Blue
Beads
mismatched
and mysterious
a
sea bead from a midnight pool
a sky bead strung with music of the air
played on the lyre of wind-whipped trees
twin notes of evensong caught in glass
or
two wild sloes
demure Madonna blue
intriguing
as Ile Agois’ cragged slope
where they were discarded
someone’s
then no one’s
now pinned here to charm us
This poem was written as part of a 2016 project by Jersey Heritage, in association with Jersey Festival of Words, when 25 local writers were asked to write a label for an object in the Jersey Museum, with a limit of 60 words.
I walked towards Ile Agois one very blustery day in January to get as close as possible to where the beads were found - thought to once be an early Christian monastic site. I got a great sense of how challenging it would have been to live there - including for the valiant members of the Société Jersiaise Archaeology Section who climbed and camped there to dig and investigate the site, and who found the blue beads.
The Ile Agois is a tidal stack which lies off the north coast of Jersey in the Parish
of St Mary. Although at one time a part of the headland which encloses
Crabbe Bay on
its eastern side, it is now separated from the mainland by a narrow
gorge 12m wide. The
island rises to a height of 76m above sea level and has an area of 417
square m. Three
of its sides are sheer but the fourth, the south-western, slopes steeply
down to the sea.
A loose, black acidic soil overlies the bedrock which is comprised of
two granite types, a
coarse and a fine grained, intersected by numerous small dykes. A dense
growth of
blackthorn covers much of the upper surface of the island. Access to the
Ile Agois is
difficult and may be gained only at low tide by descending the coastal
cliff, crossing the
rocky beach and climbing the south-west face...
...Two beads were discovered in association with a lense of charcoal...
...near the base of the north end of the west wall to Hut 1.
The beads are of blue opaque glass, and are drum shaped with fluted
edges. They
measure 5mm in height by 2mm in circumference. The perforation, which is
very fine, is
through the long axis of the beads.
They conform to no known parallels of pre-historic or Roman beads.
Neither do
they closely resemble Anglo-Saxon types except perhaps those recovered
from late-Pagan
Saxon burials of the pre-seventh century.
Margaret Finlaison & Philip Holdsworth - Excavations on the Ile Agois, Jersey ABSJ Vol 22 1979
