We could tell about sending pictures from an English village to a far off continent called Australia just by pressing a button marked 'send', and of receiving a reply within minutes. We could tell of silver discs that played music when put into a special box. And of speaking to people thousands of miles away just by talking into a gadget placed close to our ear.
There would be stories of fireworks that could take men to the moon or blow apart a city, and our tales of machines that flew above the clouds would be simply dumb-founding.
We could brag for hours and hours, while those grubby peasants of the 11th. century sat at our feet and gasped, slack-jawed, at our stories and we smiled back condescendingly at their simplicity.
But hang on. If we're honest, you and I are probably as ignorant as swans about how most of these things work. We take them all on trust, a sort of magic, especially when we're told about it by a man in a white coat with a stethoscope or"scientist" pinned to his lapel. That puts us on pretty much the same intellectual level as the skilled labourer of nine centuries ago. There's not much difference between someone who believes a divinely appointed king can cure his scrofula at a touch and someone who practically levitates with delight at the prospect of a royal handshake.
That labourer believed in the reality of sciapods, strange creatures who hid from the sun under the shelter of their one huge foot. His counterpart today is more likely to believe in the reality of "celebrities".
But at least the labourer could build Durham Cathedral.
by Peter Sampson - Saga Magazine October 2010
Durham Castle and Cathedral from a 19th.Century print. Pyrography on Sycamore by R.E.B
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