Lammas Day, the beginning of autumn

Posted on by
Reply
Lammas bread loaves, fresh from the oven on my kitchen counter.

Lammas bread loaves, fresh from the oven on my kitchen counter.

August 1 is Lammas Day (Anglo-Saxon hlaf-mas, “loaf-mass”), the festival of the wheat harvest, and was considered the first day of autumn in the traditional calendar of the pre-modern West (much as Labor Day is the beginning of autumn in the culture of the modern United States). On this day it was customary to bring to church a loaf made from the new crop, which began to be harvested at Lammastide. The loaf was blessed, and in Anglo-Saxon England it might be employed afterwards to work magic; a book of Anglo-Saxon charms directed that the Lammas Bread be broken into four bits, which were to be placed at the four corners of the barn, to protect the garnered grain. In many parts of England, tenants were bound to present freshly harvested wheat to their landlords on or before the first day of August. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, where it is referred to regularly, it is called “the feast of first fruits”. (In Eastern Europe, the first honey of the season was brought to church to be blessed on August 1.)

As the wheat must have run low in the days before Lammas, and the new harvest began a season of plenty, of hard work and company in the fields, reaping in teams, [7] there was a spirit of celebratory play. In the medieval agricultural year, Lammas also marked the end of the hay harvest that had begun after Midsummer. At the end of hay-making a sheep would be loosed in the meadow among the mowers, for him to keep who could catch it.

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (1.3.19) it is observed of Juliet, “Come Lammas Eve at night shall she [Juliet] be fourteen.” Since Juliet was born Lammas eve, she came before the harvest festival, which is significant since her life ended before she could reap what she had sown and enjoy the bounty of the harvest, in this case full consummation and enjoyment of her love with Romeo.

 

Witches and Wicked Bodies

Posted on by
Reply

WitchesOnlineVersion

I would love to get to see this exhibit! There are also some interesting talks scheduled that I want to hear, and the catalogue I want to buy! Let’s make a group tour of Scotland and all go to the exhibit together, okay?

The gallery website describes the exhibit:

“Discover how witches and witchcraft have been depicted by artists over the past 500 years, including works by Albrecht Dürer, Francisco de Goya and William Blake, plus pieces by 20th century artists such as Paula Rego and Kiki Smith.

Through 16th and 17th century prints and drawings, learn how the advent of the printing press allowed artists and writers to share ideas, myths and fears about witches from country to country.

Including major works on loan from the British Museum, the National Gallery (London), Tate, the Victoria & Albert Museum, as well as works from the Galleries’ own collections, Witches and Wicked Bodies will be an investigation of extremes, exploring the highly exaggerated ways in which witches have been represented, from hideous hags to beautiful seductresses.”

Edward Kelley

Posted on by
Reply
Edward Kelley, English alchemist, died inPrague after attempting to escape by jumping out a window and breaking his leg (and other bones).

Edward Kelley, English alchemist, died inPrague after attempting to escape by jumping out a window and breaking his leg (and other bones).

Sir Edward Kelley, also known as Edward Talbot (August 1, 1555 – November 1, 1597), was an ambiguous figure in English Renaissance occultism and self-declared spirit medium who worked with John Dee in his magical investigations. (See the previous post on John Dee here.) Besides the professed ability to summon spirits or angels on a crystal ball, which John Dee so valued, Kelley also claimed to possess the secret of transmuting base metals into gold.

Legends began to surround Kelley shortly after his death. His flamboyant biography, and his relative notoriety among English-speaking historians (chiefly because of his association with Dee) may have made him the source for the folklorical image of the alchemist-charlatan.

Kelley approached John Dee in 1582. Dee had already been trying to contact angels with the help of a scryer, or crystal-gazer, but he had not been successful. Kelley professed the ability to do so, and impressed Dee with his first trial. Kelley became Dee’s regular scryer. Dee and Kelley devoted huge amounts of time and energy to these “spiritual conferences”. From 1582 to 1589, Kelley’s life was closely tied to Dee’s. In those seven years, they conducted these conferences, including “prayers for enlightenment… in the spirit of Dee’s ecumenical hopes that alchemy and angelic knowledge would heal the rift of Christendom”.

Kelley married a widow, Jane Cooper of Chipping Norton (1563–1606). He later helped educate her children and she described him as a ‘kind stepfather’ and noted how he took her in after the deaths of her two grandmothers. Kelley had also hired a Latin tutor for her, named John Hammond.

About a year after entering into Dee’s service, Kelley appeared with an alchemical book (The Book of Dunstan) and a quantity of a red powder which, Kelley claimed, he and a certain John Blokley had been led to by a “spiritual creature” at Northwick Hill. (Accounts of Kelley’s finding the book and the powder in the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey were first published by Elias Ashmole, but are contradicted by Dee’s diaries.) With the powder (whose secret was presumably hidden in the book) Kelley believed he could prepare a red “tincture” which would allow him to transmute base metals into gold. He reportedly demonstrated its power a few times over the years, including in Bohemia (present Czech Republic) where he and Dee resided for many years.

By 1590, Kelley was living an opulent lifestyle. He received several estates and large sums of money from Rožmberk. Kelley was able to access gold and silver mines, and he took advantage of this, working on his alchemy until various noblemen thought that he was able to produce gold. Rudolph II knighted him as Sir Edward Kelley of Imany and New Lüben on February 23, 1590 (but it is possible that this happened in 1589). Rudolf had Kelley arrested in May 1591 and imprisoned him in the Křivoklát Castle outside Prague, supposedly for killing an official named Jiri Hunkler in a duel, but it is also likely that he did not want Kelley to escape with his rumored alchemical secrets. Rudolf apparently never doubted Kelley’s ability to produce gold on a large scale, and hoped that imprisonment would induce him to cooperate. Rudolf may also have feared that Kelley would return to England. Elizabeth I was trying to convince him to return to England at the time. In 1595, Kelley agreed to cooperate and produce gold; he was released and restored to his former status. Again he failed to produce, and was again imprisoned, this time in Hněvín Castle in Most. His wife and stepdaughter attempted to help him by means of an imperial counselor, but Kelley died as a prisoner here in late 1597 or early 1598 of injuries received while attempting to escape (jumping out a window and climbing down the wall, he fell and broke several bones, including his leg).