Folklore

Comets

Angela Porter2 Comments

“Comets are long-haired stars with flames, appearing suddenly, and presaging a change in sovereignty, or plague, or war, or winds or floods.”
Northumberland Bede, De Natura Rerum c. 725AD

Ancient Beliefs

The word comet comes from the Greek word kometes which means ‘long hair’.  Our ancestors thought comets were stars with hair trailing behind them.

In ancient times, people thought comets were ‘power rays’ of supernatural beings.  They also thought that comets contained fire because they were so bright in the sky.

Some people believed comets brought curses with them.  They believed that comets caused cattle to give birth to dead calves, princes to die,  natural disasters to occur, and disease and pestilence to spread across the land.  Emperor Nero of Rome had all possible successors to his throne executed in order to save him from the ‘curse of the comet’.

Not all people believed comets were bad omens; some believed they brought good fortune.  Others believed that they carried angels through the heavens.

Not so ancient beliefs …

In 1909 and 1910, the appearance of Halley’s Comet in the skies caused panic in cities around the world. Pedlars did a lot of  business selling ‘anti-comet sickness pills’ and umbrellas to protect people from the effects of the comet.

In March 1997, the members of a cult called ‘Heaven’s Gate’ committed suicide by drinking a cocktail of poisons.  They believed that the coming of comet Hale-Bopp was a sign that it was time for them to shed their Earthly bodies so that their spirits would take flight behind the comet and so be taken to a higher plane of existence.

More about Comet Hysteria can be found here.

Halley’s Comet

The Chinese recorded sightings of Halley’s Comet as far back as 240BC.

The famous Bayeux Tapestry shows Halley’s comet shining brightly in the sky before the Battle of Hastings in 1066.  Some people believed that the comet meant that King Harold of England would lose his throne to Duke William of Normandy in this battle, and he did!

Edmund Halley studied comets and developed a theory that the comets sighted in 1531, 1607 and 1682 were actually the same comet.  He successfully predicted the return of this comet in 1758, but sadly died 16 years before his prediction was proved correct.  Halley’s Comet is next due to return in 2061.

Other Cometary Scientists

In 1577, Tycho Brahe showed that comets travelled far beyond the Moon; prior to this, people believed comets travelled in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Sir Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727) discovered that comets travel in elliptical orbits around the Sun.  He also believed comets were members of the Solar System, like the planets, and that comets could return again and again – he was right!  Comets that are seen quite often, every 100 years or so, come from the Kuiper Belt.  Comets that we only see every few thousand years come from the Oort Cloud.

Meteor Showers

Comets leave a trail of debris behind them as they orbit the Sun.  If this trail crosses the Earth’s orbit, then at that point every year for a long time there will be a meteor shower.

The Perseid meteor shower occurs every year between the 9th and 13th of August as the Earth passes through the debris of the Swift-Tuttle comet.  The Orionid meteor shower occurs in October when the Earth passes through debris left by Halley’s Comet.  The Leonids, around 18th November, result from debris from comet Tempel-Tuttle which visits the inner Solar System every 33 years.

Hale-Bopp

On July 23, 1995, an unusually large and bright comet was seen outside of Jupiter’s orbit by Alan Hale of New Mexico and Thomas Bopp of Arizona. Careful analysis of Hubble Space Telescope images suggested that its intense brightness was due to its exceptionally large size. While the nuclei of most comets are about 1.6 to 3.2 km (1 to 2 miles) across, Hale-Bopp’s was estimated to be 40 km (25 miles) across. It was visible even through bright city skies, and may have been the most viewed comet in recorded history. Comet Hale-Bopp holds the record for the longest period of naked-eye visibility: an astonishing 19 months. It will not appear again for another 2,400 years.

Swift-Tuttle

This comet was first seen in July 1862 by American astronomers Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle. As Comet Swift-Tuttle moves closer to the Sun every 120 years, it leaves behind a trail of dust debris that provides the ingredients for a spectacular fireworks display seen in July and August. As Earth passes through the remnants of this dust tail, we can see on a clear night the Perseid meteor shower. Comet Swift-Tuttle is noted as the comet some scientists predicted could one day collide with Earth because the two orbits closely intercept each other. The latest calculations show that it will pass a comfortable 24 million km (15 million miles) from Earth on its next trip to the inner Solar System.

Hyakutake

On January 30, 1996, Yuji Hyakutake (pronounced “hyah-koo-tah-kay”), an amateur astronomer from southern Japan, discovered a new comet using a pair of binoculars. In the spring of that year, this small, bright comet with a nucleus of 1.6 to 3.2 km (1 to 2 miles) made a close flyby of Earth — sporting one of the longest tails ever observed. The Hubble Space Telescope studied the nucleus of this comet in great detail. This is not Comet Hyakutake’s first visit to the inner Solar System. Astronomers have calculated its orbit and believe it was here about 8,000 years ago. Its orbit will not bring it near the Sun again for about 14,000 years.

Some interesting websites about comets and myth.

Comet Mythology from Astrononmy-Education.com

Comets, Meteors & Myth: New Evidence for Toppled Civilizations and Biblical Tales – This is an interesting article from space.com.

Michaelmas

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Hiring, firing and pack rag days

Today is the feast of St Michael the Archangel.  It is one of the four Quarter Days, important times in legal and economic matters from at least medieval times to the late C19th.  Today was a day for the payment of rents and the beginning or ending of hiring engagements.  As these contracts came to an end, many local families were busy packing their belongings and moving home on this day, and it became known as ‘Pack Rag Day’.  Also, local courts were often held on this day.

Michaelmas Roast Goose

It was also a day for feasting, traditionally on goose.  The goose had been fattened on the stubble fields.  Sometimes, these geese were presented by the tenant farmers to their landlords.  It was said that ‘if you eat goose on Michaelmas Day you will never lack money all year.

Blackberries

Blackberries were bad, or even poisonous, after this date.  The exact date varies from Michaelmas to the 10th or 11th October, depending on the area.  The latter dates equate to the 29th September before the change in calendar in 1752.

The reason for the blackberries’ sudden decline was that the Devil interfered with them in some way on this date – putting his foot on them, wiping his tail or club on them, spitting on them, urinating or defecating upon them.

Election of the Lord Mayor of London

The Lord Mayor of London is the head of the Corporation of London, the authority that governs the City of London.  This is not to be confused with the Mayor of London, a post created in 2000 for the head of the Greater London Authority.  The Lord Mayor of London is a position that dates from around the year 1192.

The Lord Mayor is elected on 29 September, presents himself to the Lord Chancellor at the House of Lords in October for royal approval, and finally takes office on the second Friday in November.

The Lord Mayor is still an extremely important person in the nation, and in many situations is second only in precedence to the monarch.  As well as all the ceremonial duties, the Lord Mayor chairs the Court of Aldermen and the Court of Common Council and serves as Admiral of the Port of London, Chief Magistrate of the City and Chancellor of the City University.

  1. Steve Roud – The English Year
  2. Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud – A Dictionary of English Folklore

Folklore, a Fall and Storytelling

Angela Porter1 Comment

Yesterday evening, I travelled by train to Merthyr Tydfil where I was giving a talk.  My lil Smartiepants is still poorly; I’m awaiting a call back from my mechanic to get her fixed.  Anyways, on the way out I grabbed ‘The Folklore of Discworld’ by Terry Pratchett and Jacqueline Simpson and thoroughly enjoyed reading it again during my journey there and back again to Merthyr.

‘Some of the things in this book may well be familiar, and you will say ‘but everybody knows this’.  But the Discworld series, which on many occasions borrows from folklore and mythology, twisting and tangling it on the way …’

And that is what I love about Mr. P – the way the familiar is just twisted enough to fit into somewhere else, with humour and a sense of ridiculousness, and often with quite a deep perception of how things work on our world, and plenty of chuckles along the way.

‘…there are some things we shouldn’t forget, and mostly they add up to where we came from and how we got here and the stories we told ourselves on the way.  But folklore isn’t only about the past.  It grows, flowers and seeds every day, because of our innate desire to control our world by means of satisfying narratives.’

And don’t we live, or re-live, our lives by stories, by narratives?  When we relate to others what we have done, what we have experienced, what ‘they’ said, or share our thoughts and memories we are relating a story.  I know in my day job I often teach in a story-telling kind of way, and I try to tell enjoyable and memorable stories.  I love to hear other peoples’ stories too.  Stories about us will be passed down through the generations, changing subtly with each re-telling, just as folklore always has done.

And folklore and stories have power, more so than the mundane reality of the truth.

‘But there is the truth, and, then again, there is The Truth, in the face of which truth can only shrug and grin.’

People prefer, generally, to believe the fantastic, and to add mystery to something that is ordinary.  And I can relate an example of this in action.

A few years ago, while walking across the old Severn crossing, I fell and hit my temple on the ground.  A silly accident, I was bending over my bicycle to see if I could sort out the gears that had stuck in one place, next thing I know my face had made intimate contact with the tarmac of the path.  This old bridge is bouncy, especially when heavy lorries shudder their way across, and I think two must have crossed near me at the same time and set up an extra big bounce that unsettled my balance.  Once I’d recovered my composure, I could feel my eye swelling and I decided to ride my bike back to my car, load it in and then get home asap, which I did safely..

That afternoon I ended up in A&E having a head x-ray as my eye had swollen shut, I had a wonderful black eye beginning to develop, but the emergency phone advice service insisted I go get my head checked out in case I’d managed to crack my skull.  I hadn’t, but by the next morning I had a black eye that was really black and the bruising extended from my eyebrow to below my cheekbone!  It was an absolute corker!

Monday morning came, no pain, but the eye was even more spectacularly black than the day before.  I had to go to school, and on my arrival the headteacher, chair of governors and other staff were concerned that I shouldn’t be there.  I explained that it looked a LOT worse than it was, that there was only a little bit of pain if I touched my temple ‘just there’ and I had had x-rays and was fine.

When I went to my class to do registration, they were shocked with my appearance and asked what was happened.  I told them the truth – the fall, the trip to A&E.

Did they want to believe it?  No.  One 16 year old lad was convinced I’d been out ‘clubbing’ in Cardiff and had got involved in a fight (me? fighting? no way!!! I’m way to gentle and kind for that … I’m very peace-loving).  I said, no, I don’t ‘do’ night clubs, nor do I fight.  He wouldn’t have it, so I went along with him, making up answers to his questions.

“Who hit you?  A man or a woman?  Did you know them?” he asked.

“A man, over six foot tall and built like a brick out-house, and I didn’t know him,” I replied.

“What did you do?  ”

“I hit him back.  I knocked him out.”

“You knocked him out? Really?  What happened to him.”

“Yes. Really.  He’s still in hospital I think.”

“Wow.  Were the police there?”

“Yes, they were.”

“Did they arrest you?”

“No, they saw that he hit me first and I just pushed back in self-defence.  They let me go.  And he’s not pressing charges as he doesn’t want it known he got knocked out by a woman”.

“Wow.”

By the end of the week, there were all kinds of stories circulating about how I got my black eye.  I’d been ambushed by a pack of ninjas who I’d fought off but one got a lucky kick in at my eye.  I’d got shot by an arrow as I was taking part in a medieval battle re-enactment.  A Viking had caught me in his head as I was axe-fighting with him.

I had told each and every pupil the truth, that I’d fallen and hit my head.  But not one of them wanted to believe the mundane truth.  The wanted The Truth – a story with excitement, mystery, amazing powers or luck or magic.

The first lad accused me, on his last day of secondary school, of lying to him.  I said I never had, wondering what he was on about.  He said I’d never had a fight in a club (duh!).  I reminded him that I had told him the truth, but it was too ordinary for him to want it to believe it to be true.  He’d helped make up The Truth and preferred to believe that.  He accepted that!

So, there lies the power of narrative, or stories, of words … it can be used for entertainment, for fun, for good things.  However, it is used by others for manipulation, deception, to gain power over others and to do bad things.  And it can change, and be changed, depending on the point of view of the storyteller, their cultural background, their own beliefs and morals … and we can change our own stories too, which is an entirely different set of ideas!

We may not be able to change the events of our lives, but we can change how we view them, how they affect us, how we feel about them and our reactions to them.  In doing so we can change our reactions to similar circumstances that we come across now and in the future, so changing our ‘story’.  It’s not easy, it takes a lot of effort and a lot of courage to face these situations, to face our reactions to them, and then to view things in a different way, something I’m learning about in counselling.  It’s not easy as the inertia of The Truth as it applies to such situations is great, and the truth may not be apparent as all we have our our memories, emotional responses that memories can trigger in present/future experiences so that we are no longer bound by our old, negative, automatic thoughts and responses.  It’s not about making everything in the past lovey-dove, it’s about finding a way to deal with life without automatically blaming ourselves for other peoples attitudes, responses, actions.

A curious custom – sin eating.

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The newly restored grave of the last sin eater in England, Richard Munslow,  is to be celebrated with a church service – BBCNews.

“The Last Sin Eater (2003)”is a film starring Heath Ledger, one I enjoyed watching the once, but has not been watched again even though the DVD resides in my collection.  It’s not the only film with this title, “The Last Sin Eater (2007)” featured this old custom too.

Harvest customs

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Harvest Wheat (c) Angela Porter 2010

Pre-amblings

This is no way a definitive account!  I wrote/collated the main body of it last year when I was due to give a talk at a ‘harvest supper’ in a church, and I thought it would be appropriate to give a little of the history and customs of Harvest, particularly in Wales.  I’m not quite sure how the talk was received, as it certainly wasn’t the usual ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ or ‘Silver Birch’ that they are used to.  I am, if nothing else, more than a tad anarchic when it comes to my choice of ‘readings’ under such circumstances!

Harvest Customs

People have been giving thanks for the harvest since farming first began in the Neolithic, and the custom is still thriving today in many countries of the world.

In 1912, Alfred Williams, Wiltshire, wrote:

“The in-gathering of the corn-harvest is by far the most important feature of the farm year, especially where there is much arable land, or perhaps it may be all corn in some places, as on the Downs, for instance.  If the weather is wet in hay-time and the crop spoiled that may not matter very much; but in the harvest, that is truly tragic!  Who does not deeply grieve, apart from the monetary loss involved, to see all that is left of the beautiful corn blackening and rotting in the fields, under the dark rainy skies of October and November, as is sometimes the case, utterly useless for anything but litter and manure, and the ground too wet and sodden to admit of collecting it for that purpose even?  It seems as though you have lived the year for nothing then; that all the bloom and sunshine of the spring and summer were mockery; that Nature brought forth her beautiful children but to destroy them.”

In centuries past, the whole life of the Nation of Britain and its agricultural economy depended on the harvest.  Even when the harvest had lost some of its economic importance, it still had a deep psychological effect on rural communities.

Autumn Wheat (c) Angela Porter 2010The word harvest comes from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘haerfest’ which meant autumn. According to the Venerable Bede, writing in the seventh to eight centuries, September was known to the pagan Anglo-Saxons as ‘Haleg-Monath’, which meant Holy Month, and it can be surmised that this was derived from the religious ceremonies that followed the harvest. However, no records of these ceremonies survived into Bede’s time.

In the Christian calendar, harvest traditionally started at Lammas tide (August 1), when the first corn of the new crop was made into bread and taken to church to be blessed. It finished at Michaelmas (September 29).

The harvest was the time of the agricultural year that the farmer needed the full cooperation of his workers.  Thirteenth Century Manorial records show that it was the custom that tenants were paid with refreshments to harvest the lord’s crops, and that in some areas there was a communal meal at the end of the harvest, and these are the earliest surviving records of this practice.

The workers knew that a successful harvest was needed for the economic well-being of the community, and a bad one would harm their chances of employment the following year.  During harvest, their wages doubled as the amount of work doubled.  Many customs and usages developed over the years which helped to keep the workers amused, gave further financial rewards, or celebrated their successful harvest.  The idea that these customs are direct survivors of pre-Christian times, of beliefs in corn goddesses and vegetation spirits, is not supported by the documentary record.

Prior to mechanisation, the mutual aid that existed between farmers and neighbours in the community was vital to the reaping of the crops. The fedel wenith, or reaping party, drew on the pattern of Cymhortha (from cymhorthu – to help), a characteristic of Welsh medieval society. Small-holders would help each other and also the large farms, in exchange for various things they had to give, like the loan of transport or a few rows of potatoes. In this way a system of goodwill and co-operation was built up within the community.

As soon as the last load of grain had been brought into the barn, the reapers and other workers were treated to a feast – the Harvest Supper – provided by the farmer for whom they had worked. In the eastern counties of England this feast was known as a Horkey Supper, while in Wales it was known as ffest y pen, cwrw cyfeddach or boddi’r cynhaeaf.

Whitlock says that in Wiltshire, the golden years of the Harvest Supper were during the second half of the 19th century and suggests that they had largely died out by the turn of that century. The suppers seem to have been quite lavish – or at least they seemed so to the farm workers who attended them. Food was plentiful. In Sussex caraway seed cake was traditional and was served to the workers throughout the harvesting because it was believed that the caraway seed provided the workers with strength and increased their loyalty to their employer, thus ensuring that they could not be enticed away by a neighbouring farmer offering higher wages. As well as seed cake, pumpkin pie and large apple turnovers called “Brown Georges” were served at Sussex harvest suppers.

In Carmarthenshire the supper included a dish called whipod which included rice, white bread, raisins, currants and treacle. In nearby Cardiganshire in 1760, a farmer reported that the feast following the reaping of his rye by about 50 neighbours consisted of ‘a brewing pan of beef and mutton, with arage and potatoes and pottage, and pudding of wheaten flour, about 20 gallons of light ale and over twenty gallons of beer’. After the meal, there was usually dancing to the music of the fiddle, with a plentiful supply of beer and tobacco.

Also in Wales, was the custom known as the caseg fedi, or harvest mare. When all the corn had been reaped except for the very last sheaf, the sheaf would be divided into three and plaited. The reapers would then take it in turns to throw their reaping hooks at it from a set distance and the one who succeeded in cutting it down would recite a verse:

Bore y codais hi,
Hwyr y dilyn hi,
Mi ces hi, mi ces hi!

[Early in the morning I got on her track,
late in the evening I followed her,
I have had her, I have had her!]

The other reapers would then respond with:

Beth gest ti?

[What did you have?]

and the reply was:

Gwrach! gwrach, gwrach!

[A hag, a hag, a hag!]

It was seen as an honour in Wales to be the one to bring down the caseg fedi, and the man who did so was often rewarded.

The plaited sheaf presided at the Harvest Supper, and was often hung in the house to show that all the corn had been gathered in. It could also, in one part of Wales, be put on the cross-beam of the barn or in the fork of a tree.

The ‘caseg fedi’ may have represented the fertility of the harvest condensed into the final sheaf. In one part of Wales, it was recorded that seed from it was mixed with the seed at planting time ‘in order to teach it to grow’. In other parts of Britain, this last sheaf was buried on Plough Monday, the first Monday after Epiphany (6 January) so that it could work its magic on the growing corn. It is possible that this association of the gwrach, a creature known to steal food, with the cutting down of the last sheaf, represents the triumph of the human forces of agriculture against the chaotic or malevolent forces of nature represented by the gwrach.

Once the grain harvest proper and the Harvest Supper was over, the women could begin gleaning, i.e. scouring the fields for the leftover ears of corn which they could claim and keep for themselves. In many places they elected a Harvest Queen to oversee the gleaning whose role was to ensure that everyone got fair shares. This she did by regulating the start and finish of work either by ringing a hand bell or by giving the word when the church bells rang. The Harvest Queen also had the right to initiate newcomers to the gleaning field by tapping the soles of their boots with a stone.

Today, most churches and many schools hold a service of thanksgiving for the harvest and hold their Harvest Festival on the first Sunday following the Full Moon closest to the Autumn Equinox. However, this custom only became popular in Victorian times.

In 1843 the Reverend R. S. Hawker had the idea of holding a special service on the first Sunday in October in his Cornwall parish. The idea caught on and soon it became the custom to decorate churches with fruit, vegetables and flowers and to sing the harvest hymns written for the occasion.

Harvest has now become a time when people come together to give food to the needy, or to raise money for worthy causes. Thus Harvest still commemorates not just the gathering of the fruits of the Earth, but also the community cooperation that exists and the desire of our own spirits to help worthy causes and to spread the abundance of gifts of all kinds to wherever there is a lack. It is also a time when we can reflect on the successes of our own endeavours, and reap the fruits of our own labours and count our blessings for all that we have in our lives.

  1. Steve Round – The English Year
  2. Sue Dale-Tunnicliffe – TES Magazine, 24 Sept 1999
  3. Raven – White Dragon Website
  4. Hillaire Wood – Harvest Customs in Wales
  5. Ronald Hutton – The Stations of the Sun

Memories and sloes

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Memories

I’ve mentioned this before, but memories of my father include his wine making and beer brewing hobby.  Most of what he created, to my taste buds, was vile, but others seemed to relish it.  The only brew of his I liked was a raspberry wine that still tasted of raspberries and was quite sweet.  He’d spend hours and hours in his wine-shed (literally a concrete block/brick shed that was attached to the house) filtering and bottling and labelling.  And tasting it.  Never forget the tasting it.  He’d often spend much of the day tiddly from it!

Tea would be delivered to the shed door, empty mugs whisked away.  Scottish bagpipe or marching military band music would ooze out of the door, alerting everyone to what he was up to.  Occasionally, the music would stop and he would come out to declare he was feeling woozy.  We’d feed him some sugary snack suitable for a diabetic and then feed him properly, he’d recover and off he’d go back to his brewing.  You couldn’t get him to stop and eat when he was in the middle of something, nor would he eat any food delivered to him.

He had a brewing passion for years, and before it consumed his waking moments he would spend his days working on fixing and welding cars.  Tea would be left on the wall, empty mugs removed.  We often said he’d pass away while under a car and the only way anyone would notice was that un-drunk mugs of tea would line up on the wall.  As it was, he passed away in hospital from Alzheimers’, cancer, arthritis, diabetes and high blood pressure.  And that is an entirely different story.  And there are many tales of my father and his blinkered missions to do things or collect things from nature or his DIY diasasters.  He meant well, though he was very proud and couldn’t be told there was trouble ahead if he carried on doing what he was doing.

Perhaps I’ll relate tales and memories of my father in this blog.

Sloe, fruit of the Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa)

Sloe comes from the Old English slāh. It is the fruit of the blackthorn or sloe tree that has a pale-blue waxy bloom on its surface.  Sloes ripen in the Autumn and, in Britain, are traditionally collected after the first frosts in October or November.  The fruit is used to make jams and preserves, and they are used to make sloe ‘gin’ – a liqueur made by infusing sloes and sugar in gin, vodka or neutral spirits.

Straight blackthorn stems have traditionally been made into walking sticks.  Shillelaghs, blackthorn sticks, were favoured as weapons in faction fights in C19th. Ireland.  Commissioned officers of the Irish regiments of the British Army carry blackthorn sticks.

Blackthorn is generally considered unlucky to bring indoors, and in some areas of Britain it meant a death would follow.

The flowering of blackthorn is said to coincide with a spell of cold weather.  In areas it was considered wise to plant no tender plants outside until the blackthorn has finished flowering.   The best time for sowing barley was when the blackthorn flowered.  Two country rhymes follow, the first from North-East England and South-East Scotland, the second from Gloucestershire.

When the slae tree is white as a sheet
Sow your barley, wither it be dry or wet.

When the blckthorn blossom’s white
Sow your barley day and night.

In Sandwich, Kent, each incoming Town Mayor is present with a blackthorn stick.

In Herefordshire and Worcestershire, a wreath or globe of Blackthorn twigs would be scorched on a fire on New Year’s morning and then burned in a wheatfield in the furrows and its ashes scattered over the wheat. Then a new globe or wreath would be made and hung in the farmhouse kitchen ready for next year. It was believed that this ritual would rid the field of the devil. In a similar vein, Blackthorn would be scorched and hung up with mistletoe for good luck.

  1. Roy Vickery – Dictionary of Plant-Lore
  2. The English Cottage Garden Nursery

Catching up, customs, celebrations.

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Catching up…

With the return to work last week, research and blogging has had to take a back seat, especially as my evenings and Saturday have been busy.  I noticed I’ve missed two days of  note in the calendar!

Two days of work and I’m shattered.  Mind you, that tends to happen being  a teacher.  The long summer break gives me the time to rest, relax and almost totally de-stress.  Unfortunately, it takes mere minutes for some of the good work to be undone.  Keeping up with my meditation regimen when I rise and before I sleep, and at lunch or during preparation time during the day usually helps me to keep the escalation of stress to a minimum, but it doesn’t eliminate it totally…not yet.  Recognising the automatic thoughts and reactions and then working to change them to more healthy versions is slow going, my mind has had a lifetime to reduce this self-talk to a susurrus that I have to be very cunning to clearly hear.

Isn’t susurrus a wonderful word?  It sounds like quiet, secretive whisperings.  A wonderful onomatopoeic word!  I like alliteration as well as onomatopoeia!

3rd September – Cromwell Day

On this day, The Cromwell Association commemorate his death with an open-air service in front of his statue outside the Houses of Parliament, London, where they lay a wreath there.  Only members of the Cromwell Association may attend, but the public can see and hear the ceremony from the public pavement.

70013 Oliver Cromwell is a Britannia Class (BR Standard Class 7) steam locomotive.

3rd September – Merchant Navy Day

Merchant seamen have long felt that their service’s significant contribution to the war effort has long been undervalued and it is one of the aims of the Merchant Navy Association to raise the profile of the Merchant Navy and celebrate its importance to Britain, both in the past and the present.  As part of this mission in 2000 they declared 3rd of September to be Merchant Navy Day.  This day was chosen as it also commemorates the sinking of the unarmed merchant vessel the SS Athenia on 3 September 1939, the first day of the Second World War.  All nineteen crew and ninety-three passengers were lost.

4th September – Abbots Bromley Horn Dance

On the Monday following the local Wakes Sunday (i.e. the first Sunday after 4 September, or Old St Bartholomew’s Day), the village and surroundings of Abbots Bromley in Staffordshire, England, UK, are visited by a unique set of dancers.  The team consists of six men, each carrying a splendid pair of reindeer antlers, plus a Fool, a Maid Marian (played by a man), a hobby horse, a bowman (who twangs a bow), a musician and a triangle player.

At 8 a.m., they set out from the village church and perambulates the parish, visiting key houses, farms and other places and at each stop they perform their dance.  It is thought to be unlucky if they do not visit your house or neighbourhood.  Around 8 p.m. they return to the village and perform their final dance in the street.

The horns are kept in the church when not in use.  They are genuine reindeer horns, mounted on wooden heads, with a handle protruding from below to allow the dancers to carry them as they dance.

There is a lot of speculation about the origin of the custom.  Many have connected it to a fertility ritual, an ancient ceremony to ensure successful hunting, or of some common right or privilege in regard to the chase, but none of these ideas is supported by evidence.  It may be that the hobby horse is older than the horn dance, and hobby horses were used in the C16th to collect taxes and dues owed to the lord of the manor; whether the horse made the collections or whether it was there to entertain and sweeten the process of money-gathering is not known.

4th September – Barnet Horse Fair

This horse fair was chartered in 1588 and for centuries was one of the busiest livestock marts in the region, although Barnet’s real fame lay in horse-racing which drew large and unruly crowds from London until it ended in 1870.  A mere shadow of its former self, Barnet Horse Fair is now held at Greengates Stables on 4, 5 and 6 September, unless one of those dates is a Sunday, in which case it continues on the following day.

Fruitful art?

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Arty things

Well, I’ve just scanned in and added a pen and watercolour wash illustration of crab apples to yesterday’s post.  I got the bramble one done yesterday, though I’m not at all sure about using acrylic paints.  I do like the vibrancy of colour they give, but I also like the subtlety of watercolours too.  And working out how to use black ink with the colours so it looks ‘grown up’ and not childish/cartoony to me is a bit of a challenge, and I’m not at all sure that I’m succeeding.  But it is making for interesting art experiments I suppose.  Not sure what next though …

Awake too early

I woke up at stupid o’clock this morning, mind rushing, unable to settle to read, to meditate or anything.  I think that may be to do with today being the last day of my summer holidays and the return to work is really looming large.  I’ve had a rough few years at work, battling with stress/depression and other things, and though I am getting better, there’s still a way to go.  I don’t quite know how things will pan out – I’m doing my best to be positive about things, but the pressures involved in spending time with people, the noise, the fuss, the bustle, and that’s only the first day without the pupils back!  I do want to change careers but I have no idea what to … I’d like to work with my creativity, something that involves writing, art, imagination, working with people I can relate to, where there’s a level of respect and warmth would be good, where there are people I can bounce ideas off …exactly what that would be, I don’t know, but when I’m ready to make that move all will be apparent I’m sure.

I had an interesting time last night where I was showing some of my art to friends at my healing group.  They were pressuring me to frame my art, hang it, sell it, take it to galleries and hotels and libraries and craft centres and and and to display and sell it.  In the future I may be able to do that, but I find it so hard to show my art to people I know (unless it’s through the relative anonymity of t’interweb) and the thought of promoting it myself is … painful.  I found myself becoming quite angry and agitated as they kept repeating what I should do … and I tried to explain why I can’t do it…the financial cost of exhibiting is prohibitive for me at this time in my life.

Anyone know an agent who would represent me, or any other suggestions that don’t involve me pushing way too far outside my comfort zone?

A new month

Today is St Giles’ Day. St Giles died around the year 710.  During his lifetime he founded a monastery in Provence, near Arles, and that is about all that is known about his life.  The medieval myth makers, however, provided a colourful set of incidents for his life, including an explanation of how he was given the money to found the monastery.  When he was living as a hermit he had pet doe who provided milk for his nourishment.  Unfortunately, the King’s huntsmen loved to chase the doe and eventually they trapped her in the dense thicket in which Giles lived.  The doe was protected by harm by Giles’ prayers but he was wounded by a huntsman’s arrow.  The King recognised Giles’ holiness and bestowed many gifts upon him which he used to found the monastery.  Giles’ was also reputed to have remarkable healing powers as well as the ability to get a pardon for people’s sins, no matter how great or small, by praying.  These tales contributed to his fame, and Giles was widely popular in medieval England and many churches were dedicated to him.  His feast day was conveniently placed in the year for outdoor events, particularly local fairs, feasts and revels. [1]

  1. Steve Roud – The English Year

Apples and Brambles

Angela Porter6 Comments

I’ve chosen apples and brambles for today’s blog as they always seem to go together.  I noticed the blackberries on the brambles ripening during my jolly around the Valley Lines last week.  I’ve not been blackberrying in years and years, most probably not since I was a child.  I remember the abundance of blackberry pies, blackberry and apple crumbles, blackberry jam, apple jelly and frozen blackberries in our home.  With six children, there were plenty of us to gather them!  There were also the trips to collect whinberries (blueberries), as well as visits to ‘pick your own’ farms to harvest strawberries, raspberries and loganberries.

In later years, it would be my father who collected crab apples and blackberries to make his wines – along with sloes and young nettle leaves, young oak shoots, rosehips, rose petals, dandelions, and anything else he could brew.  I never appreciated his brews – all except the raspberry wine he made one year which was sweet and still tasted of the fruit – though others thought they were wonderful.  I do remember spending long hours writing out labels for his wine; I’ve always had nice handwriting and dabbled with calligraphy in the past too.  Now that’s something I’d forgotten about.

A few years ago a friend suggested, quite strongly, that I should collect sloes and make sloe gin, as well as to harvest the fruits of nature.  Well, I’ve not done so yet…

There are many recipes on tinternet and in books for blackberries, apples and so on, so I’ll not repost them.  Mind you, I could say the same about superstitions, myths, herbalism and the like, but I’m pulling together information for myself from many diverse sources, perhaps for future reference or just because I’m interested in it in the here and now, I don’t know.

Crab Apple (Pyrus malus)

(c)Angela Porter 1 Sept 2010The crab apple tree is native to Britain and is the wild ancestor of all the cultivated varieties of apple trees.  Apples of some sort were abundant before the Norman Conquest and were probably introduced into Britain by the Romans.  Twenty-two varieties of apples were mentioned by Pliny; there are now around two thousand cultivars.  In the Old Saxon manuscripts there are many mentions of apples and cider.

The Encyclopedia of Bartholomeus Anglicus, printed in Cologne around 1470, has a chapter on the apple:

Malus Appyll tree is a tree yt bereth apples and is a grete tree in itself…it is more short than other trees of the wood wyth knottes and rinelyd Rynde.  And makyth shadowe wythe thicke bowes and branches; and fayr with dyurs blossomes, and floures of swetnesse and lykynge,; with goode fruyte and noble.  And is gracious in syght and in taste and vertuous in medecyne…some beryth frute and harde, and some ryght soure and some ryght swete, with a good savoure and mery. [1].

The apple has been used as a symbol for sin, sexual seduction, beauty, love, sensuality, love between two men.  In art, Venus is often shown holding an apple as a symbol of love.    Apples also feature in many fairy tales, Snow White perhaps being the best known example where a poisoned apple puts Snow White into a deep sleep.

In the Old Testament of the Bible, it represents man’s fall; in the New Testament it represents man’s redemption from that fall.  The phrases ‘the apple of one’s eye’ and ‘a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver’ both come from the Bible.

The larynx in the human male is called the ‘Adam’s Apple’ because of the folk-tale about the Forbidden Fruit sticking in Adam’s throat and causing a bulge.

Heracles, the Greek hero, as part of his Twelve Labours had to travel to the Garden of the Hesperides.  His task there was to pick the golden apples growing on the Tree of Life that could be found at the centre of the garden.

Eris, the Greek goddess of discord, was disgruntled after she was excluded from the wedding of Peleus and Thetis.  To retaliate, she tossed a golden apple that was inscribed with ‘Kallisti’ – for the most beautiful one – into the wedding party.  Hera, Athene and Aphrodite, three of the goddesses attending the party, claimed the apple.  Paris of Troy was chosen to select the recipient of the apple.  After being bribed by both Hera and Athena, Aphrodite tempted him with the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen of Sparta.  He awarded the apple to Aphrodite and in doing so indirectly caused the Trojan War.

Another Greek myth concerns Atlanta who raced all her suitors in an attempt to avoid marriage.  She outran all but Hippomenes (also known as Melanion) who defeated her not by cunning but by speed.  Hippomenes knew he could not win in a fair race, so he used three golden apples, which were gifts from Aphrodite, the goddess of love, to distract Atlanta.  It took all three apples and all of his speed, but Hippomenes was successful, winning the race and Atlanta’s hand.

In Norse mythology, Iduna, the goddess of Spring and youth, nurtures an apple orchard in Asgard.  Every evening she would feed an apple to the gods and goddess in order to keep their youthfulness.

In Celtic mythology, Conle receives an apple which feeds him for a year, but alsogives him an irresistible desire for fairyland.

The mystical Isle of Avalon, the famed placed of eternal rest for Celtic heroes, including King Arthur, literally means ‘apple land’ or ‘apple island’.

Isaac Newton, according to popular legend, came up with the theory of universal gravitation after observing an apple falling from a tree.

Wassailing the orchard trees on Christmas Eve, or the Eve of the Epiphany, is still practiced in Britain.  Herrick mentioned it among his ‘Ceremonies of Christmas Eve’:

Wassaile the trees, that they may beare
You many a Plum and many a Peare:
For more or lesse fruits they will bring,
As you do give them Wassailing

The Wassailing ceremony consisted of the farmer, his family and labourers going out into the orchard after supper, bearing with them a jug of cider and hot cakes.  The latter were placed in the boughs of the oldest of best bearing trees in the orchard, while the cider was flung over the trees after the farmer had drunk their health in some such fashion as the following:

Here’s to thee, old apple-tree!
Whence thou may’st bud, and whence thou may’st blow.
Hats full!  Cap full!
Bushel – bushel bags full!
And my pockets full too! Huzzah!

The toast was repeated three times, the men and boys often firing off guns and pistols, the women and children shouting loudly.

Roasted apples were usually placed in the pitcher of cider and were thrown at the trees with the liquid.

A mixture of hot spiced ale, wine or cider with apples and bits of toast floating in it was known as ‘lamb’s wool’.  The name is derived from the Irish ‘la mas nbhal‘ meaning ‘the feast of the apple gathering’ (All Hallow’s Eve), which is pronounced something like ‘lammas-ool’ and this became corrupted into ‘lamb’s wool’.  Each person who drank the spicy beverage would also take out an apple, wish good luck to the company, and eat it.

It was believed that if an apple tree blossomed out of season then misfortune or death was foretold.

If the Sun shone through the branches of apple trees on Christmas Day, or Old Christmas Day, then there would be an abundant crop of apples.

Peel an apple so that the peel remains in one long strip.  Throw the strip over the shoulder to form the initial of a potential husband on the ground.  This is an activity that is performed particularly at Hallowe’en.

To indicate the direction of a lover’s home, flick an apple pip into the air while reciting  ‘North, south, east, west, tell me where my love does rest‘.

Children were warned that Awd Goggie and Lazy Lawrence were nursery bogies that protected orchards and unripe fruit.

The proverb ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away’ seems to have been first recorded in the form ‘Eat an apple on going to bed and you’ll keep the doctor from earning his bread’.

Bramble or blackberry (Rubus fruticosus)

Blackberry (c)Angela Porter 31 Aug 2010The shoots of bramble have the ability to root where they touch the ground thus forming an arch.  Sufferers from boils, rheumatism and hernia were passed through the arch formed in this way.  Sometimes, a child suffering from whooping cough was passed under the arch seven times.  The cough was then thought to leave the child and stay within the bramble.

In the Highlands of Scotland, people used a length of bramble shoot entwined with ivy and rowan to ward off evil spirits.

Eating blackberries after the first frost was considered unlucky. In the UK, superstition says that blackberries should not be picked after Michaelmas (29 September), or the 10 October (Michaelmas by the old calendar).  It is said the devil has claimed them by urinating over them, spitting on them, stamping on them or wagged his tail over them and so leaving his mark on the leaves.  The link with Michaelmas is because this feast celebrates the battle when Archangel Michael drove Satan out of Heaven and hurled him down to Earth; perhaps the joke is that he landed in a bramble bush, but this is not clear.

Note to self…and other reflections

More art to do!  Yay!  Got some ideas … maybe … need to work on my more stylised, black-line and colour work …using acrylic inks or paints for the vibrancy of colour …

I’m so glad I started a blog, regardless of whether anyone reads it or not.  It’s given me a focus to both research, write and be inspired to create art.

If I’m honest I’ve been seriously lacking that focus and impetus for a long while thanks to my emotional state … I do tend towards depression, though I do my best to ameliorate it by engaging in activities that give me pleasure, but lately nothing much has done that … I’ve felt like I’ve been going through the motions, with no real purpose to them.  Not that everything needs a purpose, and doing something for the sake of the joy or contentment it brings is purpose enough.  However, I’ve been struggling with allowing myself to do pleasurable things, to feel the joy they bring … and perhaps the recognition of this this morning will help me move forward with my therapy, and in allowing myself to feel joy and pleasure.

As I look back at earlier entries, I can see how my approach is slowly evolving in terms of how I present information.  I’ll eventually work out a consistent ‘format’ that suits me in terms of colours of ‘quotes’, illustrations, references, hyperlinks.

  1. Botanical.com
  2. Apple symbolism on Wikipedia
  3. Roy Vickery – Plant-lore
  4. Bramble on HubPages
  5. Steve Roud – The Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland.
  6. Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud – A Dictionary of English Folklore.

Dew, dew or is it Duw, duw?

Angela PorterLeave a comment

Morning dew and duw…

This blog title is a kind of a pun.  In Welsh, Duw means god.  The expression ‘duw duw’ is often used to mean ‘well I never’, ‘well,well’, or ‘dear me’, though it is often used in the place of a swear word.

After a chilly night, I woke to find the first dew of late summer covering the cars in the street.  As if any other reminder of the rapid approach of Autumn is needed.  I do love dew, the way droplets of it cling to spiders webs and sparkle in the early morning Sun like jewels; the way the wetness intensifies the dusty, dry colours of late Summer.

Dew and folklore

Dew gathered on St Bride’s Day (1st February) was considered to be particularly good for the complexion.  Bathing the face in dew early on May Day (1st May) Morning was excellent for the complexion, helping to whiten the skin and eradicate freckles. [1]

Samuel Pepys, on 28th May 1667, recorded the following in his diary:

After dinner my wife went down with Jane and W. Hewer to Woolwich in order to a little ayre, and to lie there tonight and so to gether May dew tomorrow morning, which Mrs. Turner hat taught her as the only thing in the world to wash her face with, and I am contented with it.

His wife obviously believed that any time in May would do.

May dew was also occasionally reported as generally medicinal, especially for weak limbs.  Also, some claimed that you could ‘make a wish’ while gathering it [1].

Some dewy weather proverbs [2, 4] are:

When dew is on the grass, rain will never come to pass.  When grass is dry at morning light, look for rain before the night.

If three nights dewless there be, ’twill rain you’re sure to see.

With dew before midnight, the next sure will be bright.

If you wet your feet with dew in the morning, you may keep them dry for the rest of the day.

Dew beliefs from Launceston, Cornwall include

…a swelling of the neck can be cured by going to the grave of the latest young person of the opposite sex before sunrise on the first of May (Beltane, ‘May Day’) and gathering the dew by passing the hand three times from the head to the foot of the grave.  The dew is then applied to the neck… A child weak in the back may be cured by drawing him over grass wet with morning dew on each of the mornings of May first, second and third. [3]

Herse was the Greek goddess of the plant-nourishing dew.  Her parents were Zeus and Selene [5].

  1. Steve Roud – The English Year
  2. Dew Folklore
  3. Gandolf.com
  4. The Old Farmers’ Almanac
  5. Theoi Greek Mythology