The Kingdom Under The Sea and Other Stories

Joan Aiken (author)
Jan Pienkowski (illustrator)
Puffin Books

This lovely little Puffin book was the winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal in 1971 for Pienkowski's silhouette illustrations and it's not hard to see why as they run through the various stories perfectly augmenting the words as supplied courtesy of one of Wyrd Britain's favourite authors here retelling a variety of folktales from Eastern Europe in her own eminently readable style.

I'm not familiar with any of the stories but the iconic witch Baba Yaga in her mortar and pestle and with her chicken leg house makes an appearance - 'Baba Yaga's Daughter' - which gave me my first chance to actually read one of her stories first hand.  There's an interesting cross section of pagan and Christian stories with the Sun and various members of his family making several appearances - the title piece, 'The Sun God's Castle', 'The Reed Girl', 'The Sun's Cousin' - variously helping or hindering people in their quests or just out of the pickles they've found themselves in.  Alongside these we find a couple of Christian themed stories such as moralistic fable of 'The Pear Tree' and the devious prankster God presented in 'The Goose Girl' depriving Saint Peter of a party.

Jan Pienkowski

Pienkowski, I assume, has designed the book so that art and words are interlaced. His illustrations intertwined with the words, often holding and framing them; often drawing the reader's eye deeper into the pictures to, quite literally, read the story within. 

As is ever the case with Ms. Aiken the tales are beautifully told in her typically light and dancing style and even though, as often seems to happen with folktales, much of the detail of the story is subsumed in the rush to the moral at the end she is still able to bring her storytelling expertise to bear and draw out the heart of each tale and craft them into a vibrant and delightful collection of stories that cross cultural, historic and geographic divides.

Buy it here -  The Kingdom Under the Sea

The Land of the Green Man

Carolyne Larrington
I.B. Tauris

The folklore of Britain abounds with local tales about the activities of one sort of supernatural being or another giants, elves, hobs, boggarts, dragons or shape-changing witches. The stories are vivid, dramatic and often humorous. Carolyne Larrington has made a representative selection, which she re-tells in a simple, direct way which is completely faithful to the style and spirit of her sources. Most collectors of local legends have been content merely to note how they may serve to explain some feature of the landscape or to warn of some supernatural danger, but Carolyne Larrington probes more deeply. By perceptive and delicate analysis, she explores their inner meanings. She shows how, through lightly coded metaphors, they deal with the relations of man and woman, master and servant, the living and the dead, the outer semblance and the inner self, mankind and the natural environment. Her fascinating book gives us a fuller insight into the value of our traditional tales

Subtitled 'A Journey Through the Supernatural Landscape of the British Isles' this book is an examination of the supernatural creatures and places of folk tale and legend and their role in shaping modern British identity.  Well, I say British but maybe English and Scottish may be more correct as for the most part Wales is conspicuous by it's absence.  There are scattered mentions but they are few and far between.  Ireland fares a little better and so does France. I'm quibbling though, mostly because I'm Welsh and it's our way, although I think I do have a point; a look at the map on the inside cover reveals only two Welsh places and one of them is a sunken land off the coast of Aberystwyth.

The book in truth is a fascinating and fairly comprehensive exploration of the way we have come to understand ourselves through the stories we create, whether they be about the 'Selkies' of Shetland,  the giants of the Yorkshire and the West Country, 'The Knockers' in the Cornish mines, the 'Black Dogs' of East Anglia or modern interpretations of folk and faerie lore in 'The Lord of the Rings', 'Harry Potter', or Alan Garner's 'Alderley' books.

In many ways the book offers a travelogue of England and Scotland identifying and discussing many key locations and their associated stories.  Larrington's writing is delightfully succinct, peppered with personal observations and driven by an enthusiasts joy in the subject matter.  Her knowledge of the topic and the connections she makes show a land where stories helped to understand, to define and to explain as well as to entertain.  A tradition continued here in this fascinating book.

Buy it here -  The Land of the Green Man: A Journey through the Supernatural Landscapes of the British Isles

Kit Williams

At the very end of the 1970s and into the early years of the 1980s a book called 'Masquerade' created by an artist named Kit Williams inspired a minor furore that resulted in people digging up chunks of the English countryside looking for a Golden Hare that the author had made and buried somewhere.  Hidden within the book were clues as to the location of this buried treasure.  The book became a smash and the ensuing scavenger hunt was big news for a short while.

The book itself is a series of 15 of Williams' paintings that tells the story of a hare who loses the gift he's transporting from the moon to the sun which becomes the object of the hunt.

The finding of the hare has become mired in controversy - see here - and the actual solution to the puzzle was spectacularly convoluted.  Below is an extract from the Wikipedia page (that the above link takes you to) because I'm not even going to try and explain it...

The solution to the Masquerade puzzle is elaborate. In each painting, lines should be drawn from each creature's left eye through the longest digit on their left hand to a letter in the border. Then from left eye through the longest digit on their left foot, right eye through the longest digit on their right hand and finally right eye through the longest digit on their right foot. This is only done for any eyes that are visible in the drawing. The resulting letters form individual words, revealed either by anagramming or by applying the order hinted at by the Sir Isaac Newton painting, in which all of the creatures of the book are represented as puppets hanging in a line from left to right.
Decoding and following this method reveals the nineteen-word message:

CATHERINE’S LONG FINGER OVER SHADOWS EARTH BURIED YELLOW AMULET MIDDAY POINTS THE HOUR IN LIGHT OF EQUINOX LOOK YOU

Taking the first letter indicated by each painting, the acrostic “CLOSE BY AMPTHILL” is revealed. Properly interpreted, the message told one to dig near the cross-shaped monument to Catherine of Aragon in Ampthill Park, at the precise spot touched by the tip of the monument’s shadow at the stroke of noon on the date of either the vernal or autumnal equinox.
Many additional hints and "confirmers" are scattered throughout the book. For example, in the painting depicting the Sun and the Moon dancing around the Earth, the hands of the two figures are clasped together, pointing at the date of the spring equinox.

Hope that didn't make your head hurt too much.

Williams' experience of the Masquerade phenomena caused him to distance himself from the public eye but he continues to produce work including a number of major pieces of public art including Cheltenham's 'Wishing Fish Clock' and the Dragonfly maze in Bourton-on-the-Water both situated in the county where he maintains his studio.

He remains a fascinating and unique artist utterly and triumphantly out of step with modern art trends who has spent his life creating a body of work that reflects himself and the world as he sees / wishes it.

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The stamps of Wyrd Britain

I was browsing through one of the piles of books next to my chair the other day and found a stamp that my partner's aunt had sent to me; the David Tennant one from the Doctor Who set that the Royal Mail released for the 50th Anniversary.  I've no particular interest in stamps but it got me thinking about other commemorative ranges that would fit in with the Wyrd Britain ethos.

Here are some of the ones I found (they're in no particular order). I think some of them are quite wonderful and please if you know of any others then feel free to add them to the comments.

50th Anniversary of Children's Television

Folklore

Magical Worlds

Classic Carry On and Hammer films

British Fairs

Children's TV Classics

Doctor Who

Europa, Horror Stories

FAB The Genius of Gerry Anderson

Magical Realms

Mythical Creatures (drawn by Dave McKean)

Harry Potter House Crests

Roald Dahl

Science Fiction, Novels by H.G. Wells

Lord of the Rings

Sherlock Holmes

Thomas the Tank Engine

World of Comics

England: The Other Within

If you're ever able to visit Oxford there are two places that you absolutely need to go to.  First, head to The Museum of the History of Science to have a look at it's collection of scientific instruments; the microscopes alone took up a couple of hours of my visit. Then, head down the road to the frankly phenomenal Pitt Rivers Museum where I pretty much guarantee you will be blown away by the sheer volume of fascinating ethnographic artefacts on display.

The Pitt Rivers Museum

What I'm here to point you towards today though is a project and website connected with The Pitt Rivers Museum called England: The Other Within.

England: The Other Within was a  project concerned particularly with the artefacts and documents held within the museum of English origin.  It offered the researchers an opportunity to detail those artefacts and present them to visitors within a context other than that of the wider ethnographical collection.


The website is a collection of  articles discussing topics such as the various English folklorists (of the likes of Margaret Murray and Edward Lovett), death related artefacts (accessories, food & jewellery) and scrimshaw.  Alongside these are a whole host of 'object biographies' detailing those artefacts of English origin held in the collection and with titles like 'Slug on a thorn' and 'Tylor's bewitched onion'. Seriously, who could resist a look?

Some of the writing is a little dry but on the whole this lovely little website is well worth your time and rewards both a casual skim through and deeper investigation.