Frost insinuates the iron hard earth, and the stoney outrops like cabouchon jewels, glint in the lowering sun. Boney as long-ago skinned knuckles, the worn tread of the Ancient pass, offers up its snaking spine before me. Beneath my feet are the imprints of a millenia of journeying, a layered time cake of footfalls and wanderings, occasionaly glimpsed in a moment at twilight, or whispered on the wind when she barrels down the hillsides. In the wilderness of the heart, the Pass is a naked and vulnerable route. As darkness seeps across the raw and jagged outcrops, Shadows of travellers past call their dogs to heel, and gather the herd. A fragment of voices, a spark of torch and candle, as the procession of ages keeps vigil beside the horse and cart bearing the body of a loved one, the final walking of the pass, the artery that crosses the high body of the fells, becomes the silver thread, that when the destination is reached, is severed.