Dancing Through The Corn

August's Newsletter

Heat, humidity, rain repeat. That has pretty much been July here in the south of the UK. Blazing sun shine creates a hazy fringe on the ears of grain that lazily sussurate in a gentle breeze, cooling the skin momentarily and bringing the next downpour with it.

We’re not used to these extremes in temperature and I find it incredibly difficult to concentrate on anything in 30C heat. I know for many of you this will be de rigour, but I confess, for me it makes for challenging times for the ol’ brain. There is no doubt that we are paying the price for the decades of over-consumption that have come before and I know there are thousands, across the Earth, suffering to a far greater degree that we can even conceive here on our North Sea island.

The sweltering heat that addles my brain makes me feel disorientated and drugged, perhaps the way it feels to suffer poisoning at the hands of the ergot fungus that grows on damp rye grains and is said to have potentially been the reason some confessed to witchcraft during those dark years that some called ‘the burning times’. Hopefully the heavy rains will not have affected the crops too badly, the farmers can prosper with their crops this year and my head will eventually clear as the winds turn and we may take off our shoes and dance through the corn.

This month I have created a new kirtle (Anglo-Saxon dress) in a light blue/grey wool and stitched a makeshift apron and head scarf to go with it in order to achieve more of a farming look for the farming tales I will be telling this summer at The Weald & Downland Living Museum. This dress is also in keeping with a grave interpretation I have been working on (on and off) for the last few years.

The rabbit skin shawl that was made for me by a very talented friend from my reenactment group was found in a migration period grave in Scorton and I feel it is only right to honour this women by creating the rest of the clothes she was found in. I’m almost there. I now have the wool kirtle, wool peplos, rabbit skin shawl and amber beads she was found with. I need to work on a veil which is a little different to a headscarf, source some wrist clasps for the kirtle, an accurate cruciform brooch and eventually a cloak. Once I have completed the kit I will put a Behind-The-Scenes post together. For now, you can see the finished dress in action as I tell stories this summer.

With the end of July come the holidays and that means trips out, trips away and spending time with the nine-year old. We have trips planned for the cricket, open air theatre, art galleries, Flip Out, library for the summer reading challenge, castles, gardens, country parks for picnics and a sewing workshop or two. It’s going to be a busy summer.

As mentioned, August's stories continue at The Weald & Downland Living Museum with alternating themes. Week one is ‘Fantastic Beasts’, which includes dragons, trolls and rebel donkeys and then the following week, stories of the yrpling, pronounced earthling, or in modern English land worker, with boggarts, gold spinning dwarves and fairy cows abound. For which week I’m telling which tales, check out the event listings below.

September brings with it my collaboration with Jason Buck, at Butser Ancient Farm: Hags, Witches & Wise Women. The evening is sold out but you can still get tickets to the afternoon performance. Ticket link here.

There are lots of other projects in the pipeline too for this autumn and beyond, with my collaboration with The Village continuing with Zodiac stories, a potential new poetry project with Portsmouth Education Partnership, Yuletide winter magic at Butser Ancient Farm. More info on all these projects coming soon.

I’m currently writing ‘The Little History Of Storytelling’ with progress slow but steady. You can take a look at some of my updates for this project via the Subscriber Extras tab at the top of the page, or click here and a booklist that I’m compiling from my research here.

This month, landing in inboxes for all, there will be the usual book review, events and updates, with a break in the podcast as Season 4 ends and I plan Season 5 which I hope to start in the late autumn, work load allowing.

In the meantime, I hope your August bears you a magical crop.

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Plant Of The Month

Barley

Folklore shows us that barley is sown when the blackthorn is in flower: ‘when the blackthorn is white, sow barley day and night.’ For the last four months the seed has burst its jacket, pushed up through the earth, grown tall towards the sun and turned from a chartreuse green to a pale gold, until finally, the harvest is here.

Barley and wheat are some of the oldest grains cultivated my humans, with Einkorn wheat thought to date as far back as the prehistoric era. One of the more famous uses for these grains is beer or small ale, a drink that was relied upon heavily during the medieval period and beyond. If you couldn’t find a source of clean water, small ale would serve as a safe source of hydration as the brewing process killed off a lot of the bad bacteria in the water because the water was heated during the process. Why didn’t they just boil the water then, I hear you ask? Perhaps they did, or perhaps they didn’t make the connection, or perhaps they just liked ale!

Within Greek myths and folktales we can find examples of grain sorting, undoubtedly an arduous task, being used as a trial to gain favour with the gods in the case of Psyche in the myth of Eros (Cupid) & Psyche and to avoid being eaten in the case of Vasilisa in the stories of Baba Yaga.

August’s Podcast :

Instead of a podcast this month, I recommending an audio book which is currently available on Spotify. This was brought to my attention by Steffie from Earth Care Education and it is absolutely fascinating and available to listen to if you have Spotify Premium. Alice Robert’s two preceding books are on there too.

Upcoming Events For August/September :

Photo by Jason Thompson on Unsplash

• 5th & 9th August - Farming Tales, Summer Storytelling At The Weald And Downland Living Museum - Book Tickets Here

• 19th & 23rd August - Fantastic Beasts, Summer Storytelling At The Weald And Downland Living Museum - Book Tickets Here

• 26th & 30th August - Farming Tales, Summer Storytelling At The Weald And Downland Living Museum - Book Tickets Here

• 13th September (afternoon performance) - Hags, Witches & Wise Women Book Tickets Here

• 21st September - Boat Burn - Roundhouse Storytelling - SOLD OUT

For more information and to book me for your event, visit my events page using the button below.

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Photo by Clark Young on Unsplash

Thank you for supporting this newsletter through July. Supporting my work in this way allows me to continue to find new stories and research the old ways, and I thank you from the bottom of my storytelling heart.

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August’s Read:

I have long been fascinated (as many of us have) with the ways of pirates, in particular the women who took to the seas and pirated along side Calico Jack, Edward Teach and Charles Vane. Saltblood focusses on one of the most famous female pirates, Mary Read, and weaves her story together with Anne Bonny’s. Pirates, strong women and intrigue what’s not to love?! Review coming soon.

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