Like, WHAT in the actual hell is going on there, right?! Is that not the stuff of nightmares? I saw The Neverending Story as a kid and was thoroughly traumatised by the Swamp** of Sadness, so I'm already a leetle freaked out by floating fens; if I was in a bog that just up and strolled away I would seriously lose my shit. Don't get me wrong, I love floating fens, they're like nature's waterbeds or whatever, but you do have to admit they're a bit spooky. Like, where IS the ground, exactly? And where did Artax get off to...?
Fun side story, I really did have my horse disappear once while doing fieldwork. It was in the prairies, though, so he just ran off after a coyote rather than sinking in despair or some other as-yet unquantified Field Level Hazard. He eventually came back, which I attribute to the immutable bond between a girl and her (borrowed) horse. Or possibly to the oats I filled my pockets with every morning as an insurance policy against just such an occurrence.
I've had some pretty terrifying moments in the field and I'm still going strong, but I think if I got sucked into a floating fen or steamrolled by an Irish Wandering Bog* (assuming I survived) it would put me right over the edge. I'd have to give up fieldwork because I don't think I could come back, emotionally speaking, from being murdered by the actual landscape itself. Like, a cougar or something - fair enough, circle of life, blah blah blah. But if I'm ever a bog body in a back room of some piddling museum somewhere and people are marvelling at how well preserved my fucking chin hairs are, by golly I am gonna be choked.
Anyway, final fun side story for the day is that I am totally going to work despair into a safety form at some point in future. Watch this space for details.
* I have no idea about wetland classification in Ireland.
** Or Fantastica, for that matter.
*** Honestly, half the time it feels like a crapshoot just in Alberta. Most days I'm standing around in my mud boots wondering how the heck I got to this point (figuratively speaking; I have excellent spatial perception). Which is probably how Tollund Man feels, what with everyone going on about his whiskers all day long and him just wanting to be remembered as the hilarious, sexy genius he was in life. So frustrating.
