And Did Those Feet

21st June 202324th June 2023

June 21st Midsummer

Midsummer Solstice is the 21st of June, but the Celtic version of it began when the Celtic Day begun, on June 20th, which we would call Midsummer Eve.

In the early medieval period the Church hijacked Midsummer’s Day and transferred it to June 24th St John the Baptist’s Day. The reasons is that St John was born 6 months before Jesus, hence the June 24th date.

Midsummer is a fire festival, dedicated to Belinus. His name might mean Powerful One or Shining One, and he is linked to Apollo, one of the Greco-Roman Sun Gods. His main festival is Beltane, May Day, but many of the attributes of May celebrations and indeed Halloween celebrations are also carried out in Midsummer.

John Aubrey in the 17th Century writes:

‘Still in many places on St John’s Night they make Fires on the Hills: but the Civil Warres coming on have putt all these Rites or customes quite out of fashion.’
John Aubrey, Miscellanies, 1695

Like May Fires, the fire should be made from wood donated from all farms in the area, and using a range of trees, ideally collected by 9 men and from 9 different trees. Blazing branches should be carried sunwise around the fields to bless the crops, and it was good luck to jump over the ashes of the fire.

To prepare for Midsummer remember that it is, like Halloween, uncanny when Hobgoblins, Fairies and Sprites, are, like in Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, all abroad making mischief.

First in your line of defence is St John’s Wort, known as Chasse-diable, Demon Chaser, Fuga Daemonum amongst many other appellations it could be used to keep demons away, and to exorcise haunted houses. John Aubrey in Miscellanies talks about a haunted London house which was cured by a Doctor who put St John’s Wort under the pillow of the bed at night. Bankes Herbel 1525 says:

‘The virtue of St John’s Wort is thus. If it be put in a man’s house, there shall come no wicked sprite therein.’

Vervain, yarrow, corn marigold, and orpins were also used often woven into garlands, and hung around the necks of cows, or on door lintels as protection. If the St John’s Wort withered the picker was to die or at least endure disappointment. If orpins entwined themselves on Midsummer’s Night, marriage would follow.

A girl seeking love should walk around the Church seven or twelve times (accounts vary!) at midnight scattering hempseed, and singing:

Hempseed I sow
Hempseed I hoe
Let him that is my true love
Come after me and mow

In the SW of England there was a custom to watch the church porch on Midsummer Evening, when the spirits of all the living people of the village could be seen entering the church. Those not seen coming out again would surely die as would the watcher who fell asleep.

Orpine, (Sedum Telephium) aka Live Long, Life Everlasting was valued for the length of time it remained fresh after being gathered. Medicinally, it was considered good to use outwardly to cool scaldings, inflammations, and wounds.

Sedum_telephium by Bernd Haynold wikipedia

St John’s Wort has a reputation for helping with depression, menopausal symptoms, ADHD, anxiety and other conditions.

St John’s Wort Photo by Lex Melony on Unsplash

Thanks to the ‘Customs and Ceremonies of Britain’ by Charles Kightly.

19th June 202322nd June 2023

June 18th the Great Broadway Paint off

Artist painting in the Broadway 'Great Paint off' — Artist painting in the ‘Great Broadway Paint off’

One of the joys of my Spring & Summer is revisiting places I know and love in my role as a Course Director for Road Scholar. Sunday, I was in Broadway, once considered the most beautiful village in Britain. It was also the model for Riseholme in the wonderful ‘Mapp and Lucia’ books by E. F. Benson (made into a TV series by the BBC starring Prunella Scales, Geraldine McEwan and Nigel Hawthorne).

This weekend was the:

The artists register in the morning and have their paper or canvas stamped, or given a block of Maltese stone. They then go off to create a work of art in the village. At 3pm or so, they are judged. At 5pm, the art works are exhibited and often on sale in the Marquee on the village green.

It’s always a delight walking around Broadway in the sun, but with an artist and easel every 50 yards or so even more enjoyable. By the tent on the village green were about 10 sculptors chipping away at identical blocks of stone.

Sculptors at the Great Broadway Paint off. — Sculptors at the Great Broadway Paint off

I believe ceramic, textile, and artists in other media also are willing to have a go at making art in a sevely limited timescale.

The appellation of most beautiful village, came in the late 19th Century. Broadway, once made rich by selling wool and then as a stop off on the stage coach route from Aberystwyth to Worcester, Oxford and London, fell on hard times with the arrival of Brunel’s Great Western Railway to the Cotswolds. Half the village, the Broadway Museum says, moved away as their livelihood serving the coaching trade died.

But artists, led by Americans Frances Millet and Edwin Abbey, turned Broadway into a much sort-after country retreat. Visitors included Oscar Wilde, J. M. Barrie, Singer-Sargeant, William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Gabriel Dante Rossetti, American actress, Mary Anderson, Edward Elgar, E. F, Benson. Mark Twain visited for Millet’s marriage.

J.M. Barrie being bowled by Mary de Navarro. (aka Mary Anderson, who played many roles including Juliette at Stratford-on-Avon)

What made the visit particularly interesting was the story told to me by the Volunteer at the Gordon Russell Museum in Broadway. (More about Gordon Russell in a future post) This is the story as I understood it:

The Russells restored the Lygon Arms in Broadway using Arts And Crafts architects. They also restored antique furniture. The son, Gordon Russell, became a leading designer of modernist Furniture and so advertised to passengers on the Cunard Line in order to attract the attention of rich American visitors. One, Henry T Ford, was interested, came to Broadway, staying at the Lygon arms. He asked for help to purchase a Cotswold Cottage. He was taken to nearby village Snowshill, where Ford bought a complete Blacksmith’s workshop, and shipped them back stone by numbered stone to Brentford on the Thames, then to the London Docks and across the Atlantic to set them up in a Museum in Michigan where they still are!

Research suggests it’s a little more complicated, in so far as he purchased his first Cottage before coming to Broadway, but it still leaves a delightful story about American ideas of Quintessential English village life. More on this story here:

By the way, Frances Millet planned to return to the States on the Titanic. He was one of the 1500 who drowned, but a letter he wrote while on the ship was posted, probably in France and is on display in the Broadway Museum.

14th June 2023

June 14th Moneywort

Calm weather in June
Sets corn in tune.

When it is hottest in June, it will be coldest in the corresponding days in February.

(Weather Lore by Richard Inwards 1895)

Moneywort flowers in June/July. It is, also known as Creeping Jenny, Wandering Jenny, Creeping Joan, or Wandering Sailor. All names alluding to its rapid trailing over the Ground.

It’s also called Herb Tuppence or String of Sovereigns and variations. ‘Herbe 2 pence’ was the name given by William Turner in the earliest English scientific Herbal, 1551. He learnt his medicine in Italy in Ferrara and Bologna and went abroad again, in exile from Mary 1st’s religious intolerance.

frontispiece of William Turner's 'A newe herball' containing descriptions of 238 English plants, 1551 — William Turner’s ‘A newe herball’ containing descriptions of 238 English plants,

Its Latin name is Lysimachia nummularis (from the Latin for money nummulus) Mrs Grieve suggests that the two pence idea comes from the leaves which ‘look like rows of pennies, and the golden flowers which give the name String of Sovereigns.’

There was said to be ‘not a better wound-herb’, and that wounded serpents would wrap themselves around it. Hence, yet another name is Serpentaria. Also, it was thought to be good for stomachs, and against whooping cough.

It can be used both fresh or dried, but if to be dried, collect in June. It prospers in damp conditions and self-spreads.

9th June 202312th December 2023

June 9t St Columba’s (St Colmcille’s) Day

St Columba st margarets chapel by Graham van der Wielen Edinburgh Lead glass — St Columba Stained Glass window in St Margaret’s Chapel Edinburgh Castle by Graham van der Wielen Wikipedia CC BY 2.0

St Columba, or Colmcille is one of the most important saints for the early transmission of Christianity. He was born in 521 and said to be a descendent of the possibly legendary Irish King Niall of the Nine Hostages. (The Hostages were a token of Niall’s power as they came from the five provinces of Ireland, which are Ulster, Connacht, Leinster, Munster, and Meath. The other four represented Scotland, the Saxons, the Britons, and the Franks). Columba was sent, at an early, age to be brought up as a Monk and went on to set up Monasteries in Ireland at Derry and Durrow.

In 563, he left Ireland, possibly because he got involved in a dispute that lead to loss of life. He went into exile to Scotland and set up the famous Monastery on the island of Iona, Inner Hebrides, off the coast of what would one day be called Scotland. At the time, it was under the control of the Kingdom of Dál Riata, which was nominally Christian and controlled parts of Ulster and Western Scotland. From Iona, Columba led the conversion of the Picts to Christianity, which helped towards the unification of the Gaels, the Picts and the Britons, eventually into the Kingdom of Alba which became Scotland. Early Scottish Kings such as Macbeth (Mac Bethad mac Findlaích) were buried here.

Much of the events of this part of Columba’s life are legendary as recorded by St. Adamnan in The Life of Saint Columba written in the 7th Century. One notable story is that he came across a group of Pagan Picts who were mourning a child killed by a monster in the River Ness. St Columba revived the child. He then sent one of the Brothers to swim across the Loch to fetch a boat. The “water beast” pursued the Monk and was about to attack him when St Columba told the monster to stop, and so it did, retreating to the depths of Loch Ness. Thus founding the legend of the Loch Ness monster.

St Columba died in 597AD. Iona continued to prosper and in, 634AD sent St Aidan from Iona to found the Monastery at Lindisfarne. This was instrumental in the conversion of the Kingdom of Northumbria. This tradition of evangelism took hold in the British Isles, and it was from here that much of the German-speaking world was converted to Christianity.

This is St Columba’s legacy.

There is a developing understanding among scholars that this Irish inspired form of Christianity took a leading role in ritual, art, scholarship in the Roman Catholic world at this time. Just stop and think about that sentence for a moment. The north-western extreme of the Islands off the coast of Europe took a leading role in the development of Western Christianity. This was highlighted in a recent exhibition of Anglo-Saxon art at the British Library.

British Library with Poster for Anglo-Saxons Kingdoms Exhibition, Photo K Flude

A look at the Lindisfarne Gospel and the Book of Kells showcases the amazing art of this period. For a real treat, look through this scrollable virtual copy of the Lindisfarne Gospel. It has been missing from the displays of the British Museum for a couple of years, and was on display in Northumberland in 2022. I’m not sure whether it is yet back on display at the British Museum. I hope so, but the scrollable version almost compensates for its absence. You can see the Book of Kells at Trinity College, Dublin or look at their online offering here: Not quite as joyous an experience as the online Lindisfarne but beautiful enough.

Carpet Page from the Lindisfarne Gospel Photo Wikiepedia Eadfrith –
Lindisfarne evangeliarium, tapijtbladzijde op f26v, Matteüsevangelie

Here is a virtual tour of Iona

Here is a 360-degree panoramic photo tour of Lindisfarne Abbey

7th June 2023

Link to the Picture Room Virtual tour that works

The link to the Sir John Soane Picture Room Virtual Tour in yesterday’s post did not work. For some reason, the URL displayed in the browser for the Picture Room tour does not work. I think the Museum must have disabled it. They might want us to come into the virtual tours at the previous level, where you get a choice of the three virtual tours they currently offer.

So this is the link you need. (choose Picture Room from the three options).

Further information about the Picture Room can be found here: the Picture Room and the paintings.

6th June 20237th June 2023

Digital Heritage – the Picture Room at the Sir John Soane Museum

Screen Shot of the Virtual Tour of the Sir John Soane Museum showing the approach to the Paintings Room — Screen Shot of the Virtual Tour of the Sir John Soane Museum

The Sir John Soane Museum is my second favourite London Museum. It’s the place I choose to take people who don’t know London. What I like about it is the atmosphere. It’s not a place I go because of the collection, it’s a place I go because I’m just awestruck when I enter the doors.

Architect Soane, made a Museum of his house, filling it with architectural and sculptural pieces but also some stupendous Art, particularly paintings by William Hogarth. But that isn’t my motivation to keep going back. It’s the Picture Room (and the domed ceilings). Soane had a great collection of paintings, but not enough walls. What he did was to design the Paintings Room. When you visit you go in, admire the paintings on the wall, and the attendant comes in, opens a shutter, and behind the great paintings are another wall of great paintings. And then he opens another set of shutters, and there, is another feast for your eyes.

Now, they have made high quality digital images of the rooms, and put them together using photogrammetry into a digital model which you can explore.

So, feast your eyes on it here: (choose Picture Room from the three options).

It’s not quite as user-friendly as it might be. Firstly, when the tour delivers you to the Picture Room, you have to take over control to go in and explore the 360 degree image of the room. Unfortunately, the pictures are not clickable, so you cannot get information about them from here. Also, the ‘hot spots’ which allow you to open the shutters, only reveal themselves, on my computer, if you approach them at a certain angle.

But don’t let this put you off, I’m sure you will find your way around. So go into the Room, look around, move the cursus, and you will see little signs pop up which open and close the shutters. Really, do try it! There are a couple of other rooms to explore too.

Here is a link to descriptions of the Picture Room and the paintings.

Oh, and the Dome Ceilings? Soane was a specialist in buildings that didn’t want windows in normal places. He was the architect of the Bank of England where windows in the walls were a security risk, and also of London’s first purpose built art gallery – the Dulwich Picture Gallery. Windows reduced the space for paintings, so he designed special low domed ceilings, and the Soane Museum is full of his experimentation in the form.

Scara Brae Three D Model

Another delight is the 3D model of Scara Brae which allows you to explore the Neolithic village, and walk around it. There are labels on this one, so you do get information too.

https://www.historicenvironment.scot/about-us/news/new-digital-model-of-skara-brae-welcomes-virtual-visitors/

360 Degree Panorama Virtual Tours. My part in their development.

I was an early adopter of this form of virtual reality, setting up virtual tours of the Old Operating Theatre Museum in the 1990’s. I have a draft post of this which I have been awaiting time to finish, which I hope to finish soon….

Thanks to the Museum’s Journal article on Photogrametry of May/June 2022 for the two examples above.

3rd June 20233rd June 2023

June 3rd. St Kevin’s Day

Thank you very much to my Paris correspondent for alerting me to my Saint’s Day. I was aware of St Kev and that the name meant ‘of noble birth’ but that’s the extent of my knowledge.

But a little research on Wikipedia while on the train to visit my Dad, has revealed that Kev lived to the grand old age of 120, born in 498 and died in 628. He meet the great St. Columba; had a poem written about him by the marvelous Seamus Heaney; a song by the Dubliners; several mentions by James Joyce and a long distance path, part of the Camino de Santiago network, the St Kevin’s Way, named after him. The weather for all of June can be predicted: ‘The weather on St Kevin Day will last all month’

Coemgen, as he is known in Irish, was a hermit, living in a cave-like ledge above a lake. His piety attracted followers and a monastic settlement. He was known for his ascetic life and love for nature. So, a role model for us Kevins?

His hagiography was written very late so little of it can be confirmed. But, like other saintly hermits he is associated with being tempted by women or the devil disguised as a women. ( St. Anthony the Great, St. Benedict of Nursia, Saint Chrysanthus, St. Vitus, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Hilary etc.) Unfortunately, Coemgen is said to have drowned his temptress.

On the other hand, my sister has just, this minute, shown me this souvenir from a shop in Northumberland.

For more on the Temptations of Hermits:

Nechita, Andrea.“Offering Body, Pleasure, and Wealth: The Visual Representation of Women Tempting Saints (Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century).” Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU, 20 (2014): 96-112.

3rd June 20235th June 2023

June & July – Street Parties in London on the Vigils of Feast Days

Image from the Agas Map of London
Civitas Londinum is a bird’s-eye view of London first printed from woodblocks in about 1561 — Civitas Londinum is a bird’s-eye view of London first printed from woodblocks in about 1561

John Stow, author of the ‘Survey of London‘ first published in 1598, tells us that there were bonfires and street parties in the City throughout June and July on the Vigils of Festivals. The Vigil is the evening before a festival. A custom that might owe a little to the Celtic choice of dusk as the beginning of the new day.

Front cover of the Survey of London by John Stow

Stow does not give a list of the vigils thus celebrated and only mentions those of St John the Baptist and of St Paul and St Peter, (which fall later in June, when I will post about them). But I would guess it would include prominent Saints in the Catholic Calendar, and also Saints with London Churches or Chapels named after them. These might include: St Botolph, St Alban, St James, St Thomas, St Margaret, St Wilgerfortis, St. Mary Magdalen, St Bridget, St James, as well as Saints John, Peter, and Paul. I’m guessing that City wide celebration would be reserved for the most important Saints, and with local celebrations for the Saint on the local Church. I am assuming these celebrations were ended or much reduced after the Reformation.

Here is his introduction to the Vigil celebrations.

‘In the months of June and July, on the vigils of festival days, and on the same festival days in the evenings after the sun setting, there were usually made bonfires in the streets, every man bestowing wood or labour towards them; the wealthier sort also, before their doors near to the said bonfires, would set out tables on the vigils, furnished with sweet bread and good drink, and on the festival days with meats and drinks plentifully, whereunto they would invite their neighbours and passengers also to sit and be merry with them in great familiarity, praising God for his benefits bestowed on them. These were called bonfires as well of good amity amongst neighbours that being before at controversy, were there, by the labour of others, reconciled, and made of bitter enemies loving friends; and also for the virtue that a great fire hath to purge the infection of the air. ‘

He goes on to describe a large scale City wide celebration, which is probably a description of the Midsummer festivities, which I will present on the 21st June.

John Stow is one of the most important sources for Tudor and Medieval London. He was a Londoner, buried in St Andrews Undershaft (see map above), who wrote up all he could glean about London. I use him all the time – for example, on my Wolf Hall Tudor London Walk, which I am doing tomorrow. Stow’s Survey of London can be accessed online, in full, here: or via the wonderful online Agas Map, from which the map above came from.

1st June 20231st June 2023

June & Juno Queen of Goddesses

Black and white engraving for June from Kalendar of Shepherds. — Kalendar of Shepherds. Title page for June

June is, probably, named after Juno, the leading lady of Olympus, sister and brother to the Great God Jupiter (Jove). In Welsh, it’s ‘Mehefin’ – Midsummer. In Gaelic, ‘An t’Og mhios’ – the Young Month. In Anglo-Saxon, ‘Litha’, the month of the Midsummer Moon.

The picture above is from the Kalendar of Shepherds, with its 15th Century French Illustration. It shows shearing as the main occupation for the month but set within a flowery summer scene. In the roundels are the Gemini twins and the Cancer Crab, the star signs of June.

It is possible that June comes from an Indo-European word for youth or vital energy. Ovid in Fasti, his poem about the Roman Year, lets June make her own case:

‘O poet, singer of the Roman year,
Who dares to tell great things in slender measures,
You’ve won the right to view a celestial power,
By choosing to celebrate the festivals in your verse.
But so you’re not ignorant or led astray by error.
June in fact takes its name from mine.
It’s something to have wed Jove, and to be Jove’s sister:
I’m not sure if I’m prouder of brother or husband.
If you consider lineage, I was first to call Saturn
Father, I was the first child fate granted to him.
Rome was once named Saturnia, after my father:
This was the first place he came to, exiled from heaven.
If the marriage bed counts at all, I’m called the
Thunderer’s Wife, and my shrine’s joined to that of Tarpeian Jove.
If his mistress could give her name to the month of May,
Shall a similar honour be begrudged to me?
Or why am I called queen and chief of goddesses?
Why did they place a golden sceptre in my hand?’

In the previous Book (on May), Ovid told another story:

‘So I deduce that the elders gave their own title
To the month of May: and looked after their own interests.
Numitor too may have said: ‘Romulus, grant this month
To the old men’ and his grandson may have yielded.
The following month, June, named for young men’
Gives no slight proof of the honour intended.’

(‘Young men’ from Latin iuvenis, “youth”)

But let’s not go into Indo-European roots, and let’s simply accept the most wonderful month is named after Juno, the Queen of Goddesses, the deity of marriage and women. Probably most famous for hating the Trojans – she had a grudge against Paris, as he ruled against her in that famous divine beauty competition. And more seriously, what other reaction can the Deity of Marriage, have to the man who showed such disregard for the sanctity of marriage in running away with Helen.

The Judgment of Paris 1700 by Daniel Purcell. Houghton Museum (Paris, Venus, Juno, Minerva)

30th May 2023

May: Dandelions, Hinder Fallings and Bed Wetting

Dandelion Photo by Nick Nice on Unsplash

May has nearly gone and, and so far, few posts. I have been leading a study tour for Road Scholar called ‘Quintessential Britain’ which visits: London, Oxford, Stonehenge, Bath, the Cotswolds, Ironbridge, Chester, Wales, York, Edinburgh. Great to see all those places in the company of a lovely group. In between I have been moving my boat, Mrs Towser, down the Lee Navigation to East London, and looking after my Grandson when called upon.

My grandson is just making that huge transition from nappies to no nappies. In the middle of the park, he was curious as to why I was concerned that the park toilets were out of action. He told me I could, like him, just pull down my trousers and wee, right there, right then. An attempt at explanation drew a perplexed, ‘What?’ ‘What?’ is his new word. After an explanation, his next word is invariable another ‘What?’.

Is this relevant, you are asking yourself? May and June are the most prolific months for dandelions, which used to be known as ‘piss-a-beds’. They are diuretic and were often eaten, and so might well have consequences for the young trainee child.

John Hollybush in his 1561 ‘The Homish Apothecary’ (quoted in ‘The Perpetual Almanac by Charles Kightley) says:

‘When a young body does piss in his bed either oft or seldom: if ye will help him take the bladder of a goat and dry it to powder, and get him to drink with wine, or else take the beans or hinder fallings of a goat, and give him of the powder in his meat morning and evening, a quarter ounce at every time.’

Hinder fallings are what falls out of the hind-quarters of a goat. I’m not sure even an indulgent Grandparent is allowed to give droppings and wine to the little ones. Nor can I find any mention of goat products in modern medical recommendations. So I won’t be recommending this as a practical aid.

Medically, dandelions were very well regarded. Mrs Grieve’s ‘Modern Herbal’ reports that it is diuretic and a general stimulant to the system but particularly the urinary system. They were good for liver and kidney complaints; gall-stones; and piles. They were considered excellent to eat and drink. Particularly, dandelion sandwiches using young leaves, with salt, pepper, and lemon juice. They were also taken in salads, teas, and beers.

We used to blow the seeds from the dandelion seed head saying ‘She loves me. She loves me not’ at each blow, until the truth was revealed.

Here is a poem based on the rhyme:

She Loves Me Not, The Dandelion Said

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