Caves fascinate me. Ever since I visited Mother Shipton’s Petrifying Cave as a child – a place where things are literally turned to stone – caves have been places of wonder, where I could be both thrilled and terrified in equal measure.
Caves are under our feet, hidden in the landscape, refuges, and escape holes, canvases for the earliest art in the world, and inspiration for much magic and myth – as well as metaphor. Otherworldly in their beauty, decorated with stalactites, glossy with marble calcite, caves barely change over millennia. Here, rivers run through secret channels, waterfalls tumble into unseen pools, and for those who are brave enough to venture underground, whole new kingdoms are waiting to be discovered.
But there are also tales of extraordinary caverns that were discovered and their locations somehow forgotten; and I wondered how that might happen.
My story then is about one of these Lost Caves.