Mummers, Maypoles and Milkmaids by Sara Hannant
My thanks to Sara Hannant and Merrell books for sending a copy of her wonderful book: Mummers, Maypoles and Milkmaids for our archive. I began to write a review, but then realised that someone had done a much better job before me and so I cheekily asked folklorist Paul Cowdell if I could reproduce the review that he wrote for his excellent blog Humphrey With His Flail. Many thanks Paul and welcome to The Company of the Green Man
All I would add to Paul’s review is that Sara’s book and her incredibly atmospheric photography has completely reinforced my view that although we should of mourn the loss of many of our traditions, we should ensure that we celebrate wholeheartedly and support those who are creating now the traditions of the future. So make sure that you take a look at our annual events page for all the Jack-in-the-Green events that are taking place very shortly and go and support them.
Mummers, Maypoles and Milkmaids by Sara Hannant
Reviewed by Paul Cowdell
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 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. 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.
Sara Hannant is a freelance photographer whose work is exhibited widely, including at the Royal Society of Arts and the Horniman Museum, London. Since 1988 shye has worked on editorial, commercial and cultural commissions, including international assignments for UNICEF, VSO and Womankind Worldwide. Her documentary photographs have appeared in the Sunday Times and The Guardian Amongst others. Sara’s website can be found at: www.sarahannant.com
Paul Cowdell took an MA in Folklore and Cultural Tradition at the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition (NATCECT) at the University of Sheffield, graduating with a Distinction. He won the Folklore Society’s President’s Prize in 2006 and has undertaken fieldwork for the Smithsonian Institution’s Folklife Festival. He is a serving committee member of the Folklore Society and is currently undertaking a PhD looking at contemporary belief in ghosts. Paul is the creator of the blog: Humphrey With His Flail.
The Hidden Green Man in Essex
DESCRIPTION
The medieval churches of Essex house one of history’s best kept secrets. They are frequently inhabited by a mysterious carving of an ancient male head, with foliage, usually oak leaves emerging from its mouth, ears, nose or eyes. He is surprisingly common in Essex, has many guises and is concealed in nooks, roofs, sometimes barely discernible on fonts, but may also be found lurking on roofs, walls, and hidden niches of churches.
I have one copy of the book hot off the press free to a good home all you have to do is e-mail me at greenman@virgin.net and on 21st December I will pull the name of the lucky winner out of the top hat. And the catch! well it’s only open to current members of The Company of the Green Man (except me and the author..sorry Susan!) and whoever wins it must be willing to write a review of the book and get it to me in time for our May/June e-newsletter.
If you want to buy your own copy in time for Christmas it’s available via Amazon.co.uk from our book shop for £7.99 just click on THIS LINK to visit the bookshop.
The Wildwood Tarot
Green Man copyright © Will Worthington
Many of our members will have come across Will Worthington’s fabulous art over the years. Will is the creator of a number of beautifully illustrated Oracles and Tarots including the Druid Animal Oracle and the Green Man Tree Oracle. In collaboration with Mark Ryan and John Mathews he has created The Wildwood Tarot a re-working of the Greenwood Tarot originally created by Mark Ryan and Chesca Potter. The Green Man has been a powerful symbol throughout Wills career and The Green Man, Green Women (both pictured on this page) and other associated archetypes come to life in this wonderfully crafted set of seventy eight cards.
I have added a link to The Wildwood Tarot on amazon.co.uk in our bookshop on the main website: www.thecompanyofthegreenman.co.uk.
You can find out more about Will, his artwork and his music at http://www.willworthingtonart.co.uk and keep an eye out for some of the originals coming up for sale soon.
A full review of The Wildwood Tarot will appear in our next e-newsletter
Green Woman copyright © Will Worthington
The pictures on this posting are copyright © Will Worthington and are reproduced with his kind permission
“Strange Lands”
Green Man © Andrew L. Paciorek
COTGM member Andy Paciorek’s book ‘Strange Lands: A Field Guide to the Celtic Otherworld’ is now available via mail-order. Members might recall Andy’s fabulous illustration of The Apple Tree Man which you can find in this blog under “Wassailing the Apple Trees” It also includes his fantastic Green Man pictured above.
Strange Lands is the fruit of Andrew L. Paciorek’s voyage into the Celtic Otherworld in search of Faeries, Goblins, Monsters, Angels, Demons and much more besides.
Within the 400 pages of the book are descriptions and tales of a multitude of bizarre beasts and weird entities, accompanied by over 170 original pen and ink depictions.
The following is taken from the foreword by Dr Karl Shuker:
Strange Lands is a deeply researched and richly illustrated information guide to the entities and beasts of Celtic myth & legend and to the many strange beings that have entered the lore of the land through the influence of other cultures and technological evolution.
At nearly 400 pages and featuring over 170 original illustrations, Strange Lands is an essential accompaniment for both the novice and seasoned walkers between worlds.
“Right from a child, I have always been fascinated by mythology and folklore, especially the rich corpus originating in the British Isles, and I have read very extensively on the subject. However, I can say in all honesty that Strange Lands is one of the most comprehensive single volumes on British mythological entities that I have ever encountered. Even Dr Katharine M. Briggs’s essential tome, A Dictionary of Fairies, universally acclaimed as the standard work on such beings, now has a rival in terms of the sheer diversity of examples documented.
And where Strange Lands effortlessly outpoints even that classic work is of course in its illustrations, which are truly breathtaking in their beauty, intricacy, and vibrancy”
Andy Paciorek is a graphic artist, drawn mainly to the worlds of myth, folklore, symbolism, decadence, curiosa, anomaly, dark romanticism and otherworldly experience. He is fascinated both by the beautiful and the grotesque and the twilight threshold consciousness where these boundaries blur. The mist-gates, edges and liminal zones where nature borders supernature and daydreams and nightmares cross paths are of great inspiration.
You can have a look at a limited preview and order Andy’s book at: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1957828 and find out more about Andy’s work at http://www.batcow.co.uk/strangelands/
A Pathway Through The Seasons by Rose Blakeley
The book is a first edition glossy hardback and its appearance is comfortingly reminiscent of the large format fairytale books of childhood that some of us literally read to pieces. It is definitely a book that will appeal to readers of all ages bringing memories flooding back to some and inspiring others to seek out the traditions, wildlife and folklore that surround us all. A great bedtime read for adult and child alike.
The Green Man by Richard Hayman
Title The Green Man
Author Richard Hayman
Publisher Shire Publications
ISBN 978-0-74780-784-1
Just a reminder that this excellent book can still be purchased from Amazon.co.uk via our website which you can find at: www.thecompanyofthegreenman.co.uk Just go to the book shop section where you can buy it directly from Amazon.co.uk at £4.49 (go for the free delivery option too). The link will be on our home page too until August 1st as book of the month. It wont cost you any more than the usual Amazon price by using our link but will generate a few pence from each sale towards The Company of the Green Man to help us keep everything free. In fact if you go via any of the book links from our website to buy your books or other Amazon goodies you can help generate us a few more pennies with no extra cost to you.
Even if you do buy the book via Amazon do go and visit Shire Publications website www.shirebooks.co.uk and sign up for their newsletter. Shire produce and sell a fantastic range of beautifully created books on a wide and eclectic range of rare subjects.
The Green Man by Richard Hayman (Reviewed by Dr Colin N Harris)
Reviewed by Dr Colin N Harris from Green Man Forum
Title The Green Man
Author Richard Hayman
Publisher Shire Publications
ISBN 978-0-74780-784-1
THE GREEN MAN
That The Green Man is central to so many carvings and pictures in both religious and secular settings is well known. His (or indeed her!) ubiquitous presence has been well documented and theorised about in many books, especially since 1939 when Lady Raglan famously coined the original term whilst at Llangwm Church.
Richard Hayman has made an excellent contribution to our wealth and increasing knowledge concerning these curious, lovable and “conundrumic” faces. His scholarship and knowledge of so many aspects of his research into the architectural history of churches and other buildings have blended together to give his readers considerable insight into the nature, role, background and history of such carved faces.
He has published other books on “Wrought Iron” and “Church Misericords and Bench Ends” which have been widely and popularly acclaimed. His latest work reflects his keen studious and pragmatic analysis and rationalisation of “The Green Man” phenomenon.
From its origins and working definitions, the book progresses from its presence in Romanesque Churches, Gothic Architecture and Church Furnishings to Post-Reformation appearances in Victorian buildings. The recent cult and popularity of The Green Man Festival at Clun and many other May-time folkloric events is also covered.
He provides an excellent further reading section but as with so many other Green Man books, there is a huge problem in creating an accurate full set of suggestions of places to visit. Perhaps the bedrock and definitive directory of Green Man sites has been provided by Clive Hicks?
The book is robust, has high quality photographs and easy text to read. Its size and popularity will be undoubtedly guaranteed. My congratulations go to Richard Hayman. Long may he provide us with insights into other religious, secular and mythical curiosities!
Dr Colin N Harris 9th June 2010
Editors note: I completely echo Colin’s excellent review. I had been looking forward to this book since last year and had pre-ordered it on Amazon.co.uk. It arrived a few weeks ago and I wasn’t disappointed. Well researched and some excellent photography. The book is priced at £5.99 but if you head to our website www.thecompanyofthegreenman.co.uk and go to the book shop section you can buy it directly from Amazon.co.uk at £4.49 (go for the free delivery option too). The link will be on our home page too for the next couple of months. It wont cost you any more than the usual Amazon price by using our link but will generate a few pence from each sale towards The Company of the Green Man to help us keep everything free. In fact if you go via any of the book links from our website to buy your books or other Amazon goodies you can help generate us a few more pennies with no extra cost to you.
Even if you do buy the book via Amazon do go and visit Shire Publications website www.shirebooks.co.uk and sign up for their newsletter. Shire produce and sell a fantastic range of beautifully created books on a wide and eclectic range of rare subjects.
