Illustrating the River Severn

“The river’s coming down rushed and troubled as if it’s hiding something. Enter Florence Saunders paddling. Harry Kingscott and William George Montague, both with no shoes. Sarah Matthews, epileptic, shouting curses at her mother. And the entire Bedford family arguing. Enter unnamed sailor weeping with Matthias Sydamnasta of Finland, holding a rung of rigging.”   (Oswald, 2009: 20)  ‘A Sleepwalk on the Severn’ by Alice Oswald, has introduced me to a long list of enigmatic and tragic characters. The Finnish sailor, ‘Matthias Sydamnasta’ being the most intriguing. This sailor, more at home on the Baltic Sea but now appearing as an apparition on the River Severn, captured my interest. Oswald’s ‘Sleepwalk’ shows us real people, who lost their lives in the river. I searched for information about Sydamnasta and accessed the ‘Severn Project’, part of the Gloucestershire Archives , gaining an insight to Oswald’s creative methodology. Here under the title ‘Drownings and other deaths’ was the en