Summary
From Groundhog Day to Hocktide to May Day to Midsummer to Mother’s Day, there are a ton of spring holidays! Join Em and Jesse as we discuss St. George and Medieval dragons, Saint Walpurga and Walpurgisnacht, Pagan syncretism, and a whole lot more. With some digressions about brunch.
Annotations and Corrections
1/ Groundhog Day is really about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw63_YyNsF4
We are posting this on Friday, 4/23. There was snow in Wisconsin (and around the country) earlier this week. Yay, spring.
2/ Hocktide! Check out Katherine L. French, “‘To Free Them from Binding’: Women in the Late Medieval English Parish,” in The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Winter, 1997); pp. 387–412.
Also see David N. Klausner (ed.), Record of Early English Drama (REED): Herefordshire and Worcestershire (Toronto, I990), 349–350, 553–554.
3/ St George! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George
Philip Butterworth, “Late Medieval Performing Dragons” in The Yearbook of English Studies, Vol. 43: Early English Drama (2013), pp. 318–342.
dePaola, Tomie. The Knight and the Dragon. Puffin Books, 1998. Amazon link. Sadly, Tomie dePaola died at the age of 85 approximately one year ago (March 30, 2020).
4/ Here is the Dragon Chariot in the Luttrell Psalter (BL MS 42130 f184r): http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_42130_f184r
Here is the print made “after” (he didn’t make the engraving himself) Bruegel the elder’s c1559 De beurs op St. George dagen [aka The Fair of St George’s Day] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_The_Fair_of_Saint_George%27s_Day_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg [Click on the image to zoom in just a little above left of center for the Dragon Wagon!]
5/ John Babington’s Pyrotechnia (1635) (discussed in Butterworth’s essay) https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/345291
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Babington_(mathematician)
6/ Norwich’s dragon, Snap! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edyVLlzAMxs
7/ May Day! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day
Beltane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltane
8/ Floralia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floralia
Pliny the Elder’s text in Latin (Natural History, book 18, section 286–scroll down!): http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Pliny_the_Elder/18*.html
Here is the translation from Perseus Project, where it’s Book 18.69 (middle of the fourth paragraph): https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plin.+Nat.+18.69&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137
9/ Saint Walpurga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Walpurga
Walpurgisnacht https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walpurgis_Night
10/ Robert Grosseteste (c1168–1253) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Grosseteste
Grosseteste’s complaints about Maying can be found in E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, 2 vols (London, 1903), 1: 91.
Bruce Moore discusses Maying and Chaucer in “‘Allone, Withouten Any Compaignye:’ The Mayings in Chaucer’s ‘Knight’s Tale,'” in The Chaucer Review, Spring, 1991, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Spring, 1991), pp. 285–301.
11/ Maypole! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maypole
Susan Crane Performance of the Self https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/13751.html
12/ Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Lysander in I.i and Theseus in IV.i
See also the Valentine’s Day episode (episode 26)!
13/ Adam de la Halle (1240–1287) wrote a brilliant Robin and Marion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeu_de_Robin_et_Marion
Spotify links to the music of Adam de la Halle’s Robin and Marion:
https://open.spotify.com/album/1kBSiEHtnA2rwbhcds4npW?si=2aRu65MwQiGP7BiHiSbtdw
https://open.spotify.com/album/7dmIdo5biRHkicdEusfaTW?si=f14m4JGBSrGtDGRBruvdVA
For posterity, “Honey I Love You” is played like this:
Person A sits on Person B’s lap. (Can you tell this is a pre-COVID game?) Person A leans face close to Person B and says, “Honey, if you love me, would you please, please smile?” in as beguiling a manner as possible. Person B’s job is to reply, “Honey, I love you, but I just can’t smile” without breaking. If Person B starts to smile or laugh, they have to become the sitter and Person A is allowed to rejoin the crowd.
Bryn Mawr’s May Day Celebration: https://www.brynmawr.edu/activities/traditions (scroll down just a hair)
14/ For more on alcohol, see Episode 27!
Amusingly, and possibly related to Em’s rant about Mother’s Day, this was the first episode we recorded after Em had a baby.
King Bhumibol, also known as Rama IX, ascended the throne in 1946 and was coronated in 1950, just about three years before Elizabeth II did the same on the other side of the world. Elizabeth’s diamond jubilee was celebrated in 2012. Long the longest-reigning female monarch and longest-reigning British monarch, she became the longest-reigning monarch in 2016 when Bhumibol died at the age of 88. Her platinum jubilee is planned for 2022 and I (Em) can only assume she’ll make it. I assume that she’s going to be the queen for the rest of time, honestly.
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