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Now in paperback, an exploration of the myths of England’s deceptively bucolic rolling hills and country lanes believed to be created and shaped by the Dark Lord himself. According to legend, the English landscape—so calm on the surface—is really the Devil’s work. Cloven Country tells of rocks hurled into place and valleys carved out by infernal labor. The Devil’s hideous strength laid down great roads in one night and left scars everywhere as the hard stone melted like wax under those burning feet. With roots in medieval folklore of giants and spirits, this is not the Satan of prayer, but a clumsy ogre, easily fooled by humankind. When a smart cobbler or cunning young wife outwitted him, they struck a blow for the underdog. Only the wicked squire and grasping merchant were beyond redemption, carried off by a black huntsman in the storm. Cloven Country offers a fascinating panorama of these decidedly sinister English tales.
We see the Green Man half-hidden on the walls of many of our old churches, a face surrounded by leaves. This beautifully illustrated and well-researched Pitkin Guide looks at this fascinating creature, its history, and where to find him. Look out for more Pitkin Guides on the very best of British history, heritage and travel.
Epsom and Ewell have been attracting visitors since Henry VIII built his lost Palace of Nonsuch in the Surrey countryside. Known worldwide as the home of the Derby and Epsom Salts, the district has sheltered many strange characters, from a clergyman who campaigned for polygamy to a Prime Minister who valued horses before politics. Epsom was a spa town in the days of Charles II, and its assembly rooms and mansion houses still echo to the tread of elegant ghosts. On the windswept Downs, nine successive grandstands have let royalty and riffraff view the world's greatest horse race, never forgotten in a town where every fifth pub is named after a racehorse. The Gothic turrets of Epsom College, the gaunt towers of five mental hospitals, and the yews and cedars of Victorian gardens mark out a landscape where the outer edge of London's suburbs gives way to fields and woods.
A pictorial history of the working life of Epsom & Ewell over the last century and more through its people and industries.
With this book the study of English holy wells moves out of the realms of romanticism and myth-making into the light of history. Jeremy Harte draws on maps, miracles, legends and landscapes to present his detailed discussions in a readable and often witty manner.
The figure of the monster in medieval culture functions as a vehicle for a range of intellectual and spiritual inquiries, from questions of language and representation to issues of moral, theological, and cultural value. Monstrosity is bound up with questions of body image and deformity, nature and knowledge, hybridity and horror. To explore a culture's attitudes to the monstrous is to comprehend one of its most important symbolic tools. The Monstrous Middle Ages looks at both the representation of literal monsters and the consumption and exploitation of monstrous metaphors in a wide variety of high and late-medieval cultural productions, from travel writings and mystical texts to sermons, m...
What is it like to meet a being from another world? This book collects testimony from eight hundred years of witnesses baffled by the supernatural breaking into their lives. Close reading of miracle collections, chronicles, saints lives and sermons shows how they depended on first-hand vernacular voices, never quite suppressed in the Latin of the clergymen who transcribed them. When people saw spirits, surface identity mattered less than common nature. Whether manifesting as fairies, revenants, local saints or fiends, they came in stock types: goblins, lovers, hunters, pygmies, dogs, indescribable shape-shifting objects. Just as they had preferred forms, so they appeared in particular places...
Originally published in 1968. The author, a well-known contemporary and friend of folklorist Katharine M. Briggs, collected a tremendous store of folk music material over many years and eventually decided to put some of it on permanent record. This book comprises a cross-section of rescued melodies dating back to medieval days and up to the Victorian early ballads. It describes individual folk singers in Somerset in great detail as personal accounts and documents their lyrics and their tunes, which are all together at the end of the volume.