Dimmit dimmity
An English south-west dialect word for dusk or twilight, hinted at in the opening 'dim...'.
'At dimmity it flew down...
Tussock-lined tract
What formerly passed for a lawn in our garden is now becoming a wild meadow, notwithstanding its random colonization by...
Purple-streaked stems
I never knew that hemlock grew alongside English fields,
Of purple hue, it poisons you, and life to death it...
Yikker or yicker
'A score of hearts under browny-red coats beat faster at the otter's chiding yikker as she picked up her cub...
Pobble, schmobble
'Below the stone setts and pobbles of the wall's apron ...'
Couldn't find this 'pobble' in the 600,000 words of...
Hunger-making smell
An undertow of this animal life-loving adventure is hunger. We must be one of the few species having a significant...
As silent as …
Another simile for silence, here combined murderously with talons sharp as black frost. See other silent similes by Williamson...
I wonder what you’ll do about money
A kindly concern on the part of T.E. Lawrence based on his appreciative reading of Williamson's Tarka the Otter before it...
As pale as …
Henry Williamson is a master of metaphor and simile, and his slim book Tarka the Otter is as densely scattered with...
As large as …
An unusual simile for size, here referring to bubbles. Bubbles feature largely in Tarka the Otter, often blown by the...
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