Alison Uttley’s 1938 novel ‘A Traveller in Time’, adapted for TV in 1978 by Diana De Vere Cole and directed by Dorothea Brooking This adaptation brought the setting into the present day: Diana De Vere Cole did a neat job, focusing on Penelope’s emotions as she slips in and out of a Tudor world (cutting … Continue reading A Mind for Magick Pt 3: ‘A Traveller in Time’ on screen
Roddy McDowall’s 1970 retelling of the Ballad of Tam Lin, like its counterpart The Wicker Man, had a troubled release and was destined to rot away in a vault. It was Martin Scorsese who rescued and restored a print for VHS in the 1990s. A delayed release in the early 70s (as The Devil’s Widow) … Continue reading Rediscovered film gem: Tam Lin (1970)
These are really just notes – I was thinking about how we try to make sense of exhibitions, how much our own personal reference points guide what we take from them, how we challenge or absorb ideas, or rush to define, interpret or misinterpret, see what we want to see or not… it’s not an … Continue reading Jeremy Deller’s English Magic (some of it)
When this is past, a merry crew, Bedecked in masks and ribbons gay, The Morris Dance, their sports renew, And act their winter evening play. The clown turned king, for penny praise, Storms with the actor’s strut and swell, And harlequin, a laugh to raise, Wears his hunch-back and tinkling bell. Old customs! Oh! I … Continue reading Song of the Christmas Eve Squirrel…
In the seventh century, Brochwel, Prince of Powys, was hunting hares with his pack of hounds; a hare took refuge beneath the cloak of Melangell, a young woman of such sanctity that the hounds would not go near her. Brochwel could not encourage the hounds, and the hare was saved. Brochwel gave Melangell the valley … Continue reading Saint Melangell’s hares
Batsford edition of Christina Hole’s English Folk Heroes, issued in 1948, with woodcuts by Eric King. Lionheart. May twilight. Robin. Continue reading Folk heroes – woodcuts by Eric King
April 2013. A memorial on Dartmoor to a Royal Air Force bomber which crashed here in 1941. There are a few of these posts scattered over the same area: I’m told they were put here during the war to prevent enemy planes from landing. Jay’s Grave: an eighteenth century suicide, a girl ruined by a … Continue reading Everything shining bright
Thus times do shift; each thing his turn does hold; New things succeed, as former things grow old. From Ceremonies for Candlemas Eve by Robert Herrick The rough winds of the last few days I can’t get enough of. I’ve learned that gales at this time of year were known as Candlemas winds. Just now, … Continue reading Candlemas
Woodcuts by David Gentleman from Saint George and the Dragon – a mummer’s play by John Langstaff, published in 1973 in the United States and Canada. It contains the script of a typical mummer’s play which explores the death of Winter through the symbolic figure of Saint George: First comes Christmas, Then comes Spring. Like … Continue reading A Mummer’s Play for Yule
WHISTLES IN THE WIND 