'The Secret lies in the Thimble' by Karen Maitland

17th Century silver thimble
Photo: Llangefni

In my Jacobean novel Traitor in the Ice, one of my characters passes a secret note to another folded into a band and hidden inside a thimble. This method of passing secret or coded messages was frequently used in times of religious persecution during the Tudor period and probably for centuries before that, and was still being used during the 17th century English Civil War. A band of folded paper was easily concealed in a thimble, which, even in a room crowded with people, a woman could causally set on table for the recipient to pick up, or it could be slipped into a work basket. Even the decoration on the thimble itself could be used as a coded message.

But the practising of concealing things in thimbles has a much older origin and is linked to what the thimble has come to symbolise. 

Thimbles have been excavated from ancient Chinese sites dating as far back as the 206BC to 220CE, as well as from Roman sites, such as Herculaneum and Pompeii, buried when Vesuvius erupted in 79CE. 

Copper-alloy thimble ring c. 1400-1600
Found in East Sussex
Photo: Andy Stanley
The Portable Antiques Scheme/
The Trustees of the British Museum

In the Middle Ages, most thimbles made from brass or copper alloy and were used by men, women and children. For sewing coarse cloth, they used topless thimble rings, pressing the needle with the side of the finger, and for finer cloth and embroidery, they used bee-hive shaped thimbles. 

By Tudor times, the giving of elaborately decorated thimbles as a lover’s token or an occasion gift was well established. These were often engraved with initials, coats of arms, and mottos, or decorated with emblems in the forms of birds, flowers and animals. Queen Elizabeth bestowed thimbles studded with precious stones on her favoured ladies-in-waiting.

C. 1708, a child's silver  thimble
with machine made circular punch marks
Photo: Kult Adams, Bristol City Museum
The Portable Antiques Scheme/
The Trustees of the British Museum

In 1693, John Lofting, a Dutch thimble manufacturer set up a thimble factory in Islington, in London, England, before moving his production to Buckinghamshire to take advantage of water-power. He was able to turn out two million thimbles per year, such was the demand. 

But thimbles had become far more than tools for sewing, they had taken on symbolic meanings too. Traditionally, a ring, a coin and a thimble are baked into a wedding cake for guests to share. The person who gets a ring will find happiness. The one who gets the coin will become wealthy, but the one who gets the thimble with remain unwed, a ‘spinster.’ The same applied, if a girl was gifted three thimbles, presumably because that meant she’d had three suitors and had not settled for any of them. 

'First Sun' by Camille Martin (1861-1898)
Photo: Vassil
Museum of Fine Arts of Nancy

The more important meaning of thimble, though, was protection and good fortune. A thimble is one of the most common objects metal detectorists unearth in fields and gardens. Many were simply lost there. At harvest time, field hands often wore thimbles to protect their hands when binding straw, and women and children would join menfolk for the harvest, and continued to sew or mend while resting from the heat of the day. So many thimbles were probably mislaid. But some seemed to have been deliberately placed in the earth, and contain scrolls of paper, grains of cereals, hazelnuts, crystals, and pebbles, many found with scraps of cloth inside. Some of these clothes, of course, would have been rags used as padding to keep the thimble snug to the finger, but not all. 

Since thimbles symbolised protection, if a woman was anxious about a son going off to war, a daughter giving birth, or a lover on a sea voyage, she’d write their name on a piece of paper and tuck it into a thimble, which she’d then bury in the earth to protect them. If she couldn’t write, she’d use some scrap belonging to the person, such as a strip cut from a garment or a fragment of something they'd used, even a piece of a consecrated wafer from Mass.

Copper- alloy thimble c.1400-1600
Found on the Isle of Wight
Photo: Frank Basford, Isle of White Council
The Portable Antiques Scheme/
The Trustees of the British Museum

The thimble could also be used to protect the whole household from the plague, or as a prayer for a good harvest. So, while thimbles unearthed with a grain of wheat or corn in them can simply be the result of them being lost during harvesting, sometimes a grain of corn might have been put inside deliberately. 

Often too something red would be added – a red bead, rowan berry or red thread to keep what was inside safe, and ensure it couldn’t be taken by evil spirits to cause harm. In a curious blending of the two superstitions, some years ago, I was thrilled to be given two Victorian silver thimbles by an elderly lady, which were tied together by a red cord. But I was warned never to cut or untie the red cord or tie a third thimble to the cord, for fear of bad luck.

Right up until the 1940’s, the tradition was that if a wife of a famer or farmworker died, a strip of cloth cut from her dress would be stuffed into her thimble and thrown out on to the field where she had worked. If a corpse of a woman was proving difficult to get inside a coffin because of stiffness or size, it was said that if her thimble was cast into the coffin first, her body would follow easily.

A Nürnberg thimble
Cast brass 14th Century
Photo: Llangefni

So if you are lucky enough to dig up an old thimble in your garden, do check carefully inside it before you wash the mud out.

If want to discover more, a good starting point is thimbles (colchestertreasurehunting.co.uk). It has a fascinating piece on the history of European thimbles, including why ‘Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. sent spies to Nürnberg to steal the secret of the thimble making,’ together with some excellent photographs of thimbles found in fields and gardens, dating from 12th century onwards to help you date yours.

'A Plague of Mosquitoes on Your House' by Karen Maitland

'Mosquitoes liked the Costume' from Bill Nyer's 

History of the United States, 1894

One of the unexpected consequences of the summer’s heatwave this year was the huge reduction in Lapland’s mosquito population. A great relief for humans, since their mosquitoes have a reputation of being some of the most numerous and vicious in the world, but not so good for the birds, amphibians, fish and dragonflies which depend upon them.

But the heatwave seemed to have the reverse effect in England, because sitting with my office door open to try to get some relief from the heat, I was bitten numerous times by gnats and mosquitoes breeding in the water-butts and pond outside.

The news about Lapland reminded me of an old folktale I heard as a child which involved mosquitoes. Throughout Medieval Europe, Lapland was both admired for having the most skillful silversmiths and feared for having the most dangerous warlocks or sorcerers. The story goes that a Lapland sorcerer had the ambition of marrying his son to the daughter of one of the great kings of Europe. But his son, a peaceful herder, wanted to wed an ordinary girl who could do practical things like milk the reindeer. The sorcerer refused to listen. He changed himself into an owl, flew over the sea and abducted the beautiful princess, but she indignantly refused to consent to the marriage. So, he starved her to force her into submission. But the boy thwarted his father by smuggling reindeer milk to the princess.

Lapland Owl, also known as the Great Grey Owl or

the Spectral Owl.

Photo: Steve Wilson

Discovering she was still defiant, the sorcerer imprisoned the princess in a cave, but before sealing the entrance, he let in a great swarm of Lapland mosquitoes, thinking that after she'd been tormented by hundreds of bites she would soon become biddable. But the boy managed to smuggle some turpentine to the princess. She rubbed it on her skin and it prevented the mosquitoes from biting her, so she emerged, unscathed, to face the sorcerer’s third and most deadly ordeal.

Thinking about this tale, reminded me that while we are very aware of the insects that bred in medieval homes such as moths, weevils, lice and fleas, we sometimes overlook the mosquito problem. The numerous open sewers and puddles of stagnant water lying in city streets, the many ponds, ditches and undrained marshlands in the country were ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes, which must have driven people mad in the summer months. Of course, there were many more natural predators around then. Ponds were usually well stocked with fish that fed on the larvae, and birds and dragonflies devoured the adults. There were also several periods of cold, wet summers which limited insect numbers, but there were also years of hot weather too. 

Culex Mosquito female

Photo: Alan R. Walker

And right up until the 19th century, mosquitoes in England and Europe didn’t merely cause annoyance with their itchy bites, the marshlands were rife with malaria, known variously as the Ague, Marsh Fever or by Shakespeare’s time ‘quotidian tertian’, a fever which recurs in a cycle, which caused poor old Falstaff to shake and burn in Henry V. The links between mosquitoes and malaria were not understood until the 1880’s and in the Middle Ages and Tudor periods, the fever was generally ascribed to either drinking foul water or more commonly, breathing the bad air from cesspits or the miasmas of the marshes. Many people living in the marshlands in Norfolk and Suffolk became addicted to the juice and seeds of the white marsh poppy, which they used to try to alleviate the symptoms.

1905 illustration from a book of American Folktales

But even though they did not fully realise the danger, imagine squatting over a hole above a cesspit or ditch in which clouds of mosquitoes were swarming, looking for a nice bare rump to bore into. So, what could they do? The strewing herbs on the floors and bunches of herbs hung in windows would have helped to ward off some. Rubbing the skin with ransoms (wild garlic) and salves made from pine resin was said to stop the creatures biting. Stringing horse hair across windows and beds was supposed to discourage them, though it isn’t entirely clear whether this created a physical barrier or it was ‘magical’ power of the horsehair itself, which was often woven into protective amulets. Hanging pots or sponges filled with sharp vinegar over your head and feet in bed was said to keep the insects at bay, and you could also use vinegar infused with herbs such as lavender, rosemary, rue, mint and wormwood. These herbs were often planted near windows and doors to act as mosquito deterrents and when dried, were burned on hearth fires or braziers to drive them away.

1646, Apothecary smoking his pipe

Artist: Adriaen van Ostade

The fact that cottages would have been constantly ‘fumigated’ by the smoke from cooking fires and tallow candles would have helped to deter mosquitoes from entering. In this respect, poorer people probably had the advantage. Being forced to burn bones, animal dung, and greener wood on open fires which produced a lot of smoke and stink, probably served them better in warding off insects than the wealthier people who could afford to burn dry seasoned wood and had chimneys to draw the smoke away. But once strong tobacco began to be imported, people swiftly discovered that smoking a pipeful was a good way of protecting themselves from gnats and mosquitoes. One of reasons, it became so popular.

As for me, next summer, I might be resorting to the good old turpentine. Unless you have a favourite deterrent?

'Rain, Rain, Go Away ...' by Karen Maitland

Norman priest's door at Church of St. Medard & St Gildard

Little Bytham, Lincolnshire. The two birds on either side of

the niche are probably the eagle of St Medard whose image

may once have occupied the niche.

Photographer: Simon Garbutt

"Raine, raine go away, 

Come againe a Saterday."

A children's rhyme, which I remember chanting in the playground, but which was recorded as early as 1687 by John Aubrey, who commented then that it was probably a charm of 'Great Antiquity.'

Today, 8th June, is one of those days of the year when we should all pay close attention to whether the rain stays or goes, especially those of us who live in France or England, because this is St Medardus or St Medard’s Day, and similar weather lore is connected to this saint as to St Swithin’s Day which falls on 15th July.

"Quand il pleut à la Saint-Médard, il pleut quarante jours plus tard."

(If it rains on St Medard’s' Day, it rains for forty days more.)

In England the saying was - "St Medard drops drop for forty days." But another version ran - "On St Medard’s day it rains six weeks before or six weeks after."

St Medard (456–545) was the Bishop of Vermandois. He was invoked for protection against bad weather, but he was also a saint that medieval people prayed to when they needed rain. He was a particularly pious child and legend has it that Medard was shielded from the rain by an eagle who spread its wings to shelter him, so the saint is also protector of those who work outdoors. A useful saint for the farmers and gardeners amongst us.

Martyrdom of St Barnabas

Medard was often depicted laughing with his mouth open, and for this reason was invoked against toothache. But he did seem to be regarded in the Middle Ages as a saint with a slightly malicious sense of humour, for another old piece of weather lore concerns him and St Faustus whose feast day falls tomorrow, 9th June.
“St Faustus said to St Medard, Barnabas and Vitus are my neighbours and together we will give the country folk a good washing till Frederick the Hollander comes and closes the doors of heaven.”

St Barnabas’ feast was celebrated on the 11th June and St Vitus on 15th June. But the feast day ‘Frederick the Hollander’, who would bring an end to the deluge, wasn’t until 18th July.

Better known as St Frederick, patron saint of the deaf, Frederick was born in 780, and became Bishop of Utrecht. He was stabbed to death by two assassins after mass on 18th July around the year 838, though sources are not agreed about the precise year. It was claimed by his hagiographers that his murderers were in the pay of Empress Judith of Bavaria, because he accused her of immorality, though there is no evidence that she was particularly immoral, or that he had accused of such. Others claim his killers were hired by the citizens of Walcheren who hated missionaries.

Frederick of Utrecht impaled by two daggers.

1650, Cornelius Visscher

There seems no obvious link in his hagiography to closing the door of heaven and stopping it raining, except that the bishop composed a popular prayer to the Holy Trinity, which was widely used through the Middle Ages, and the Holy Trinity was frequently invoked in Saxon and medieval weather charms. But more likely it was simply an observation that the weather usually improved around the middle of the July and St Frederick’s feast day was one ordinary people could remember.

But if the thought of six weeks of rain depresses you, there is one ray of sunshine - it was said that if the weather changes on the feast of St Barnabas (11th June), then it will be fair for 40 days.
“On St Barnabas put the scythe to the grass. Barnabas bright – the longest day and shortest night.”

Of course, in the Middle Ages, as now, rain could be both welcome or dreaded depending on how much had or hadn’t fallen. But if any rain fell on Ascension Day it was always considered a 'blessing from heaven.' Clean bowls and pails would be put out in the open to collect any rain which fell straight from the sky, rather than trickling from a roof or tree. It would then be stored to be used as a cure for many ailments, especially for eye problems. Sometimes parsley would be added to Ascension water which would be used to washed a baby’s eyes daily to strengthen its sight. As late as 1927, Ascension rain was caught and bottled in the village of Elmley Castle, Worcestershire. In Lincolnshire these healing properties were ascribed to rain that fell anytime in June, and while in Wales, babies washed in this water would be early talkers.

Village of Elmley Castle, painted in 1912

Rain was considered a bad omen at a wedding and a good omen at the funeral.
"Happy is the bride that the sun shines on.
Happy is the corpse that the rain rains on." 

Mourners believed that if rain fell on the coffin or the corpse, it was sign the decease's soul would soon be received into heaven.

In the Middle Ages, if there was a drought various charms were used to try to call rain down. Most have an origin in sympathetic magic or perhaps vestiges of offerings once made to local deities or spirits, such as sprinkling water on certain stones. In Tarn Dulyn, Mount Snowdon, water was thrown at the furthest stepping stone, which known as the 'Red Altar'. Hurling flour into a spring then stirring the water with a hazel-rod was said to produce a mist that would rise and form a cloud. Ferns of all kinds were associated with thunder and lightning and so widely-held was the belief that burning ferns would make it rain that in 1636, Lord Pembroke is reputed to have asked the High Sherriff of Staffordshire to ensure that no fern should be burnt during the visit of Charles I, so that the king would not be inconvenienced by a down-pour.

Snowdon from Capel Curig 

Phillip James de Loutherbourg, 1787

Yale Centre for British Art

But I’ll end with one of my favourite weather sayings that if it rains on the feast day of St Mary Magdalen on the 22nd July it is said she is washing her kerchief so that she can dance at the fair of her cousin St James on 25th July.

'A frog he would a-wooing go ...' by Karen Maitland

'The Love Potion' by 

Evelyn De Morgan (1855-1919)

February is the month when supermarkets and florists try to make us fall 'in love with love' again. But if you are looking for an alternative to chocolate hearts and a cute card to win someone’s affection, you might want to take advice from our medieval forebears, who had numerous ways of enticing a lover and, perhaps more importantly, useful methods of ridding themselves of annoying suitors.

Love-philtres were lucrative money-spinners from the time of the ancient Greeks onwards, though as physicians consistently warned, drinking one was like drinking a cup of poison, for in addition to ingredients such as mandrake root, menstrual blood and the pizzle of an animal, formulae often called for ingredients which were likely contain lethal bacteria, such as cat’s brains, the hair around a wolf’s anus and young swallows, which were buried in the earth and dug up when they were beginning to decompose. If these dead swallows were unearthed with their beaks open were they added to love-philtres, while those with their beaks closed were used in potions intended to destroy love.

Common Valerian, Valeriana officinalis

Photo: AnRo000

More palatable and benign love-philtres contained herbs such as anemone, wild carrot, cumin, periwinkle and purslane, and it was said that if a girl wore valerian she’d never lack lovers. In his herbal of 1597, John Gerard tells us that if cyclamen (sowbread) is baked into little cakes it makes a ‘good amorous medicine to make one in love.’ This may have been in part due to one of its other properties, that ‘it loves the vine’ and ‘hates all sobering plants’, so that if added to a drinker’s cup it would increase the potency of the wine and quickly intoxicate the drinker.

Cyclamen or Sowbread, Cyclamen hederifolium.

Photo: H.Zell

But by the 16th century love philtres were regarded as witchcraft and it was recognised that many could be lethal or cause irreversible brain damage. Nevertheless, the Flemish chemist and physician Jan Baptist Van Helmont (1580-1644) claimed to know of a ‘common’ herb which, if you rubbed it into your hand until it was warm, then held the hand of the person you desired until their hand was hot in yours, they’d fall in love with you and the effect would last several days. Presumably though, they’d already have to be fond of you to be willing to hold your hand that long, unless, of course, Helmont was attempting to seduce one of his patients whilst taking their pulse.

Before the days of internet dating, you could always use the services of a local hermit. On Dartmoor it was the tradition on Palm Sunday for unwed girls and lads to drink honey-sweetened water from Ashwell spring at Bovey Tracey, in the hope of discovering their future spouse. According to legend, a hermit discovered that a wounded knight and ailing girl, secretly loved one another, but neither believed their love was reciprocated. So, he sent each to bathe in Ashwell spring, telling them it would heal them, in the hope that they would meet and start talking. His plan worked and they married.

Photo: Hannes Grobe

Frogs are perhaps not the most popular valentine's symbol, except if the suitor is trying to convince someone of his hidden potential, but because they appeared to ‘regenerate’ in great numbers after the spring floods which brought fertility to the lands, frogs were symbols of the ancient goddesses of fertility in many early cultures. As the goddesses were demonised by the monotheistic religions, the frog also became a symbol of sin and heresy. This irresistible combination of fecundity and sin meant that throughout the Middle Ages and up until the last century, these unfortunate creatures were used in many love-charms and in love-repelling charms too.

If a girl thought her lover’s affections had strayed, she would stick pins into a living frog until it died and bury it. From that moment, her faithless lover would feel as if he was being mercilessly stabbed with red-hot needles, which only stopped when he returned to her. Then she would covertly remove the pins from the frog and her lover would find himself strangely compelled to propose marriage. In some versions of this charm, she was instructed to secretly attach a bone from the frog to the man’s clothing to ensure his return.

Mummified Frog from the Malcom Lidbury

Witchcraft Collection. Photo: Malcom Lidbury

But men could be equally ruthless. If a man wanted a woman to fall in love with him, he would bury a frog in an anthill, until the ants had reduced it to bones. He’d remove two of the bones, one shaped like a hook and the other like a spade. He’d conceal the hook bone on girl’s clothing, where upon she would become infatuated with him. When he became bored with her, he would touch the spade-bone to the hook-bone and she would instantly fall out of love, leaving him free to pursue the next woman. Ants eggs, poppies, water-lilies and hemlock were also said to induce someone to fall out of love. The only problem being that you had to get the victim to swallow them without them knowing, if you wanted to cool his or her ardour.

A husband who suspected his wife was being unfaithful and who wanted to make her reveal her secrets might have followed the advice given by Giambattista Della Porta in ‘Magiae naturalis’ 1558, (translated as ‘Natural Magic’ in 1658) who instructed the husband to put the tongue of a frog over his wife’s heart at night as she slept, because this animal ‘gives tongue’ at night. Then the husband could ask the wife anything he wanted. She would talk in her sleep and answer him truthfully.

If a woman wanted to ensure the faithfulness of her spouse or lover she was advised to secretly dig up the earth from his footprints, put it in a pot and sow marigold seeds in it. That would bind her lover to her and ward off any attempt to steal his affections from her by charms or witchcraft.

Advertisement circa 1900

Miami University Digital Collection

Finally, should a lover need some ‘encouragement to passion’, the Anglo-Saxon leech books prescribed an ointment which could be rubbed onto the reluctant member consisting of nettle seeds, goat’s gall and goat’s dung mixed with incense. Perhaps the incense helped to counteract the stench of goat.

Perhaps after all, it would be safer to opt for the chocolate heart or an over-priced rose this Valentine's Day. They’d certainly smell sweeter.

'Wyspes, Kexis and Cokenay in Medieval Tottenham' by Karen Maitland

I've recently been re-reading the medieval satirical poem The Turnament of Totenham, (Tournament of Tottenham). It was written by an unknown author sometime before 1456 and is set in Tottenham which was, in the Middle Ages, a little village near London, though its country lanes are now city streets.

The poem tells the story of a tournament in which the men of the village, some of whom already have wives, compete for the hand of Tyb, the reeve’s daughter, after the potter, Perkyn, boasts that he is the only man worthy of her. To add to her charms, the lovely Tyb comes with a dowry of an old grey mare and a spotted sow. The men ride to the joust on field mares, with pots and buckets on their heads instead of helmets. The tournament quickly descends into a pitched battle and come nightfall, the women and wives have to take their bruised and crippled menfolk home on hurdles, cratch (fodder rack) and in wheelbarrows.

Academics continue to argue over the target of the humour in this poem. It’s been suggested that it could be depiction of a mock battle which might have been enacted by villagers during Shrovetide, a time of the year notorious for the performance of bawdy plays and songs full of sexual innuendo. Others have claimed that the poem was penned as warning to those participating in the increasing rowdy knights’ tournaments telling them not behave like peasants, or was it a warning to the lower classes not make fools of themselves by trying to ape their masters?


Men using flails the thresh grain

 Whatever the aim of the poet, the interest for me is in the rich details of everyday day contained in some of the lines. The villagers rode to the tournament on their wooden saddles which could be piled all round with goods as high as the rider’s waist when he or she was going to market, which also helped prevent them falling off if the horse bolted. The poet has the villagers carrying winnowing baskets as shields, which in fact were used by the farm lads if pressed into battle. Their weapons were rakes, hoes and flails. Flails were used by the Cornish wool and tin smugglers in the Middle Ages to defend themselves against those sent to hunt them down, since a man who had years of practise using a flail on a farm could use it to disarm a man wielding a sword. And if the smugglers were caught with flails on the road they could not be accused of carrying weapons.

Cow parsley with its hollow stem 

But one of the most telling lines for me, comes towards the end of the poem -

'All the wives of Tottenham come to see that sight,
With wyspes and kexis and ryschys their light,
To fetch home their husbands, that were them troth plight.'

There is so much history hidden in those three words wyspes, kexis and ryschys or wisps, kexes and rushes, for these were the poor man’s means of lighting. Wisps or wispies were made when extracting honey from the bee skeps. The warmed honey comb would be pressed through straw, and after the honey had dripped through, the straw, covered in melted wax, would be pressed into bundles and left to harden. These would be used as candles or tapers when bright light was needed, though they did not burn for long.

Kexis, kexes or kex refers to hollowed-stemmed plants of the umbelliferous family, such as hemlock, cow-parsley and chervil. The folk-name for cow-parsley in some parts of England is still keckies. The stems of these plants would be dried and stuffed with tow, the waste fibres of flax or hemp, to make lights. These would burn longer than wispies, but would be much smokier.

Soft Rushes. Photo: Christian Fischer

Ryschys or rushes, were either bulrushes with the heads soaked in wax or, more likely, rush candles. These were not easy to make, though children had to master the art early on, for a great many were needed especially during the winter months. Soft rushes, Juncus effusus, were cut in summer and plunged into water straightaway, so they didn’t shrink and bend. They then had to be peeled, leaving just one narrow rib of peel to support the pith. It took skill to do this evenly and leave the pith intact. The rushes were then left out for several days to bleach and absorb the night dew before finally being sun-dried. Finally came the eye-stinging process of dipping them in scummings, melted animal fat saved from cooking. Sometimes this could be mixed with melted wax if you had any to spare, which would make them burn longer and clearer. A rush light of around two and half feet long was reckoned to burn for an hour.

Another plant used to make these ‘rush candles’ was Common Mullein (verbascum). One of its old folk names is the Roman name Candelaria, because since ancient times it has been stripped of its leaves, and the resinous dried stalk dipped in tallow, and burned as lights or tapers. Hence its other names such as hedge-taper and Our Lady’s candle.

Satire or not, the poet paints a wonderful picture of some of the everyday objects and tools that would have been so familiar to the medieval audience, and leaves such a valuable insight for us.

By the way, if you don’t know the ending of the story in the poem, Perkyn the potter wins the tournament by being the only man left standing. He and Tyb spend the night together as result of which they find they are compatible and agree to marry or in other versions are declared by the poet to be married - an interesting allusion to the wide-spread custom of common-law marriages.

Guests are invited to a marriage feast, at which each fifth man is served with a cokenay. Some define this as a bad egg or a small egg, otherwise known as a cock’s egg. Misshapen or small eggs were said to be laid by cocks. It is also a vulgar pun, in that this term was also used for small or misshapen testicles or men believed to be impotent.

'Broomsticks, not Bed knobs' by Karen Maitland

Recently, some national newspapers reported on a story of a husband who was granted a divorce in Italy

'The Ecstasy of Father Jean Birelle,' painted 1626-32

by Vincenzo Carducci

because his wife was said to be possessed by the devil, evidenced by convulsions, throwing a pew in church and levitation. But in the Middle Ages levitation was considered to be the sign of a saint, so when did it become a sign of possession or witchcraft?

In the 10th Century, the Canon Episcopi condemned women who believed they could fly with the goddess in the nocturnal wild hunt. But it was the belief in the goddess to which the Church objected, not the flying. The medieval Church’s complaint against witches was not their magic, but that they made offerings to the old gods and goddesses rather than to the relics of saints. 

During the Middle Ages, numerous saints were reported to be able to levitate or fly including Francis of Assisi and Theresa of Avila. Ironically, it was the very ability of the saints to levitate through the power of God that would later be used as proof that witches could do it through the power of demons. 

St Joseph of Cupertino

Early medieval writers wrote about witches gathering to perform spells both for the good of the community, to end droughts or storms, and on other occasions to work mischief or even murder by magic, but whatever the reason, it was not suggested that they flew there.

But by the 16th century, both the Protestant Reformers and the Catholic Inquisition had decided witchcraft of any kind was heretical, therefore punishable by death. They constructed the elaborate myth of the witches’ sabbat. Prosecutors alleged that as many as 2,000 women would assemble at a remote location to take part. But how could they get there in a single night and be tucked up in bed at home by dawn? They had to fly. 

And with the rise of both the Inquisition and Reformation even a saint’s ability to fly began to be regarded as a sign they might be a secret witch. St. Joseph of Cupertino (1603-63) was denounced to the Inquisition because he could levitate. Levitating nuns were in even greater danger. Magdalena Crucia, Abbess at Cordova, who died in 1560, was persuaded by her confessors that her levitation was not a sign of her devotion, but proof she was a witch.

1681, a child levitating through witchcraft in front

of horrified witnesses.

But the question that troubled the Church was – did witches fly in body or spirit? It was a common medieval belief that the spirit left the body in the form of a mouse while the person slept. If you moved a sleeping person their soul might not find its way back, so the victim would die. St. Martin de Porres and the 20th Century saint, Padre Pio, were both credited with bilocation – the ability to appear in spirit in one place while their bodies were miles away. This became central to an outbreak of anti-witch hysteria in 1683, in Calw, Germany, when children swore they attended witches’ sabbats while their parents watched them sleeping. 

But by the late 16th century, most theologians insisted witches could not travel in spirit, therefore their bodies must be flying. Only God could work the miracle of taking the spirit from the body then restoring it, bringing a corpse back to life. God certainly wouldn’t perform that miracle for a witch. 

Woodcut 1508, Witch flying on goat

with pitchfork

So, witches were depicted riding fantastic beasts, demons or their ‘familiars’ such as cats, goats or foxes – animals associated with Satan. Women ‘bewitched’ neighbours’ horses and they would be found sweating in their stables having been ‘hag-ridden’. 

Witches were also thought to ride shovels, pitchforks, distaffs and forked sticks. Brooms were already linked to magic. If a woman brushed the dust from the room outwards, she would be brushing away the fortune of the house. If she brushed in front of neighbour’s door, she would be stealing their luck. The broomstick probably became the favourite object to depict witches riding as they were associated with women’s work and were a phallic symbol used in peasant weddings, emphasising those sexual orgies of the witches sabbat. 

The Witches Sabbath

1851-1896 by

Luis Ricardo Falero

As for that poor wife in Italy, if only she’d been born a few centuries earlier she might well have been canonised instead of condemned.

'Take a Peck of Pickled Ploughmen' by Karen Maitland

Today, the 8th January, is Plough Sunday, which is always the first Sunday after the 6th January. The 6th was the Twelfth Night of the Christmas and the end of the holiday. From Medieval times, right up until the introduction of farm machinery and tractors, Plough Sunday was an important religious feast day in the countryside, taking place before the bawdy and riotous Plough Monday which celebrated the return to work on the farm. 

On Plough Sunday, decorated ploughs would be dragged up to the altars of the churches and even cathedrals to be blessed, and the names of every farm in the parish would be read aloud by the priest, so that they too would be blessed and produce a good harvest in the coming year, for everyone’s life depended on that. The plough was the symbol of life, peace and prosperity. As the old verse says –

"The king he govern all, the parson pray for all, the lawyer plead for all, but the ploughman pay for all and feed all."

Some churches, such as this one in Tickhill, Yorkshire 

have revived the Plough Sunday Services.

Photographer: John Cowie

Although Plough Sunday marked the men’s return to work on the farm and the craftsmen to their workshops, it did not mark the beginning of the ploughing season, but rather the end of it. In the Middle Ages, farmers knew that all the plough work on the farm should be completed before Christmas for the weather usually worsened in January. So, when the last furrow was ploughed before the Twelve Days of Christmas, the plough brist , (the breast or mould-board) would be polished and the shares cleaned and oiled ready for the plough to be stored in a barn. 

There would always be a piece of land left unploughed in the community known as Jack’s Land or Jack’s Green or in Scotland Gudeman’s Fauld (Goodman’s fold). It was left as kind of sop to the Devil or the spirits, so that they had a piece of land which they could inhabit. If greedy humans took all the land, then the spirits would have no abode and would wander across the farms, wreaking havoc on all the ploughed land and making the ground barren. The corpses of those who had been refused burial in consecrated ground, such as suicides or those who'd been excommunicated, were often buried on this land.

Things became a little more rowdy on Plough Monday when the plough men and boys would pin ribbons and trailing rags to their clothes to make a shaggy coat. In some villages, particularly if the ceremony took place at dusk, the lads would blacken their faces and turn their coats inside out. (Wearing clothes turned inside out was an ancient charm to ward off evil and malicious spirits and also to reverse a run of bad luck.) Then the plough men and boys would drag a plough around the village, demanding money or food such as chickens and hams, and ale or cider from each householder, which they would consume in a great feast later that night.

A plough is dragged round the streets in Whittlesey,

Cambridgeshire, as part of Whittlesey Straw Bear Festival

Photographer: Simon Garbutt

If payment was not forthcoming, the householder's front garden would be ‘jagged’, that is ploughed up and ruined, especially the part in front of the cottage door, so that for weeks afterwards the stingy householder would be wading through deep mud to get in or out of their house. It would also be a very visible sign to all their neighbours of their lack of community spirit. 

The leader of the plough men wore a costume which varied from village to village, but usually incorporated an ox tail because oxen generally pulled the plough. Often, the man would dress in drag as a comic woman known as a Bessie. As they processed the men danced and leaped as high as they could, the idea being that the grain would grow as high and as vigorously as they had leaped that year. So, it was in everyone’s interest to encourage the dancers. This tradition is known at least as far back as Saxon times and versions of it are probably as old as the invention of the plough itself.

Christmas Mummers in Haddon Hall

The mummers in the village often performed Plough Plays on Plough Monday, which had nothing to do with farming, but were merely an excuse for mock battles which often degenerated into real and bloody fights egged on by an audience who had already drunk a great deal. The plays had no plots but were simply an array of bizarre characters who introduced themselves to the audience and fought each other. Probably, the mummers would have made mocking references to well-known people in the community or authority figures. The culmination of the play came when characters such as Pickled Herring and Pepper Breeches gathered around the man playing the fool. They’d make an interlocking circle of blades around his neck with six mock swords and pretend to kill him. He’d feign death and then immediately jump up and leap about, showing he was alive. This had echoes of the ancient pre-Christian fertility ceremonies performed during winter months in which the green god was ritually slain and then resurrected to bring about the return of spring and new growth. 

In some villages, it was the tradition to force the man playing fool onto a bonfire of green or wet wood, setting fire to it and to the fool’s trailing rags on his costume in a mock burning. The idea was to produce lots of smoke on the bonfire so that the fool would appear to be consumed on the pyre, but could leap off ‘unharmed.’ But I can’t help thinking that quite a few fools over centuries probably were harmed in the making of these plays, even if it was just from smoke inhalation.

But since this is the end of the Christmas feasting and all your crackers have now been pulled, perhaps I should sign off with a very traditional medieval riddle –

Riddle - "How many hoof prints does an ox leave in the last furrow when it has ploughed all day?" 

Answer – "None, because the plough is dragged behind the ox and so all hoof prints are obliterated."

'Playing The Fool' by Karen Maitland

Ask most people to imagine a medieval feast and they will usually picture a jester or ‘fool’ prancing around the tables clad in bells and pointed hats, but how accurate is that image? In the 11th and 12th centuries the title minstrel, meaning little servant, was the name given to a wide range of entertainers, including musicians, tumblers and magicians as well as joculators or jesters. Both men and women were employed as minstrels and there is a record of joculatrix called Adeline, owning land in Hampshire in 1086.

In the 12th century the title of follus or fool began to be mentioned in documents, often when these jesters had been rewarded with land as payment for loyal service. A fool named Roland le Pettour was given 30 acres of land by King Henry II, probably when he retired, on condition that Roland returned to the royal court every year on Christmas Day to ‘leap, whistle and fart.’

But noblemen and even kings did not throw daily banquets and, besides, listening to same fool or joculator every night of the year would have become tedious, so medieval jesters only performed occasionally. The rest of the year they were expected to carry out other duties in the household, such as being keeper of the hounds, or travelling to markets to buy provisions for the household.

In the Middle Ages there were three types of fool. The professional fool employed by a nobleman was usually very astute, educated and generally wore normal clothes, like their masters, rather than the classic fool’s costume. But wealthy families also adopted boys and men who had mental illnesses or physical deformities, keeping them almost as pets for their amusement or as an act ‘Christian charity’. These too were given the title of ‘the Queen’s fool’ or ‘Lord X’s fool’, but they were not paid, just fed and clothed. If their masters decided these poor fools no longer amused them they were sometimes provided with a pension in the form of regular alms, but sadly many ended their days as beggars.

1400. The author of the manuscript (centre) is shown writing for all ranks

of society, from the highest, the pope and the king on either side of him to the lowest - the jester with

monkey on the far left and the beggar on the far right.

The third class of fool was the Fool Societies, particularly popular in France. These were groups of amateurs who performed at Christmas, or at fairs or festivals. They were generally the ones to don the classic jester’s costume of a hood with ears, multi-coloured tunics and tie bells to their shoes or clothes. They would dance and prance through the streets, some even carrying their infants on their backs.

1614. Tom Durie, beloved jester to Queen Anne of

Denmark, wife of James VI. He holds the cup

of hospitality offered to guests.

Both King Edward II and Edward III had a succession of professional fools and called them all ‘Robert’ regardless of their real names. But by the 13th century some talented jesters were beginning to achieve superstar status. Those who were lucky enough to be employed by royalty were provided with their own horse and servants. Tom le Fol – Tom the Fool – performed at the marriage feast of Edward I’s daughter Elizabeth and was given a fee of 50 shillings which was a fortune, since a skilled thatcher could expect to earn only 2½ pence a day and you could buy a goose for 1½ pennies.

Of course, most fools weren’t lucky enough to come to the attention of the king. One traveller complained that no one gave him rabbit-trimmed robes or costly gifts, because he couldn’t play instruments, tell jokes and stories, juggle, dance, and fart a tune.

The Battle of Morgarten, 15th Nov 1315

showing the court jester, Kuony von Stocken,

in red standing next to his master's horse.

When I was researching the life of a medieval jester, who is one of the characters in my novel, 'The Plague Charmer', I discovered that dwarf jesters were also expected to carry clandestine kisses and illicit fondlings between men and women in the noble houses who were flirting or having affairs.

That task could be hazardous, but jesters or professional fools could be required to carry out duties that were even more dangerous. On the battlefield one of their roles was to carry messages between the leaders of warring armies and sometimes the enemy did 'kill the messenger' and often in particularly nasty ways.

Fools certainly earned their wages. It was serious game they had to play.

'King Holly, Queen Ivy and Murphy's Law' by Karen Maitland

I love dipping into a book by Philip Gooden called "Skyscrapers, Hemlines and the Eddie Murphy Rule." It is a collection and history of those quirky laws that seem to govern every aspect of our life from Murphy's Law - "If anything can go wrong, it will" to the hemline theory - "Hemlines go up with rising stock market and drop with falling one". And the one I really enjoy, Hartman's Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation -

"Any article or statement about correct grammar, punctuation, or spelling is bound to contain at least one error."  

(It has been pointed out that this statement does contain one punctuation error if you are British, though not if you are American.)

It is a delightfully funny and informative collection, but though it contains sets of laws from different genres of writing from crime to ghost stories, there isn't a list of "Historical Novelists' Laws", which I think is a great pity, so I thought I might kick off with one law that might have appeared on that list -

1) The author will discover the most interesting historical snippet which would have been perfect to use in their novel immediately after they emailed the final draft of the manuscript to the publisher.

I can personally attest to the truth of this law. One of the themes running through my new novel, The Plague Charmer, is medieval riddles and I use riddles as some chapter headings. I thought I had scoured every available source of genuine medieval riddles, but the day after I'd submitted the manuscript I discovered two little gems in a museum, recorded in 1460, which perfectly capture the bawdy medieval mind -

Q - What is the most joyful thing in all the world?
A - 'Tis a fart for it sings from its birth until it fades away.

 Q - What the most noble king of all the trees in the forest? 

Sir Gawain beheads the Green Knight

 A - 'Tis the Holly, for no one uses it to wipe his behind.


For the medieval audience, this second riddle would have been a trick question, for they all knew the holly was the king of the forest, but for a very different reason than that given in the answer to the riddle. We will soon be approaching the end of October and the Celtic festival of Samhain, which marks the beginning of the dark months of winter. At Samhain the Holly King defeats Oak King in battle and conquers the land, only to see the Oak triumph at Beltane and rule over the summer.


This ancient myth is symbolised in the medieval tale of "Gawain and the Green Knight," in which the Green Knight comes to King Arthur's court bearing a holly bush. Sir Gawain chops off the Green Knight's head, but the Green Knight still lives on and, as the medieval audience knew, he would return as the year waned, to cut off Sir Gawain's head.

Holly and Oak in winter in Gritnam Wood, New Forest
Photographer: Jim Champion

Another myth involving holly was centred around May Eve, the first night of Beltane, when the Bel-fire, or fire of light, was kindled. This involves not a king but a goddess, the ancient blue ice goddess, Cailleach Bhear, the old woman of darkness, who reigns from Samhain to Beltane. On this night she throws her magic staff under a holly bush for safe-keeping and is turned to stone. In that form she is guarded by the holly and its spirits until she can take up her queenship once more. That is why no grass grows under holly trees.

But the early medieval Church, always pragmatic in these matters, knew they could not suppress the 'pagan' customs of bringing holly into the house and all the many local traditions that went into gathering it, so they Christianised the holly tree. The holly's old names, holeyn, holme, hulvar or hulfere, were probably Old Norse in origin, but the Church decided they must be derived from 'holy' and said that holly bore white flowers to remind the faithful of the white sheet in which the newborn Jesus was wrapped and the shroud in which his crucified body was laid. The prickles represented Christ’s crown of thorns and the red berries, the blood or wounds. In Cornwall, holly was delightfully known as dear Aunt Mary's tree. Aunt Mary being a reverent term for the Virgin Mary.

But as the Middle Ages progressed holly was to become victorious in a different battle, not between summer and winter, but between the sexes. Early medieval troubadours sang of holly as the man and ivy as the woman who each brought different but equal virtues and gifts to the marriage. But as medieval women increasing lost their rights, the holly became the strong, tough, protecting male, and ivy, the clingy little female who couldn't even stand up by herself without his support. As one carol written in 1456 puts it -

"Nay, Ivy, nay: it shall not be, I wys:
Let Holly have the mastery, as the manner is."

By the 16th century we even have a carol that describes how pigeons eat the ivy berries then shit on the ivy, something we are assured they would never do to holly. Although another 15th century carol is more encouraging or perhaps prophetic -

"Ivy, chief of the trees it is,
Veni, coronaberis."

Old Christmas riding a goat and crowned
with holly

 Holly was believed to be a shelter for good spirits who entered with it if the boughs were brought into the house, and therefore holly was always be hung before mistletoe at Christmas, otherwise bad luck would follow. Holly protected houses and byres from evil spirits, witchcraft, fire and lightening. So, a staff made from holly was a useful defence when crossing the moors or mashes to protect you from the mysterious glowing sprites such as the Will-o-the-wisp that might lure you into a bog.


Doorsteps were often made of holly wood to prevent witches crossing them and holly hedges, as well as keeping out animals and thieves, would also stop evil spirits from entering. It was useful plant to carry when you were herding livestock too, because if a beast suddenly bolted, and you threw holly after it, the runaway would trot meekly back to the herd, summoned by the power and authority of this royal tree.

But holly bushes can turn nasty. On a road near Claonaig, on the Kintyre peninsular, a holly bush is said to dance out of the woods to confuse travellers into loosing their way, which I imagine they could easily do, if faced with prancing holly bush. In which case, they might do well to remember the laws of survival in very cold climates which Gooden lists in his book -

1) You can survive three hours without shelter.
2) You can survive three days without water.
3) You can survive three weeks without food.

So, in the spirit of dear old Murphy's Law has anyone got a favourite law for the Historical Novelist?

*

(Karen Maitland's new novel - The Plague Charmer - will be published by Headline on

20th Oct 2016.)