A Trip Through English History

Captain from HMS Pinafore v Major General from Pirates Of Penzance fight

Captain "a finer captain don't walk the deck" Corcoran vs Major General "cannot tell at sight a mouser rifle from a javelin" Stanley?? Really?

Nocturnal, brass, gilt. Handle and pointer in form of sea serpents, English, late 17th or 18th century

This navigation tool, known as a nocturnal, was used to calculate time at night. Similar to an astrolabe or a sundial clock. A pointer, much like a hand on a  clock, determines the time at night based on the position of the North  Star in relation to another constellation, such as Ursa Minor (the  Little Dipper). But it is quite possible that this is a showpiece.

This came to me in a fever dream.

underrated lotr moment is gandalf’s “let me risk a little more light” so the fellowship can see the ruins of dwarrowdelf.

idk what it is idk how to put it into words but like. such a quick and quiet little moment of, recognizing we’re all in constant mortal peril but while we’re here you should still witness the wonders of the world. while we are here, though it may be on a life-threatening quest, you deserve a little tourist moment. soak it in, the great city that remains long-abandoned and nearly forgotten, the grand pillars that outlived the memories of those who built them. so much of love and life is fleeting in this dark age. but the scraps of it can still be found. the remnants are still here, and even with significant risk they deseve to be beheld.

And Howard Shore went “Do it, Mithrandir, I’ve got your back.” 

#and when you consider that this comes after gimli talked at length about the glory of khazad-dum and the place it holds in their history #and then got there to find it abandoned and shattered and filled with goblins and the bodies of his kin #it's this moment of almost like... affirmation? #no you were not wrong to speak of it this way; yes it is as glorious as you have heard and more #countless dwarves fought and died for this place; it is worth the risk to see what they died for; why they believed it *worth* dying for #gimli is the only dwarf on the quest and in that moment the rest of the fellowship get to see that the creations of his people #are EVERY BIT as spectacular and awe-inspiring as those of elves and men #the movies did gimli wrong in a lot of ways but they NAILED this bit @arafinwes

Elizabeth Russell was just as fiercely territorial in London, where she maintained a mansion in the upmarket district of Blackfriars. In 1596 the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, the playing company to which William Shakespeare belonged, was facing a crisis. The lease for the land where the acting troupe’s main venue, the Theatre in Shoreditch, stood was about to expire. Facing an uncertain future, the impresario James Burbage, who had created the Theatre, sunk a fortune into a new venture: a playhouse in Blackfriars. It cost a colossal £1,000 to purchase and renovate the property.

Unfortunately for Burbage and the players, the theatre was just over 120 feet from Elizabeth’s doorstep. Neither she nor her neighbours had objected to a previous theatre nearby, which had operated under the guise of a ‘private’ rehearsal space for the queen’s choristers (even though the paying public had attended performances there). But when she discovered that a ‘common playhouse’ was about to open in her elegant neighbourhood she was furious.

Galvanising her local community into action, Elizabeth got up a petition against the opening of the Blackfriars Theatre. Among its 30 signatories were Richard Field, Shakespeare’s first publisher, and Sir George Carey, the playing company’s patron. Neither dared object to Elizabeth’s anti-theatrical uprising.

just learned today that there was a german monk who was obsessed with witches and women having sex so he wrote an entire book called the hammer of witches where in one part he describes in detail that witches have the ability to make people’s penises disappear and they keep the penises as pets and feed them oats

i’m serious

What if I told you that in 13th century prose romance les prophecies de merlin a sorceress casts a magic beam out of her vagina what then

So like picture this : merlin has been entombed alive don’t be too sad abt it tho bc he is a huge cunt in this text — there is a prophecy that he will be killed by a white serpent and obviously he interprets this as a virgin woman so guess what his genius plan is: have sex with every woman who wants to learn magic from him. Anyway this woman tricks him by making him believe that they have had sex (she has been putting him under a sleeping spell) and then entombs him alive while he’s checking that this random tomb is the right size for him and his girlfriend (the one who wants to entomb him). And THEN this leaves a power vacuum in the British magic community and Morgan le fay is like ok great now I’m the best enchantress in Britain but also I’m kinda sad bc that was the man i used to casually have sex with. However this woman who has been sailing through time on a magical ship is like you’ll find I’m the best enchantress in Britain - morgan and her have a violent argument abt it which culminates in Morgan getting stuck on a roof without any clothes and also the second enchantress vagina beaming her. Then all the enchantresses of Britain have a meeting and realise that merlin has fooled them all bc he said that by agreeing to have sex with him they will be the most powerful magic users in Britain but they find out that the lady of the lake (I forgot to say: that is Merlin’s girlfriend who entombed him alive ) is a better magic user than all of them and she didn’t even have sex with merlin. And that is the end of the vagina beam story.

HENRY VIII, KING OF ENGLAND

[BBC’s Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light Promotional Material]

Requiem with a marginal dragonfly  book of hours, Bruges or Ghent 15th century.

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, MS 287, fol. 161v

The Fashions Expressly designed & prepared for The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine October, 1878 Volume 51, Plate 12 Signed: Jules David; Imp. H. Lefèvre, Paris; Ad Goubaud & Fils Ed Paris; A Bodey (1532)

Digital Collections of the Los Angeles Public Library

I was introduced to a custom miniature designer called HeroForge, which can also function as a picrew kind of dress-up game for the broke amongst us. Here's my imagined Aethelswith, Queen of Mercia.

I have learned that you can do Patterns, and hence a Richard II:

The Kingston Anglo-Saxon Brooch, The World Museum, Liverpool

Dress

c. 1916

Jørgine Fjeld Robes & Costumes Christiania

The National Museum of Norway

doré's depictions of london are like an emotion of themselves to me

Dress

1820s

Leeds Museums and Galleries

I have a folder called Time is a Flat Circle in which I collect evidence of humanity. Here is most of them.

Okayokayokayokaybut "My hand will wear out but the inscription will remain" is kind of a power line BEFORE you factor in that it is, in fact, over a thousand years old.

It’s always good to spend a few moments, on a quiet day, looking through the Family album.