A Trip Through English History

(Part 2) (Part 3)

Words from this post by @valarhalla

Words from this post by @valarhalla 

"may this great plague pass by me and my friends, and restore us once more to joy and gladness"

Feeling a powerful kinship with this scribe from 1350 today.

OTD (Christmas Eve), 670 years ago

[For example, a note on p. 36 gives the text a definite fourteenth-century date and a Mac Aodhagain provenance to this manuscript:

It is one thousand three hundred and fifty years tonight since Jesus Christ was born, and in the second year of the coming of the plague to Ireland was this written and I myself am full twenty one years old....and let every reader in pity recite a ‘pater’ for my soul. It is Christmas Eve tonight, and under the protection of the King of Heaven and earth I am on this Eve tonight. May the end of my life be holy and may this great plague pass by me and my friends, and restore us once more to joy and gladness. Amen. Pater Noster. Aed, Mac Concubair mac Gilla na Naem, Mic Duinnslebe Mic Aodhagain wrote this on his father’s book the year of the great plague.

The following year he wrote at the top of the same page:

It is just a year tonight since I wrote the lines on the margin below; and, if it be God’s will, may I reach the anniversary of this night many times. Amen. Pater Noster.

Translation by R.I. Best.]

Thank you for transcribing the image! I always forget to do that.

It is just a year tonight since I shared this... may we reach the anniversary of this night many times.

From MS 1316, Trinity College Dublin:

You can see Aodh Mac Aodhagáin's notes at the top and bottom of the page.

[second image is a photograph of the original page that was previously transcribed. Most of the text is fairly large and arranged in two vertical columns. Small notes run across the top and bottom of the page, as well as tiny annotations in amongst the larger text. End ID.]

Welcome to the 2019 Chepstow Mari Lwyd Festival!

What is happening here? WELL…

I still don’t really know. But here is the best possible explanation for this nonsense, penned by @becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys, to whom I am forever grateful for both inspiring me to come down to Wales because of that post, and for meeting me there and shepherding me through a potentially traumatic experience featuring Death By Horse Skull Demon. Instead, there was cider, cheese, and festive cheer!

To anyone who thinks British culture is all tea and crumpets and bowler hats, know THIS:

There is also cider and cheese.

Now resting in a tiny box in one of the drawers, this magic fish predates Queen Victoria. Over 200 years old, it has been carefully kept and repaired - which may have skewed the accuracy of its fortune telling...

The neatly written label tells the story of how it was used to detect bad behaviour: "Magic fish which undergoes contortions under influence of warmth & moisture of the hand. Used by donor's father c.1818 to detect culprits among his children through its behaviour on the palm of the hand. They greatly dreaded its power of detecting the guilty."

#christmas

Letter from the my great grandmother’s brother describing the Christmas Truce of 1914, found in a collection of old family letters.

No. 8149, Private W. Brightwell, D. company, 1st Norfolk Regiment, 2nd Army Corps, British Expeditionary Force

My dear Ethel,

Just a few lines to you in answer to your most kind and welcome letter I received on 4th february. Hoping you are in best of health as it leaves me quite well at present. I have had a bad cold on my chest but I am glad to say I am getting rid of it now we are getting some better weather. You say you wondered how I spent my Xmas. Well I shall never forget that Xmas as long as I live. I spent it in the trenches. It was a sharp frosty night Xmas eve. When daylight came, I was all white with frost just like Father Christmas. The Germans were singing all night in their trenches, German carols, and parts of English songs (what they knew of them). We were only 200 yards from them. About 10 am they signalled to us that they wanted to talk to us. They sent one man towards and we sent and we sent one to meet him and they said they wanted a three day truce. He said if you don’t fire on us, we won’t fire on you. We agreed. The Germans started getting out of their trenches so we got out as well and shook hands with each other. The gave us cigars and cigarettes and we gave them some of ours. They were pleased; they would have given us anything. We exchanged pipes and knives and sang songs and played football with them. Some of them could speak english so we managed to understand each other-it looked alright, seeing Germans and English chasing a hare about with big sticks. We buried a poor French soldier who had been lying for weeks in front of our trench- the Germans helped dig the grave and one German and one English man lowered him down to rest. They were good chaps, they kept their word and were very little trouble to us after that. I reckon you will hardly credit this. I couldn’t myself. I had to pinch myself to see if I was awake. It was a treat to walk about and not be fired at.

Now my dear Ethel, I do not think there is anymore I can say at this time. Give my best respects to your husband- I wonder if we shall ever meet. Now I shall conclude with heaps of love from your affectionate

Brother Will.

XXXXXXXXXXXX”

Took my beaft stickers to The Met Cloisters to meet their real medieval counterparts.

Artworks Featured:

(stickers for sale in my shop if you want a beaft to take to the museum)

the first of the celtic nations enters the ring will they steal the whole competition???????

my mum was googling for an article about why everyone in the lord of the rings film is white (like to be clear she was annoyed by this) and the google ai was apparently like “everybody in the lord of the rings is not white. gandalf is grey.”

and to you, my honored mutuals, i bequeath my most treasured possession:

this screenshot of the word “anime” in a late 12th-century bestiary

never fear, honored mutuals! any who missed out on the apportioning of my treasured anime screenshot shall be awarded:

this bird from a different medieval bestiary who calls you gay!

I would like to add another gift to the pile for all of you:

Sometimes you gotta keep it simple:

submitted by @kingfucko 💙💚

Anna Maria Garthwaite (English, c. 1688-1763). Gown, ca. 1740s. Brocaded satin in coloured silks. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, T.264-1966. Given by Mrs Olive Furnivall.

Clevedon Iron Age Gold Torc, Clevedon, Somerset 250-75BCE, The British Museum, London

Hollow, decorated torc terminal and twisted wires from a multi- strand torc. Found in the 19th century, these may be parts of the same torc.

The terminal is ornamented with raised crescents and pellets, defined by areas of basket-weave pattern, similar to the Sedgeford and Snettisham gold torcs.

love the end of the green knight poem when bertilak is like “wasn’t that a fun excursion and a wonderful trick! now, what do you say, gawain? join my wife and I for one last feast?” and gawain just says no and never returns

The Zennor Mermaid Chair in the church of St Senara, Cornwall, 6th-12th century

Long ago, a beautiful and richly dressed woman occasionally attended services at St. Senara’s Church in Zennor, and sometimes at Morvah. The parishioners were enchanted by her beauty and her voice, for her singing was sweeter than all the rest. She appeared infrequently for scores of years, but never seemed to age, and nobody knew whence she came, although they watched her from the summit of Tregarthen Hill. After many years, the mysterious woman became interested in a young man named Mathey Trewella, “the best singer in the parish.” One day he followed her home, and disappeared; neither was ever seen again in Zennor Church. The villagers wondered what had become of the two, until one Sunday a ship cast anchor about a mile from Pendour Cove. Soon after, a mermaid appeared, and asked that the anchor be raised, as one of its flukes was resting on her door, and she was unable to reach her children. The sailors obliged, and quickly set sail, believing the mermaid to be an ill omen. But when the villagers heard of this, they concluded that the mermaid was the same lady who had long visited their church, and that she had enticed Mathey Trewella to come and live with her.

The parishioners at St. Senara’s commemorated the story by having one end of a bench carved in the shape of a mermaid. The famed “mermaid chair” was the same bench on which the mermaid had sat and sung, opposite Trewella in the singing loft.

There are many reasons as to why there might have been a mermaid carved into a chair at a church, as mermaids represented two things to medieval Christians. They were thought to be a symbol of lust, due to their connection with the Greek goddess Aphrodite, and they were also thought to be an illustration of Jesus Christ, because of their fish-human form, for, just as mermaids are both human-like and fish-like, Jesus can be both human and divine.

Tudor-esque dress, 1890. House of Worth

Oh. My. GOD!

step 1: get sexy

step 2: let no one hit

step 3: be disgustingly well-educated

actually hold the phone if you wanna talk about 'bear who's forest got demolished' local landmarks

this FOUR THOUSAND YEAR OLD standing stone in a housing development in Liberton dfhfdgdg