Every Day History

This is an old country

[thingsmagazine]

London before the houses, 1884

[gildasbadonicus]

A model of Old London Bridge in St Magnus the Martyr, City of London.

Created in 1987 by David T Aggett, it is made predominantly out of cardboard boxes and depicts the bridge as it might have looked in the 1440s

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The Strand and St Martin’s In the Fields, London, 1892

from Pictures of London [reproduced in colours] . With short descriptions by A. W. Dulcken

Published by Ward & Lock

Monograph in English

[retroreverbs]

The Plague by Albert Camus (Penguin Modern Classics, 1978 edition).

[gildasbadonicus]

Random London: The Devil Tavern, Temple Bar, stood between temple bar and Middle Temple Gate, Fleet Street.

Small sign denoting the site of the tavern on Fleet Street

The Sign of the Devil Tavern

The church of St. Dunstan's was nearly opposite; and the sign of the tavern was the Devil pulling St. Dunstan by the nose.

(Famously, of course the legend has it the other way round, as in this verse from the 17thC,

St Dunstan, as the story goes,

Once pull'd the devil by the nose

With red-hot tongs, which made him roar,

That he was heard three miles or more )

St Dunstan in the West, Fleet Street

The Devil Tavern in the 17th Century

It was sometimes called " The Old Devil Tavern," to distinguish it from "The Young Devil Tavern," in the same street, where, in 1707, Wanley and Le Neve originated, or gave the first impulse to, the Society of Antiquaries.

Often mentioned in 17th century literature including by Swift, Pepys and Pope

"One likes no language but the Faery Queen;

A Scot will fight for Christ's Kirk o' the Green;

And each true Briton is to Ben so civil,

He swears the Muses met him at the Devil."

- Alexander Pope.

Ben Jonson and the Devil Tavern

In the time of Ben Jonson, who gave a lasting reputation to the house, the landlord's name was Simon Wadloe—the original of "Old Sir Simon, the King," the favourite air of Squire Western in Fielding’s Tom Jones.

The great room was called the Apollo, where Jonson presided:

“Thither came all who desired to be sealed of the tribe of Ben”

There young poets and wits, such men as Herrick, Randolph, Carew, Marmion, Cartwright, Howell and Lord Falkland-paid their court to one whom they regarded as the first figure in the world of letters.

Over the door was verse, on a marble tablet in gold lettering, written by Jonson, as well as a bust of Apollo:

"Welcome all who lead or follow,

To the oracle of Apollo—

Here he speaks out of his pottle,

Or the tripos, his tower bottle :

All his answers are divine,

Truth itself doth flow in wine.

Hang up all the poor hop-drinkers,

Cries old Sim, the king of skinkels;

He the half of life abuses,

That sits watering with the Muses.

Those dull girls no good can mean us;

Wine it is the milk of Venus,

And the poet's horse accounted :

Ply it, and you all are mounted.

"Tis the true Phobian liquor,

Cheers the brains, makes wit the quicker,

Pays all debts, cures all diseases,

And at once three senses pleases.

Welcome all who lead or follow,

To the oracle of Apollo."

Beneath these verses was the name of the author - O rare Ben Jonson- a posthumous tribute from his grave in Westminster Abbey.

The End of the Devil Tavern

Established in the reign of James I (1603–25), it was demolished in 1787 by Child & Co. to expand their banking premises.

[retroreverbs]

Telecult Power by Reese P. Dubin (1977).

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The Penguin Book of English Verse, 1966

[publicdomainreview]

Born #onthisday in 1832, the French illustrator Gustave Doré. Pictured is the “The New Zealander”, the last of Doré’s plates for London: A Pilgrimage (1872) in which he depicts a distant traveller from New Zealand sketching the ruins of a future London: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/dore-new-zealander

[retroreverbs]

The Ghouls: Book Two edited by Peter Haining (1974 edition).

[gildasbadonicus]

London Canal Museum, Kings Cross

A trip to the London Canal Museum - a fascinating little museum near King’s Cross that looks at the history of canal and details the lives of people who worked and lived on them

Horses feature heavily because of their key role in pulling barges

Later small tugs pulled barges through tunnels, replacing the need for barge men to use their legs to push against the side of the tunnel to move through

People lived in tiny cramped cabins on the barges. Whole families would grow up here

People also made their livings around the canal. One of the worst jobs was sifting rubbish piles for anything that was recyclable and sellable. The people doing this suffered great discrimination.

The canals, threatened with infill when they weren’t needed for transporting, would later be rescued as places for leisure, sport, wildlife and even living on. This is the Camden Lock Market which started as craft workshops in 1972. Campaigners saved many miles of canal from being lost.

The tiny terrace and mooring at the back of the museum, only accessible through the museum

[gildasbadonicus]

Brave New World Penguin Modern Classics 1964

[apoemaday]

Eurydice

by Carol Ann Duffy

Girls, I was dead and down in the Underworld, a shade, a shadow of my former self, nowhen. It was a place where language stopped, a black full stop, a black hole Where the words had to come to an end. And end they did there, last words, famous or not. It suited me down to the ground.

So imagine me there, unavailable, out of this world, then picture my face in that place of Eternal Repose, in the one place you’d think a girl would be safe from the kind of a man who follows her round writing poems, hovers about while she reads them, calls her His Muse, and once sulked for a night and a day because she remarked on his weakness for abstract nouns. Just picture my face when I heard– Ye Gods– a familiar knock-knock at Death’s door.

Him. Big O. Larger than life. With his lyre and a poem to pitch, with me as the prize.

Things were different back then. For the men, verse-wise, Big O was the boy. Legendary. The blurb on the back of his books claimed that animals, aardvark to zebra, flocked to his side when he sang, fish leapt in their shoals at the sound of his voice, even the mute, sullen stones at his feet wept wee, silver tears.

Bollocks. (I’d done all the typing myself, I should know.) And given my time all over again, rest assured that I’d rather speak for myself than be Dearest, Beloved, Dark Lady, White Goddess etc., etc.

In fact girls, I’d rather be dead.

But the Gods are like publishers, usually male, and what you doubtless know of my tale is the deal.

Orpheus strutted his stuff.

The bloodless ghosts were in tears. Sisyphus sat on his rock for the first time in years. Tantalus was permitted a couple of beers. The woman in question could scarcely believe her ears.

Like it or not, I must follow him back to our life– Eurydice, Orpheus’ wife– to be trapped in his images, metaphors, similes, octaves and sextets, quatrains and couplets, elegies, limericks, villanelles, histories, myths…

He’d been told that he mustn’t look back or turn round, but walk steadily upwards, myself right behind him, out of the Underworld into the upper air that for me was the past. He’d been warned that one look would lose me for ever and ever.

So we walked, we walked. Nobody talked.

Girls, forget what you’ve read. It happened like this– I did everything in my power to make him look back. What did I have to do, I said, to make him see we were through? I was dead. Deceased. I was Resting in Peace. Passé. Late. Past my sell-by date… I stretched out my hand to touch him once on the back of the neck. Please let me stay. But already the light had saddened from purple to grey.

It was an uphill schlep from death to life and with every step I willed him to turn. I was thinking of filching the poem out of his cloak, when inspiration finally struck. I stopped, thrilled. He was a yard in front. My voice shook when I spoke– Orpheus, your poem’s a masterpiece. I’d love to hear it again…

He was smiling modestly, when he turned, when he turned and he looked at me.

What else? I noticed he hadn’t shaved. I waved once and was gone.

The dead are so talented. The living walk by the edge of a vast lake near, the wise, drowned silence of the dead.

[bestiarium]

The Waddenduvel [Dutch folklore]

The Wadden Sea is the name of the southeastern intertidal zone of the North Sea. According to an old Dutch folktale, these waters were haunted by a creature known as the Waddenduvel. I’m making the assumption here that this name is a dated spelling of “Waddenduivel” which would translate to “devil of the Wadden”.

How the creature looked is unknown, but Altink chose to portray it as a merman with a trident. The Waddenduvel would wait for people to dwell on the shore or the shallow waters, and then approach them. The victim would never see or hear it, for the monster was incredibly stealthy. When it was close enough, it would grab the victim’s neck with an ice-cold hand and then pull them under. It would feel like the creature became heavier and heavier, dragging its victim with it.

The victim would then be half-buried in the mud or sand, and when high tide arrived, they would drown. It is possible to escape this fate, but breaking free from the monster’s grasp is incredibly difficult because the Waddenduvel is very strong. Most people taken by the Waddenduvel were never seen again.

Source: https://www.marnegebied.nl/heks_en_duivelsverhalen_uit_het_marnegebied.html Which cites Huizenga-Onnekes, E.J., 1930, Heksen- en Duivelsverhalen in Groningerland, but I was unable to obtain a copy of this work. (image source: Jal Altink, 1885-1971, but I couldn’t find the date of this particular artwork)

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Mythological creature of the North Sea

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Excellent interview with Professor Marion Gibson on the witches of St Osyth

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/not-just-the-tudors/id1564113869?i=1000612571631

[publicdomainreview]

Emma Goldman addressing a rally at Union Square, New York, 1916. Read our essay on her unique brand of anarchism: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/emma-goldmans-anarchism-without-adjectives #MayDay

[publicdomainreview]

Happy #MayDay and #InternationalWorkersDay! This poster by Dutch artist Jan Toorop was for the Hague’s 1898 National Woman’s Labour Exhibition, which had the goal to improve women’s wages and working conditions.

More posters from Toorop here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-salad-oil-style-of-jan-toorop

[publicdomainreview]

It’s #BatAppreciationDay! Here’s Plate 67 from Ernst Haeckel’s Art Forms of Nature (1904). Focusing mainly on marine animals, the bat is one of the only mammals to feature in the book: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/ernst-haeckel-s-bats-1904 #bats #onthisday #otd