Are You Afraid of Raw Head and Bloody Bones?

"Don't Talk! Go to Sleep!

Eyes shet an' don't you peep!

Keep still, or he jes moans:

'Raw Head an' Bloody Bones!'"

-"Negro Folk Rhymes" (1922) compiled by Thomas W. Talley

It might seem strange to us today that winter, a season of festive cheer and celebrations, was once a time for scary stories. But for those who lived in a world where days grew shorter and the fields lay barren, gathering around the fire and telling tales of ghosts and ghouls felt natural. Among these chilling stories, few were as enduring or as terrifying as those of Raw Head and Bloody Bones.

Raw Head and Bloody Bones is a centuries-old bogeyman whose origin has been lost to time. He goes by many names—“Rawhead,” “Tommy Rawhead,” and “Raw-Head-and-Bloody-Bones.” In some stories, "Rawhead" and "Bloody Bones" are treated as two separate ghouls. Despite the variations, the legend is consistent in its ability to frighten children and adults alike. Typically, Rawhead is depicted as a skull with teeth, while Bloody Bones is portrayed as a skeleton without a head. Together, they are said to abduct naughty children, cook them in a stew pot, and devour them.

Many English towns have their own versions of the Bloody Bones tale, often placing the ghoul in dangerous locations such as marshes or caves to deter children from venturing into unsafe areas. “As the nurse’s opiate to quiet a troublesome brat. See! There is Raw Head and Bloody Bones coming to fetch you. Raa! hoes aen bloote-beens” (Bellenden, 36).

Christmas Entertainments 1740

The first recorded use of the term “Bloodybone” appears in a sermon from 1548, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The legend was especially popular in England, Ireland, the Appalacian Region and the American South from the 18th to the 20th centuries. Even Thomas Jefferson referenced Raw Head and Bloody Bones in his writings, using the figure to symbolize fearmongering in political discourse.

The legend’s influence persisted into the 20th century, as seen in interviews conducted during the 1980s with women born around 1900 in Carrboro, North Carolina. One woman recounted:

I remember one nightmare I had: Old Raw Head and Bloody Bones came out and threw my brother in the fire, and my brother got out and threw Raw Head and Bloody Bones in the fire. But he ran under my bed, and oh, for weeks I was afraid to pass that bed. I guess I was five years old then. And I know a nephew of mine came along. They told him the story of Raw Head and Bloody Bones, and one day he went down to the garden, and during the night the dogs had dragged up an old cow’s head. That little fellow saw that and he screamed bloody murder. It was a raw head and bloody bones (Quinney 1980, 100).

The legend also lived on in the oral histories of formerly enslaved people in the United States. Rachel Adams, an enslaved woman born in Georgia, shared:

Us chillun was allus skeered to play in de thicket nigh de house ‘cause Raw Head and Bloody Bones lived der. I used to think I seed ha’nts at night, but it allus turned out to be somebody dat was tryin’ to skeer me (Work Projects Administration 1941).

Georgia Baker spoke of the enduring fear instilled by such tales:

Oh Lord! Us never played no games in slavery times, ‘cept jus’ to run around in a ring and pat our hands. I never sung no songs ‘cause I warn’t no singer, and don’t talk ‘bout no Raw Head and Bloody Bones or nothin’ lak dat. Dey used to skeer us chillun so bad ‘bout dem sort of things dat us used to lay in bed at night a-shakin’ lak us was havin’ chills. I’ve seed plenty of ha’nts right here in Athens. Not long atter I had left Crawfordville and moved to Athens, I had been in bed jus’ a little while one night, and was jus’ dozin’ off to sleep when I woke up and sot right spang up in bed. I seed a white man, dressed in white, standin’ before me. I sho didn’t say nothin’ to him for I was too skeered. De very last time I went to a dance, somepin got atter me and skeered me so my hair riz up ‘til I couldn’t git my hat on my haid, and dat cyored me of gwine to dances. I ain’t never been to no more sich doin’s (Work Projects Administration 1941).

Mary Colbert took a more pragmatic view:

Honey, there is no use to ask me about Raw Head and Bloody Bones. When folks started talking about that, I always left the room. It is a shame how folks do frighten children trying to make them get quiet and go to sleep. I don’t believe in ha’nts and ghosts. Since I have been grown, I have been around so many dead folks I have learned that the dead can’t harm you; it’s the living that make the trouble.

From English nurseries to the fields of Georgia, the legend of Raw Head and Bloody Bones transcended generations serving as both a tool of caution and a source of terror. While the stories may no longer dominate our winters, they remain a fascinating glimpse into the imaginations of those who came before us. If you find yourself around the fire this year, you might think to tell your company a chilling story of Raw Head and Bloody Bones.

References

Notes and Queries a Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men and General Readers . 1914. Vol. IX. London: John C. Francis & J. Edward Francis.

Bellenden, John. 1834. An Essay on the Archaeology of Our Popular Phrases, and Nursery Rhymes. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Co.

Quinney, Valerie. 1980. “Mill Village Memories.” Southern Exposure VIII (3): 98–109.

Talley, Thomas W. 1922. Negro Folk Rhymes. New York Macmillan 1922.

Work Projects Administration. 1941. Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1. Vol. 1. Washington D.C.: Library of Congress. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/13602/pg13602-images.html.

Civil War Fruit Cake Recipe -150+ Years Old!

Fruitcake. I'm young enough to have never encountered a fruitcake in the wild. Its reputation had been cemented before I was a child. Likened to paper weights and door stops, fruitcake has disappeared from tables.  The theory that there is only one fruitcake in the world and people just keep regifting it to each other has expedited its demise.

Still there are diehard fans who can't have Christmas if there is not a fruitcake and I'm apt to believe that the real reason for the demise is the cost and care they take to make in a world that increasingly values quick and cheap.

Fruitcake has a long history. Nutritionally dense and long lasting, fruitcake like mixtures date back to at least Ancient Rome, but the modern recipe has its roots in the Middle Ages.  Richard Briggs includes a recipe for "Plum Cake" in his 1788 cookbook The English Art of Cookery that includes all the hallmarks of what we would call a fruitcake today. In 1840, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's wedding featured a highly decorated, 300 pound fruitcake popularising the choice for many future brides. By the 1860s fruitcake was a classic choice for Christmas and weddings.

This is my first attempt to make a fruitcake so I tried to find a simple recipe. I asked on Facebook what time period fruitcake I should make and many wanted to see a Civil War Fruitcake. So here it is. The recipe is from Godey's- the June edition as fruitcakes generally need to cure from 1 month to 6 months for the best flavors.

The recipe was very simple so I looked to E.F. Haskell's The Housekeeper's Encyclopedia (1861) for information on how to mix and bake the cake:

Rich Fruit Cake.—One pound of sugar, three-fourths of a pound of butter, worked together until very light; one wine-glass of brandy, one dozen ground cloves, half a nutmeg, a teaspoonful of ground cinnamon, ten eggs beat separately, the yolks to be used first, and afterwards the whites, one-fourth of a pound of sliced citron, two pounds of washed currants rubbed in flour and mixed in the cake with one pound of raisins cut fine, and one seeded and left whole or cut once, and one pound of sifted flour; stir in the citron, currants, and the chopped raisins, and lastly, the flour and whole raisins alternately; bake in a moderate oven in deep basins two hours. If the fire is strong, the heat should be decreased the last hour. Line the basins with buttered paper, and keep a piece over the top of the cake. Frost it and it will keep two months or longer if desired.

I ended up lining my pans with buttered paper and frosting my cake. I was interested in using rum to keep my cake soft so I did not try frosting it before storing it.

Civil War Fruit Cake

Ingredients:

- 2 Cups Butter
- 2 Cups Molasses
- 2 Cups Sugar
- 6 Eggs
- 2 teaspoons Baking Soda
- 1 Pound Raisins, Chopped
- 1 Pound Currants, Chopped
- 1/2 Pound Citron, Chopped
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- 1 Tablespoon Nutmeg, Ground
- 1 Tablespoon Cinnamon, Ground
- 1 teaspoons Cloves, Ground
~ 6 Cups of Flour


Instructions:

Preheat oven to 325°F.  In a mixing bowl, cream the butter, molasses sugar, salt, nutmeg, and cloves. Add a little water to your fruits and mix in a little flour to coat the fruits. Alternatively add fruits and mix in  flour to make a stiff batter. Beat your eggs and fold in at the end. Line your pans with buttered paper. Fill pans 2/3 of the way with batter and cover the tops with greased paper. Bake for 1 hour to 2 hours depending on pan size. Test the middle with a skewer.

This made 6 3x6 sized loaves. I baked them for an hour and 15 minutes.

Sorry for the cell phone pics.

The day after they were baked, the tops were hard. I used a skewer to poke holes half way down into the cakes and spooned rum over. I left the paper on and wrapped the cakes in plastic wrap then put them in a plastic container. Historically they would be wrapped in paper and kept in an airtight tin but I couldn't find one big enough. Some people wrap them in alcohol soaked cheesecloth first. I tried coating them with rum weekly unless they seemed soggy, then I skipped a week.

It is rumored you can keep fruitcake good for up to 25 years by storing them in powdered sugar. They apparently do last forever. There was one found from Robert Falcon Scott's expedition to Antarctica in the early 1900s that still appears to be edible and one being passed down from the Ford family for over a century.
 
There are 6 of my fruitcakes floating around in the ether and I hope to update you after everyone has tried them. I won't be trying mine until Christmas Day but will update with a photo when I cut mine open. I gave everyone the drunken fruitcake disclaimer. Can't get drunk off cake? Check out this article by Stuart Heritage who decided to not only answer the question "Can you get drunk off of fruitcake?" but the question of "How drunk?" I hope everyone has a good holiday and I'd love to hear if anyone tries this recipe.

UPDATE: I've updated with a picture of the inside. We ate this on Christmas and it was overall not bad. I didn't pour a final bit of rum on it before icing it I wish I had. It felt kind of soggy on the top and I didn't want it to be soggy. The flavor was nice an mild. I thought the flavors would be strong but they were very delicate and the fruits practically melted into the cake. The raisins definitely disappeared! I have one cake left so I'm going to keep feeding it and test it in 6 months to see if the flavor changes any. 

Weird Leap Year Traditions

It's leap day! Which means bachelors beware!

Leap year has been used historically as a year to reverse gender roles.  In the 1700s and 1800s there were leap year parties where the women we able to forego traditional roles and ask the men to dance. In the 1900s, leap day was an excuse to put women in traditionally male roles for a day, such as fire fighters or politicians, with the end goal of securing a husband by media attention. But by far the most interesting leap year tradition is women being able to propose marriage to men regardless of societal limits.  

The origins of leap year proposals are murky. Lore relates that the tradition goes back to 5th century when St. Brigid complained to St. Patrick that women did not have the option. Another tale states the origin is a Scottish law from 1288 by unmarried Queen Margaret which proposed any man who refused the proposal of a women during leap year would have to pay a fine. Neither of these origins is plausible but the two theories have been printed and reprinted for at least 200 years.

The tradition seems to be all in good fun.
     

1880s Fortune Telling by Moles

Happy Halloween! Through my library travels I came across a book that was no doubt a product of the spiritualism movement of the 1880s and I thought it would be fun to highlight some passages for Halloween. It's called the Witches' Dream Book and Fortune Teller and it's the 19th century guilty pleasure equivalent of those "who was your dog in a past life" quizzes that your friends all do on facebook.

This book gives "practical dream advice," such as if you dream of bacon, it "denotes the death of some friend or relation and that enemies endeavor to do you mischief,"
and if you dream of baking it is a sign of "an ill housewife, who lies dreaming in bed, when she should be doing her business." Sometimes dreams are listed as meaning different things to different genders, such as,  dreaming of a hairy chest means profit for men while it, sadly, means the loss of a husband for a woman.

This book also includes advice on how to tell the future using cards, palms, dice, dreams, dominoes and weirdly, skin moles. I had heard of moles being used to denote witches in the 1600s and I have heard of moles as being thought of as the spot where a person had been mortally wounded in a past life but I had never heard of fortune telling by moles.

Now being the skeptic I am I turned right to the mole page to find out my fate. It starts at the top of the body and works its way down. I finally hit "Mole on right thigh." I have a mole on my right thigh! Let's see what it says. "A mole on the right thigh shows that the person will become rich and also fortunate in marriage." I can live with that! Oh wait. It's not on my right thigh, it's on my left thigh. Darn. Lets see what that one says. "A mole on the left thigh denotes that the person suffers much by poverty and want of friends, as also by the enmity and injustice of others." Too bad. :)

Happy Halloween, again! I hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday and found "fortune telling by moles" as fun as I did! I'd be interested in hearing what people think of this and before anyone asks, I hear having a mammalian burrowing mole for a pet denotes an adventurous outlook on life, whether or not it is on your left thigh, right thigh or shoulder. :)    

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! There is so much to be thankful for. As part of my plan not to work on Thanksgiving I have decided not to write an in depth post today. As usual my Thanksgiving advice is to spend time with family and don't fret. The turkey may catch on fire, the house will never be clean as it should be and the dog is likely to knock the dish of steaming, gloopy mashed potatoes on the floor. 

It's not important. May you all have a night of good company and good conversation! 

I encourage you all to read some of my other posts about Thanksgiving and have a great holiday:

Facts Not Fiction: The First Thanksgiving Celebration

Thanksgiving Letter from an African American Civil War Soldier

Goodbye 2013

Another year. I'm always amazed at how fast a year goes and how much happens during one. One of my personal reasons for keeping a blog is to track what has happened in my life. It's great fun to see what I was doing or what I was interested at a given time.

I want to sincerely thank my readers. You guys are the best and have been with me through thick and thin. You keep me going and I have met so many great friends through blogging. I frequently get such awesome emails from readers and love hearing about who they are as individuals.

Some key events this year:

- Joined the crew of Barkentine Gazela.
- I've started taking my photography hobby a bit more seriously. (Probably a joke as those of you who know me personally know I am pretty serious and that a camera is pretty much permanently attached to my hand.)
-My father was in the hospital, which I did not write about.
- I attended a few reenactments that I've never been to before such as Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. 

I found it a bit difficult to adjust to life without school for the first time in over 19 years. It's strange to not have a force making you learn something whether you want to or not.

Plans for 2014:

-I hope to completely redesign this blog to make things easier to find.
- I'm thinking of turning the Secret Life of Bloggers Blog Party into a 365 project. I had a lot of fun with it and it helped me take some time out of my day to find the extraordinary in the ordinary. Anyone who wants to take part this time around, just leave a comment.  
-Much much more!

I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year! I'd love to hear everyone's plans for this year and new year's resolutions.

10 Fun History Podcasts to Listen to this Winter

wikigallery.org

 The holidays are coming up which means I'm going to be spending more time than usual cleaning the house. I don't mind cleaning as I always accompany cleaning with an audio book or podcast.

The podcasts below are fun or informative or both. I love podcasts because they are a relaxing way to learn more about things you have heard of but might not know about or understand them in a way that you would like. 









-Stuff You Missed in History Class: This podcast is fun and a good way to fill in some gaps in your history knowledge. Most of the topics are familiar but are a nice refresher.  

-In Our Time: This podcast is by BBC and is broken down into the categories of history, culture and philosophy. The next episode of this podcast will be about the life of Pocahontas. 

-Past & Present: This is Colonial Williamsburg's podcast and focuses on the Colonial period. 

- Backstory Radio: This podcast focuses on current events placed in their historical context.

-Journal of American History Podcast: Interviews with the authors in the publication.

-History According to Bob: History according to a history teacher of 29 years.

-European Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present: A course from Berkley, You can also follow along with the readings. Not so much a podcast but still an interesting set of lectures.

-The China history Podcast: 5,000 years of Chinese culture.

-Military History Podcast: "Bringing you the strangest anecdotes, innovative technology, and most significant events of Military History." 

-The Egyptian History Podcast: Only published once a month, this podcast focuses on ancient Egypt.

Are there any good ones I missed? I know I'm missing a few popular ones. What podcasts do you listen to?

Witch Jugs and Witch Bottles

Child Levitation

 Witch bottle, or witch jugs are a curious archeological find today. Bottles filled with liquid, rusty nails, hair, pins, and nail clippings have puzzled people who have come across them in home renovations for years.These bottles are typically found buried under front doorsteps or under hearths and seem to have been most popular during the 1600s.

As written evidence suggests, witch bottles were thought to protect the makers from the evil preying of witches or evil kill the witch. In the 1600s writer and orators turned to the supernatural world to explain and confirm events that were happening at the time when paranoia, fear and witchcraft plagued the minds of many. The book Saducismus Triumphatus, published in 1681, details how a witch bottle was to be made and used an example of how a man made one to help treat his suffering wife.  

In the book, the man was instructed to fill a bottle with his wife's urine and some pins and needles then cook it over a fire. When he did so, the cork popped out of the bottle and the contents flew out and his wife remained sick. As that was unsuccessful, the man was instructed to make a new bottle and bury it. But this time, his wife got better and later, he reported a woman he did not know came to his house and claimed that the man had killed her husband. Stories like these perpetuated the existence and malicious works attributed to witches and demons.  

While witch bottles have been found throughout the UK, only eight possible witch bottles have been found in the US. One was found during archeological excavations on Great Tinicum Island, here in Delaware County. For more information on this witch bottle visit: An American Witch Bottle. 

Water, eh?

Other items used to ward off witchcraft that are found in houses are worn out children's shoes which were commonly built into chimneys and the remains of dead cats. "Concealed shoes" are found commonly in both the U.S. and the U.K. There is even a museum collection of them at Northampton Museum and Art Gallery in England. The shoes were thought to trap witches attempting to enter through the chimneys and it was thought that the dead cats would be a bad omen to any evil or witches trying to enter a residence.

As with witch bottles, these items typically leave homeowners scratching their heads and are an uneasy reminder of how real witch craft and superstition were to some people in a time where suffering was rife and explanations scarce.   

Happy Halloween everyone! If you'd like to read a bit more, check out How to Identify a Witch According to Cotton Mather.

Why I am Sharing the Secret Family Recipe: Italian Easter Pie (Pizza Gain) with Lots of Photos

“You don’t do it by pictures,” my grandma said as I snapped a few photos “you do it by feel.”

“Well I can’t exactly tell my readers on the internet to feel it, grandma.”

“Wait. You’re putting our secret family recipe on the internet?”  asked my mom up to the elbows in the dough. 

“Why not? Mum are you planning to let the recipe die with you?”

“Yes.”

This was the conversation that we had a few days ago while making traditional Italian Easter pies. My grandma doesn’t remember when the family started making them but she said that she started making them in the 70s. This is one of those dishes, that everyone’s family used to make and they would trade them because everyone else’s tasted better and it was an honor for people to like yours best.  Our family still makes them every year. We still sample pies from other parts of the family but it’s not the big deal that it used to be. 

This time, my mom brought her recipe to my grandma’s, my grandma had the recipe she always used and we recently acquired my great-grandma’s recipe through my mom’s cousin. This year, my mom used that recipe instead of the one she normally used. The “original” family recipe was highly coveted due to a change in the recipe a great many years ago that allowed the baker to use Crisco instead of the old-fashioned, traditional lard. 

We were about half way through making the filling before my mom said:

“Wait. This one says 6 hardboiled eggs and 4 raw eggs and my recipe says 4 hardboiled eggs and 6 raw ones.”  This was the first of many discrepancies that included differences in cooking times, glazes and oven temperature. So my mother took her recipe, which she received from my grandma when she got married and compared it to my grandmother’s thinking hers had some error. They weren’t the same.

“But this is what you gave me when I got married!” my mother said.

My grandmother took her copy and showed my mother all of the changes to the recipe that occurred in all of the years she cooked them.  By some brilliant notion, my grandmother dated all of the changes she made to the recipe and had comments. 

So my mother’s was more like the recipe my grandmother made in the 70s and my great-grandmother’s recipe was close enough but still different.  What is strange enough is that they all taste similarly enough that no one would be able to tell the difference.  

So I’m sharing the secret family recipe. Why? 

Because it’s not a recipe at all. It’s a bunch of different ones or it’s so secret, even we don’t know it. 

Either way, I’m a fan of sharing recipes and I’d like to bring this one back as our family makes them differently than a lot of other families. Many other families make them with meat slices and make them in a pie pan with two crusts. 

Finished Pies

Secret Family Recipe:

Dough:

- 7 Pounds Flour

-1/2  Cup Lard

-3/4 cup Sugar

6 Tbsp. Baking Powder

-7 Eggs

- 5-6 Cups lukewarm water (add 4 cups first then add what is needed to make a dough)

Cut up Lard into small pieces.  Add large to Flour, Sugar, and Baking Powder in a large pan or bowl.  Create a “well” in the center of the mixture. Add eggs into the well and mix together with hands. Add water as needed.

Remove dough from bowl and kneed on a floured surface. Put back in pan and cover with plastic wrap. Let it “rest” for 1-2 hours, it will become smooth.

Filling:

- 5 lbs. Ham, cubed

- ½ lb. Salami, cubed

- 1 ½ lbs Ricotta Cheese

- 3 “handfuls” grated Parmesan Cheese

- 6 Hardboiled Eggs, chopped

- 4 Raw Eggs

- Heavy Pepper to taste

Roll out large circle of dough, roughly 1 pound, on a floured surface.  Fill half of the dough with filling. Fold the dough over. Trim excess dough edges so that the pie is symmetrical. Make ¾ inch slices around the unsealed edge. Alternating turning each dough “tab” over or under and press down with a fork to seal. Poke a few holes in the top for steam to come out.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Bake on a lightly floured baking sheet for 25 minutes on the bottom rack and 10 minutes on the middle rack. While still hot, you can coat the tops with raw egg, or milk if you plan to freeze the pies. Let cool on a wire rack. 

Have a good weekend everyone! If you get adventurous and want to try these, they were traditionally a hearty treat after abstaining during lent.

A Kiss Under the Mistletoe: History of Mistletoe

"A memorial of customs departed:
For the maids they all try to seem bashful and shy," - Blackwood's Lady's Magazine 1841
 
 Mistletoe is a ubiquitous plant that has been used in holiday decorating since at least the 1400s. It is characterized by its dark green leaves and striking white berries. There are over 1,300 types of mistletoe and the plants themselves are partially parasitic. The plant gets its water and nutrients from a host tree while using its leaves to convert light into energy.

In the winter, it can be seen growing out of tree branches and tree trunks, lush and green when all of its surroundings are dead. It was precisely this reason that mistletoe was seen as a mystical plant to early peoples.Though it has been linked with romance for centuries, its name roughly translates as "excrement on a twig" which is an allusion to how people thought the seeds were spread. The Mistletoe that grows in the United States is different from the type that grows in Europe but both were used in decorating.
  
The magic of mistletoe certainly comes from the kissing traditions linked to it. Historically, on Christmas a gentleman could steal a kiss from a young lady caught under the mistletoe, then he had to pluck a white berry off of it. When all of the berries were gone, no more kissing could commence.It was said that couples that kissed under it at Christmas would be married within the year.

Image from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

During the 18th and early 19th centuries, many books proclaimed the practice vulgar, others insisted that it was only something done amongst country people and servants. It was said to be a test of feat for young men and a test of coyness for young ladies, who could refuse the attempt. Regardless of the views on the practice, mistletoe was a big part of household decorations along with pine boughs, holly and ivy.

You can almost see the celebrations where a young man, drumming up courage to propose to a lady caught a break at a Christmas dance, where his lady of choice was momentarily thrust under the mistletoe.  Caught off guard she accepted his kiss which heightened his spirits enough to ask her father soon after. How romantic! I'm sure there were equal numbers of heartbreaks that happened beneath the mistletoe as well.

The Mirror of Literature and Amusement, published in 1841, gives some hearty advice on holiday cheer, some of which involves mistletoe:

"On this day all must be friends, everybody must be goodhumoured, eat , drink, and be merry. To day we will have no fasting men, and no tee-totallers. Every belly must be well lined with the good roast beef of old England, turkey, sausage, plum-pudding, and mincepie ; and every lip shall sip the juice of the vine, "the merry cheerer of the heart," or shall pour down " potations pottle deep" of good home-brewed ale. He who can't sing shall pipe, and he who can't dance shall hop, stand on his head, or do something or other to please the company. Unmarried ladies, not forgetting our favourite old maids, shall be kissed under the mistletoe bough; and no supper for those that skulk from this excellent privilege of the season. There shall be hearty laughter and much frolic in the kitchen, where the "yule log" shall burn on the fire, and the largest bunch of mistletoe and holly shall hang from the beam, while the floor shakes with the Highland reel, the Irish jig, and the English hornpipe; and John, Thomas, Susan, and Ann, shall sing bravely to the fiddle and flute. Christmas comes but once a-year, so pray let us make the most of it. Let every home be cheered with mirth, plenty, and kindness.

"Bring more wood and set the glasses.
Join, my friends, our Christmas cheer,

Come, a catch !—and kiss the lasses,
Christmas comes but once a-year."

Enjoy the holidays and keep your eye out for mistletoe!

Mid-1800s Servitude and Cooking This Week

This etching was taken from a story that illustrated the difficulty of keeping a good cook. It also inadvertently illustrated the Irish stereotypes of the time.

The first cook, Margaret, was perfect, except that she drank in excess and stumbled back to the house on her days off. The second cook, Biddy, had a violent temper. The third, I feel would probably be me.

She put the puddings in and prepared a turkey for 2PM supper at 11 o'clock and sat down and read a few pages of a book. When the mistress came in, the cat was eating the turkey and the puddings were charred. She thought she had only sat down for a minute but it ended up being 2 hours that passed by.

An interesting thing to note is that all food prepared by the cook was still considered the mistress' food. It was her pudding that was burning and her turkey on the floor, which is technically true: she paid for it. When a new cook was hired at a house, her mistress would teach her how to cook things her way and everything cooked at the house would be expected to cooked in the new way. Over time, a cook may add a little bit of her own flair, but she wouldn't want to outdo her employer.

Regardless, women were judged on how good of a housekeeper they were. Back then that meant, how well they kept their own house or how well they oversaw their servants. Most women of any means could typically afford at least one servant if not a few for housework and one for cooking. The constant supply of new immigrants, guaranteed that servants could be employed cheaply.

For a young immigrant girl, a job as a servant was a good prospect. She would have a place to stay and food and would not add cost to the living expenses of her family. Most servants got one or two days off a month when they could visit their families and friends. They also got certain hours off when they weren't needed. A girl would only work in this fashion until she got married. 

This week we will all be preparing that huge Thanksgiving meal, sans servants. I'm actually very excited. Thanksgiving is a pretty boring holiday for vegetarians. (I don't do the tofurkey thing.) But, I am really excited to get to cook. I haven't cooked in ages and the perfect Thanksgiving weekend would be a day of cooking and reading. I have a long list of books I want to read and haven't had a second to read anything not related to school. And while I don't plan on letting the turkey burn while I cozy up with Clarissa Dillon's Ph.D thesis on Colonial Era gardens of Chester County, I'm not making any promises.     

Just Checking In

I feel like we missed most of the Fall and Winter came on too suddenly. I already find myself securely fastened in heavy blankets, reluctantly exposing my hands to do work.The fog today and last night was pretty crazy. It was hard to see even a few feet in front of yourself.




My time student teaching will soon come to an end; which is both sad and exciting. I really like the school that I am at and the community there, so it will be sad to leave. However, I will really enjoy the break from the constant stress that I get, not from teaching, but all the extra work that school has been putting on us. Make no mistake: teaching is hard. I wish I could devote more time to preparation for my classes and less time typing up useless paperwork for college. There really is a limit to how many hours a day your brain can work before you go completely nuts.

This is a scary time too. Who knows what is next? A new job? Graduate school?  No idea. I'll keep everyone posted.

Remember, Remember the 5th of November

Explosives placed under a government building by  a group of religious extremists? Sounds like something we'd see on the news. 

On the night of October 25th,1605 an anonymous letter was sent to Baron William Parker during dinner alerting him of a plot to blow up the House of Lords in an attempt to assassinate King James I and his daughter Princess Elizabeth.

Nine year old, Princess Elizabeth was scheduled to become the Catholic head of state on November 5th which angered a group of English Catholic extremists who feared that there was little chance of increased religious toleration under the reign of King James I.
  
However, this wasn't the first attempt of English Catholics at harming King James I, in 1603, there was a plot called the "Bye Plot" in which Catholic priests and Puritans had planned to kidnap the king. The whole thing was fouled before it even began but nevertheless made the king take threats seriously which worked against the November 5th plotters.   

Guy Fawkes is now the poster child for the plot, although he was only one of many conspirators in "The Gunpowder Plot." He earned his notoriety because on the night of November 4th, 1605, he was found in the House of Lords guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder which was enough to level the building. He was wearing his now iconic, hat, cape and boots with spurs. Fawkes was arrested immediately, while the other conspirators fled.      

Punishments included  dragging behind a horse and having genitals removed and burned in front of their still living owner, the removal of bowels, dismemberment by quartering and leaving the pieces at the mercy of animals. The conspirators ended up suffering a variety of cruel deaths, many of which started at the gallows. Fawkes managed to break his neck at the gallows, which alluded many of the other conspirators, but was still quartered.

The plot inspired a poem:

"Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
the Gunpowder Treason and Plot,

I see no reason why Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, t’was his intent to blow up King and Parliament.

Three score barrels were laid below to prove old England’s overthrow;
By God’s mercy he was catch’d with a dark lantern and lighted match.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!"

King James I also immortalized the event by commissioning a sermon to be given on November 5th, 1606 to make sure everyone remembered the punishments. It became tradition to commemorate the day every year. 

Happy Halloween! A Short History of Jack O' Lanterns

We know Halloween is around the corner when we see cold nights, colored leaves and the scary faces of carved pumpkins staring at us from doorsteps.  But the Jack O' Lantern hasn't always been so ubiquitously linked to Halloween.

The tradition of jack o' lanterns was brought from Ireland and Britain in the early 1800s. Travelers through the moors and marshes had long seen flickering, wispy lights teasing them off of established paths and pulling them to get lost in the fog. The lights always receded when approached and followed during a retreat. They were sometimes called will-o'-the wisp, fairy lights or friar's lanterns.

One legend attributed these lights to a man named Stingy Jack who tricked the Devil and was not allowed into heaven or hell after he died. It was said that the when he asked the Devil where he should go, the Devil threw him an eternal ember that Jack stuck in a carved turnip which he used as a lantern as he roamed the Earth. On October 31st , during the festival of Samhain when fairies and ghosts were said to roam, turnip lanterns were carved to ward off evil.

When the tradition came to the United States, pumpkins were carved instead of turnips as their size made them easier to carve. They became associated with Halloween during the mid-1800s.

Civil War soldier, Sam Watkins of the 1st TN, Co. H recounted the first time he saw a jack o' lantern. He was stationed near Corinth, Mississippi and was engaged with the enemy that morning. Him and a comrade had both shot a sharpshooter out of a tree and macabre reported that the soldier tumbled out of a tree like a squirrel:           

This is where I first saw a jack o'lantern (ignis fatui). That night, while Tom and I were on our posts, we saw a number of very dim lights, which seemed to be in motion. At first we took them to be Yankees moving about with lights. Whenever we could get a shot we would blaze away. At last one got up very close, and passed right between Tom and I. I don't think I was ever more scared in my life. My hair stood on end like the quills of the fretful porcupine; I could not imagine what on earth it was. I took it to be some hellish machination of a Yankee trick. I did not know whether to run or stand, until I heard Tom laugh and say, "Well, well, that's a jack o'lantern.

Watkins, Sam. Co. Aytch, A Side Show of the Big Show. Nashville, TN: Cumberland Presbyterian Publishing House , 1882.

How scary it must have been to see that for the first time! Have a happy Halloween everyone! I'm glad everyone is safe after that storm. 

St. Patrick's Day Guest Post

This is a guest post from Andy, as he's been promising to record some music for me for quite some time. Some Irish music History will be fun for St. Patrick's Day. The song, An T-athair Jack Walsh was popular during the Civil War.

I've been promising Stephanie Ann for a long time to do a post like this. I've finally put away my bashfulness, and written it. I only hope it does The World Turn'd Upside Down justice. When St. Patrick's Day comes around each year, many people think of leprechauns, pots of gold, rainbows, dressing in green, and drinking. The Irish have a very rich culture, and generally Irish Americans are very proud of their heritage. All things Celtic have exploded in popularity in the last few decades. One thing that has gained popularity is Celtic, and especially Irish, music. In honor of Lá Fhéile Pádraig (St. Patrick's Day), I've attempted to record a few tunes. I'd like to discuss some peculiarities about each of the tunes.

 An T-athair Jack Walsh

One of the notorieties of traditional tunes among those familiar with them is the lack of a set name for many tunes. Many traditional tunes still played today were composed in the 18th and 19th centuries. During this time, the music was passed on "by ear." Musicians would learn a tune from other musicians. Learning traditional music through sheet music wasn't a common as it is now. As a tune spread through different regions, it might pick up several names. In modern times, some tunes are renamed after a musician who makes the tune popular. The jig "An T-athair Jack Walsh" (pronounced "an 'ta-her") is a tune with several names. These names are mostly the same, though, and differ mainly because of translation. The name I've given is translated from Irish as "Father Jack Walsh," as in a priest. One other common name is "Tatter Jack Walsh," an Anglicized version of the Irish name. I've recorded this tune on the flute.

The Rakes of Invercairn 

The Rakes of Invercairn is an old tune that isn't very commonly heard. I discovered it through a piper named Tiarnán Ó Duinnchinn. He was featured on a BBC show called "Seinn Liom (play with me). He gives a very lovely history of the music in beautiful Irish with English subtitles. Anybody interested in this music should definitely see this! Tiernan describes where he found the tune, and that it probably hadn't been heard in about 100-200 years! Not only does he give a lovely history lesson, but also plays the tune much better than I do.

Thanks Andy! Please leave some comments!

Some past St. Patrick's Day Posts:

-Movies for St. Patrick's Day
-Irish Potato Candy Recipe
-David Kincaid at Godfrey Daniels