the scrap. crying #the terror

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Thinking about the Peglar papers. Thinking about the list of ships he worked on. Thinking about how it’s written in a spiral around the page and going through his life brings you closer and closer to the centre. Thinking about how the spiral ends with the words, “Now in the Terror.” Thinking about the Arctic labyrinth. Thinking about madness and spirals. Do you understand what I’m saying?

#the terror #henry peglar #the peglar papers #cannot cope with this #the level of sort of tragic doom #Now in the terror. now in the terror. I’m losing. my mind

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to the ghost of henry peglar, congrats on writing your poem down 177 years ago!!!

to the actual academic scholars who have studied the pages before me....

so I took the royal museum greenwich's scan of the poem page (which is available online hereeee) and screwed around with its light levels in photoshop until henry's script was darkened enough to see more clearly. then I digitally traced over the darkened letters as best as I could, while also trying to discern his handwriting, and type up how I was reading it & this process took me about a week to get done between like... living my regular day to day life lmao.......

so when it WAS done, the final isabel acheronist peglar papers ["the open C"] transcript seemed a bit different than how I remembered the readily available russell potter transcript going ? (the poem is on the last two pages of that pdf for those of you who don't spend a billion hours a week looking at it btw)

it felt like I was getting more/different information out of it, compared to the potter transcript, which was kind of stressing me out honestly. so THEN I compared mine with barry cornwall's original poem and found more words that matched up? particularly in the second and third stanzas?

so!!!!! almost two hundred years later here's what I've landed on:

April 21 1847 the C the C the open ) ( it grew so fresh the Ever free the Ever free the Ever free without it without it covered it will Run to Earth above Re gions Round I love the C I love the C when I whare & I wish to be with and and silence whare Never go if a sailor should a Come and Make the meek What matter what matter Come Ride Or Sleep there was shores white and of red morn at the noisy hours knew I was ever near I was Born the [...] in felt Unto the Maid the wale the young dolphin ...... yet thes back of gold the Call of gods When I was on Old England Shore I like the young C more and more oftentimes time flew to a sweltering place like a bird thats seeks it mother Case and ware she was bird oft to me for have I loved a young and Hopen C

so then after going thru All Of That, I wanted to have a version of the original poem with parts that Henry did remember clearly highlighted for comparison purposes:

I know it's a popular theory that Henry was writing a dirty parody of the original poem? which if true, is funny as hell. me when i have to write cheeky victorian porn before i die.

But (serious voice) something about that hadn't ever seemed exactly right to me... IN MY HEART it seems more realistic that around 1847 he (and also by extension, the whole surviving expedition crew) were starting to experience confusion / brain fog symptoms from being ummmm quite physically unwell. the lead poisoning/scurvy combo would have severe effects on the brain's ability to function properly, and I started to wonder if Henry was trying to test his memory somehow? So he picked a widely known and popular Victorian era poem about being a sailor to see how much he could recall??? and he then got a little whimsical with it, and wrote in his own words to fill in the portions he couldn't fully recall, because it's his own diary and likely didn't expect anyone else to ever read it, much less have it turn into ONE of TWO surviving sources about the expedition?????

like... idk... this is probably the work of someone in the exact moment as they were starting to realize how bad things were, and then was trying to cope by using poetry. and That hurts my feelings enough as it is, but going through it was also just a very weird and haunting experience....... like, I can recognize all these tiny details in this dead guy's script and handwriting now. and to read his own account of his life in his own words, what stood out to him and what he recalled, what he wanted people in the future to know about him? insane. it literally felt like i was getting haunted by him for no reason. on top of knowing that Someone (#teamarmitage) loved this guy enough to keep his memory protected and safe, even though They Were So Totally Fucked And Going To Die There, unknowing if they'd ever be found again........

SIGHING + SIGHING + SIGHING + SIGHING + CRYING A BIT HONESTLY

anyways thanks for reading this all. I don't think that this is revolutionary franklin expedition news by any means, and idk if there's a better different transcript somewhere that i've not found that already covers all this? but it's consumed a lot of my life lately lol and i wanted to share. because its the anniversary of henry writing it, and it felt...... important....? 💌....????

#I’ve been thinking about this so much recently it’s making me ill #the terror

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#can’t do this #the terror

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Tfw you'll live forever but only in fragments 🙄🙄🙄

#cool epic nice cool nice cool love that cool #the terror

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sorted the 10 most popular pairings in the fandom by rating (plus E and M combined to represent total % of 'NSFW' works)

#data gathering the most noble of pursuits #thank you for your service #the terror

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terror shitposting (35/?)

#brilliant #the terror

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I saw stars behind stars behind stars

As I lay there, listening to the soft slap of the sea, and thinking these sad and strange thoughts, more and more and more stars had gathered, obliterating the separateness of the Milky Way and filling up the whole sky. And far far away in that ocean of gold, stars were silently shooting and falling and finding their fates, among these billions and billions of merging golden lights. And curtain after curtain of gauze was quietly removed, and I saw stars behind stars behind stars, as in the magical Odeons of my youth. And I saw into the vast soft interior of the universe which was slowly and gently turning itself inside out. I went to sleep, and in my sleep I seemed to hear a sound of singing.

— Iris Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea (Penguin, March 1, 2001) (via Alive on All Channels)

#the sea the sea

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ELGAR (1962) | dir. Ken Russell

#serenade for strings being for their anniversary ……………….. burying all of his honours with her ……… #elgar #music

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Lisbon, Portugal, 1998. Photos by Gueorgui Pinkhassov.

#aes

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i’ve said this before but i hate when i’m trying so so so hard to put words to some. fuckin. oh-so-complex emotional experience and then suddenly my brain cuts in like “soooooo what you’re saying is that such a want-wit sadness makes of u that u are much ado to know yourself? right? huh? is that what you’re saying? that you have of late but wherefore you know not lost all your mirth?”

#SCREAMED #Shakespeare

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god help me i’m thinking about “the rest is silence” again

#this was saved in my drafts so I could just look at it and experience the full spectrum of insanity whenever I wanted but actually #it deserves to be seen #hamlet #Shakespeare

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Helena Modrzejewska (1840-1909) as Ophelia in Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'

from National Library / Polona

#hamlet

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One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons ; a natural perspective that is, and is not !

#shakespeare #art

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Illustrations by William Heath Robinson for Twelfth Night (1908).

#mmmm #art #shakespeare

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The original pronunciation of Shakespeare, for @imissthembutitwasntadisaster

#Shakespeare

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100 ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ꜰɪʟᴍꜱ

65/100 — the banshees of inisherin | 2022

dir. martin mcdonagh ༄

#nice #aes #films