We were chatting by the field-side, walking up a steep slope, listening to the mizel on the road, the birds chirruping and settling for the evening, looking out across the valley and thinking of our cosy fire and bed…. And the biggest, deepest oinking Grunt shook us in our bones – the kind of deep that a cinema sound system gives us, you know? A quaking through our bodies grunt, then, as we tried to orientate ourselves and comprehend where this was coming from – another rumbling snort – long and penetrating – coming from a dark shape in the gloaming.
A giant alpha wild boar was just a few meters from us, but thankfully a good bit further down a very ripida hill, inside a hedgerow-ed field.
We literally jumped, but stopped and stared, immobilised. I felt the presence of this big beast, and a few smaller shadows around him – he was simply saying “Hoi!”, and I felt a reciprocal respectful, “Oh, my: ciao” return to him from my oltraconscious: a kind of awed and awkward “it’s just us, Sir! We mean no harm, please don’t hurt us!!” on my part, feeling improvisedly that this disclaimer was necessary: we are in hunting season after all, and all humans at this time possibly feel particularly menacing.
Though I saw only a shadowy figure, it was clear enough to recognise the shape of the beast, and to feel his stance; he was standing in his powerful self, and clarifying that he was in charge, and protecting his people.
But once we had rippled out our humility, he shifted and turned and quickly ran off – a rather dramatic rustling ensuing across the edges of the field below, followed by other smaller rustlings – the rest of the tribe – and, again, thankfully, becoming less noisy as they moved away down the valley.
We, 
We assessed the situation, as we walked (slightly more quickly!) back towards our secure wee rental home, thinking how glad we were to be near the town, and not trapped down below the field, a bit more between forest and trees, more vulnerable – as we had been just ten minutes before! The adrenalin was still streaming through our bodies… and thoughts of how close we had been to the boar branco in our three months here, already. I was glad we were not on our own land, out at the edge of our fields…
We’ve already heard a multitude of wild animals, found a load of spines, feathers, hoof prints, furry bits, laying around on our land. We are more often than not awoken in the night by wildlife, I think Vincent more than me, but there really is quite a cacophany every night – moreso than when we arrived and the drought was still going strong; the area appeared to be strangely absent of noise – just our and the neighbours’ cats getting to know each other.
It is a powerful lesson, being re-immersed in the wildness of Molise, which is one of Italy’s more ‘indigenous’ states; there are wolves and bears here still, and multiple mammals like deer, porcupine (porcospino in Italian, but we were confounded for some time initially, by the word istrica that kept being referred to), badgers, foxes, big birds of prey….
This place is not for the faint-hearted, nor for the nervous city person! This doesn’t mean that we are not in shock and awe at our animal neighbours. They have as much right as us to be there, and we are most glad for their presence, their kind (truly wild animals) having been run out of the major part of Europe.
It is a sign of profound biodiversity, and acceptance by humans of their wilder aspects; wild beings cannot exist where wildness has been conditioned out of the peoples: humans have a tendency to clear and/ or spoil nature, where it is too unpredictable, and therefore outside of their comfort zone.
I want to be uncomfortable - to some degree at least! I want the boundaries of nature rather than the perverse and different-rules-for-everyone-in-the-hierarchy non-sense of culture or cities. It is much easier to know my place, and to respect other beings, when there is tooth and nail, claw and horn to relate to in real time, in right season. I would rather be confronted by a wild boar in the dark than by an articulated lorry, for example.
Our meeting last night reminds me of all the times we’ve been in close proximity to cinghiali since we came to Molise – my having lived for over 15 years in Italia, but never having seen them! Our closer encounters with them have been at least a handful, including another time a huge group of them started running spontaneously a few meters from us, in the wild woods above the town we live near, as we were searching for funghi. We were lulled a bit into a feeling of safety by them always running away from us as soon as we approached – even if they did surprise us a bit, we felt like they were not the kind of folks to unnecessarily approach in aggression.
Last night was different: there was a definitive ‘statement’ made by the alpha male, an absolute uncompromising “Do Not Fuck With Us” was radiating from his potent immensity, and his voice reverberated through my whole being. I sense that he understood something of our presence too; that we are like young, vulnerable animals on a different branch of the food chain. Not that we don’t eat meat, but we are certainly very far from picking up gun or arrow to hunt a large beast like this. And even if we were, he caught us in a recreational moment, not an in-pursuit one!
It felt like there was good mutual comprehension that nothing further needed to be said. We put our proverbial tails between our legs, and trotted meekly back to our cosy pen, whilst he and his extended family galloped back into the wild woods. A well-resolved confrontation indeed.
Meeting with wilder animals coincides with the wilder weather also coming in, and the tent felt too flimsy to support our living on the land there. We are super-glad of modern comforts, cleanliness, ease of organisation. It is a very different thing than being ‘under Nature’ as we were beginning to feel. Though the electric lights are jarring, and we don’t want the elaborate technologies of the fridge with wifi connection (?!), the stove has submitted to function well, and we are warm, dry, well-rested (mostly!) and nourished by more steady kitchen functions like running water and even hot water!
It feels very good to have this place to rest and to gather our thoughts, as we enter into our first winter here. The ‘house’ that we own on our land - piu un diposito che una casa as I say when we’re asked – is far from practical, and we have finally accepted that it is not going to be our main home. As we begin a new rhythm (yet!!! again!!!) of daily moving between rental bothy and land, we can gain some perspective around what we’ll be building and when, what we can harvest, and what needs to be returned to the earth.
The olives are ripe for the picking! However, they mostly are infested with wee beasts and a kind of eaten-away-at-the-fruit rot. It is seeming like it might be only one olive in 50 that might be edible at all. It’d be different if we were doing a normal raccolta for oil, and so could throw in a lot more olives, even if they were wormy. But this is for home curing, and there’s a limit to what can be ingested directly! We endeavour nevertheless, to ascertain which of the 80 trees might have a handful of fruits on them, and we already have a couple of bowls of olives, soaking in heavily-salted waters….
