Wherever I travel in
the future, I’m going to carry around a leafy celery root. Also called celeriac, the
vegetable helps you find directions, locate the best restaurants, and learn
things about local history.
We used a celeriac to these ends this fall when
visiting Malmesbury, one of many market towns in Wiltshire and one that
actually had an active celery selling market on the day of our visit. But we didn’t start our day there.
As per our routine, we began
with a walk through the countryside. The Malmesbury tourism office encourages
this approach with a map that not only guides you to foot paths and bridges,
but also provides detailed histories of the sites along the way.
Our walk started at the
Town Hall and led down to a pool of water known as Daniel’s Well. Daniel, we were told by our map, was the
Bishop of Winchester from 704 to 755. One of those austere monks who liked to test
themselves with painful experience, Daniel would stand in the streaming water
at this place all night long to cool his passions.
Not having any passions
that I wanted to cool, I took care on the flat stones crossing the stream and
headed over the fields, through the gates, and past other sites that included
the Avon Mill, a condo building that had a long and semi-prosperous history as
a silk mill. Just a few steps up the
street, you go by a tablet dated 1694 at St. John’s Almshouse for the poor, a
building that also had a long history, but not tied to silk garments. 
For a small town,
Malmesbury foments history and links to intriguing people ranging from
philosopher Thomas Hobbes to Elimer, the 11th century monk who made an early
attempt at human flight sailing 500 feet on glider wings. He broke both legs but has inspired intrepid
dreamers and drinkers in the area for a thousand years.
The centerpiece of the
town is the ancient Abbey which holds the effigy and remains of Athelstan, the
first King to conquer and rule all of England.
All of this and more is
recounted in the notes to the map and other tourist brochures. But we also learned a lot by talking to
people on the street and in the shops, and this is where the celery root comes
in handy.
Michele had been
looking for a celeriac bulb and was delighted to see a healthy-looking specimen
in the Malmesbury stalls around the old Market Square where we wrapped up our
walk.
It is a weird looking
bit of produce: a big bulb with a long leafy stem on top. Not wanting to carry a grocery bag for the
rest of the day, she plopped the thing into her backpack. It looked like she was carrying around a
small tree and was hard to ignore, and it changed our experience of Malmesbury.
For the rest of the
day, people we encountered in shops, in the market, and in the museums felt
obliged to comment on the green bush growing out of my wife’s back, and this
led into lively conversations about where we were from and what brought us to
Malmesbury. People volunteered personal suggestions of things to see and do and
places to eat. One man told us that he
was not only a Canadian but from New Brunswick and knew the area of Michele’s
family roots well. A woman in the market
gave us some apples seemingly for no other reason than as a gift in return for
a laugh and a chat with a woman who had the outward aspect of a giant squirrel
with a green tail.
Earlier, during our
walk, we had a similar exchange with a friendly, approachable couple who were
keen to tell us the story of Hannah Twynnoy and to make sure we saw her
tombstone in the churchyard. According
to local lore and the poem on the stone, Hannah died in 1703 as the first
person to have been killed by a tiger in Britain. She was working at a pub next to
a menagerie and was, as per the legend, prone to taunting the animal. Evidently, the tiger's cage wasn't as strong as it could have been. 
The couple described
the location of her tombstone with its chipped lower right edge perfectly, and
we found it though it would have been easy to miss without this guidance.
Recalling our exchanges
with this couple and the other people of Malmesbury that day, I still think
carrying a leafy celery root is a good idea when travelling. But it appears that there is something else
that induces friendly and helpful conversations, is easier to transport, and
costs less.
