Remember, Remember…

Remember, remember, the fifth of November,
Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot

Good evening dear guests! & Happy Bonfire Night!

This is a very late post, & it’s been a very lazy night. I went to see Anonymous this afternoon; there shall be a post about that later. But tonight has been a lazy night for everyone in the house. There was no fire in the fireplace for Bonfire Night sadly, but I don’t think anyone in the house was in the mood for it. I had not gotten my hopes up for it, the weather had not been forecasted to cooperate, had heard it was supposed to be very windy. Another night then, since those marshmallows will have to be eaten at some time or another!

Did anyone else attend a bonfire tonight? I hope you had a wonderful time & stayed safe! Or does anyone have any memories of the night they’d like to share?

Aside from having a fire of some sort, there are a few other things I enjoy doing on Bonfire Night.

My music for the evening is the Souling Song. Does anyone have any songs that they associate with the day? Kristen Lawrence’s “Souling Song (Samhain Version)” comes to mind for me, though the song is about Samhain, not bonfire night, but the two are tied together, in their own messy history. Bonfires were being lit this time of year long before Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up parliament.

There’s also an episode of The Wind in the Willows which in recent years, thanks to YouTube, I always watch, which is episode eleven of season four, “Remember, Remember” (1987).

Here’s part one

And part two

I simply adore this version of The Wind in the Willows! I can’t help myself; the stop-motion is enchanting, as are the characters. I adore Toad, silly as he is, Mole as well; he’s just too adorable with his beady little eyes!

& s’mores are a must for the night! Does anyone have anything different that they like to roast? & if you’re not a fan of s’mores, then perhaps you’d be interested in making this tasty treat that I discovered on flickr

For more information on Bonfire Night/Guy Fawkes Night, why not check out the Wikipedia page?

Stay Spooky,

Where Have the Fairies Gone?

“In th‘olde dayes... Al was this land fulfild of fayerye.”

Chaucer’s wife of Bath

Hello, what’s this, an unscheduled blog post? So it would seem :)

Lately some words shared between Peter and Wendy have been tumbling ‘round & ‘round my mind...

Peter Pan: There oughta be a fairy for every girl and boy.
Wendy: Oughta be? Isn’t there?
Peter Pan: Oh, no. Children know such a lot now. Soon they don’t believe. And every time a child says “I don't believe in fairies”, there’s a fairy someplace that falls down dead. ♥

If many children are in such a hurry to grow up, then surely many do not believe in fairies either. Is it any wonder why there seems to be so few fairies in the world?

Oh course, I cannot talk about fairies without mentioning the fairies in my home province of Newfoundland. As I talked about in a far earlier blog post the fairies of NL are different from what you might expect a fairy to be. They are often troublesome & it’d be best not to get involved with them. As Barbara Rieti’s explains in her book Strange Terrain, “The fairies are the ultimate strangers, and serve as metaphor for all that is strange, not only in nature but in other people.”

But where are all these fairies mentioned in tales of old?

I have heard that in NL it is believed by some that there are so few fairy sightings now because the fairies do not like all the lights that are on at night. The street lights, the car headlights, etc., they all have driven them away.

So maybe there are other issues with the world’s fairy population, other than disbelieving children. I take comfort though in the words of Rieti, “Always Going and Never Gone” the title for chapter one of Strange Terrain. This is a great way to look at the fairy beliefs and fairies themselves.

It seems each generation looks back at the one that came before & sees all that they had & how little they now have. But fairies are a sturdy sort who, I believe, cannot be gotten rid of so easily. It’s much like children, who always seem to be less and less like children, more anxious to grow up. Is childhood always going but never gone as well?

In closing, I’d like to share a little more about the picture used at the beginning of this blog post:

Bay Roberts, and all the Northern Avalon, is known for its Fairy Stories.
People tell of seeing mysterious lights - along the shoreline.
Once 'in the fairies,' the victim might be captured, experience fairy scenes, suffer mental and physical injury.
Fergus Island in top left.
Bay Roberts East Shoreline Heritage Walk.
4km Trail by the Atlantic Ocean on the Avalon Peninsula
Bay Roberts, Newfoundland and Labrador

What about the fairies in your area? Are they still about? What about other creatures and beings, are there still sighting?

Stay Spooky,
Alice Grimm

How to be a (Newfoundland) Fairy

(♥)

You want to be a fairy, do you? What sort of fairy? The beautiful ones found in literature or the tricky ones found in the hills? I am often caught off guard when people talk about fairies, saying they would like to be one, or that they find them beautiful, etc. I have to remind myself that there are different sorts of fairies, and people view them in different ways. Though I grew up in an area where there is not a fairy tradition, through my folklore classes, I have learned much about the fairy traditions that exist within my home province.

I wish to now give you a guide on how to be a particular type of fairy, a Newfoundland fairy. I got the idea for this entry after reading Ariel Grimm’s blog post How to Be a Real Fairy (Be sure to check out her website-blog, The Forest).

And so I give you the guide...

Have Yourself a Creepy Little Christmas

Fred Figglehorn of YouTube (link) (if you are unaware of who this is, then you may be in for a treat, or a headache), recently released a song called Christmas is Creepy (link), and I feel he is right. Christmas can indeed be creepy, especially in Newfoundland because in NL we have Mummers. What are Mummers you ask? Why they are the creepiest Christmas tradition I know of!

The Mummering tradition was brought to NL from England. The earlier form of mummering is the “mummers house visit”, which was most popular in Newfoundland in earlier years. Here in NL the tradition is that at Christmas time members of the community would disguise themselves and travel from house to house. These disguised citizen, the mummers, would act “out of character” until the home owners guessed their identities and the mummers were unmasked. If this does not sound the least unnerving to you, then you have more nerve than I.

The mummers will announce their arrival by not merely knocking but pounding upon your door at night, asking the question, in their odd way of speaking (inhaling as they speak) “Any mummers ‘loud in?”. Or they could substitute the word mummers for jannies, as they were called when my mom was a little girl. If let in the mummers would proceed to “act foolish”, as some might call it. They will drink and dance, only ceasing when their identities are revealed. There disguises are outrageous! To quote “The Mummers Song” by the group Simini, there will be “boys dressed as women and girls dressed as men”, “humps on their backs and mitts on their feet”, “…with his underwear stuffed and his trapdoor undone. Is he wearing his mother's big forty-two bra?” A mummer will make use of anything available to them to make a costume.

Here you can see the tradition in action, as show in this song by Simini, and for the lyrics, click here

The Mummers Song

What a treat this was for the people of rural NL who were the mummers. Living in tight knit communities where everyone knew everyone else so well, to be a stranger in your own community was surely an odd experience. And to be given occasion to break all the social norms, to act so out of characters, was also a treat.

Above in this blog post I mentioned that the earlier form of mummering is the "mummers house visit", a later version of this tradition is the “Mummers Play”. While not as popular, and to some NLers completely unknown, this is still performed in England. And of course, there are whole performances available for your viewing pleasure on YouTube!

Crook Morris Mummers Play 17th January 2009


Mummer's Play - Part 1 - Medieval Christmas Revels - Cambridge 1995


Mummer's Play - Part 2 - Medieval Christmas Revels - Cambridge 1995


Mummer's Play - Part 3 - Medieval Christmas Revels - Cambridge 1995

For more information on mummering in Newfoundland, please visit the following links:

Mummers Festival website (link)
When at the website be sure to click on the heading “Traditions” to learn more about Mummering and Janneying (link) and another creepy character, the Hobby Horse (link)

On Facebook be sure to join the Mummers Festival (Folklife Festival of Newfoundland and Labrador) (link)
Be sure to check out the Photos (link) from this year’s Mummers Festival!

I have very few memories of mummers. Though they frightened me and some of my friends as well, they do not mean to, at least that is not the point of the tradition, to scare people. Despite the use of Halloween masks, and the whole thing feeling more like something that should take place in October, mummers are not out to purposely scare you; they are a jolly sort who are merely having some fun.

I have so few memories of them because by the time I was born, the tradition was dying out, with good reason. Times have changed very much, and the thought of letting masked strangers into your home in the dead of night today may be a little more than unnerving for some. This is perhaps why the Mummers Festival got started (find out more about that in the links above!). It is a way of making a tradition safe again. And speaking of the festival, I was very sad when I found out that I would miss the Mummers parade. However, this being an annual festival, I shall be attending next year!

For some it is still very much a part of their Christmas memories. It may very well not seem like Christmas if the mummers are not knocking at your door. For me, it does not feel like Christmas if there is not any snow. Which is why this year, I don’t feel much like celebrating.

Kindest personal regards,
Do not forget the reason for the season,
Miss Alice Grimm