Clare Bryden. The Depth and Breadth of Kith and Kin, The Porch Magazine, 3 September 2024. Available on The Porch website.
From his latest Substack post, here is The Porch editor Gareth Higgins: “The English writer Clare Bryden has written an extraordinary reflection for The Porch on kith and kin. That’s a term that used to be familiar to me, but when I read Clare’s essay I realized that I had missed the depth of possibility contained in those words.”
In due course I’ll publish the essay here, but for now here is an excerpt below. You can read it in its entirety on The Porch website. and subscribe to The Porch Substack for much more.
Kiithth kiithth kiithth rustle the grass heads, framing the fine sky as I lie back, cradling my head. Kiithth kiithth… It’s sometime halfway through one of those long-in-the-memory summer holidays, and my brother and I are hiding out again in our den in the middle of the field. We have sacrificed some of the grass to fashion a hollow and heaped it up to give us ticklish comfort. It towers above, still swaying. Kithth kithth…
Kith. To be found in kith and kin. And in Modern English almost only to be found in kith and kin. Kith is one of a group of “fossil words,” a term linguists use to describe those archaisms that are preserved only inside a phrase or idiom.
Imagine a wet and windy afternoon hunting for fossils at the base of the cliffs at Lyme Regis on the south coast of England. Among the preserved remains of ancient lizards and perfect ammonites, you find a smooth stone that intrigues you. You crack it open and pry it apart to reveal its surprising contents: a word. A precious gem-word, which seems spiky at first, but as you continue to look, it draws your gaze into its depths and offers hidden riches.
