Wednesday 24 December 2014

CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES FINAL NIGHT: A School Story by MR James


At last it's Christmas Eve, and for one final time we gather round the fireside in the Great Library of Dreams. As is traditional, our Christmas Eve story comes from the great MR James, and Mr Jim Moon reads A School Story for your festive entertainment!


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Tuesday 23 December 2014

CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES THIRD NIGHT: The Step by EF Benson


It's the third night of ghostly tales at the Great Library of Dreams. Tonight Mr Jim Moon takes his place by the fireside to deliver a tale from EF Benson that will take us to Egypt and takes place upon a benighted Christmas Eve!


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Monday 22 December 2014

CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES SECOND NIGHT: The Red Room by HG Wells


Welcome to our second ghost story for Christmas! Tonight Mr Jim Moon reads The Red Room by HG Wells, often claimed to be one of the most frightening tales ever written!


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Sunday 21 December 2014

CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES FIRST NIGHT - Jerry Bundler by WW Jacobs


This Christmas we are are hosting four nights of ghost stories from the Great Library of Dreams. Tonight we begin with Mr Jim Moon reading a festive ghost story about festive ghost stories, Jerry Bundler by WW Jacobs.


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Friday 19 December 2014

FOLKLORE ON FRIDAY - The Robin and Christmas


As a non-migratory species, robin redbreasts are found all the year round in the British Isles, although Highland robins will often travel a little way down south to escape the worst of the Scottish winter. However despite being a frequent visitor to our gardens all the year round, this little bird is inextricable entwined with  the Christmas season.

And as we already seen in previous articles in this series, there is a great deal of folklore about the humble robin.We have already looked at their ominous reputation and connections to other folk beliefs, but there are also a many stories telling how this little bird came to get its distinctive redbreast.

In Wales the little bird has the name of brou-rhuddyn which mean literally ‘breast-burnt’, and there are is a Welsh folk tale that account for this. The story goes that Robin being an amicable little bird had took pity the sinners burning in Hell. And so he scooped up water in his beak and flew down into the pit of Hell. There, the brave and kind little bird took the water to the tortured souls to give them some respite for the eternal flames of damnation. However in doing so got his face and chest burnt red. And there is a variant version of this which has Robin taking water to the Pit with even bolder plans or extinguishing Hell itself!  

Fire and the robin's kindly nature features in other such origin tales too. In an ancient Irish fable, when there was only two people in the world and only one fire, one day while the folk slept a wolf crept up and kicked earth on the flames to put them out. Seeing the fire dying, a brave little robin gathered up twigs and kindling and placed them on the embers, and then perched close by and fanned the embers back into flame with its wings. Hence once again Robin's kindness resulted in him getting burnt bright red! 

In a story very similar to the Irish tale, we have our first festive folkloric link, with robins visiting the Nativity of Christ. In this story, after Jesus was born the night grew bitterly cold, the small fire in the drafty Bethlehem stable began to dwindle. Joseph ventured out the find more wood but while he was away gather winter fuel, the fire started to go out.  However just as the flames started to die, a group of little brown birds flew into the stable and began circling the fire and fanned the flames once more. These compassionate little fellows were of course robins and to commemorate their kindness from that day onward they have sported bright red breasts.


Another tale also links the bird getting its distinctive plumage with Christ too. This story comes in several variations but all feature the robin's traditional compassion and kindness. It was said that while Jesus was dying on the cross, the robin came to give him comfort. In one version the robin perches on Christ's shoulder and sings to give him comfort. Another variation has the little bird attempting to staunch the flow of blood from the great wound in Jesus's side made by the spear of the centurion Longinus. However the best known incarnation, has the kind little robin attempting to pluck away the crown of the thorns. And so in all three variants, the robin is stained with the blood of Christ and its kindness is forever remembered in it vivid red plumage.  

These stories that associate the robin with Jesus have been mooted as explanations for why these little birds are part of our Christmas iconography. However all these tales are fairly obscure, and have never been exactly widely known. And hence scholars who have studied the development of Christmas customs believe the robin's link with the festive season comes from far more recent events. David Lack, author of The Life of the Robin (1972) traces our present day association of robins with Christmas from a modern Yuletide custom - the sending of Christmas cards.

Now you may think robins on Christmas cards merely comes from them their red plumage making them stand out in winter. And artistically speaking, this makes perfect sense, for their plumage makes them the perfect bird to adorn Christmas scenes. For aside from their redbreasts being appropriately festive coloured, the scarlet feathers also form a vivid contrast to the whites of the snow and the green sprigs of holly and ivy that usually adorn Christmas cards.

But the story further than that. In 1840, the United Kingdom established the modern Royal Mail and the first postage stamp, the Penny Black. And so the Penny Post was born, meaning letters could be sent anywhere to any corner of Britain  for the princely sum of a single penny. And a few years later, one of the the fellow involved in designing the new postal scheme, Sir Henry Cole, had a capital idea. He hired artist John Callcott Horsley to design a card conveying Christmas best wishes, and thus the first Christmas card was born.

Now the early Christmas cards weren't exactly like the one we know today - for example, early designs had spring flowers rather than winter scenes.And furthermore, cards were just part of a range of Christmas themed stationary that flourished in what would be come the golden age of the postal service. Hence while folks on modest incomes would sending the usual cards we have, the more well off had envelopes, calling cards and paper for letter writing with illustrated headers. And a common feature of the matching designs on these festive stationary items was a robin, often with a letter in its beak.


However somewhat curiously, the same robin designs also feature on cards and stationary celebrating for New Year and Valentine's Day. And the reason for this is that from the 18th century up until 1861, the British postman dressed in red coats or tunics. Even after a dark blue coat was introduced in 1861, the  red was retained in on the collars, cuffs and piping on the coats, and the stripes on the trousers. Hence the humble postman had gained the nicknames 'redbreast' or 'robin'. For example, Anthony Trollope - who actually had worked for the Post Office - wrote in his novel Framley Parsonage, first published in 1860 -
"Oh, but it's mortial wet," said the shivering postman as he handed in that and the vicar's newspaper. The vicar was a man of the world, and took the Jupiter.
"Come in, Robin postman, and warm theeself awhile," said Jemima the cook, pushing a stool a little to one side, but still well in front of the big kitchen fire.

Naturally, with the whimsy typical of greetings card art, soon robins were regularly being depicted as postmen on various cards, even after the uniform changes detailed above. And with New Year and Valentine cards developing their own iconography, soon the robin redbreast would be left to rule the Christmas card alone. Furthermore, soon any kind of robin, whether undertaking postal duties or not, was seen as a suitable subject for a Christmas card.

And oddly enough, while the association with the Royal Mail which had got them onto the Christmas scene in the first place was forgotten as the slang name for postmen died out with the uniform changes, it has been the other folkloric associations of the robin that has kept them on our cards. For the custom of sending Christmas cards gained in popularity throughout Victorian and Edwardian times in parallel with the rise of the pantomime, and in previous articles we already seen how important the tale of the Babes in the Wood is to redbreast folklore.

More generally however, the robin of folklore fits perfectly with Christmas. Symbolically with their red feathers bringing colour and light to our frosty gardens, the robin parallels the joy and warmth Christmas brings to the middle of our winter. The ancient beliefs that they were omens and harbingers makes them a suitable magical bird for Yuletide, and the fact that we have long believed that both they are to be treated with kindness and that the robins themselves are compassionate birds means the redbreast is very much the embodiment of the real spirit of the Christmas season.



Thursday 18 December 2014

iTunes Issues

We are aware that some of you are having trouble getting episode from iTunes at present.

And this both pains us greatly and makes bloody annoyed with sodding Apple.

As I'm afraid this is an iTunes issue, that is out of our control. The tech wizards at our hosts Geekplanet Online have checked their servers several times and the feed is working fine from our server end,  and iTunes is being working properly for some folks too. But not everyone.

Other than getting a different podcatcher - which we HIGHLY recommend you do - what seems to fix it for some folks is -

1) Updating iTunes - and we do appreciate this may mean getting  U2 LP you neither want nor need!

2) Unsubscribing and resubscribing.

3) Some people find resubscribing through the iTunes button on the feed page does the trick -

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Either way, please remember episodes can be downloaded direct from the feed pages linked to above or from the episode posts on here.


Tuesday 16 December 2014

HYPNOGORIA 06 - A Merry Christmas with World-Famous Artists


In the second of this year's Christmas specials, Mr Jim Moon mounts an assault on the north face of the drinks cabinet and explores the world of festive music. We unwrap the history of the Christmas carol, do a spot of wassailing, discover strange forgotten festive cash-in singles and indulge in all manner of off beat versions of Yuletide favourites.


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Thursday 11 December 2014

FOLKLORE ON FRIDAY - Babes in the Woods


Babes in the Wood is a perennially popular pantomime (bet you can't say that quickly!*) running in many theatres up and down Britain every Christmas time. And this tale of orphaned children, wicked uncles and Robin Hood is actually one of the oldest of all the traditional pantos. 

It was first performed in 1827 at the Drury Lane Theatre, London, under the title Harlequin and Cock Robin: or, The Babes in the Wood. Indeed this original title tells us just how early a pantomime this is. For the British pantomime was evolved from performances of the older Harlequinade, in turn a British development of the Continental commedia dell'arte. In the 18th century Harlequinades were performed as part of the stagings of Classical plays, usually occurring in between Acts One and Two. However in the following century, it became more popular to perform the traditional Harlequinade as part of a retelling of a traditional fairy story and the modern pantomime began to emerge.

Now while other pantomime stories come from traditional fairy tales, Babes in the Wood, while being part of the British folk traditions, has somewhat different roots. As we learned last time, the pantomime Babes in the Wood was formed from joining together the story of an old English ballad with legends about Robin Hood. The ballad story line is played out in Act One with the titular characters being rescued by Robin and his Merry Men in Act Two. However this is not the ending of the original tale - to briefly recap - a boy and girl are orphaned and fostered with an uncle. However the uncle is a wicked rogue who  hired two rogues to kill the children so he can claim their inheritance as his own. However the hired ruffians quarrel and the children are allowed to escape into a forest. However rather than being found and the wicked uncle being defeated, as the modern panto tells, in the original ballad the children starve to death and are buried by kindly robins.


Surprisingly while the first stage version of the tale, penned by Dr. Samuel Arnold and performed in 1793, added a happy ending with the children being restored to her loving parents, the first pantomime version of 1827 retained the original's grim ending for the babes. And this was because this story was already well-known, and furthermore had been extremely popular for several centuries.

Before its theatrical incarnations, the ballad of The Children in the Wood had being reprinted many times in many different chapbook editions, and versions of it had appeared in Mother Goose collections of nursery rhymes. Hence these early stage versions stayed true to the original, for the public would be expecting the tale to have a dark and tragic end. And while Robin Hood first enters the story to save the day in an 1867 pantomime, even at the close of the 19th century the original tragic ending was retained in picture book versions from children such as the one illustrated by Randolph Caldecott from 1879. 

The first known reference the ballad actually dates back to the 16th century, with a version printed by Thomas Millington of Norwich in 1595 under the somewhat unwieldy title of The Norfolk gent his will and Testament and howe he Commytted the keepinge of his Children to his own brother whoe delte most wickedly with them and howe God plagued him for it. Mercifully for librarians and humble scholars like myself, the title was soon shortened to The Children in the Wood, and indeed that is the title of the earliest complete surviving text of the ballad, a blackletter edition published in 1640. And you can read in the full text here


While later versions would end with the death of the babes and their robin-assisted burial, the original ballad goes further and proceeds to detail the fate of the wicked uncle - 

And now the heavy wrath of God
Upon their uncle fell;
Yea, fearful fiends did haunt his house,
His conscience felt an hell:
His barns were fired, his goods consumed,
His hands were barren made,
His cattle died within the field,
And nothing with him stayed.

And it goes on to describe how his sons died young, he lost his lands and riches, and seven years after his foul plot he was arrested for robbery and died a miserable death in while rotting in gaol. 

Now then the origin of the story has been much debated by folklorists. An early theory was that it originates as a piece of Tudor propaganda, essentially being a thinly disguised version of the famous accusations that Richard III murdered the princes in the tower. However while it is possibly, and indeed likely, that the tale was circulating a good deal earlier than 1595, there's no clear reason to link this ballad to Richard III. Indeed it doesn't make much sense to disguise Richard as a gentleman of Norfolk, as he had no lands or titles in that county, and furthermore the uncle's demise hardly matches the downfall of the last Plantagenet king. Given that the accusations that Richard murdered his nephews were already widely circulated by the time the ballad appeared in print, there is no reason why they would be coding the allegations in such an obtuse and cryptic manner.

The fact that it first saw publication in Norwich also suggests a different basis for the ballad. At this time ballads and tales were only printed because they were popular, and therefore we should perhaps be looking for more local origin: a well known tale told in Norfolk. And indeed a quick look at the signs for the villages of Watton and Griston seems to confirm we are on the right track - 


Indeed local lore does affirm that Norfolk is not only the source of the tale but claims it is a true story too. The sinister events unfolded in the mid 1500s while the de Grey family lived at Griston Hall. Thomas de Grey Snr. died in 1562 and left Griston Hall, its lands and a considerable inheritance to his son Thomas Jnr. who then was a mere seven years old. The boy was made a ward of Queen Elizabeth, and as was customary at in Tudor times, was arranged a marriage with another child Elizabeth Drury. However should young Thomas die, then his uncle Robert de Grey could claim the inheritance and lands. However there was no great love between Robert and the lad, and records show there had been some argument between Thomas Snr. and Robert over the will. Four years later in 1566, young Thomas was sent away to visit his step mother Temperance Carewe (his late father's second wife) and while there, or while en route, the lad died and Robert claimed the lands and monies. 

Now Robert de Grey was not well liked to begin with as he was a Catholic and his corner of Norfolk was predominately Protestant. And so soon rumours began to circulate that he was responsible for the boy's death, and that the boy had been done away with while travelling through Wayland Wood. Robert provoked further ill feeling and strengthened the credibility of the allegations by attempt to seize the dower funds (that is the assets and monies agreed to be provisioned for a bride should her husband die before her) promised to Elizabeth Drury. The Drurys did not take this lying down and the matter was taken to court with a lengthy legal battle ensuing, which ended with Robert having to return some of the seized lands and assets.

For the rest of his life, Robert was in trouble with the law: later he would be fined and imprisoned in both Norwich and London for recusancy (the failure to attend Anglican services) and is said to have died disgraced and bankrupt. Furthermore there is another link to the original ballad - Reverend Thomas Kent in his The Land of Babes in the Woods (1910) reveals there was an expedition to Portugal organised by a Thomas Cavendish of  Suffolk in 1588, which he speculates that Robert's sons had joined and did not return from. The Reverend Kent also postulates that the inclusion of the robins burying the children may well be a poetic allusion to Robert - the uncle who was robbing his nephew and covering up the evidence.


Having lost the lands and fortune, Griston Hall passed into new ownership and was extensively rebuilt in 1597. A new wing was added and local lore holds that rooms in that new extension were named "The Babes", "The Wicked Uncle" and "Robin Redbreast". Furthermore it said that there were carved mantle pieces which showed scenes from the ballad, even including the robins - sadly however they were removed around a hundred years ago and have since vanished. 

The story is certainly well embedding in the local culture, with the deeds of the ballad finding their way into the signs of the nearby villages, and Old Griston Hall was locally known for many years as 'the Wicked Uncle's House'. Furthermore in Wayland Wood, there was a huge ancient oak tree which was said to be where the babes met their tragic end. And such was the popularity of the ballad, this venerable tree apparently was a popular place to visit, something of a tourist attraction, until it was destroyed by a bolt of lightning in 1879.

But local legend goes further, for it is said that Wayland Wood is haunted. Ghostly children have been seen flitting between the ancient trees, and there have been so many reports of folk hearing spectral sounds of infants crying and sobbing that locally it is called "Wailing Wood". Indeed some have said that is how the wood gained its name. But sadly, as appealing as this is, this tract of forest is documented in the Domesday Book in 1086 as Wane-lone, and so the similarity between 'wailing' and 'Wayland' is purely coincidental. 

However all this talk of a wicked uncle, wailing in woods, and the ghosts of a boy and girl, cannot help but put me in mind of a certain tale by MR James, namely Lost Hearts (1895). This famous ghost story features all of these elements, albeit in a different shaped tale, but one we must note occurring in the neighboring county of Lincolnshire. And indeed Dr James was familiar with the Norfolk legends, for in his guidebook Suffolk and Norfolk (1930) he notes -

Watton is undistinguished except that near it the deaths of the 
Babes in the Wood is located, in Wayland or Wailing Wood

And while the stories of the ghostly babes may have influenced Lost Hearts, Jamesian scholars also speculate that the local nickname for Wayland Wood may have inspired the haunted location and title of another tale - Wailing Well written in 1927.

So then, with rich associations with robins, pantomimes, ghost stories and MR James, the tale of Babes in the Woods, despite being based on a possible case of murder most foul, could be said to contain most of the quintessential elements of the traditional British Christmas! 




* British readers - OH YES WE CAN! **

** Mr Moon -  OH NO, YOU CAN'T!***

*** Stop that the lot of you! - Ed.


Tuesday 9 December 2014

MICROGORIA 08 - Christmas Annuals


In the first of our festive shows this year, Mr Jim Moon searches the Great Library of Dreams for books given as gifts on many a Christmas Past, and uncovers the history and wonders of the British Christmas Annual!


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Friday 5 December 2014

FOLKLORE ON FRIDAYS: Robin in the Woods


Last week we explored the folklore surrounding Britain's favourite garden bird, the humble robin redbreast. And we discovered a wealth of superstitions sharing the the common belief that of all the wild birds, the robin was not to be harmed. As A. E .Bray put it in 1838, "Very few children in this town would hurt the redbreast, as it is considered unlucky to do so; this bird being entitled to kindness... above every other". However why the robin has this folkloric reverence is something of a mystery, and one that has been much pondered for many centuries. Indeed in 1709, a somewhat angry sounding gentleman queried the readers of the British Apollo thus - 

Q. The Robin Red Breast is as malicious and Envious a Bird as any that flies... 
  I desire to know why many People should have so good an Esteem of this Bird,
as to account it a Crime to do it any  Injury

Sadly there is no recorded reply, however a few years later in 1713 the topic was raised again in the pages of the Guardian newspaper. And on May 21st the following theory was proposed - "As for Robin-redbreasts... 'Tis not improbable they owe their Security to the old Ballad of The Children in the Wood ". And that opinion was echoed by a later essayist writing in September 1735 in the Gentleman Magazine who remarked -

And thus the Robin Redbreast hath been the cause of great superstition among the common people of England ever since the silly story of The Children in the Wood. One great instance of this is their readiness to admit him in to their houses and feed him on all occasions; though certainly he is an impudent and as mischievous bird as ever that flew.

Now then, for those of you familiar with traditional British pantomimes, all of this will be ringing a Christmassy bell. And for those of you who are not, briefly allow me to explain. Pantomimes are a unique form of British theatrical entertainment performed over the Christmas season. They present versions, full of music and comedy, of well-known children's tales; traditionally fairy stories such as Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella, and Sleepy Beauty, and over the years tales from legend and childrens' classics have become pantomime staples too, such as Aladdin, Peter Pan and the Wizard of Oz .


Now one of the oldest pantomimes is Babes in the Wood, which is derived from the afore-mentioned old ballad. Like most pantomimes, Babes in the Wood is a story told in two acts. In the first we learn of two children, a boy and girl, who are orphaned and fostered with a guardian - sometimes a Wicked Uncle, sometime a baron, and sometimes even the Sheriff of Nottingham. Anyhow, this villain plots to dispose of the pair and steal their inheritance. Hence he arranges for the children to be taken into some woods by a pair of robbers and murdered. However one of the ruffians takes pity on the children, fights with his more coldblooded compatriot, and allows the children to escape into the forest.

Deep the woodland the children hide and as they fall asleep, robins fly down and cover them with leaves to keep the babes warm, and thus the curtain falls on Act One. In Act Two, the children, often with the help of a good fairy, are discovered by Robin Hood and Maid Marian, who naturally not only look after the pair but help to restore their fortunes. There's various retellings of traditional stories of his cunning and bravery, and of course at last Robin and his merry band triumph over the wicked folks, and the children are restored to their rightful home and fortune.

Given the traditional basis of pantomimes and coupled with the appearance of that other old favourite Robin, Hood and his Merry Men, many have assumed Babes in the Wood to be an old English folk tale. And that is partly true, as the panto tale derived from an old ballad. However in the earlier versions of the tale, Robin Hood does not appear to find the children, or indeed appear at all. The familiar pantomime version is actually a hybrid creation, wedding the Robin Hood legends onto the tale of the Children in the Wood. More shockingly, in the original ballad, the tale of the Babes actually ends like this  - 

Thus wandered these two prettye babes,
Till death did end their grief;
In one another’s armes they dyed,
As babes wanting relief.
No burial these prettye babes
Of any man receives,
Till Robin-redbreast painfully
Did cover them with leaves.


Yes, in the original story, there is no rescue for the children! After being turned loose by the kinder of the two ruffians, the children wander the forest, and despite finding a few berries, end up starving to death. And rather than providing a leafy blanket, the robins provide a rustic shroud.

Now robins covering the dead in this curious fashion appears to have been a prevalent belief in the early 17th century. In John Webster's celebrated play The White Devil from 1612, Cornelia says -

Call for Robin-Red-brest and the wren, 
Since ore shadie groves they hover, 
And with leaves and flowres doe covre 
The friendlesse bodies of unburied men

Before Webster, Shakespeare himself referred to the funereal habits of robins - under their old English name of the ruddock - in Cymbeline in 1611. The bard of Avon has Arviragus weeping over the supposed dead body of the disguised Imogen, saying: 

The Raddocke would 
With Charitable bill — O bill, sore shaming 
Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie 
Without a monument! — bring thee all this ; 
Yea, and furr'd Mosse besides, when Flowres are none. 
To winter-ground thy coarse. Say, where shall 's lay him? 

A little earlier in 1604, the poet Michael Drayton wrote in his satirical verse The Owle:

Covering with moss the dead's unclosed eye, 
The little redbreast teacheth charitie. 

Certainly this belief that robins would attend to the unburied dead does seem to chime well with the death omens that are associated with this little bird. However no earlier mention than the first publication of Children in the Wood in 1595 can be discovered. A tome from 1889 - Myths of the Robin Redbreast in Early English Poetry - mentions two other ballads that have the robins burying the dead The Soldier's Repentance and The West Country Damosel's Complaint, that have been claimed to be older than The Children in the Wood. However both were actually printed after 1595, with only their original collectors' speculating that their origins lie earlier in the 16th century.

However that being said, the Classical poet Horace does make reference to doves doing the same kind of rustic burials, and it is not usual to find these kind of folkloric beliefs being transferred between different species and the belief migrates over time to different regions. For example, much of what we have heard about it being ill luck to harm robins has in other regions and at other times been said of wrens and swallows too.

So then it is possible that this bit of folklore does date back further than its first printed reference. And it should be noted that it is commonly agreed by scholars that ballads printed in chapbooks and on broadsides would have been in public circulation long before its publication. Indeed, the fact Children in the Wood did make it into print is a measure of how well-known and popular the tale already was. And there is a curious and dark history to the ballad that we will investigate next time...



Tuesday 2 December 2014

TOMEGORIA 02 - The Boy With The Porcelain Blade by Den Patrick



In this episode Odile and Jim explore the strange world of Landfall, a realm of crumbling castles, strange mutations, sinister scheming and swordplay galore! Yes, we are discussing The Boy With the Porcelain Blade by Den Patrick, the first book in the Erebus Sequence.


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