Category: Frivolity

Fun posts

Celebrating Halloween -You’re Invited!

Updated on October 30, 2015 by Gail Eastwood

Do you love Halloween? Are you celebrating? I’m doing this extra blogpost today partly to remind you that I’m hosting a Virtual Halloween Party today on Facebook (4pm to midnight), and if any of you are on FB and enjoy the virtual parties to be found there, I hope you’ll come! It’s a fund-raiser for my friend Joyce, who needs to raise funds to stay on the kidney transplant waiting list, but it’s also a celebration of Halloween –what better time for a party? We have a number of nice gift giveaways planned, and we’ll be posting pictures and having conversations, playing games and doing mini-contests.

Would you drink this at a “real” party

The party is by-invitation-only, so if we aren’t already “friends” on Facebook, send a friend request to me (Gail Eastwood-author) –or message me– and I’ll friend and invite you! (Or let me know if you want to know how to give a donation, even if you can’t come to the party!)

In my area of the U.S. the practice of trick-or-treating has really diminished in favor of parties. Safer, I’m sure, but there was always a kind of thrill to roaming in the dark and going door-to-door. Halloween isn’t anything our Regency characters would have participated in. And in Great Britain, even now I would venture to say it is overshadowed by Guy Fawkes Day.

Bonfires! Fireworks! Those are fun, but do they get to dress up in costumes? Do they have Guy Fawkes Day parties? Oh, wait. Yes, yes they do. But I still say I’d rather have candy than gunpowder.

The roots of Halloween are very ancient, as most people know. The name comes from All Hallows Eve, the night before the Christian observance of All Saints Day (November 1, Hallowmass), established by Pope Gregory in the 8^th century. But the Celtic celebration of Samhain (“summer’s end”) on October 31 is much older. Samhain was the night before the Celtic new year began, when it was believed the boundary between the living and the spirit worlds grew thin. The Celts may have believed the living could commune with the dead at such a time, see into the future, or even that spirits could return to earth. Bonfires, the wearing of costumes to confuse the walking spirits, and the telling of fortunes may have been part of the Celtic traditions.

Some sources also throw in two Roman celebrations, the festivals of Feralia, honoring the passing of the dead, and of Pomona, a goddess of fruit and the harvest, also held at the time of the change in seasons. Mix in the medieval practice of “souling”, when the poor would go door-to-door on All Hallows asking for handouts in exchange for saying prayers for the dead, and you can see a lot of the ingredients for the evolution of Halloween.

My fellow Riskies have already written some posts you might like to revisit this weekend. Elena did a lovely one about jack o’lanterns all the way back in 2008 (posted Oct 29). Amanda talked about the holiday origins in 2011 (Oct 25), and back in 2009 she did a Halloween post about the ghosts in the Tower of London. For more ghosts plus witches in the UK, revisit Elena’s post from last year (Oct 31, 2014).

In case those aren’t enough to occupy you, here are a few more articles you may enjoy:

“Slutty Halloween Costumes: a Cultural History”, which makes a case that Halloween has always been about sex: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1665320/slutty-halloween-costumes-a-cultural-history

And in defense of those who follow the Wiccan religion, “What’s Witchcraft? Six Misconceptions about Wiccans”: http://www.livescience.com/39119-myths-about-witches-wiccans.html?li_source=LI&li_medium=more-from-livescience

For the candy-lovers among us: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2010/10/how-candy-and-halloween-became-best-friends/64895/

And finally, I couldn’t resist including “Top Five Halloween Myths Debunked”: http://www.livescience.com/5148-top-5-halloween-myths-debunked.html

Happy Halloween!

Posted in Anything but writing, Frivolity, History, Risky Regencies | Tagged Gail Eastwood, halloween, samhain | 3 Replies

Playing in the Past

Updated on June 5, 2015 by Gail Eastwood

Historical fiction addicts –er, fans –like us love being swept back in time to the period of whatever story we are reading (or writing). At this blog, we focus on the English Regency primarily, but not exclusively. Sandy’s writing a series set in Roman times. Amanda’s been creating Elizabethan mysteries for a while now. Clearly, we all love history. Immersing ourselves in stories set in the past offers us a very satisfying way to “play in the past”, living it through the characters on the page. But have you ever felt that you wanted more of a direct experience than you could get by imagining yourself in a story? Have you ever tried participating in “living history” activities?

Confession time: I am a renegade medievalist. Yes, my historical stories are all set in the Regency, a period I love. But in my rare spare time, I sometimes play in a recreated “living history” medieval world as a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA). I also occasionally do Regency, 18^th century, or even Victorian.

The concept of “living history” as a hobby has had tremendous traction over the past forty-plus years. Back in 1966 when the SCA began as the result of a medieval-themed party in Berkeley, CA, there were nowhere near as many different groups recreating as many different time periods as there are today. If you Google “living history groups US” you get 332 million results!! (better specify time period and location!) Wikipedia offers a “historical reenactment groups” list with over 300 entries, still far from complete. Among those, the SCA, an international educational organization that covers “early medieval to early Renaissance” periods, is one of the largest, now in ten countries, but still not as widespread as Nova Roma (covering ancient Rome), found in 15 countries.

SCA fighters on the battlefield at “The Pennsic War”, an annual event in held in Pennsylvania.

“Living History” has also become widely adopted as a teaching method in museums and at historical recreation sites, but that’s a little bit different. I can tell you it’s a great way to do research for stories, through the people you meet and the opportunities to learn. Do you want to know how it feels to wear a corset? Or how to load a flintlock rifle? How period food tastes? Or how heavy a “two-handed” sword might be? But be warned, doing it can be consuming and highly addictive because it’s such fun!

Gail (center) & friends in 18th century garb -in 1981!

“Living History” enthusiasts differ from re-enactors, although there is plenty of overlap. Most re-enactor groups are military, recreating specific units and/or specific events, especially battles. There’s going to be a reenactment of the Duchess of Richmond’s ball on the night before Waterloo, as part of the anniversary of that famous battle 10 days from now. (Wouldn’t you just LOVE to be there?) Despite differences, all these groups attempt at varying levels to capture the details of life and “portray the look and actions of” people from a particular time period –the clothes, the food, the day-to-day activities, the pastimes, the arts, crafts, science –in the effort to bring the time to life.

I can’t speak for other groups, but in the SCA the key to all of one’s participation is the creation of a persona, a character who is your medieval alter-ego, anchored in a specific time, place and culture within the range the SCA covers. Creating a persona gives you the entry point for the research and practice of whatever you are interested in doing. My persona (English, of course), Asenath Chamberly of Morrismount, slides around in time a bit, because my interests in costuming and dance expanded well beyond what would have fit her lifetime. But other SCAdians (and other groups) may follow a much stricter approach.

This interest in “recreating” the past as recreation isn’t just a modern idea. Queen Victoria was fond of giving costume balls themed to specific times in history, and the first Queen Elizabeth enjoyed tournaments that were intended to recreate the jousting feats of an earlier age. Here is a link to a brief video of an “Assembly” I recently attended, held in a 1789 ballroom where George Washington may have danced. (I bet the floor was a lot more even back then!) I am standing in the back watching the dancers, as we were very hot and tired by then!

If you are interested in groups concentrating on the Regency, there are many to choose from, depending on where you are located. Some western U.S. ones include: Bay Area English Regency Society, the Oregon Regency Society, the Arizona Regency Society, and PEERS (the Period Events and Entertainments Re-Creation Society –not limited to Regency). There’s also the Regency Society of America, FOER (Friends of the English Regency), the Elegant Arts Society, and many more.

Do you “play in the past” beyond the pleasures of reading? If you were going to, what time periods would you most be interested in recreating?

Posted in Frivolity, History, Regency, Risky Regencies | Tagged Gail Eastwood, Historical Recreation, Living History, research, SCA, Society for Creative Anachronism | 14 Replies

Celebrating May Day/Beltane/Walpurgis Nacht

Updated on May 1, 2015 by Gail Eastwood

Happy May 1^st! For most of us, today is not an official holiday, but given its long history, I think it ought to be. Who’s with me? Bonfires? Dancing? Flowers? What’s not to like? In medieval times it was a huge holiday. And while the celebration of it was not prevalent among the fashionable during Regency times, many of the traditions continued to be observed in the rural villages and pockets of England, and especially in Ireland, Scotland and Wales. I’m sure in individual families, observance or lack of it varied, depending on their family roots and location. I think it is more fun to talk about than say, the opening of Trout Fishing Season today, or that today (Friday before the 1^st Monday in May) is also the traditional “private viewing day” before the start of the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition, even though that might matter more to our characters!

Celebrating this date, or the night before, has traditions in cultures and belief systems that date back into the mists of time, even before the Romans and their spring Floralia festival. The ancient Celts welcomed summer on the eve of May 1^st (which is why “Midsummer” falls on the solstice in late June), with the festival of Beltane. Early Irish texts relate that the Druids would build two fires, and that cattle would be driven between them to purify them and protect them before putting them out to summer pastures. The smoke from Beltane fires was supposed to have protective powers, so there are many traditions built around passing through the smoke, including jumping over the flames, and taking home embers or ashes to spread the luck. The fires connect symbolically to the sun, an essential ingredient for a successful agricultural and pastoral season. Wiccans celebrate Beltane, so the night’s association with witches is understandable.

The night before May 1st in Germany is Walpurgisnacht, also called Hexennacht (literally “Witches’ Night”). Celebrations usually include bonfires and dancing. There is some evidence the “Witches Night” association in Germany may be of a much later date than the Christian St Walpurga for whom the festival is named: the German folk tradition of a meeting of sorcerers and witches on May Day eve is influenced by the descriptions of witches’ sabbaths in 15th and 16th century literature, and was embraced by authors such as Faust and Thomas Mann. But Walpurgisnacht actually dates back to the 8^th century, and has more to do with us writers and fans of Regency England than you might think.

St Walpurga was English. Did you know that? She was born in Devonshire, of a family of the local aristocracy. Her father was St. Richard the Pilgrim, one of the under-kings of the West Saxons, and her mother was Winna, sister of St. Boniface, Apostle of Germany. Walpurga’s two brothers were saints, too! She was educated at Wimbourne Abbey in Dorset, before she ended up in Germany, where she and her brothers were sent to help their uncle working among the pagan Germans (who thought she was the Grain Mother come amongst them). She could read and write, and wrote a biography of her brother Winibald and also an account of his travels in Palestine. Because of these ancient works, she is often called the first female author of both England and Germany. A woman after our own hearts! Her festival is May 1^st because that is the date she was canonized by the church.

Queen_of_the_May,_in_June_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1346819

Hawthorn, the traditional Queen of the May flower.

The most common pagan-derived May Day customs practiced in various parts of Europe involve various ways of “bringing in the May” –an excuse to spend as much of the day outdoors as possible. In medieval times, May Day was a true holiday, a day of rest from labor and a day for celebrations, with much time spent in the fields and woods, searching out blooms. (That might be why May 1st was chosen in more modern times for labor protests and International Workers Day?) The “May” meant any kind of tree or bush in bloom by May 1^st. (This was easier before the calendar change of 1752, of course.) Hawthorn is the acknowledged favorite, but sycamore, birch, and rowan trees are in the running among others.

Druid at the 21 annual May Day Fairie Festival;, Spoutwood Farm, Glen Rock, PA

A “Green Man” Maypole dancer

Ways of bringing it in included bringing branches, used to decorate the homes or left on doorsteps, or an entire May Bush, or May Tree, decorated with ribbons and ornaments and displayed outside the home or in a public place. It could also mean bringing flowers, and weaving them into garlands to be displayed. In many places, especially in Germany and England, the crowning achievement was bringing a tall Maypole, to be erected as the focus for games & mummery, the selection of a May Queen, and ritualistic maypole dances honoring fertility. Considered to be a vestige of tree-worship, the intention was to bring home, or bring to the village, the blessings of the tree-spirit. When the church was unsuccessful in banning these celebrations, they tried to make the custom connected to Easter. Did you know that those Easter egg trees people use as table centerpieces connect all the way back to pagan May Trees?

Maypole dance, SCA. Can you find me? Far right, holding onto my hat!

Here is a picture of my local SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) friends (and me) dancing around a maypole on a lovely (but windy) day in May a few years ago. Did you ever do something like this in school? After declining in the 18^th century, May Day customs were resurrected by the Victorians, and these “new” traditions are now revered as old and time-honored, very common all over England.

I just found Louise Allen’s lovely post about May Day with a Cruikshank cartoon of a London procession: http://janeaustenslondon.com/2015/05/01/may-day/
Milkmaids and chimneysweeps were two groups who continued to celebrate May Day even in the Regency. I admit that I am very curious to know, why those two groups and not others? I suppose the connections of milkmaids to their cattle, and chimneysweeps to the fires, might have something to do with it. Anyone else have a theory?

Although I’m American, my family background is English & German. When I was growing up, my sister and I used to make May baskets, decorated with real and/or paper flowers and containing candy, fudge or brownies, and we would deliver them to our grandparents who lived in town, or friends and neighbors. We’d leave it on the doorstep, ring the bell and hide. A vestige of the old blooming branches and flowers left on doorsteps in ancient days? Who knew? Adding chocolate was an admirable modern improvement, don’t you think?

Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing, cuccu;
Groweth sed
and bloweth med,
And springth the wode anu;
Sing, cuccu! (words from a 13^th century song)

Posted in Frivolity, History, Research, Risky Regencies | Tagged Beltane, Gail Eastwood, holidays, May Day, St Walpurga, Walpurgisnacht | 5 Replies

Hot Cross Buns and Easter Eggs

Updated on April 4, 2015 by diane

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter (or Passover). I spent the day with the cutest grandson EVER (and the rest of my family).

And we ate hot cross buns and decorated Easter eggs.

In the UK, hot cross buns are a Good Friday and Easter Sunday tradition, Hot cross buns are a spicy sweet bun baked with currants and raisins and marked with a white frosting cross on the top. Hot Cross buns may have had their origins in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome where sweet and spice breads were a spring tradition. The Anglo-Saxons were said to make cross buns as an offering to their goddess Eostre, the cross meant to symbolize the four phases of the moon and the four seasons of the year. With the rise of Christianity, this pagan custom was continued, but the cross became a religious symbol.

In the 1500s, during the reign of Elizabeth I, the sale of hot cross buns was forbidden except at burials, on Good Friday or at Christmas. If one was caught, the wares were forfeited and given to the poor.

There is a story of a widow whose son, a sailor, asked her to bake him hot cross buns when he returned on Good Friday. He was lost at sea, but every year after that his mother baked a new bun for him and saved them all in a net. After she died, her cottage became a pub called The Widow’s Son where the net filled with buns is on display. A new bun is added every year and sailors gather at the pub to remember the widow and her son.

Another UK Easter custom, pace-egging, is a tradition that has existed for hundreds of years. The term pace eggs comes from the Old English Pasch, meaning Passover, but the origin of eggs as part of Easter celebrations may have originated in pagan rituals where eggs were an ancient symbol of new life. Pace eggs were decorated eggs, originally covered in onion skin before boiling giving them a mottled gold appearance, but in later times painted. Decorating eggs goes back to the time of the Crusades.

The eggs not eaten at Easter Sunday breakfast might have been given to bands of performers called Pace Eggers or Jolly Boys who toured the villages and performed a play involving St. George, a battle, and a character called Old Tosspot, as well as others. In the play someone dies and is revived by a comic doctor. The Pace Eggers still perform in some villages today.

Other eggs were used on Easter Monday for egg-rolling, another tradition dating back hundreds of years. Egg rolling is still going strong in the UK and here in Washington, DC at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll.

How did you celebrate Easter? Did you have a hot cross bun and easter eggs?

I have a new contest on my website! And, don’t forget, Bound By Duty, is now available for sale.

And speaking of Easter Eggs, there is still time to enter Harlequin’s Easter Egg Hunt Contest, which ends April 8.

Posted in Frivolity, History | 4 Replies

Where do you get your ideas?

Updated on March 20, 2015 by Rose Lerner

My ideas come from all over, but the primary place they come from is research. Here are no less than FOUR wonderful settings or hooks for a romance that I came across just this week!

1. Humphrey Ravenscroft, inventor of the forensic wig. I came upon him while trying to decide if Regency footmen would powder their wigs, or wear wigs that were already white (my reluctant conclusion: probably powder). The website of Ede & Ravenscroft (makers of forensic wigs to this day! Here’s Freema Agyeman rocking a modern-day legal wig on Law & Order UK) informed me that in 1822, “Humphrey Ravenscroft (1748 – 1851), grandson of the founder, finally perfects and patents a wig made of white horsehair that needs no powdering or curling. This is the famous forensic wig, whose pattern is still used today.”

The patent states more fully: “for the invention of a Forensic Wig, the curls whereof are constructed upon a principle to supersede the necessity of frizzing, curling, or using hard pomatums, and for forming the Curls in a way not to be uncurled; and also for the Tails of the Wig not to require tying in dressing; and further the impossibility of any person untying them.”

The technical details of construction are included. The wig supposedly also stayed clean, didn’t smell, and could be folded and carried in a tin without damaging it!

For a picture of a period wig (although I suspect the dating is too early), here is one on Pinterest, and another one c. 1830 with some wonderful close-ups.

I would read SO MANY romances about this guy inventing his wig! And what a name.

2. A play performed at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, April-May 1804, advertised as “a grand Naval spectacle, presenting that memorable monument of British Glory, the Siege of Gibralter; with an exact representation of the armament both by Land and Sea, of the combined forces of France and Spain, with real Men of War and Floating Batteries, built and rigged by professional men from His Majesty’s Dock Yards, and which float in a receptacle containing nearly 8000 cubic feet of real water.”

794px-Microcosm_of_London_Plate_069_-_Sadler's_Wells_Theatre

Sadler’s Wells Theatre putting on what looks like another aquatic spectacle c. 1808, from Rowlandson and Pugin’s Microcosm of London. Image via Wikimedia Commons

Later advertising elaborated that there were: “real ships of 100, 74, and 60 guns, &c., built, rigged, and manoeuvred in the most correct manner, as every nautical character who has seen them implicitly allows, which work down with the wind on their starboard beam, wear and haul the wind on their larboard tacks, to regain their situations, never attempted at any Theatre in this or any other country: the ships firing their broadsides, the conflagration of the town in various places, the defence of the garrison, and attack by the floating batteries, is so faithfully and naturally represented, that when the floating batteries take fire, some blowing up with a dreadful explosion, and others, after burning to the water’s edge, sink to the bottom; while the gallant Sir Roger Curtis appears in his boat to save the drowning Spaniards, the British tars for that purpose plunging into the water, the effect is such as to produce an unprecedented climax of astonishment and applause.”

(Quoted in Nicoll’s A History of English Drama.)

I can’t even begin to grasp the romantic possibilities. You’ve got set designers, engineers, military and technical advisors, everyone in the theater and its company, possible Navy men in the audience, dangerous effects and stunts…I WANT TO READ A BOOK ABOUT THIS SO BADLY.

3. “A tontine is an investment plan for raising capital, devised in the 17th century and relatively widespread in the 18th and 19th centuries. It combines features of a group annuity and a lottery. Each subscriber pays an agreed sum into the fund, and thereafter receives an annuity. As members die, their shares devolve to the other participants, and so the value of each annuity increases. On the death of the last member, the scheme is wound up. In a variant, which has provided the plot device for most fictional versions, upon the death of the penultimate member the capital passes to the last survivor.” (Wikipedia)

(I came across this because the building of the new Chichester theatre was funded by tontine in 1792, headed up by the Duke of Richmond, whom you may remember from his wife’s famous ball on the eve of Waterloo.)

OH MY GOD. There have apparently been a lot of TV episodes and murder mysteries involving tontines, but I’d never heard of it and I have CERTAINLY never seen it in a historical romance! Someone PLEASE get on that.

4. In looking something up for the online course on Regency politics I’m currently teaching, I discovered this in Judith Lewis’s Sacred to Female Patriotism:

“Donald McAdams [Rose’s note: I definitely just typed Douglas Adams]…confirms that in 1784, ‘many Bristol girls had bogus wedding ceremonies which were declared void at the close of the poll,’ while in Great Grimsby in 1790 he recounts that there were sixty weddings immediately prior to the election.”

(Bristol and Great Grimsby were boroughs where daughters of freemen could confer voting privileges on their husbands.)

Okay. OMG. Mass weddings! Bogus marriages which were quickly annuled! How was that even legally possible?? I want to know EVERYTHING. I especially want a screwball comedy–style romance about a couple who just married for the election and are planning to annul it later…except then neither of them really wants to.

Which of these would you most like to see? What historical factoid do you think would be a great subject for a romance?

Posted in Frivolity, Plot bunnies, Research | 11 Replies