As the Sun enters the House of Capricorn remember the poor Coachman travelling all day everyday in all weathers. Washington Irving in his ‘Old Christmas’ (Originally ‘The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon’ pub. 1819) describes him with a broad red face, a broad body widened by drinking beer; swathed with any numbers of layers of coats trying to keep the cold out. He has many worries on his mind as he has a coach full not only of people who need looking after but also a lot of parcels and commissions that need to be carried out in the many stops along the way. He is delivering parcels, turkeys, geese, presents, children, you name it he is responsible for its safe delivery.
Feel sorry for the people crowded inside the carriage but even sorrier for those sitting on the roof. They have umbrellas in a vain attempt to keep dry, but the umbrella tines will be poking you in your ear, and the run off from the canopy of the umbrella might trickle down your neck. There might be 6 people inside and up to 10 on the roof. 3d for travelling inside and half of that for the roof. voach
Inside, you are next to a large man who is not very salubrious looking, nor too worried about pressing his thighs against you.
John Keats blamed his consumption on his journey on the roof of a stage-coach travelling from London to Hampstead on a cold wet day in February.
Stage coaches became regular sights on the road during the 17th Century and were quite dangerous as the roads were in such a poor condition. It was suggested that passengers made their wills before travelling! From the late 17th and with Parliament increasingly used to set up not-for-profit toll road, the roads got better, and ‘Flyers’ and mail coaches could get up to the tremendous speed of 10 miles an hour, and averaging 7. This happened because improved roads meant improved suspensions, and wheels, and more and faster horses could be harnessed.
This revolutionized travel. It used to take 5 days in around 1700 to get to Manchester from London, by the mid 18th Century the time taken was reduced to 24 hours, and there were many more scheduled coaches, The mail coaches had priority, the coach had a blunderbuss and two pistols to deter highway men, and the guard had a post-horn with which to warn other vehicles to give clear passage, to alert tollgate keepers to open gates, and to announce arrival at a stop. Extra horses would be harnessed to help get up steep hills which, in some cases, like Broadway in the Cotswolds, might mean an additional 10 horses. Passengers might be asked not only to get off the coach to lighten the load but also to push if the going got boggy. On mail coaches, the passengers were not allowed to get off when the horses were changed, and only 4 were allowed inside the coach.
London was ringed by Coaching Inns, which were coach terminals and hotels. The most famous ones, remaining, are in Southwark on the approach road to London Bridge. The Tabard where the Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales started, The White Hart where Dickens’ Sam Wheeler is the Bootboy, and the George, which although not quite so literary is at least still half intact.
Pilgrims leaving the Tabard Inn for the Canterbury PilgrimageGeorge Inn,Southwark (photo Kevin Flude)
Capricorn
‘The man born under Capricorn shall be iracundious and a fornicator; a liar, and always labouring.
....The woman shall be honest and fearful, and have children of three men, she will do many pilgrimages in her youth and after have great wit.’
From Kalendar of Shepheards 1604 quoted in ‘The Perpetual Almanac of Folklore by Charles Kightly’.
iracundious is first mentioned in a work published by Caxton in the 15th Century and pretty much obselete by the 17th Century. It means easily angered or irritable.
The Solstice and the East Pediment of the Parthenon
British Museum Shop, reproductions of Hestia and Selene’s Horse from the Parthenon Marbles
At the Summer Solstice, I took a group to the British Museum and, a few days later, to Stonehenge, and managed to ‘integrate’ the two into a solstice narrative. At the BM, over years of trying to explain the sculptures, I have been building in my mind an interpretation of the Pediment that gives, I hope, an original insight into the possible intentions of the sculptors. I don’t know how ‘true’ it is, but I do think it gives an insight into metaphor and symbolism in great works of art. Bear in mind that there is a lot of uncertainty about some of the attributions, and, that the male and female virtues that I am talking about are traditional ones, not necessarily how we would express it in the modern world.
At the left of the above photography, you see the horses that take Helios chariot into the sky to bring up the sun to light the world every day. Most sun deities are male, and the Sun gives light and life to the world, without it this earth is an inert block of ice cold stone. The next statue is casually laying back and looking fit, relaxed and not looking as if he is in that position because of the impossible triangular Pediment space he inhabits. He is the epitome of male strength, usually identified with Hercules but other people have other ideas and a young Dionysus is another suggestion. Whoever he is he represents male beauty and strength. So this end of the pediment represents the Sun and male virtues. This is the East Pediment of the Parthenon which is orientated to the rising sun, a little north of east.
Next are Demeter, the goddess of fertility, the goddess of the earth. Placed here to remind us that the Sun needs the Earth to create life and sustenance. It reminds us that the universe is not male, the male only works in conjunction with the female. Demeter is cuddling her daughter Persephone, the Goddess of Hades. She reminds us that life is a cycle of death and life. Plants die, turn into soil and create the conditions for future life.
Next is Hebe, daughter of Zeus and Hera, wife of Heracles (Hercules). She is the cupbearer to the Gods and gives them the ambrosia that keeps them forever young. She is the Goddess of Immortality, a reminder that the universe is eternal.
Next to Hebe is a void where there was the central statue of the east pediment depicting the Birth of Athena (according to Pausanias who wrote a guide in the 2nd Century BC to the Temple). Athena was born from the head of her father Zeus- a virgin birth. Athena therefore is, in some ways, the greatest of the Olympians, as she has the virtues of her female sex and the virtues of her father’s masculinity (and, dear Gods, hopefully not the massive ‘Me Too’ vices of her father). She is therefore, wise, nurturing, just, intuitive, decisive, a leader; an ideal combination of male and female.
Zeus (sitting) Hephastus to right (looking back with Axe) Athena just visible above Zeus’s head
So Zeus eats Athena’s mum, Metis, who is pregnant with her. Sometime later he has a cracking headache. Hephaestus, the disabled artificer God hits Zeus over the head to clear the headache. Zeus gives birth to a fully formed Athena from the split in his head. She was known as Athena Parthenos, Athena the Virgin. Her name is originally Athene but it got changed to Athena in 500 BC.
Hestia, Dione, Aphrodite, Horse of Selene’s chariot
To Athene’s left is Hestia (Vesta for the Romans). Her name means “hearth, fireplace, altar” and she is the goddess of the domestic sphere, of the comforts of home, of a warm fire enjoyed by a loving family.
The next set are two beautifully draped women languidly leaning on each other, and these are Dione, with her daughter Aphrodite – the Goddess of Love. Dione is the daughter of Gaia and Uranus daughter of earth and sky. So, here, counterpoised to Hercules, are epitomes of women. Women of power, creation, and love.
Finally, we have the exhausted horse of Selene. Her chariot takes the moon into the sky, positioned opposite to Helios and the Sun. Selene is the Moon goddess, and the Moon is beautiful, powerful as it gives us the tides and fundamental to the life of humans as she presides over the menstrual cycle. Compared to the movements of the Sun which any fool can work out, and which are relentless (symbolising Justice) the movements of the Moon are mysterious to most of us. So Selene is beautiful, powerful, creative and the Goddess of Intuition.
So, if you put it all together, the East Pediment of the Parthenon shows that the world is a union of the male and the female, balanced between the two with Zeus and Athene in the middle, with Athene holding the main part because she, in her person, represents both the male and the female.
Of course, we know that the Athenian society was a patriarchal one with women mostly kept in the domestic sphere. But here, at least, women were given an equal billing in the organisation of the Cosmos.
Sculptures from the east pediment of the Parthenon
I must end by warning the reader that this is only my interpretation. I am not a scholar of Ancient Greece. I have come to my own conclusion based on spending a lot of time looking at the marbles, doing Solstice Virtual Tours, and mostly informed by the labels in the gallery, with of course, some reading including Mary Beard’s book entitled ‘Parthenon’ and the BM’s guidebook. In particular, I have not incorporated into my ‘story’ the sculptures that were in the gaps that do not survive or only in fragments scattered throughout the Museum world. Mary Beard was cleverer than I, not reaching conclusions on the basis that we don’t know. But what we do know is that in the centre is Zeus and Athene and at the edges are the chariots of the Sun and the Moon. And so fitting to celebrate the Solstice.
Fanny Austen Knight was the daughter of Jane Austen’s rich older brother Edward. He, rather strangely to our modern minds, was adopted by distant relatives who were childless. ‘Hey! We have enough boys to be going on with – happy for you to take one, particularly as you own two stately homes!’ as Mr and Mrs George Austen probably never said.
One of those homes was Godmersham Park in Kent, the other was in Chawton, a lovely Hampshire Village where Jane, Cassandra and Mum Cassandra lived, and is now a Museum dedicated to Jane Austen.
Fanny also rather cruelly remembers Jane and Cassandra as being unfashionably dressed and not up with upper-class etiquette. She wrote this when she was an old woman. When she was a teenager and being well brought up she wrote letters to friends of the family and relatyives, and here are extracts from her Christmas letters.
1811 to 1812 Fanny writing to a friend, Miss Dorothy Chapman
‘I don’t know whether I told you that Ms Morris’s are at home for the Christmas holidays. They are very nice girls and have contributed a good deal to our entertainment. None of us caught the whooping cough and have been very well the whole time. We have, in general, had cards, snapdragons, bullet pudding etc on any particular evening and Whist, Commerce and others and tickets were the favourite games. I think when cards fail the boys played every evening at draughts, chess, and backgammon.‘
Commerce is a three card poker type game played with counters. Tickets was Lydia Bennett’s favourite game, which is a gambling game based on luck, and in Pride and Prejudice called ‘Lottery Tickets.’
Bullet Pudding is explained by Fanny in another letter
‘You must have a large pewter dish filled with flour which you must pile up into a sort of pudding with a peak at the top, you must then lay a Bullet at the top & everybody cuts a slice of it & the person who is cutting it when the Bullet falls must poke about with their noise & chins until they find it & then take it out with their mouths which makes them strange figures all covered with flour, but the worst is that you must not laugh for fear of the flour getting up your nose & mouth & choking you. You must not use your hands in taking the bullet out.’
I used to play this as a child at Christmas. We used a coin not a bullet. The contestants walk around the table with the flour pudding on which has a knife ready for cutting the pudding. The Music plays and when it stops the one the knife is pointing at cuts a slice of the flour hoping not to make the flour collapse and the coin fall. Snapdragons is a lively game, you put some brandy in a tray or flat dish, add a few raisins, light the brandy and the game is to pick up and eat the raisins without getting burnt!
Other games mentioned by Fanny
Hunt the Slipper, Oranges and Lemons, Wind the Jack; Lighting a Candle in Haste; Spare Old Noll.
Eventually, the coin will collapse, and the hapless winner, according to Jane’s niece, Fanny.
‘must poke about with their noise & chins until they find it & then take it out with their mouths, which makes them strange figures all covered with flour, but the worst is that you must not laugh for fear of the flour getting up your nose & mouth & choking you. You must not use your hands in taking the bullet out.’
In my family, we pushed the winner’s head into the flour to maximise the fun.
Another niece Anna received Jane Austen’s advice on writing a novel:
‘You are now collecting your people delightfully, getting them exactly into such a spot as is the delight of my life. Three or four families in a country village is the very thing to work on, and I hope you will do a great deal more, and make full use of them while they are so very favourably arranged.’
Jane Austen Virtual Tours Coming up!
Jane Austen’s ‘A Picture of London in 1809’ Virtual Walk
7.30 27th January 2025
With the help of a contemporary Guide Book, Jane Austen’s letters, and works we explore London in 1809
Capella Palatina Palermo 12th Century Mosaics God is shown creating the firmament. ‘And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters’
We are coming up to the key days in the year. And so will be looking at calendars and counting days. But what about ages and aeons?
‘Practical Magic in the Northern Tradition’ reports that there are seven ages of the world:
The life of a yew tree is 729 years, and there are seven ages from the creation of the world until its doom.
Three wattles are the life of a hound – 9 years Three hounds are the life of a steed – 27 years Three steeds are the life of a man – 81 years Three men are the life of an eagle – 243 years Three Eagles are the life of a yew. – 729 years
The life of a yew is one age, and there are seven ages from the creation until doom, giving a life for our world of 5, 103 years.
Archbishop Usher of Armagh (1581 – 1656) calculated that the world was created in 4004 BC by counting the begettings in the Bible. If we accept his date, and apply the seven yew tree ages rule, then the world should have ended in AD 1099 (give or take a year). However, it doesn’t make sense to me to have a factor of 3 for the smaller divisions, and then to switch to a factor of seven . So, if there were nine ages of the world, then it would survive for 6561 years, which will end in approx. 535 years time. This calculation has the advantage of not yet being proved wrong! (Please note, cult owners, I have copyright on this date).
It’s notable that when a Cult declares the imminent end of the world, and they trudge up to the top of a high eminence to observe it (normally by Hampstead Pond in London). They seem quite happy to trudge back down again, and are soon up and running again with the same enthusiasm for the next ‘end of the world’ date.)
By the way, the Capella Palatina, illustrated above, is a marvel of gold mosaics and absolutely stunning. It makes a trip to Palermo a must. It’s also seems strange to find a Norman state so far south.
The Jewish tradition was for six or seven ages of 1000 years. The seventh didn’t really count because it was the age of the messiah when there was a 1000-year sort of super sabbath. Or another idea is that it was an age that ran parallel with the other six. So the world was to be 6000 years long.
With the coming of Christianity, dating the Creation, and therefore the Day of Judgement, became more important. (the Romans dated from the foundation of Rome, and the Greeks from the First Olympiad, but they had a whole mythology and creation myths about a Golden Age, preceding their base Iron age and the Bronze Age.)
An early Christian attempt to tell the age of creation was the Anno Munda‘s arrangement of the Year. This is pretty complicated and is based on a Talmudic tradition. A late Roman version uses ‘the Diocletian Years’, which is when the persecution of Christians began. It held that the world was created 5500 years before the Birth of Christ. So we are 5500BC plus 2024 years before the date of the creation. And it was supposed to have ended in 500AD, 6000 years after the Creation. so we have outlived Creation by 15024 years.
St Augustine of Hippo took the tradition of six ages and brought it into the Christian canon. These are the six ages:
The First Age “is from the beginning of the human race, that is, from Adam, who was the first man that was made, down to Noah, who constructed the ark at the time of the flood“, i.e. the Antediluvian period.
The Second Age “extends from that period on to Abraham, who was called the father indeed of all nations”.
The Third Age “extends from Abraham on to David the king”.
The Fourth Age is “from David on to that captivity whereby the people of God passed over into Babylonia”.
The Fifth Age is “from that transmigration down to the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ“
The Sixth Age: “With His [Jesus Christ’s] coming, the sixth age has entered on its process.”
As each age is 1000 years, then you can see why so many people were worried as 1000 AD approached.
Of course, six is not such a magical number as seven, and so Shakespeare ran with the idea in the Seven Ages of Man spoken by Jacques in ‘As you like it’. If there are seven ages of human life, and we have a span of six score and ten, then each age is ten years.
The Seven Ages of Man
All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms. Then, the whining school-boy with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then, a soldier, Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then, the justice, In fair round belly, with a good capon lined, With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws, and modern instances, And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. (Jacques, Act 2, Scene 7)
Seven Ages of Man Statue 22-foot high cast aluminium Sculpture by Richard Kindersley, located on Queen Victoria Street, Blackfriars, near the Blackfriars. St Andrew’s by the Wardrobe in the background. Photos k. Flude
The Kalendar of Shepherds
Now, the Kalendar of Shepherds has a similar idea, but it calculates it differently. The Kalendar, based on a 15th Century French original, says there are 12 ages of man, corresponding with the 12 months of the year. Each age is 6 years long, and so our likely lifespan is 72.
Kalendar of Shepherds
Each month is allocated to one of the ages, and each month has an insight into human life for that span. So in January we note the first 6 years, if you read above you will see we have no ‘wit, strength or cunning, and we may do nothing that profiteth’.
A little harsh, and as a fond grandfather, it, I refute it, except maybe the first 6 years should not be down to profit.
How Old is a Yew Tree/Eagle
A comment by a reader has prompting me to write the following lines on the discussion of the ages given above:
‘Practical magic’ says the poem is ‘Ancient’ so it’s folklore and not science, so the ages are opinion not scientific fact.
As I understand it Yew trees live a long time but not quite as long as many people think. I base this on the Yew Tree at Steventon, Hampshire where Jane Austen was born, which has/had a plague on it saying it was 1200 years old. I used to visit it regularly and. On one visit, was told that an expert opinion suggested it was more like 700 years old (if memory serves). I do not have the details, but my source would have been one of the people associated with the Church.
The Woodland Trust (says Yew Trees get old at 900 years and cites a few which are ‘said to be’ over 2000 years old. But are they? The scientific sites I have looked at suggest that Yew Trees should be described as ‘ancient’ from 400 not 900 years, and there are problems with dendrochronology dating of yew trees, and so most methods depend upon an estimation from the width of the tree trunk. But that, itself, depends upon how much you believe in the claims for the ancient trees. So, I think it’s best to take the extreme cases with a very large pitch of salt. So 729 years is probably not so far off the mark for a Yew tree.
As to Eagles, this website on eagles says they can live to 30ish in the wild and 68 years in captivity, so the claim for 243 years is way off the mark!
On This Day
1843 – Charles Dickens published ‘A Christmas Carol’
First Published on December 18th 2022, revised and republished in December 2023, 2024
So, the old Sun is dying, and if the Sun keeps going down we are all going to die. To keep our anxiety to a minimum with all of nature seeming to be dying or hibernating, evergreens are a symbol of a promise/proof that life will continue through the dark days. So, with its bright-green leaves and its luminous berries, Holly is the ideal evergreen for the Solstice. And as the prickles symbolise Christ’s Crown of Thorns, and the berries the red blood of Jesus, the symbolism works, too, for Christians.
‘Ivy’ says Culpeper in his Herbal of 1653, says its winter-ripening berries are useful to drink before you ‘set to drink hard’ because it will ‘preserve from drunkenness’. And, moreover, the leaves (bruised and boiled) and dropped into the same wine you had a ‘surfeit’ of the night before provides the ‘speediest cure’. (The Perpetual Almanac of Charles Kightly)
Henry Mayhew (editor of Punch) in his ‘London Labour and London Poor’ (1851–62) talks of Christmasing for Laurel, Ivy, Holly, and Mistletoe. He calculated that 250,000 branches of Holly were purchased from street coster mongers every Christmas. He says that every housekeeper will expend something from 2d to 1s 6d, while the poor buy a pennyworth or halfpennyworth each. He says that every room will have the cheery decoration of holly. St Pauls Cathedral would take 50 to a 100 shillings worth.
He also calculates that 100,000 plum puddings are eaten. Mistletoe he believes is less often used than it used to be, and he hopes that ‘No Popery’ campaigners will not attack Christmassing again.
Hot plum pudding seller from Sam Syntax Cries of London, 1820s from the Gentle Author Spitalfields Life website
Culpeper on Ivy (1814 edition):
It is so well known to every child almost, to grow in woods upon the trees, and upon the stone walls of churches, houses, &c. and sometimes to grow alone of itself, though but seldom.
Time. It flowers not until July, and the berries are not ripe until Christmas, when they have felt Winter frosts.
Government and virtues. It is under the dominion of Saturn. A pugil of the flowers, which may be about a dram, (saith Dioscorides) drank twice a day in red wine, helps the lask, and bloody flux. It is an enemy to the nerves and sinews, being much taken inwardly, out very helpful to them, being outwardly applied. Pliny saith, the yellow berries are good against the jaundice; and taken before one be set to drink hard, preserves from drunkenness, and helps those that spit blood; and that the white berries being taken inwardly, or applied outwardly, kills the worms in the belly. The berries are a singular remedy to prevent the plague, as also to free them from it that have got it, by drinking the berries thereof made into a powder, for two or three days together. They being taken in wine, do certainly help to break the stone, provoke urine, and women’s courses. The fresh leaves of Ivy, boiled in vinegar, and applied warm to the sides of those that are troubled with the spleen, ache, or stitch in the sides, do give much ease. The same applied with some Rosewater, and oil of Roses, to the temples and forehead, eases the head-ache, though it be of long continuance. The fresh leaves boiled in wine, and old filthy ulcers hard to be cured washed therewith, do wonderfully help to cleanse them. It also quickly heals green wounds, and is effectual to heal all burnings and scaldings, and all kinds of exulcerations coming thereby, or by salt phlegm or humours in other parts of the body. The juice of the berries or leaves snuffed up into the nose, purges the head and brain of thin rheum that makes defluxions into the eyes and nose, and curing the ulcers and stench therein; the same dropped into the ears helps the old and running sores of them; those that are troubled with the spleen shall find much ease by continual drinking out of a cup made of Ivy, so as the drink may stand some small time therein before it be drank. Cato saith, That wine put into such a cup, will soak through it, by reason of the antipathy that is between them.
There seems to be a very great antipathy between wine and Ivy; for if one hath got a surfeit by drinking of wine, his speediest cure is to drink a draught of the same wine wherein a handful of Ivy leaves, being first bruised, have been boiled.
Happy Eponalia
Roman Horse from Bunwell, Norfolk. Illustration by Sue Walker.
In 2021 I posted about Eponalia for the 18th Dec but I have now added it here and this is what I said:
I’ve been too busy working on my Jane Austen and Christmas Virtual Tour (I have just done that again this year) to post over the last few days. And I have, therefore, shamelessly stolen this post off my Facebook friend Sue Walker, who is a talented archaeological illustrator, artist and a very good photographer.
She wrote: ‘the 18th December is the festival of the Celtic goddess Epona, the protector of horses, she was adopted by the Romans and became a favourite with the cavalry. This finely sculpted bronze horse with a head dress and symbol on its chest is 37mm high – found in Bunwell #Norfolk #Archaeology’
Hildegard von Bingen receives a divine inspiration and passes it on to her scribe. From the Rupertsberg Codex of Liber Scivias.
What a relief! Here is a Saint who was not flayed alive, burnt on a griddle, scratched with wool combs, crucified upside down, beheaded, eyes gouged out, etc. etc. (consider identifying the Saints in this list as my Christmas Quiz). She died of illness, aged 81 and was famous not just for her vision but her erudition, her scientific writings, and hermusical compositions. She came from the Rhineland area of Germany.
Before you proceed to read this post listen to this YouTube clip of her sublime music.
Hildegard of Bingen: De Spiritu Sancto (Holy Spirit, The Quickener Of Life)
She was elected as magistra (Mother Superior) of her Convent in 1136, and went on to found two other nunneries. But, was made famous by her writings on her visions. She was also a famous composer of sacred monophony,
There has been speculation that her visions were caused by migraine. Read Mary Sharratt’s piece for more details, from which I took the following quotation.
‘When I was forty-two years and seven months old, Heaven was opened and a fiery light of exceeding brilliance came and permeated my whole brain, and inflamed my whole heart and my whole breast, not like a burning but like a warming flame, as the sun warms anything its rays touch.‘
Hildegard von Bingen, Scivias, translated by Mother Columba Hart, O.S.B., and Jane Bishop
Among the many books she wrote were two famous and early books on medicine and science. Her medical writing was highly practical although, of course, based on the humoural theories which had held sway since Hippocrates. However, she did think that the four humours had a hierarchy with blood and phlegm the more superior humours representing the celestial elements of fire and air, while black bile and yellow bile represented the earthly humours of earth and water.
Just as physicists today look to find a unifying theory of everything, Hildegard also tried to find unities within the body of classical knowledge. According to Wikipedia, she:
‘often focuses on interrelated patterns of four: “the four elements (fire, air, water, and earth), the four seasons, the four humours, the four zones of the earth, and the four major winds.” ‘
Linked also to the celestial bodies and to religion, she gave her world view in Causae et Curae c. 42:
It happens that certain men suffer diverse illnesses. This comes from the phlegm which is superabundant within them. For if man had remained in paradise, he would not have had the flegmata within his body, from which many evils proceed, but his flesh would have been whole and without dark humour [livor]. However, because he consented to evil and relinquished good, he was made into a likeness of the earth, which produces good and useful herbs, as well as bad and useless ones, and which has in itself both good and evil moistures. From tasting evil, the blood of the sons of Adam was turned into the poison of semen, out of which the sons of man are begotten. And therefore their flesh is ulcerated and permeable [to disease]. These sores and openings create a certain storm and smoky moisture in men, from which the flegmata arise and coagulate, which then introduce diverse infirmities to the human body. All this arose from the first evil, which man began at the start, because if Adam had remained in paradise, he would have had the sweetest health, and the best dwelling-place, just as the strongest balsam emits the best odour; but on the contrary, man now has within himself poison and phlegm and diverse illnesses.
And here I was hoping to find light and joy in a medieval Saint’s story! So we seem to be doomed by Adam’s Fall, and the poor quality of his semen. (Having recently watched Hugo Blick’s Wild West box set ‘The English’, I can quite understand the syphilitic underpinnings of Hildegard’s theory).
On the subject of headaches, Hildegard was a keen user of feverfew, which has been, since the 18th Century, a suggested cure for Migraine. I didn’t find it worked for me, being a sufferer since age 12. It never occurred to me to think that the flashing lights, partial temporary blindness, tingling muscles and devastating headaches might be a gift from God.
Hildegard wrote the following about feverfew:
“If you suffer from a sick intestine, boil the Motherswort with water and butter or oil and add some spelt flour. Prepare a drink, for it helps the intestines.”
And so it became popular among women for gynaecological issues and abdominal pain. Feverfew has flowers like a daisy, ‘growing in every hedgerow’ according to Mrs Grieve’s English Herbal. Grieve’s says it is good for nervous and hysterical complaints; low-spirits; as a syrup good for coughs; as a tincture against swellings caused by bites of insects and vermin.
Feverfew CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=216947
St Hildegard seems to have two special days – one is Dec 17th and the other is the day she died, September 17th 1179 which is her ‘Liturgical Feast’.
First Published on December 18th, 2022, Revised and republished December 2023, 2024
Trotty Veck 1889 Dickens The Chimes by Kyd (Joseph Clayton Clarke)
As Christmas looms, seasonal publications have a mixture of wonder and joy at the coming family reunions and festivities mingled with an awareness that, for some, Christmas will depend on the Food Bank or the Charity Shelter. The weather is now cold, living costs continue to rise at the very time extra spending is needed to unlock the joy of the Season, and to counter the dark, the cold and the spectre of death which, in fact, has always been central to the season of winter.
Charles Dickens’ Christmas Books epitomise this dichotomy and adding an element of the supernatural, provided a vehicle for joy and hope, but with a forceful political message that the authorities and the rich were not doing their Christian duty to alleviate poverty. Christmas Carol contrasts the wealth of a mean rich Stockbroker with the family of his poor employee Bob Cratchit, and provides a powerful tale of redemption.
But in this post I want to concentrate on his second Christmas Book, ‘The Chimes’. It was published on December 16th, 1844. It tells the story of the stick-thin Trotty Veck who is an aged City messenger, nicknamed Trotty because of his habit of keeping himself warm by running on the spot. He is afraid to let his daughter, Meg, to marry as he has so little hope for the future. While he is worrying, he, Meg and her intended Richard are approached by Alderman Cute and Mr Filer.
Cute represents the financial industries in the City of London and the Law. Filer the new breed of political economists. These, working with the idea of Malthus and the new science of Statistics, had proved, that generous support for the poor would, inevitably, lead to a country full of poor people and no rich people. And thus, they justified the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1832 which Dickens observed as a Parliamentary reporter (1831-1834). This set up the cruel Workhouse system which provided the lowest possible level of support offering separation from family, meagre food, and sparse comforts to encourage them to stop being lazy and get back out there to earn their own living and allow taxes to fall. (brilliantly satirised by Dickens’ Oliver Twist, asking for ‘More’).
Meg, Richard, Mr Filer, Gentleman, Alderman Cute and Trotty Veck. Probably located by the door of St Nicholas, Colechurch, City of London.
Below, I enclose the scene from the Chimes, which satirises the attitude of the governing classes.
‘And you’re making love to her, are you?’ said Cute to the young smith.
‘Yes,’ returned Richard quickly, for he was nettled by the question.
‘And we are going to be married on New Year’s Day.’
‘What do you mean!’ cried Filer sharply?Enough ‘Married!’
‘Why, yes, we’re thinking of it, Master,’ said Richard. ‘We’re rather in a hurry, you see, in case it should be Put Down first.’
‘Ah!’ cried Filer, with a groan. ‘Put that down indeed, Alderman, and you’ll do something. Married! Married!! The ignorance of the first principles of political economy on the part of these people; their improvidence; their wickedness; is, by Heavens! enough to—Now look at that couple, will you!’
...
‘A man may live to be as old as Methuselah,’ said Mr. Filer, ‘and may
labour all his life for the benefit of such people as those; and may heap up facts on figures, facts on figures, facts on figures, mountains high and dry; and he can no more hope to persuade ’em that they have no right or business to be married, than he can hope to persuade ’em that they have no earthly right or business to be born. And that we know they haven’t. We reduced it to a mathematical certainty long ago!’
Alderman Cute was mightily diverted, and laid his right forefinger on the side of his nose, as much as to say to both his friends, ‘Observe me, will you! Keep your eye on the practical man!’—and called Meg to him.
...
‘Now, I’m going to give you a word or two of good advice, my girl,’ said the Alderman, in his nice easy way. ‘It’s my place to give advice, you know, because I’m a Justice. ...
‘You are going to be married, you say,’ pursued the Alderman. ‘Very
unbecoming and indelicate in one of your sex! But never mind that.
After you are married, you’ll quarrel with your husband and come to be a distressed wife. You may think not; but you will, because I tell you so. Now, I give you fair warning, that I have made up my mind to Put distressed wives Down. So, don’t be brought before me.
You’ll have children—boys. Those boys will grow up bad, of course, and run wild in the streets, without shoes and stockings. Mind, my young friend! I’ll convict ’em summarily, every one, for I am determined to Put boys without shoes and stockings, Down. Perhaps your husband will die young (most likely) and leave you with a baby. Then you’ll be turned out of doors, and wander up and down the streets. Now, don’t wander near me, my dear, for I am resolved, to Put all wandering mothers Down. All young mothers,of all sorts and kinds, it’s my determination to Put Down. Don’t think
to plead illness as an excuse with me; or babies as an excuse with me;
for all sick persons and young children (I hope you know the
church-service, but I’m afraid not) I am determined to Put Down.
And if you attempt, desperately, and ungratefully, and impiously, and
fraudulently attempt, to drown yourself, or hang yourself, I’ll have no pity for you, for I have made up my mind to Put all suicide Down! If there is one thing,’ said the Alderman, with his self-satisfied smile, ‘on which I can be said to have made up my mind more than on another, it is to Put suicide Down. So don’t try it on. That’s the phrase, isn’t it? Ha, ha! now we understand each other.’
Project Gutenberg - The Chimes by Charles Dickens
It is a savage burlesque of a satire but at its core, Filer provides the economic/statistical justification. Cute enforces it by legal harassment of the poor. Dickens was writing after a recent introduction of legislation making suicide a punishable offence.
This has a contemporary resonance. During my lifetime, the first British Government to be cruel in its provision, in my opinion, for the poor was Teresa May’s Conservative Government. Her laws made getting help so difficult that people died as a result of the deliberately difficult system. ‘I, Daniel Blake’ a 2016 film by Ken Loach brilliantly captured the essence of this system. That government’s treatment of the Windrush generation was a similar example of bureaucratic cruelty. And the continual decline of the benefit system over the 14 years of Conservative Government meant that the poor have borne the brunt of austerity.
The piece above reminds us what a brilliant propagandist Dickens was. Every generation of children, since he wrote Christmas Carol, has read it or seen it in popular retellings such as The Muppet Movie. I think it could be argued that the ‘More’ scene in Oliver Twist and the Christmas Carol have made the case for compassionate care and redemption far better than contemporary Christianity or political parties.
In the Chimes. these two men discourage Trotty from letting the young ones marry. He has a dream and sees the hopeless result of his decision: suicide, prostitution, crime. When he wakes up, he realises that what they do have is hope. Hope springs eternal and he lets them marry.
For more on this scene, have a look at the Victorian Web
Dickens was not a socialist. ‘Hard Times’ shows that Dickens was against strikes, despite leading a strike when he was a young newspaper man. He was a free trade Liberal; a reformer who believed that the rich needed to do their Christian duty and provide charitable support, pay decent wages and look after their dependents and servants. He thought society should care less about the dogma of Christianity but look to its essence, ‘love your neighbour like yourself’. This, alone, was sufficient to right the wrongs caused by the selfish.
First Published on December 16th 2022, republished and revised in December 2023, 2024
Abney Park cemetery in winter photo by Harriet Salsibury
Hesiod is a contemporary of Homer, and therefore one of the first European poets, one of the first commentators on Greek life, thought, religion, mythology, farming and time keeping. ‘Works and Days’ is his Farmers Almanac and therefore long overdue an appearance on my Almanac of the Past.
Hesiod’s poems also introduce the idea of the epoch, past glorious epochs of Gold and Bronze with a further descent to his own epoch which was of the base metal age of Iron. In the 19th Century, European antiquarians, imbued with a humanist belief in Progress, developed the idea of Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages, an almost direct opposite of Hesiod’s, downhill-all-the-way to the present idea.
Hesiod also brings in early references to Prometheus and Pandora, two of the great myths of the flaws of humanity.
This is what he says of Winter. It is from a translation by Christopher Kelk, available to download here (I have added line breaks after full stops, just for ease of reading.)
…. you should make A detour during winter when the cold Keeps men from work, for then a busy man May serve his house. Let hardship not take hold, Nor helplessness, through cruel winter’s span, Nor rub your swollen foot with scrawny hand.
An idle man will often, while in vain He hopes, lacking a living from his land, Consider crime. A needy man will gain Nothing from hope while sitting in the street And gossiping, no livelihood in sight.
Say to your slaves in the midsummer heat: “There won’t always be summer, shining bright – Build barns.” Lenaion’s evil days, which gall The oxen, guard yourself against. Beware Of hoar-frosts, too, which bring distress to all When the North Wind blows, which blasts upon the air In horse-rich Thrace and rouses the broad sea, Making the earth and woods resound with wails.
He falls on many a lofty-leafed oak-tree And on thick pines along the mountain-vales And fecund earth, the vast woods bellowing. The wild beasts, tails between their legs, all shake.
Although their shaggy hair is covering Their hides, yet still the cold will always make Their way straight through the hairiest beast.
Straight through An ox’s hide the North Wind blows and drills Through long-haired goats. His strength, though, cannot do Great harm to sheep who keep away all chills With ample fleece. He makes old men stoop low But soft-skinned maids he never will go through – They stay indoors, who as yet do not know Gold Aphrodite’s work, a comfort to Their darling mothers, and their tender skin They wash and smear with oil in winter’s space And slumber in a bedroom far within The house, when in his cold and dreadful place The Boneless gnaws his foot (the sun won’t show Him pastures but rotate around the land Of black men and for all the Greeks is slow To brighten).
That’s the time the hornèd and The unhorned beasts of the wood flee to the brush, Teeth all a-chatter, with one thought in mind – To find some thick-packed shelter, p’raps a bush Or hollow rock. Like one with head inclined Towards the ground, spine shattered, with a stick To hold him up, they wander as they try To circumvent the snow.
As I ordain, Shelter your body, too, when snow is nigh – A fleecy coat and, reaching to the floor, A tunic. Both the warp and woof must you Entwine but of the woof there must be more Than of the warp. Don this, for, if you do, Your hair stays still, not shaking everywhere.
Be stoutly shod with ox-hide boots which you Must line with felt. In winter have a care To sew two young kids’ hides to the sinew Of an ox to keep the downpour from your back, A knit cap for your head to keep your ears From getting wet.
It’s freezing at the crack Of dawn, which from the starry sky appears When Boreas drops down: then is there spread A fruitful mist upon the land which falls Upon the blessed fields and which is fed By endless rivers, raised on high by squalls.
Sometimes it rains at evening, then again, When the thickly-compressed clouds are animated By Thracian Boreas, it blows hard. Then It is the time, having anticipated All this, to finish and go home lest you Should be enwrapped by some dark cloud, heaven-sent, Your flesh all wet, your clothing drenched right through.
This is the harshest month, both violent And harsh to beast and man – so you have need To be alert. Give to your men more fare Than usual but halve your oxen’s feed. The helpful nights are long, and so take care.
Keep at this till the year’s end when the days And nights are equal and a diverse crop
Keep at this till the year’s end when the days And nights are equal and a diverse crop Springs from our mother earth and winter’s phase Is two months old and from pure Ocean’s top Arcturus rises, shining, at twilight.
Acturus is not seen in winter, and in the Northern Hemisphere its rising (50 days after the winter solstice) and has always been associated with the advent of spring.
Boreas was the winged God of the North wind, which bore down from the cold Mountains of Thrace (north of Macedonia). One of his daughters, Khione, was the Goddess of Snow. Lenaion was associated with January one of the festivals of Dionysus, and a theatrical season in Athens particularly for comedy.
Roman Bust of Hesiod (Wikipedia photo by Yair Hakla) Neues Museum
First published 15th December 2022, republished December 2023, 2024
So, yesterday, you, being someone worried about your eyes, might have sought out an altar dedicated to St Lucy, the patron saint of eye health. (see December 13th’s Post on St Lucy) Although you may be disappointed that there has been no miraculous cure, you might have been encouraged to do something about it. So that’s what this post is about.
Cataract operations have been carried out since 800 BC using a method called ‘couching’.
This was a last resort when the cataract was opaque and the patients nearly blind. It would mean they would need very thick lenses to see well again but, crude as it seems, it worked. But the operation, without anaesthetics must have been a considerable ordeal, and the recovery (still required today for those suffering from a displaced retina) means that the patient has to lie on their back for a week with supports on either side of the head to prevent movement. Of course, there was also a serious risk of infection, so prophylactic visits to a chapel of St Lucy would be called for.
The modern system was established in the 1940s and offers a great solution in 15 minutes surgery. Currently, the NHS has been having trouble dealing with all the cases required, (6% of surgery is for cataract operations. Before COVID-19, there was some talk about cataracts being, in practice, not readily available on the NHS. The waiting time is supposed to be 18 weeks but, for example, at NHS Chesterfield Royal Hospital the waiting time approaches almost 10 months. But waiting times vary from 10 weeks to over a year.
Pink Eye
The Perpetual Calendar of Folklore by Charles Kightly has dug up some other folk cures of interest.
For the redness of eyes, or bloodshot. Take red wine, rosewater, and women’s milk, and mingle all these together: and put a piece of wheaten bread leavened, as much as will cover the eye, and lay it in the mixture. When you go to bed, lay the bread upon your eyes calmer and it will help them.
Fairfax Household book, 17th/ 18th century.
There are many household books still, existing, which show that much of medical practice was carried out in the home, and that men and women, more often women, actively not only collected useful recipes and cures, but also tested them out and improved them.
As a matter of curiosity, there is a significant document found at the Roman Fort of Vindolanda which lists the troops of the Cohort in occupation, which notes that of the garrison of 750, 474 are absent with 276 in the fort of which 38 are sick, 10 with ‘pink eye’, probably conjunctivitis
Prevention is better than cure
Things hurtful to the eyes. Garlic, onions, radish, drunkenness, lechery, sweet wines, salt meats, coleworts, dust, smoke, and reading presently after supper.
Good for the eyes. fennel, celandine, eyebright, vervain, roses, cloves and cold water.
Whites Almanack 1627
Looking through Samuel Pepys’s eye
You will note, above, that it was considered bad for the eyes to read in low light. It is a myth and not true. Samuel Pepys was continually worried about his reading and writing habits ruining his eyesight. This is an extract from the poignant last entry in his famous diary:
And thus ends all that I doubt I should ever be able to do with my own eyes in the keeping of my journal, I being not able to do it any longer, having done now so long as to undo my eyes almost every time that I take a pen in my hand; and therefore, whatever comes of it, I must forbear: and therefore resolve from this time forward to have it kept by my people in long-hand. I must be consented to sit down no more than is fit for them and all the world to know; or, if they be anything, which cannot be much now my amores are past and my eyes hindering me almost all other pleasures. I must endeavour to keep a margin in my book open, to add, here and there, a note in shorthand with my own hand.
Samuel Pepys Diary, May 31st
The sad thing is that Pepys had another 38 years before he went blind, and what glorious diary entries have we missed because of his false fears of the effect of eye strain.
St Lucy
There are only two churches in the UK dedicated to St Lucy or St Lucia. One run by the National Trust in Upton Magna, Shropshire, but there must have been a few chapels in Cathedrals and Abbeys dedicated to her.
Saint Lucy, by Francesco del Cossa (c. 1430 – c. 1477) (Wikipedia User:Postdlf)
The name Lucy is from the same Latin origin (Lucidus) as lucent, lux, and lucid. It means to be bright, to shine or be clear. It is similar to the Ancient Greek λευκός (leukós, “white, blank, light, bright, clear”. Luke has the same origins (bright one, bringer of light and light of the sacred flame) and is very appropriate for the most literate of the evangelists.
I am just noticing how dim the daylight is even before noon. So, at this time of the year, we are in need of a festival with bright lights to cheer us up! And St Lucy’s Day is the beginning of the winter festival that culminates with the Solstice, where the old sun dies, and the new one is born. December the 13th was the Solstice until Pope Gregory reformed the Calendar in the 16th Century, as nine days were lopped off the year of transition.
The festival of Sankta Lucia is particularly popular in Sweden, where Dec 13th is thought to be the darkest night. In recent years, the Swedish community in the UK has had a service to Lucia in St Pauls. But this year it is in Westminster Cathedral. But as usual, it is sold out by the time I get around to thinking of going!
St Stephens Church by Christopher Wren (Photo K Flude) a rare view during building work.
I found out about Sankta Lucia from a Swedish choir who hired me to do a tour of the City of London some years ago. I took them into Christopher Wren’s marvellous St Stephen’s Church and, under the magnificent Dome, they fancied the acoustics and spontaneously sang. I recorded a snatch of it, which you can hear below
Swedish Choir singing in St Stephen’s London St Stephens Church at night by Christopher Wren (Photo K Flude)
Watch the procession in St Pauls on youtube below.
Sankta Lucia at St Paul’s Cathedral (2011)
Recent medical research has shown the importance of light, not only to our mental health but to our sleep health, and recommends that work places have a decent light level with ‘blue light’ as a component of the lighting. It is also an excellent idea to help your circadian rhymes by going for a morning walk, or morning sun bathing, even on cloudy days.
St Lucy is from Syracuse in Sicily, said to be a victim of the Diocletian Persecution of Christians in the early 4th Century. She is an authentic early martyr, although details of her story cannot be relied upon as true. She was said to be a virgin, who was denounced as a Christian by her rejected suitor, miraculously saved from serving in a brothel, then, destruction by fire, but did not escape having her eyes gouged out. Finally, her throat was cut with a sword. Her connection to light (and the eye gouging) makes her the protectress against eye disease, and she is often shown holding two eyes as you can see above. Other symbols include a palm branch which represents martyrdom and victory over evil She can also be seen with lamp, dagger, sword or two oxen. She appears in Dante’s Divine Comedy, as the messenger to Beatrice whose job is to get Virgil to help Dante explore Heaven, Hell and Heaven. Beatrice takes over as the guide around Paradise because Virgil is a pagan and so cannot enter it.
St. Aldhelm (died in 709) puts St Lucy in the list of the main venerated saints of the early English Church, confirmed by the Venerable Bede (died in 735). Her festival was an important one in England ‘as a holy day of the second rank in which no work but tillage or the like was allowed’.
First Posted on December 13th, 2022, updated on December 13th 2023 and 2024
