This is something strange that happened to me a few years ago and that I would like to share with you. I think you will agree that it is a rather amazing story.
I used to regularly take my dog out for a walk, and there was a large common close to where I lived, where I could let him off the lead and he used to really enjoy being able to run free.
For those of you who don’t live in the UK, “Common Land” was originally land set aside for the “Common People” or Peasants to farm or to graze their animals. Today the Commons that remain are open spaces, more like parks, where you can take walks in the woods, or down by the lakes and rivers, depending on where you are.
My dog was a German Shepherd crossed with a Border Collie, and he used to love to chase birds and squirrels, and when he had the chance the occasional rabbit too. If we went by a lake or river, he loved to jump in and chase the ducks, and they used to swim just far ahead of him, leading him on further and further, until he was worn out.
This particular common where I used to go walking was fairly large, and at one end had the remains of what had once been a Roman camp, although you couldn’t see anything these days, not unless you knew it was there. My step-mother had been there years ago, and had been able to see some figures though. She had clairvoyant powers, and was actually a fairly well known medium in the UK at one time.
At another point on the common was the start of an ancient spring, where the water comes out of the ground, and as long as there hasn’t been a dry summer, the water still flows out from the source, and the spring winds it’s way through the woods and across the common.
But I digress from the story that I was going to tell you, however I wanted to give you a bit of a background to this magical place where I enjoyed many dog walking sessions, which allowed me to clear my head, watching my faithful friend sniff around and just enjoy doing what dogs do when they are given the opportunity.
On this particular day, it was around Easter time if I remember right, we had walked into the common from where I parked the car, and were headed into the woods beyond where the stream begins to flow, when my dog stopped and cocked up his head.
I stopped too, wondering what he had seen, and there about 20 feet in front of us, to the side of the path that we were taking, was a rabbit.
The rabbit was just sitting there, not afraid, and what was really amazing was that my dog, who normally would have been off in a shot, just stood there, and it was almost as if the two of them were communicating with each other and had some sort of empathy. It was really odd.
Then my dog actually walked slowly up the the rabbit and sniffed around it, wagging it’s tail, and I couldn’t believe it, but the rabbit just sat there, unafraid and didn’t move. I couldn’t believe that this was happening.
We stood like this for what must have been a few minutes, with my dog stiffing at the rabbit and wagging it’s tail like crazy, and then the rabbit turned it’s head as if to say “follow me”, and loll-oped off into the woods. My dog followed, walking behind it, and I just followed on behind the two of them, wishing I had my camera with me, as nobody would believe what had just happened.
The rabbit didn’t take a well trodden path of course, it bobbed through ferns and gorse bushes, followed by my dog, trotting behind, while I had to take a slightly different route in places where I would have just got my clothes snagged up on the prickles.
I could keep track of them though thankfully, because I could hear the rustling of the leaves from my dog.
They kept on going for a few hundred yards, heading deeper into the wooded section, somewhere that I hadn’t ventured before, because there were no paths through that section, so it was truly off the beaten path.
I lost track of them for a moment, as they had got ahead of me, and I could no longer hear the rustling of my dog moving through the brush, so I stopped to see if I could hear where they were.
All I heard was complete silence, except for the light breeze blowing through the trees above, and making a few leaves move, but I thought I heard voices, just quiet whispering voices, rather like the leaves were making the sound of words. It was something like “Genoa deh-itis” or that’s how I remember it. It was really weird.
This strange whispering sound went on for a few minutes, and I thought, this can’t be just the noise of the wind, as it sounded so odd, “Genoa deh-itis” it sounded like.
The silence was then suddenly broken as my dog trotted out of the bushes, wagging it’s tail, and really excited to be back with me. He let me know as he often did that he wanted to go, and so the two of us went off through the woods, found our way back to a section of the woods where we sometimes walked, and continued on.
With it being April already and with Easter coming up this weekend, I suddenly thought back to this amazing day, and even now I will never forget the sounds that I heard from deep in the woods… “Genoa deh-itis”, “Genoa deh-itis”.
I couldn’t figure out what the whispering voices were saying, but maybe, just maybe, if you say these words aloud to yourself, you can figure it out… “Genoa deh-itis”, “Genoa deh-itis”.
This story was originally published by me on Yahoo Voices.
