I have to admit that I use google a lot to explore my trains of thought, instantly getting some sort of information via Wikipedia or other online sources. However, it has it’s limits. It works well when you have a curiosity to search, but reference books can almost suggest more leads, guiding you into directions you would not have taken left to your own google wanderings.
Whilst in my local house clearance shop the other day, I was browsing through their books when I came across an encyclopedic set called “Cassell”s Illustrated History of England”. I flipped through a few pages from the first volume and realised this was potentially a great store of information with many intriguing images such as this spread of the Anglo Saxon calendar. At 50p a book, it wasn’t hard to buy all 9 volumes. I quite happily spent an hour or so flipping through the pages and picking up ideas and inspiration as I went.
Then on Sunday I was chatting to my 81 year old neighbor (she, I found out recently, knew Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud in their day when they were all part of the same Soho club in London before they were famous!!). Having lived a varied and interesting life, one of the things she did was own a bookshop. She still has a lot of the books, filling her whole house, so much so that there is little else apart from boxes of books. Anyway, she said that if I ever wanted, she could lend me books on a particular subject if her collection covered it. I wondered about folklore and old English customs and rituals… The next day, she turned up on my doorstep with a small selection. I’ve since been amusing myself with the images and stories.. here’s a couple to show you.
Horn Dancers
A Mummer at Marshfield in Gloucestershire, Villagers dress up in strips of paper and parade round the streets, led by the village crier with a bell.
I’d never even heard of mummers or mumming but googling mummers then lead me to this link on Lucy Cheung’s interesting blog and from her site the mummers flickr group. People are evidently still mumming in England today and I’m back to google again.