Storytelling is as ancient as humankind, and the best have always kept their audience thoroughly enthralled. They've used repetition, poetry, song, chants, and interaction to keep people engaged, and covered everything from religion, eulogies for heroes, myths, legends, religion, proverbs and morality tales. Stories are ubiquitous and loved by people everywhere. Every culture and continent has had them, and the storytellers themselves became revered with honoured positions in society, and often had the ear of a powerful leader. And the wealthy sought out the best, as people loved to be entertained by them. It kept people happy and acted as a kind of social cement to reinforce a pride in the ancestors, the tribe, and their ways. Some of those stories have persisted for centuries and, believe it or not, still capture our imaginations today.
Settareh, The Persian Cinderella with her anklet
We all grew up with fairy tales, and they are so ubiquitous that they seem to be universal and spread over continents with versions of the stories found in every culture. For instance, Ye Xian is a Chinese story that is very similar to Cinderella, and is the oldest known version of the story dating from the Tang Dynasty (618-907CE). There are other Asian takes on the story in the Malay-Indonesian Bawang Putih Bawang Merah tale, and stories from other ethnic groups including the Tibetans and the Zhuang. In West Africa, they have Chinye, whilst in India, Cinduri loses her anklet leaving the Navaratari Festival. In Iraq, Maha is helped by a magical fish and her Persian counterpart Settareh is helped by a pari (fairy) who lives in a magical blue jug to attend the New Year festivities and loses her anklet. Even in the New World, the Algonquins have 'The Rough Faced Girl' competing for the attentions of an invisible being, while the Ojibwas have Sootface competing for the magnificent invisible warrior who is looking for a bride. Did they all come from one single root?
The stories could be related to the fact that the step-daughter/step-mother dynamic was historically problematic everywhere, with women taking better care of natural children than those inherited through marriage to a widower, but there are so many similarities, especially in the intervention of a supernatural being, that it does cause us to be curious about the origins. Another option is that these stories are genuinely very ancient and all share a common link in our distant past. An excavation in Sayburç, shows a narrative tale of humans having animal protectors during an attack in a long form reminiscent of a modern cartoon strip that is 11,000 years old. We don't know the story depicted in the progressive scenes, but we can tell that it is one, possibly involving shapeshifters, and that the Neolithic people felt strongly enough about it to carve it into stone, so probably repeated versions of it down the generations. I do wonder if we would recognize any of the archetypes and elements in the story today. Some have linked it to The Epic of Gilgamesh due to the lions, bull, and snake held by the figure. That, in turn, is linked to the origins of Beauty and the Beast.
Carvings of a 11,000 year old Fairy Tale in Turkey
Researchers have published findings in The Royal Society stating that some fairy tales come to us directly from the Bronze Age. Anthropologist Dr Jamie Tehrani of Durham University collaborated with folklorist Sara Graça da Silva, from New University, Lisbon, and found that some date back to the early days of the birth of the Indo-European language, meaning that recognisable versions of Fairy Tales we still tell date back at least 6,000 years. Using techniques normally used by biologists, they examined 275 Indo-European fairy tales and found common roots that date back long before the "emergence of the literary record." They narrowed down two as being the oldest; Beauty and the Beast and The Smith and the Devil.
They both relate to universal themes that still resonate with the human condition. The first is the young woman forced into the life of an outcast, or unattractive partner, for the good of others and finding love and kindness in the unexpected humanity of the 'beast'. Her sacrifice was worth it, apparently. A powerful message to give to those you'd like to control or influence for the good of society at large or harmless entertainment? The second is straight out of the mysticism that surrounded the early blacksmith; the men who seemed to be able to work with dirt, stone, and fire to create metals and looked like magicians to ordinary people. Producing shining swords and intricate jewellery out of fire must have appeared astounding, so it's no surprise that the tale of some kind of Faustian pact with the devil was invented to explain this extraordinary skill. Most of these tales involve hubris and regret, but many also involve wordplay, cunning, sacrifice, and luck.
Nebra Sky Disk 1600-1800 BCE
We all understand the phenomenon of stories altering slightly on retelling, so it's no surprise that there are so many different versions spread throughout Europe of these stories, all slightly changed and subtly enhanced until they could eventually be captured in the age of writing. However, being stories told primarily to children meant that they were not seen as important enough to study and note until the 16th and 17th centuries, although some do appear in ancient Greek and Latin texts. But these tales were not originally intended just for children. They were not just entertainment, but a method of communicating social values, oiling the wheels of social interactions by rewarding those who adhered to the morals expected, inspiring budding warriors through tales of heroes, and by repeating these lessons in a memetic method that excited the emotions. Not all the ancient tales had happy endings, some played with dark themes like death, cannibalism, and gruesome fates, and operate to warn the unwary, ruthless, and over-bold. After all, we all remember stories that made us feel something, and the original stories played with lust, fear, relief, and desire before they were later sanitised when they were collected. People like Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are the most famous of those who compiled books of what they essentially saw as folklore, and did so out of an academic interest in protecting folklore in danger of dying out. They thought of the work as an academic treatise, and saw fragments of old faiths and customs represented in the symbolism and themes, repeated and mutated, until less recognisable as reflections of the past and becoming more harmless tales told to children as simple entertainment. Scholars note that the brothers, and particularly Wilhelm, added Biblical themes to the stories, removed sexual elements, and changed the language to make the books more popular. Some of the tales were actually of French origin, collected from Huguenot immigrants and French territories disputed by Germany such as Alsace-Lorraine, and were altered to make them more German in the face of rising German nationalism at home.
Bronze Age axes and Bracelets
The approach to women's work over men's is interesting to note. Many tales begin with a male occupation such as, "there once was a miller/soldier/farmer", but women's work like spinning is often depicted with more menacing, mystical undertones, with stories being told by women engaged in tedious work while casting spells. Spinning, in fairy tales, may be avoided because of a threat, or social status might mean a woman is unfamiliar with the work. They may also just be too lazy to do it themselves. All of those kinds of women often enter into another Faustian deal to have a supernatural being do the work for them at a price. Sometimes they trick their way out, and other times a hero rescues them.
Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm c. 1837
The stories have continued to be sanitised, especially when Disneyfied and turned into animated movies that have delighted families for decades. Gone are the gruesome elements like Snow White's step-mother demanding the huntsman bring back Snowwhite's liver and lungs so she could eat them. Cinderella's step-mother is no longer forced to dance in red-hot iron shoes that will kill her, in The Goose Girl a servant isn't stripped naked and forced into a barrel filled with nails pointing inwards and rolled down the street, the Frog Prince is no longer thrown against a wall and killed instead of being kissed, the three bears aren't visited by an old lady who escapes them, Sleeping Beauty isn't raped by the king and subsequently gives birth to twins that the king's wife wants to cook, and Little Red Riding Hood isn't cut from the belly of the wolf. They are clean and child-friendly moral tales.
Or are they? Have they simply morphed into sub-genres? Remember that these were stories designed to entertain and enthrall the whole clan; from drunken hunters and warriors, powerful rulers, farm labourers, women rearing children and working with food, creating fabrics, tending livestock, to the young children able to stay awake. They were the entertainment of the day, and the best stories were told and re-told over and over again until they became part of the culture. People lived in a time of food insecurity, dark forests inhabited by fierce animals, short lives, and threatening strangers. The fears were tangible, but it's clear they never went away. However, people have always loved exploring fear in a safe space.
Have the scary and thrilling elements morphed into horror stories designed to meet that same primal need our distant ancestors had? Do we adore being scared to death in the safety of their own homes in front of a roaring fire while it's cold and dark outside? After all, horror stories are also filled with archetypes, both natural and supernatural, that play on our fears. They often deliver a moral tale, give us a hero to root for, a villain to hate, and innocents to mourn. They have also morphed to reflect our cultural shifts and go from the unnatural or evil, to reflect the slashers, the serial killers, the fear of outer space or deep water, and most of all, we seek out fear enjoy as a group activity just like people did in ancient times. We flinch and hide, we're appalled, and we cheer as the stars walk away from it all at the end.
Is that really so different to the original aim of the old storytellers?
The September movie kiss
is from the Kiera Knightly and Matthew Macfadyen Pride and Prejudice. While I really like the Colin Firth and Jennifer
Ehle Pride and Prejudice, it comes up
wanting in the kissing department, which is a missed opportunity.
From the moment Mr. Darcy
sees Elizabeth at the party and does the rocked-to-his toes double take, we
anticipate The Kiss. We need The Kiss.
We make it almost to the end of the
movie wondering when the kiss will happen and here comes Mr. Darcy walking
toward Elizabeth through the field in the morning mist scene. We feel our
hearts begin to melt with how wildly romantic (and sexy) the scene is.
He says to her, Surely, you must know it was all for you.
(be still my heart)
And they move closer…hold
hands…foreheads touching…rising sun illuminating their faces… We lean forward for a most touching and tender scene… without The Kiss. We nearly swoon from the anticipation.
A few scenes later, they
enjoy a little newlywed banter that leads to The Kiss, which leaves us
perfectly and incandescently happy.
See you in October for more
kisses from the big screen.
NOTE: Once again, Blogger is evidently in a mood. I am unable to reply to comments. I appreciate everyone who muscles their way through and leaves a comment, and I appreciate everyone who stops by to read. Thanks bunches.
The German town of Hamelin is the capital of the Hamelin-Pyrmont region of Lower Saxony, but it's known the world over for the tale of the magical piper who led the rats from the town, only to return with a heart full of vengeance when he wasn't paid for his services. A church window dating from around 1300 is the first mention of the story, but that was destroyed in 1660. Johannes de Lüde, Dean of Hamelin had a chorus book from around 1384 containing a Latin verse of eyewitness account. His mother was reportedly there. The Rattenfängerhaus (Rat Catcher's House) in Hamelin bears the inscription:
In the year 1284 on the day of [Saints] John and Paul on 26 June 130 children born in Hamelin were lured by a piper clothed in many colours to Calvary near the Koppen, [and] lost.
The Wedding House has a similar inscription, as has the town gate and many supporting manuscripts tell a very similar story, so something obviously happened. But what?
Ergot on Wheat
One theory is that the Dancing Mania that swept through Europe in the 12th century contributed to the tale. This was possibly a form of mass psychogenic illness that caused a contagion of manic dancing in the sufferers. One case in 1237 involved a large group of children who danced from Erfurt to Arnstadt, a distance of 12.92 miles. Some contribute the mania to ergot poisoning; a fungus that grows on rye, wheat, oats, and barley and causes Ergotism. Ergotism is also known as St.Anthony's Fire, named after the monks who specialised in treating the condition, and manifests with symptoms such as muscle spasms, fever, mania, hallucinations, unable to speak, dazed, uterine contractions, vomiting and unconsciousness. Controlled doses were used to induce abortions, and as it also constricted blood supply it could be used to stop bleeding after childbirth. That same vasoconstriction also meant that the victim's feet and hands could be damaged leading to shooting pains, gangrene, and amputation.
Other possible explanations include a pilgrimage they never returned from, and children really did go en masse on pilgrimages in the Middle Ages in Europe. The most famous is The Children's Crusade of 1212, where thousands of children marched to the Middle East to join the crusades. The movement failed, and many died or were sold into slavery as it was unsanctioned and unsupported. It is possible that children did leave on the crusade and that parents lied to the king and the church about the loss of the children, as the crusade was not approved, but the date is wrong. Hamelin's episode has a very definite of the date of 1284. Others say that it may have been a military campaign, with the Pied Piper being a recruiter. Many documents state the date as the 26th June, midsummer's day, which had significance in agricultural societies, with a battle taking place between the persistent pagan beliefs and the growing power of the church. Some suggest that the piper was a shaman leading the children away to perform midsummer rites, and that a battle ensued between local monks and the pagans, causing children to be taken away into monasteries and nunneries. This seems fanciful and there's no evidence to back this up whatsoever. Nor is William Manchester's book suggesting that the piper was a predatory pedophile supported by evidence either. It's clear that the rats were a later addition, and the agreed date of the departure was too early for it to be a cryptic reference to those who died of the plague.
Medieval Minstrels
The answer may lie in the odd clothing worn by the piper, and in a battle you may never have heard of. The Battle of Bornhöved meant that an area previously occupied by Slavs was available for occupation by Germans. It broke the Danish hold on the region, and there is historical evidence of systematic efforts to get able-bodied youths to colonize Brandenberg and Pomerania. We do know that the bishops and dukes of Pomerania, Brandenburg, Uckermark, and Prignitz sent out recruitment agents offering rewards for young people prepared to locate to the newly won lands and settle there. The agents were accompanied by drummers and pipers in bright theatrical clothes to catch people's attention-and that was no coincidence as these glib locators looked like entertainers. They were.
Jongleurs were itinerant musicians who were at the bottom on the ladder of paid musicians. They were all round entertainers, telling stories, preforming tricks, singing and playing instruments. Jongleurs performed in groups as well as alone, but the next step up the career ladder gives us more of a clue and is a more likely suspect. Minstrels wore distinctive coloured clothes, a livery provided by the court that employed them, reflecting the heraldic colours of that aristocratic family and could be described as 'pied' - having two or more colours. They had permanent employment for at least part of the year in the court of a nobleman or in a town, but they did travel, and mostly in the summer - remember that the date is given as midsummer's day. Unlike jongleurs, they only played and sang, but people did dance to their music, again reflecting elements of the legend. Monks were instructed not to watch minstrels as the festivities could lead them into sin. So that gives us a brightly coloured musician, and people encouraging the young to leave. The battle took place in 1227, and landowners were actively encouraging people to move by the time of the exodus of 130 children (more probably young people) in 1284.
To investigate the theory that many young people were tempted away from Hamelin for a new future in much the same way as people emigrated to the New World, historian Ursula Sautter notes that thousands of people from Saxony and Westphalia headed east, and the etymology of the villages proves it. There are five villages called Hindenburg running in a straight line from Westphalia to Pomerania, and three called Spiegelbergs. Other names from the area are scattered around the area of Beverungen south of Hamelin to Beveringen northwest of Berlin to Beweringen in modern Poland. We know that people moving for a new life often take their favoured place names with them.
More compelling is the research into family names done by Linguistics professor Jürgen Udolph. He entered family names from Hamelin into a database and estimated that they mostly ended up making a settlement near Starogard in what is now northwestern Poland. Local Polish telephone books list names you would not expect in that region. Many appear to be derived from German names that were common in the village of Hamelin in the thirteenth century. The names include Hamel, Hamler and Hamelnikow, all apparently derived from the name of the original village.
And in a final sad touch, it would explain the poignant ending to the tale as the blind and the lame were left behind as they were unable to do the heavy physical work required to build a new community.
For today's blog I'd like to point out a few ways in which historicals are - well, different. I love reading historical novels of all genres and I love to write them, so are my five 'star' points that I look out for in the stories that I really enjoy.
1. Realistic reactions. In the past, the roles and pressures on people were different to now and a good historical reveals this. Women's liberation as a movement did not emerge until the late 1960s. Women (and working class men) did not acquire the vote in Britain until the early 20th century. Before then, the role of women was determined by family and peer pressure, by the church, by society's expectations, by class and above all by biology. (My maternal great-grandmother had 14 pregnancies, 12 births, 2 miscarriages. In the days before reliable birth-control, women often spent their child-bearing years doing just that.)
In earlier warrior societies, where brute strength was prized as a means of winning booty, only a very unusual woman would be big enough and strong enough to fight as an equal warrior. Remember, food would often be in short supply and the sons and men ate first, not simply because of their higher status but because of survival. Men are generally more physically strong in pushing heavy ploughs, and so on. They needed to be well-fed.
2. Realistic dress. Fashion and past fashions is a fascinating business to me, but in a good historical dress also reveals class and tactile elements. A heroine who is changing her gowns every chapter may not be realistic. Clothes were costly and time-consuming to make. Fashions in the country would be less cutting edge than those of the city. Even cloth and colours would vary - the rich would have access to silks and more expensive dyes.
3. Realistic settings. How people lived in the past is very different from modern-day life (at least in the developed parts of the world) and that is worth showing in a historical. The daily trudge for water would be part of someone's life, as were the anxious waiting on crops and the hunger experienced while the harvest slowly ripened. In an unscientific age the fear of the unknown affected everyone - was the hail storm the sign of an angry god? Was a sudden illness in the village the result of witchcraft? If illness is not understood, then the evil eye becomes as good a reason as anything else. If 'everybody knows' that disease comes from the stench of the gutter, it becomes understandable to protect your cottage from pestilence by growing fragrant roses around the door.
4. Realistic plotting. In the past, communications were a major problem. In a world without the internet, battles could be lost because the flanks of an army literally could not talk to each other. A messenger could take days to ride or run from one part of any country to another. There were no policemen in ancient Greece, where the family was expected to take revenge and seek redress if any one of their people was murdered or injured. A good historical is aware of these difficulties and exploits them.
5. Realistic names. Sorry, but - unless the story is fantasy or timeslip - in a story set in 10th century AD somewhere in western Europe, or in China or India, 'Brad' or 'Chantelle', although pretty names, simply don't fit the places or the period and pull me out of the story.
Those are my 5 key points. What are yours?
For summer reading, why not try my medieval historical romances "The Snow Bride" and its sequel, "A Summer Bewitchment"? Details here:
The
August kiss is a classic kiss. It’s as close to a perfect kiss as kisses can be.
It’s the reunion kiss between Rick and Ilsa in the 1942 film, Casablanca.
From
the scene where we know Ilsa is going to stand Rick up at the train station in
Paris to the next time they see each other in Rick’s Café Americain in Casablanca, we want this kiss. We need
this kiss. And we are not disappointed.
Here it
is...
See you next month for more
kisses from the big screen.
On 12th October, 2000, forty-eight year-old Mary Henderson Morris left her home in Houston to go to work and was never seen alive again. She had failed to answer her husband's call throughout the day, and three days later a body was found in a burned-out car. It was identified as her, and police could find no motive for the murder, and due to the condition of the body, it was hard to establish how she died. Her wedding ring was missing.
Three days later, the body of thirty-nine-year-old Mary Morris was discovered in her car in nearly the exact spot under extremely similar circumstances. The first Mary had been a bank worker, the second was a nurse practitioner and was in charge of a number of clinics. Neither woman knew the other, and there seemed to be no connections between the two. Police began to investigate their backgrounds and found that the second Mary had experienced worrying behaviour from a man working with her, and her husband had been concerned enough to get her a gun. She had told a friend in a phone call that a man had given her "the creeps" in a drugstore, and she was going to go back to work to sign off her computer before returning home. Twelve minutes later, she made a frantic call to 911 begging for help during an apparent attack and abduction.
Her husband's alibi was that he was at the movies with their daughter, but police found that she had had an affair, that their marriage was in difficulty. The second Mary also had a large life insurance policy. The husband was the main suspect, and refused to take a polygraph test, as did the co-worker she had been having problems with. The second Mary's wedding ring was also missing at the scene, but the daughter was later seen wearing it, and the family claimed that they'd 'found it'. Notably, contract killers often take the wedding ring as evidence of the kill to get paid.
Is that why the wedding ring went missing from both bodies? Was the first Mary Morris was a victim of mistaken identity due to the similarity in names? The murders remain unsolved.
On May 27, 1817, in Erdington, Birmingham, England, at 6:30 a.m. on May 27, 1817, a man on his way to work found a bundle of clothing, a hat, and shoes near a water-filled pit. He raised the alert as this was not a swimming hole, and the pool was dragged. They found the bruised body of Mary Ashford, presumably raped before her death. They found footsteps of a man and woman found in a nearby field, but in the days before forensics, they had to follow a more basic trail of evidence.
The victim had been a popular young woman who had attended a local dance the night before with friend, and changed at her house before the festivities. She and her friend had spent the latter part of the dance with Benjamin Carter and Abraham Thornton. The foursome left the dance at midnight, with her friend, Hannah Cox, walking along Chester Road until Hannah returned home and Mary and Abraham stayed out. Carter returned to the dance, which commonly finished at dawn at that time.
Mary was last seen back at Hannah's house at 4AM, changing out of her dance clothes to the everyday dress she'd previously left there when dressing for the dance with her friend. The victim was happy and betrayed nothing to be concerned about in general conversation, and was seen alone along the road soon after by witnesses. Her body was discovered a few hours later, and she was confirmed to have died by drowning.
Abraham Thornton was arrested and told police, "I cannot believe she is murdered; why, I was with her until four o'clock this morning." Abraham told detectives he had been intimate with Mary and that they talked and gazed up at the sky. Abraham claims to have walked her part of the way back to Hannah's house and to have for her outside, but Mary told Hannah none of this. Abraham then claimed to have left when Mary didn't return to him.
Thornton's trial started on 8th August, and three witnesses confirmed his alibi. That, and a lack of any concrete, evidence led to him to being acquitted, despite a showy challenge to her brother that was a hangover from feudal law; who didn't rise to the provocation. The murder was never solved, but Abraham Thornton was so reviled by the public that he fled to the USA.
Exactly 157 years later to the day, 27th May 1974, another woman was raped, murdered and found in a watery ditch in Erdington Park. Barbara Forrest was a nurse at nearby at Pype Hayes Children's Home. She, too, had gone missing on Whit Monday. Statements say that Barbara was with her boyfriend Simon Belcher at several bars on the evening of her death. Belcher said he walked her to the bus at 1 a.m. and never saw her again. Detectives zeroed in on a co-worker of Barbara's, Michael Ian Thornton. Thornton lived on Chester Road and the police found bloodstains on Thornton's pants and uncovered a false alibi from his mother. They apprehended him and charged him for the slaying, but was acquitted for lack of evidence.
Abraham Thornton
True crime experts read through the Ashford murder of 1817, and compare it to the one in 1974. Whit Monday had been on 26 May both in 1817 and 1975 (a lunar date. It's not always the same date). Both victims were found within 300 yards of one another, shared the same birth date, visited their best friend on the evening of the Whit Monday to change into a new dress for a local dance party. After each murder a suspect was arrested whose name was Thornton, and in both instances, this Mr Thornton was charged with murder but subsequently acquitted.
Both murders remain unsolved.
But there have been crimes solved by coincidences and strange means too. A parrot was the only witness to the murder, of Max Geller im 1942 in the appropriately named "Green Parrot Restaurant" in New York. The bird repeatedly squawked "Robber" to the police, but the detective didn't dismiss that as many would, and learned that the bird was trained to call regular customers by name. None of the regular patrons were able, or willing to help the police. Going purely on a hunch, the detective wondered if the parrot was actually saying, "Robert", and found out that a regular customer, Robert Butler, 28, had left Manhattan shortly after the murder. When police tracked Butler down in Maryland he confessed that he shot the victim in a drunken argument, and got fifteen years.
And then there was the murder solved by accident. In 2011, Laura Giddings went missing from her home in Georgia. Cops attending the report parked outside her home as they searched her apartment and confirmed that there was no trace of her. The garbage truck was unable to empty the trash cans the police had blocked, but he emptied the rest of the street and carried on. Her body was found in one of those unemptied bins, and if the police had parked anywhere else, she may very well have gone off to landfill, perhaps forever, and certainly damaging the forensic evidence.
But that wasn't the only coincidence in this case. The case attracted the local news, who interviewed the neighbours, as they often do in such cases. One such neighbour, Stephen McDaniel was on camera when he was told that Laura's body had been found. His reaction at realising that he was probably about to be arrested for murder can be found on this video at around 1.27.
And then there was the case of Zephany Nurse who made a new friend, Celeste, at school. The two girls got on famously, and were struck by how alike they looked, and they weren't the only ones. Zephany's father was also taken aback by the similarities; especially as the family had been the victims of one of the cruelest kinds of thefts. Their baby girl had been stolen from the hospital by a woman dressed as a nurse. Mr. Nurse did a DNA test that confirmed the truth. Unbeknownst to the family, that baby girl had been brought up only a few miles away for the last seventeen years, and Celeste was reunited with her real family. Her kidnapper, Lavona Solomon was jailed for ten years and was released in August 2023
Zephany and Celeste Nurse
Coincidences are everywhere, but that doesn't make them less strange or perplexing when they do. On a finish note, it's worth noting that the first and last British soldiers killed in WW1 are buried next to one another. They were John Parr, killed 17 days after Britain declared war, and Private George Ellison, who died 90 minutes before the armistice. Ellison's gravestone gives his age as twenty, but he was actually only seventeen, having lied about his age to join up. The war was sparked by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. The license plate number of Archduke’s car, in which he was killed, was A III118. The official end of WWI was Armistice Day, 11/11/18.
