The last month has been spent catching my breath a little. Any PhD was always going to be a marathon with a particularly gruelling last leg: after a serious health interruption to my work in 2010, this year's efforts felt like even more of an uphill struggle.
But that struggle is now over. The viva went well and the examiners demanded only minimal revisions. These were accepted, a hard copy was lodged at the University of Hertfordshire, and an electronic copy is now available online at the University's Research Archive.
So much for catching my breath. I've had the great pleasure of working in the Folklore Society's Library over the last few weeks while I reorient. I've submitted a book chapter on ghosts in white sheets, and I've started to think about future projects. These include turning my thesis into a book: I've begun thinking about proposals, and will get those into better shape early in January. I'm also planning on getting back on the conference trail in 2012, so I'm drafting paper proposals over the next fortnight as well.
Suddenly it doesn't sound quite like a break, but it's certainly the start of something new. Here's to 2012, and the season's best to you.
Saturday, 24 December 2011
Monday, 21 November 2011
On Carey Street
The period at the end of a PhD is peculiar. Even though the thesis is completed, and even when the viva is over, there's still a panoply of fiddly (and time-consuming) things to get done. I'm now all done, bar binding the hard copy of the dissertation, but it means I've been rather preoccupied and haven't been able to get back to gainful employment in any meaningful way up till now.
So perhaps it wasn't coincidence that, laying in bed last night, the phrase 'on Carey Street' came back to me. I'd first heard it when giving directions to the Seven Stars, a pub on Carey Street WC2. The person I was telling beamed delightedly and said 'So you really would end up on Carey Street!'
The phrase entered local proverbial usage to mean bankruptcy. Carey Street sits behind the Royal Courts of Justice, and provided one entrance to the bankruptcy court. Later, a drinker in the Seven Stars also explained this to me.
I doubt how widespread the usage is, as both of these informants were over 60. It isn't listed in the Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, and it would appear to be a recent coinage, possibly of literary origin. The bankruptcy court only moved to Carey Street in the 1840s, where a new building was erected for it in 1892.
From Carey Street it's still been possible (just) to see the bankruptcy court, which was moved in the 1960s to the Thomas More building (the ill-fitting tower block at the Clement's Inn end of the RCJ). This may eventually change, as four Bankruptcy Registrars will shortly be located at the Rolls Building on Fetter Lane. The Rolls Building is unlikely to be visible from Carey Street. It won't stop people ending up on Carey Street.
So perhaps it wasn't coincidence that, laying in bed last night, the phrase 'on Carey Street' came back to me. I'd first heard it when giving directions to the Seven Stars, a pub on Carey Street WC2. The person I was telling beamed delightedly and said 'So you really would end up on Carey Street!'
The phrase entered local proverbial usage to mean bankruptcy. Carey Street sits behind the Royal Courts of Justice, and provided one entrance to the bankruptcy court. Later, a drinker in the Seven Stars also explained this to me.
I doubt how widespread the usage is, as both of these informants were over 60. It isn't listed in the Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, and it would appear to be a recent coinage, possibly of literary origin. The bankruptcy court only moved to Carey Street in the 1840s, where a new building was erected for it in 1892.
From Carey Street it's still been possible (just) to see the bankruptcy court, which was moved in the 1960s to the Thomas More building (the ill-fitting tower block at the Clement's Inn end of the RCJ). This may eventually change, as four Bankruptcy Registrars will shortly be located at the Rolls Building on Fetter Lane. The Rolls Building is unlikely to be visible from Carey Street. It won't stop people ending up on Carey Street.
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Katharine Briggs evening 2011
Before I head off to the South East London Folklore Society for my talk tonight I should mention last night's Katharine Briggs evening at the Folklore Society. I'm a bit thick-voiced after the reception, which is normally an indicator that a jolly time was had: there were a number of comments to the effect that the Briggs evening is acquiring a customary life of its own as a seasonal event, with regular visitors and a formalised tradition of how it all unfolds. It was also a nice chance to meet other scholars I didn't know, authors whose books I'd reviewed but whom I didn't know, and people I'd so far only spoken to on Twitter.The Briggs lecture was given by Michael Rosen on 'The Folk Tradition: What Do We Do With It?' (The accompanying picture, blagged from his website, shows Mike at the Ledbury Poetry Festival). His engaging performance was really about the folk traditions that play out in his work. He laid particular emphasis on the range of such traditions and the interactions involved in eliciting and documenting them (for example in getting children to collect from each other and from their parents). Much of this isn't overly controversial for contemporary folklorists, but it was refreshing to hear a reasoned and entertaining defence of collecting whole repertoires rather than selective documentation. It was also very nice to hear the audience respond with a realisation of the wealth of folkloric material they have heard throughout their lives.
The Katharine Briggs book award went to Herbert Halpert and J.D.A. Widdowson, Folk Tales, Tall Tales, Trickster Tales and Legends of the Supernatural from the Pinelands of New Jersey: Recorded and. I'm very excited about this book, which sounds remarkable. I've long admired Halpert's fieldwork and his scholarship, and I'm pleased to see recognition given to what, in some ways, was a pinnacle of his work. Receiving the award John Widdowson said the book had become Halpert's 'life work': towards the end of his life he had almost lost sight of publication because of his ongoing research and annotation. Widdowson also paid tribute to their publishers. Where other publishers had wanted to cherry-pick stories and ditch the scholarly apparatus that make the project so valuable, Edwin Mellen took the manuscript on in its entirety. That was almost the most encouraging part of the story. It is still possible to produce books of serious scholarly folklore research. That is also cause for celebration, and is a fitting tribute to Herbert Halpert and his work.
Friday, 28 October 2011
The AFS on proposed changes to research ethics models
The American Folklore Society have recently issued a statement on proposed changes to consent requirements for fieldwork. The AFS's response, with their existing statement of principles on research ethics, can be found here.
Fieldwork ethics is important. It's about how we deal with people as humans, how we document, report and reflect their lives accurately and respectfully. The AFS statement is well worth reading, as it is a sane and humane approach to research ethics in this field.
It also bears reading here in the UK, too, where the marginalised character of Folklore in academia means that university research ethics policies may also be designed primarily with laboratory research models in mind. The absence of legislative guidelines may not mean there isn't a general trend in that direction, particularly in the absence of an authoritative and respected body which represents a recognised field of study. (The Folklore Society here is certainly respected, but is perhaps easier to ignore in the absence of Folklore departments).
When discussing ethics clearance for my recent doctoral fieldwork I initially came up against a number of expectations that clearly derived from scientific research models: some academics seemed baffled when I said that anonymisation might not always be appropriate, and might in fact be insulting depending on the nature of the tradition being examined. I'm happy to say that a school-specific ethics committee (which has been more active since the introduction of oral history modules there) worked with me in a constructive way, helping me to move away from this 'human subjects' laboratory model. Anybody who is undertaking field research needs to think about these questions, and needs to think about the ethical structures they require.
Fieldwork ethics is important. It's about how we deal with people as humans, how we document, report and reflect their lives accurately and respectfully. The AFS statement is well worth reading, as it is a sane and humane approach to research ethics in this field.
It also bears reading here in the UK, too, where the marginalised character of Folklore in academia means that university research ethics policies may also be designed primarily with laboratory research models in mind. The absence of legislative guidelines may not mean there isn't a general trend in that direction, particularly in the absence of an authoritative and respected body which represents a recognised field of study. (The Folklore Society here is certainly respected, but is perhaps easier to ignore in the absence of Folklore departments).
When discussing ethics clearance for my recent doctoral fieldwork I initially came up against a number of expectations that clearly derived from scientific research models: some academics seemed baffled when I said that anonymisation might not always be appropriate, and might in fact be insulting depending on the nature of the tradition being examined. I'm happy to say that a school-specific ethics committee (which has been more active since the introduction of oral history modules there) worked with me in a constructive way, helping me to move away from this 'human subjects' laboratory model. Anybody who is undertaking field research needs to think about these questions, and needs to think about the ethical structures they require.
Monday, 24 October 2011
Mummers, Maypoles and Milkmaids
We've lately seen something of an enthusiasm amongst artists for vernacular culture and tradition. The results have been exciting, with the creation of new works going alongside a very broad championing of the folk arts. From his background as Art Director in the fashion world Simon Costin has sought to build a Museum of British Folklore. Grayson Perry is exploring the world of vernacular artefacts. Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane curated the Folk Archive. Whatever their artistic impulses and interpretations, all of these projects have addressed actual folk practice and its artefacts.
They have also, refreshingly, looked at folk practice in a broad way, encompassing existing traditions, revivals and adaptations, and newly developed customs. (In this respect they are building on the work of Doc Rowe, as they acknowledge). More needs to be said about the nuances and differences between these registers of vernacular practice, of course, but they all need documenting and considering as folklore.
Sara Hannant's beautiful new book Mummers, Maypoles and Milkmaids: A Journey through the English Ritual Year (Merrell Publishing) belongs with this same trend. She documents a selection of events across the year, from the Allendale Tar Barrel Parade (1 January) to The (Insert Name Here) Mummers (28 December). For each event a short explanatory text introduces some of Hannant's vibrant and evocative photographs.
It is primarily a photographic book - a snapshot of some parts of the ritual year that have caught Hannant's eye and lens - and it is gorgeous. There are particularly striking shots of processions at night and/or involving fire. You can see some of the pictures in a portfolio on her website (and an exhibition has just opened at the Horniman Museum if you're around south London over the next year), but the Hinton St George Punkie Night procession (below) gives some idea of her best. (For me the outstanding shot is of a burning Lewes bonfire effigy of David Cameron and Nick Clegg). She also captures well the informal solemnity of such seasonal events: members of the Druid Order processing down Primrose Hill at the Autumn Equinox, or a break for a bag of chips at the kerbside during the Sowerby Bridge Rush-Bearing Festival. The qualities are combined in a great shot of the Britannia Coconut Dancers dancing round Bacup in falling snow (further down the page). It's serious, ridiculous and intense, and Hannant has a sympathetic eye for the people who participate in or watch these customs.
She has focused her attention on England in order to 'explore notions of national identity' (p.10). It is unclear whether this actually gets beyond documenting what seasonal customs are currently practised in England (although that in itself would be valuable), but it certainly throws up some interesting questions for future researchers.
What is interesting about the book is its combination of the old, the new, and the thought-to-be-old. Here, certainly, are the older 'star attractions' of the English seasonal year (Padstow, Lewes, Bacup, Abbots Bromley), but Hannant also does a very good job with more recently established and civic events. She notes the involvement of local folklore enthusiasts in the revival or invention of some traditions, many of which have existed in their current form for only 30-40 years. Here, alongside May Day customs and morris dancing, are civic carnivals and trade association events like the Pearly Kings Harvest Festival. There are also some striking sequences on recently established events like the Hastings and Deptford Jacks-in-the-Green.
These pictures point to one of the book's more intriguing features. Hannant is interested in questions of the beliefs embodied in seasonal customs. Some of these are fairly recent developments within Anglican tradition: Painswick's 'Clypping', for example, for all its claims of age, owes much to the Victorian antiquarianism of enthusiastic Church of England pastors. Hannant has documented further many of the emergent traditions around what we might loosely call neo-pagan beliefs. She is particularly good at covering the range of events around specific dates like 31 October (Ottery St Mary's tar barrels, the Antrobus Soulcakers' Play and Glastonbury Samhain events).
To some extent she has thus documented a new ritual year, one which has arisen only in the last two decades, although an ancient heritage is claimed for it. Her text does not deal with this in any great depth, although she is largely sympathetic to its practitioners (and has made much use of Ronald Hutton in her background reading, so her sympathy is well-informed). It may be up to others to tease out the relationship between these events (and between them and their supposed forebears), but that is not really the point of Hannant's glorious book. It would, of course, be nice to hear more about the background to events like the London Beltane revival (and there may be an error in the location here), but the novelty of documenting it so well still justifies its presentation in this way here.
It is a mark of the book's quality that it does point directions for such future consideration, but that should be taken as a bonus to its other, rather more evident, qualities. The book is an attractive celebration of a wide range of seasonal observation. It deserves to be seen widely and enjoyed. It should trigger further interest in seasonal events, drawing attention both to their existence and - hopefully - to their implications and meanings.
They have also, refreshingly, looked at folk practice in a broad way, encompassing existing traditions, revivals and adaptations, and newly developed customs. (In this respect they are building on the work of Doc Rowe, as they acknowledge). More needs to be said about the nuances and differences between these registers of vernacular practice, of course, but they all need documenting and considering as folklore.
Sara Hannant's beautiful new book Mummers, Maypoles and Milkmaids: A Journey through the English Ritual Year (Merrell Publishing) belongs with this same trend. She documents a selection of events across the year, from the Allendale Tar Barrel Parade (1 January) to The (Insert Name Here) Mummers (28 December). For each event a short explanatory text introduces some of Hannant's vibrant and evocative photographs.
It is primarily a photographic book - a snapshot of some parts of the ritual year that have caught Hannant's eye and lens - and it is gorgeous. There are particularly striking shots of processions at night and/or involving fire. You can see some of the pictures in a portfolio on her website (and an exhibition has just opened at the Horniman Museum if you're around south London over the next year), but the Hinton St George Punkie Night procession (below) gives some idea of her best. (For me the outstanding shot is of a burning Lewes bonfire effigy of David Cameron and Nick Clegg). She also captures well the informal solemnity of such seasonal events: members of the Druid Order processing down Primrose Hill at the Autumn Equinox, or a break for a bag of chips at the kerbside during the Sowerby Bridge Rush-Bearing Festival. The qualities are combined in a great shot of the Britannia Coconut Dancers dancing round Bacup in falling snow (further down the page). It's serious, ridiculous and intense, and Hannant has a sympathetic eye for the people who participate in or watch these customs.
She has focused her attention on England in order to 'explore notions of national identity' (p.10). It is unclear whether this actually gets beyond documenting what seasonal customs are currently practised in England (although that in itself would be valuable), but it certainly throws up some interesting questions for future researchers.What is interesting about the book is its combination of the old, the new, and the thought-to-be-old. Here, certainly, are the older 'star attractions' of the English seasonal year (Padstow, Lewes, Bacup, Abbots Bromley), but Hannant also does a very good job with more recently established and civic events. She notes the involvement of local folklore enthusiasts in the revival or invention of some traditions, many of which have existed in their current form for only 30-40 years. Here, alongside May Day customs and morris dancing, are civic carnivals and trade association events like the Pearly Kings Harvest Festival. There are also some striking sequences on recently established events like the Hastings and Deptford Jacks-in-the-Green.
These pictures point to one of the book's more intriguing features. Hannant is interested in questions of the beliefs embodied in seasonal customs. Some of these are fairly recent developments within Anglican tradition: Painswick's 'Clypping', for example, for all its claims of age, owes much to the Victorian antiquarianism of enthusiastic Church of England pastors. Hannant has documented further many of the emergent traditions around what we might loosely call neo-pagan beliefs. She is particularly good at covering the range of events around specific dates like 31 October (Ottery St Mary's tar barrels, the Antrobus Soulcakers' Play and Glastonbury Samhain events).To some extent she has thus documented a new ritual year, one which has arisen only in the last two decades, although an ancient heritage is claimed for it. Her text does not deal with this in any great depth, although she is largely sympathetic to its practitioners (and has made much use of Ronald Hutton in her background reading, so her sympathy is well-informed). It may be up to others to tease out the relationship between these events (and between them and their supposed forebears), but that is not really the point of Hannant's glorious book. It would, of course, be nice to hear more about the background to events like the London Beltane revival (and there may be an error in the location here), but the novelty of documenting it so well still justifies its presentation in this way here.
It is a mark of the book's quality that it does point directions for such future consideration, but that should be taken as a bonus to its other, rather more evident, qualities. The book is an attractive celebration of a wide range of seasonal observation. It deserves to be seen widely and enjoyed. It should trigger further interest in seasonal events, drawing attention both to their existence and - hopefully - to their implications and meanings.
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Pinch bottom day
I came across the following sentence last night. I find it rather beautiful: it sums up what's interesting and fun about folklore and its research.
'1 May in Fittleworth [Sussex] was once known as "Pinch Bottom Day", although I cannot find out why' (1)
And no, I don't know why, either. Exciting, isn't it?
'1 May in Fittleworth [Sussex] was once known as "Pinch Bottom Day", although I cannot find out why' (1)
And no, I don't know why, either. Exciting, isn't it?
* * * * *
1: Tony Wales, We Wunt Be Druv: Songs and Stories from Sussex (London: Galliard & EFDSS, 1976), p. 10.
Wednesday, 5 October 2011
Friday, 23 September 2011
A Watchet Sailor
I recently spent a happy 3 weeks holidaying in Watchet on the Somerset coast. The small harbour town's development was tied up with the import and export of minerals, particularly iron ore from the neighbouring Brendon Hills. Earlier it had hosted a Saxon mint which was plundered by the Vikings, and there are a couple of good local legends around the church and the big local landowners.
For anyone interested in folk song and its collection in England, Watchet means shanties. It was the home of the remarkable singer John Short (1839-1933). Between April and September 1914 Short sang 57 songs, most of them shanties, to Cecil Sharp. He was the main contributor to Sharp's English Folk-Chanteys, providing 43 of its 60 songs.
Short had started work in the local coastal trade at the age of 14, but in 1857 moved onto deep-sea vessels. For the next 50 years he worked at sea, eventually moving back into the coastal trade. His time on the Union ship the Levant, running the Civil War blockade under a British flag of convenience, earned him the enduring nickname 'Yankee Jack'. When he finally came ashore, to look after his ailing wife, he worked in Watchet harbour.
He heard his first shanty, Cheerily Man, on his first deepwater trip. Thereafter he made a point of trying to pick up a new shanty on every new vessel, which may explain some of the range of his repertoire. This is also worth noting when we think about traditional singers' active pursuit and preservation of songs. Short was a fine melismatic singer, as the notation of a complex piece like Carry Him to the Burying Ground reveals. In his later years Short served as Watchet's town crier. The town still has a crier, but I doubt that he could share John Short's boast that his voice could be heard for 2 miles with the right wind.
What is striking in Watchet is how far Short's fame within the folk revivals has intersected with his local celebrity. There is a statue of him in the centre of the Esplanade overlooking the harbour. (I do not particularly like Alan Herriot's statue, although I prefer it to his other local statue of the Ancient Mariner). Short's former residence is marked with a slate plaque.
Some of this may reflect the interest of folk song collectors (Sharp's picture can also be found on local information boards), but that is not quite the whole story. The town's good Boat Museum has a range of Bridgwater 'flatners', local boats built for inland work along the coast. These are now making a comeback as leisure vessels, and the museum has a nice recent example named after Short. The impression is of a celebrated local figure who has also become known to the outside world through his very specific talents. These reflect on and augment his local standing.
That is both charming and appropriate. In Watchet we get a real sense of a singer as a person, and of his repertoire as reflecting that person's enthusiasm and activity. There has been a healthy push towards such an approach when thinking about folk song (1), but Watchet's relationship with John Short gave me the fullest sense of how this might work.
It was appropriate, then, that in the Watchet Town Museum I picked up the first volume in a projected 3-CD set of all John Short's songs. Short Sharp Shanties Vol. 1 was put together under the auspices of Tom and Barbara Brown. They have brought together an eclectic group of lead singers, each of whom was given free rein with the arrangement of their songs.
The result is a diverse collection that highlights the move from shanties as historical worksongs to their current presentation as social and performance pieces. One of my big dislikes of shanty sessions is their lack of variety. That is not the case here. There are some more 'traditional' representations of shanties as worksongs, but Short's musicality is given full credit both in straightforward hauling shanties like Shallow Brown (and I warm more and more to Jim Mageean's singing) and in Carry Him to the Burying Ground. Sam Lee's singing of the latter is assured and complex, but I do not find his reading of songs yet as compelling or convincing as, say, Jackie Oates's fine take on Fire! Fire! here. Jeff Warner's banjo points to the breadth of Short's musical adventuring. I'm a big fan of Jeff Warner, and particularly enjoyed his warm and delicate Won't You Go My Way? (He touches on John Short's repertoire on his new solo album, too). At its best, this CD points to the same tendency seen in Watchet: these songs are part of a man's life, and are part of how he lived that life. In celebrating the songs, we have to celebrate the singer.
For anyone interested in folk song and its collection in England, Watchet means shanties. It was the home of the remarkable singer John Short (1839-1933). Between April and September 1914 Short sang 57 songs, most of them shanties, to Cecil Sharp. He was the main contributor to Sharp's English Folk-Chanteys, providing 43 of its 60 songs.
Short had started work in the local coastal trade at the age of 14, but in 1857 moved onto deep-sea vessels. For the next 50 years he worked at sea, eventually moving back into the coastal trade. His time on the Union ship the Levant, running the Civil War blockade under a British flag of convenience, earned him the enduring nickname 'Yankee Jack'. When he finally came ashore, to look after his ailing wife, he worked in Watchet harbour.
He heard his first shanty, Cheerily Man, on his first deepwater trip. Thereafter he made a point of trying to pick up a new shanty on every new vessel, which may explain some of the range of his repertoire. This is also worth noting when we think about traditional singers' active pursuit and preservation of songs. Short was a fine melismatic singer, as the notation of a complex piece like Carry Him to the Burying Ground reveals. In his later years Short served as Watchet's town crier. The town still has a crier, but I doubt that he could share John Short's boast that his voice could be heard for 2 miles with the right wind.
What is striking in Watchet is how far Short's fame within the folk revivals has intersected with his local celebrity. There is a statue of him in the centre of the Esplanade overlooking the harbour. (I do not particularly like Alan Herriot's statue, although I prefer it to his other local statue of the Ancient Mariner). Short's former residence is marked with a slate plaque.Some of this may reflect the interest of folk song collectors (Sharp's picture can also be found on local information boards), but that is not quite the whole story. The town's good Boat Museum has a range of Bridgwater 'flatners', local boats built for inland work along the coast. These are now making a comeback as leisure vessels, and the museum has a nice recent example named after Short. The impression is of a celebrated local figure who has also become known to the outside world through his very specific talents. These reflect on and augment his local standing.
That is both charming and appropriate. In Watchet we get a real sense of a singer as a person, and of his repertoire as reflecting that person's enthusiasm and activity. There has been a healthy push towards such an approach when thinking about folk song (1), but Watchet's relationship with John Short gave me the fullest sense of how this might work.
It was appropriate, then, that in the Watchet Town Museum I picked up the first volume in a projected 3-CD set of all John Short's songs. Short Sharp Shanties Vol. 1 was put together under the auspices of Tom and Barbara Brown. They have brought together an eclectic group of lead singers, each of whom was given free rein with the arrangement of their songs.The result is a diverse collection that highlights the move from shanties as historical worksongs to their current presentation as social and performance pieces. One of my big dislikes of shanty sessions is their lack of variety. That is not the case here. There are some more 'traditional' representations of shanties as worksongs, but Short's musicality is given full credit both in straightforward hauling shanties like Shallow Brown (and I warm more and more to Jim Mageean's singing) and in Carry Him to the Burying Ground. Sam Lee's singing of the latter is assured and complex, but I do not find his reading of songs yet as compelling or convincing as, say, Jackie Oates's fine take on Fire! Fire! here. Jeff Warner's banjo points to the breadth of Short's musical adventuring. I'm a big fan of Jeff Warner, and particularly enjoyed his warm and delicate Won't You Go My Way? (He touches on John Short's repertoire on his new solo album, too). At its best, this CD points to the same tendency seen in Watchet: these songs are part of a man's life, and are part of how he lived that life. In celebrating the songs, we have to celebrate the singer.
* * * * *
1: See, for example, the article on Short in Still Growing: English Traditional Songs and Singers from the Cecil Sharp Collection, ed. Steve Roud, Eddie Upton and Malcolm Taylor (London: English Folk Dance and Song Society, 2003), pp. 79-80.
Wednesday, 14 September 2011
Some burial folklore in literary sources
Whiling away my holiday with some light reading I came across several rather throwaway references to folkloric practice and belief. It is the casual manner of their introduction into literary fiction that makes them compelling as folkloric record. I was particularly struck by some references to burial practice.
The idea that a piece of land has been left undeveloped because it covers a plague burial ground has become a common one in London in recent years. Steve Roud has described the motif as 'a real growth area' (1). It may have developed alongside other similar ideas: in the late 1970s my father told me that a grassy corner of carpark outside the Fox on the Hill pub on Denmark Hill remained bare because it covered a Roman burial ground. (Pragmatism - and access to maps of Roman cemeteries - suggest that it remained undeveloped, rather, because it was awkwardly triangular and too narrow for a parking space). I'd associated the development of the motif with the post-war period, but a passing reference suggests a slightly earlier flourishing.
In Chapter 5 of Sax Rohmer's 1916 sequel The Devil Doctor (US: The Return of Fu-Manchu) we find exactly this kind of emergent pseudo-historical legend. Dr Petrie believes an islet in a south-west London park is naturally occurring. Nayland Smith is scornful in such a way as to point to the creation of authority in a legend:
'Nothing of the kind; it is a burial mound, Petrie! It marks the site of one of the Plague Pits where victims were buried during the Great Plague of London. You will observe that, although you have seen it every morning for some years, it remains for a British Commissioner resident in Burma to acquaint you with its history!'
Thinking folkloristically we might take this last assertion as evidence of the recent development of this legend. (I read this courtesy of Project Gutenberg, so I should also tip my hat here to the recently-departed Michael Hart, its founder and the inventor of the e-book).
This assertion of the 'history' of this legend is in marked contrast to another reference to burial practice I came across in fictional form. In Ambrose Bierce's short story 'A Holy Terror', a gold prospector is tipped off about a plot in a cemetery. He digs through a grave, and with chilling Biercean understatement, finds that 'This frail product of the carpenter's art had been put into the grave the wrong side up!' (2) The lack of explanation creates the effect: the detail relies on a reader's knowledge that burial upside-down is reserved for those likely to cause supernatural disturbance otherwise. (People are buried upside-down to prevent them clawing their way to the surface after death).
This is still a relatively late reference to prone burial. A recent historical survey found the last documented incident of the practice in 1916 (3). Of course, this is the sort of practice that is difficult to establish: it requires a degree of trust in the researcher that may not be inevitable given the rather extraordinary and infrequent practice. Ruth Tongue claimed to have been told of such things in Somerset in the early years of the 20th century (4). There must be some doubts about this: she said she was told of such things because she was a 'chime child', born at midnight. She wasn't. She was evidently a remarkable and gifted storyteller, but her reliability as a witness might be questionable. The Bierce reference, though, does suggest some wider familiarity with the idea.
2: Ambrose Bierce, In the Midst of Life (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1939; first pub. 1892), p. 121.
3: Caroline Arcini, 'Prone Burials', Current Archaeology, 231 (June 2009), 30-35.
4: Ruth L. Tongue, 'Some Odds and Ends of Somerset Folklore', Folklore, 69.1 (1958), 44.
The idea that a piece of land has been left undeveloped because it covers a plague burial ground has become a common one in London in recent years. Steve Roud has described the motif as 'a real growth area' (1). It may have developed alongside other similar ideas: in the late 1970s my father told me that a grassy corner of carpark outside the Fox on the Hill pub on Denmark Hill remained bare because it covered a Roman burial ground. (Pragmatism - and access to maps of Roman cemeteries - suggest that it remained undeveloped, rather, because it was awkwardly triangular and too narrow for a parking space). I'd associated the development of the motif with the post-war period, but a passing reference suggests a slightly earlier flourishing.
In Chapter 5 of Sax Rohmer's 1916 sequel The Devil Doctor (US: The Return of Fu-Manchu) we find exactly this kind of emergent pseudo-historical legend. Dr Petrie believes an islet in a south-west London park is naturally occurring. Nayland Smith is scornful in such a way as to point to the creation of authority in a legend:
'Nothing of the kind; it is a burial mound, Petrie! It marks the site of one of the Plague Pits where victims were buried during the Great Plague of London. You will observe that, although you have seen it every morning for some years, it remains for a British Commissioner resident in Burma to acquaint you with its history!'
Thinking folkloristically we might take this last assertion as evidence of the recent development of this legend. (I read this courtesy of Project Gutenberg, so I should also tip my hat here to the recently-departed Michael Hart, its founder and the inventor of the e-book).
This assertion of the 'history' of this legend is in marked contrast to another reference to burial practice I came across in fictional form. In Ambrose Bierce's short story 'A Holy Terror', a gold prospector is tipped off about a plot in a cemetery. He digs through a grave, and with chilling Biercean understatement, finds that 'This frail product of the carpenter's art had been put into the grave the wrong side up!' (2) The lack of explanation creates the effect: the detail relies on a reader's knowledge that burial upside-down is reserved for those likely to cause supernatural disturbance otherwise. (People are buried upside-down to prevent them clawing their way to the surface after death).
This is still a relatively late reference to prone burial. A recent historical survey found the last documented incident of the practice in 1916 (3). Of course, this is the sort of practice that is difficult to establish: it requires a degree of trust in the researcher that may not be inevitable given the rather extraordinary and infrequent practice. Ruth Tongue claimed to have been told of such things in Somerset in the early years of the 20th century (4). There must be some doubts about this: she said she was told of such things because she was a 'chime child', born at midnight. She wasn't. She was evidently a remarkable and gifted storyteller, but her reliability as a witness might be questionable. The Bierce reference, though, does suggest some wider familiarity with the idea.
* * * * *
1: Steve Roud, London Lore: The Legends and Traditions of the World's Most Vibrant City (London: Random House, 2008), pp. 117-119.2: Ambrose Bierce, In the Midst of Life (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1939; first pub. 1892), p. 121.
3: Caroline Arcini, 'Prone Burials', Current Archaeology, 231 (June 2009), 30-35.
4: Ruth L. Tongue, 'Some Odds and Ends of Somerset Folklore', Folklore, 69.1 (1958), 44.
Monday, 5 September 2011
Paremiology and literature
I've long been interested in the relationship between folkloric items and their presentation in literary material. (It's one of the things I touch on in a talk I'm giving on St Clement's Day celebrations to the South East London Folklore Society in November). There is, I think, a tendency to underestimate the capacity of literary authors to be inventive and adaptive with traditional material, and to assume that how they present an item in their fictional, created world is identical to the way it is used in the ethnographic world around them.
A corresponding tendency is to look at literary works primarily for their folkloric content. I confess to a sinking feeling on learning that Archer Taylor's first reaction to a William Faulkner novel was 'He doesn't use many proverbs!' (1) This seems to me to miss the point on a number of levels, but that might simply be because there is no further record of what he made of the novel as a work of literature.
However, paremiology is actually an area where a straightforward reading of folkloric material can be possible in literary text. I was reminded of this after some summer escapist reading, having finally got round to Arthur Bernède's Belphégor (1927). Many of the characters use proverbial expressions, but they do so in direct speech. One might have to take into account personal characterisation employed by the author, but the proverbs here are familiar and seem to employ standard forms. Characters describe a situation more than once as 'clair comme l'eau de roche' (clear as crystal). Alain Rey and Sophie Chantreau record the phrase but give no historical antecedents (2).
Rey and Chantreau do not record the expression 'Un homme prévenu en vaut deux' (forewarned is forearmed), found in Belphégor, but it is noted in online collections of French proverbs along with the variant 'un homme averti en vaut deux'.
Another other proverbial item that leaped out at me was when the protagonist insists 'j'ai toujours eu pour principe de ne jamais vendre la peau de l'ours avant qu'il fût à terre' (I've always made a point of never selling the bear's skin before he's down). While the second part of the phrase is variable, the bearskin element is widespread, most famously found in La Fontaine's Fables. Rey and Chantreau note that in Middle French the specific mention of 'the bear' wasn't necessary (3).
1) Quoted in Jan Harold Brunvand, 'My Summer with Archer, and Some Unfinished Business: The 1999 Archer Taylor Memorial Lecture', Western Folklore, 58.1 (1999), 4.
2) Alain Rey and Sophie Chantreau, Dictionnaire d'Expressions et Locutions (Paris: Le Robert, 2007), p. 201.
3) Rey and Chantreau, pp. 664-5.
A corresponding tendency is to look at literary works primarily for their folkloric content. I confess to a sinking feeling on learning that Archer Taylor's first reaction to a William Faulkner novel was 'He doesn't use many proverbs!' (1) This seems to me to miss the point on a number of levels, but that might simply be because there is no further record of what he made of the novel as a work of literature.
However, paremiology is actually an area where a straightforward reading of folkloric material can be possible in literary text. I was reminded of this after some summer escapist reading, having finally got round to Arthur Bernède's Belphégor (1927). Many of the characters use proverbial expressions, but they do so in direct speech. One might have to take into account personal characterisation employed by the author, but the proverbs here are familiar and seem to employ standard forms. Characters describe a situation more than once as 'clair comme l'eau de roche' (clear as crystal). Alain Rey and Sophie Chantreau record the phrase but give no historical antecedents (2).
Rey and Chantreau do not record the expression 'Un homme prévenu en vaut deux' (forewarned is forearmed), found in Belphégor, but it is noted in online collections of French proverbs along with the variant 'un homme averti en vaut deux'.
Another other proverbial item that leaped out at me was when the protagonist insists 'j'ai toujours eu pour principe de ne jamais vendre la peau de l'ours avant qu'il fût à terre' (I've always made a point of never selling the bear's skin before he's down). While the second part of the phrase is variable, the bearskin element is widespread, most famously found in La Fontaine's Fables. Rey and Chantreau note that in Middle French the specific mention of 'the bear' wasn't necessary (3).
* * * * *
1) Quoted in Jan Harold Brunvand, 'My Summer with Archer, and Some Unfinished Business: The 1999 Archer Taylor Memorial Lecture', Western Folklore, 58.1 (1999), 4.
2) Alain Rey and Sophie Chantreau, Dictionnaire d'Expressions et Locutions (Paris: Le Robert, 2007), p. 201.
3) Rey and Chantreau, pp. 664-5.
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