Christmas Trees, Caves and Cribbage. The strange connections between the game of Cribbage, a bronze age boardgame carved in a cave and the first artificial Christmas trees in Babylonian temples. “In the woods there grew a tree and a fine tree was he..” Crib is an odd game of weird rules and counting systems, it […]
Read more..Tag Archives: history
Fireworks
Memories of Bonfire Night and Halloween. Bonfire Night/Halloween is without doubt my favourite time of year. The autumn nights, the evening chill, the approach of winter, the palpable sense of excitement in the air. This might be due to some primal stirring of stags bellowing, goblins kicking around orange leaves to make them whirl in […]
Read more..The Folklore of Potatoes
“As Lucy’s mum smoked and thought more calmly about the police and Fries she idly wondered if Fries were so addictive because they put something like nicotine in the flavourings… Of course, she did not think Fries put nicotine in their Fries for more than a second but there had to be something. After all, […]
Read more..Woodwoses & Misericords
A Woodwose Under Your Seat. Last year I went to a talk on Woodwoses. These shaggy wild men wielding clubs, and depicted in medieval artefacts as diverse as bed hangings and silver spoons, can still be found hiding in Churches. The talk, by Matt Salusbury, was mostly about those Woodwoses holding up fonts and above […]
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