Michael Scott: The Wizard of the North

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Alchemists, border folklore, border history, Frederick II, judicial astrology, medieval history, medieval scholars, Medieval Wizards, Michael Scott, scottish borders, Scottish history, Wizard of Melrose Abbey, Wizard of the North

The Wondrous Michael Scott

Tomb of Michael Scott at Melrose Abbey, no longer extant. Image adapted by Lenora.

“In these far climes, it was my lot
To meet the wondrous Michael Scott
A Wizard of such dreaded fame,
That when in Salamanca’s cave,
Him listed his magic wand to wave,
The bells would ring in Notre Dame!”

So wrote Sir Walter Scott in his 1805 poem ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’. But who was the wondrous Michael Scott and why did his legend outlive him by centuries particularly in the English-Scottish borders?   Walter Scott certainly had a lot to do with embellishing Michael Scott’s reputation as the Wizard of the North; but growing up in the borders as he did he would also have been aware of the many tales of Michael’s magical feats such as splitting the Eildon Hills in to three and spinning rope from sand and turning a coven of witches into the stone circle now known as Long Meg and her daughters.  But was Michael Scott a real living person and was he actually a wizard?

Intriguingly enough the answer to both of these questions is YES.  He was a real live Scottish medieval scholar and by the definition of his peers he was also a wizard.  But that was not all there was to Michael Scott – peel back the legend and the folk tales and you find a well-travelled, cosmopolitan man at the cutting edge of medieval learning.

Early life and education

Michael Scott’s early life is not well documented, scholars place the date of his birth around 1175.  This is based on the fact that he arrived at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor in 1220 as a fully qualified scholar with an international reputation.

Some claim Durham, England for his birthplace other say Fife or Balwearie in Scotland.  His family name may not have been Scott – this could be a latter appendage acquired during his European Travels.  Nevertheless who ever his family was it is likely that they were monied enough to fund his education and extensive travels.

Michael was educated possibly at Durham cathedral School and definitely at Oxford and Paris.  In Paris he studied sacred letters, divinity and became a Dr of Theology as well as earning the soubriquet Michael Mathematicus (Michael the Mathematician).   Following his studies he embarked on a scholarly tour of Europe.

International Man of Mystery

For Michael the first decade of the thirteenth century was taken up with establishing his reputation as a monastic scholar of the first water and a practitioner of arcane sciences.  He took up residence in Toledo University, a university famous for the study of the occult.  Here his fame grew as a talented translator of Arabic works into Latin.  His work translating Arabic copies of Classical texts (such as the works of Aristotle) helped to reintroduce much lost classical learning back into Europe.  He translated works such as ‘Liber Astronomie’ by Alpetragius (Abu Ishaq Nured-din-al-Bitruji Al-Ishbilt) and ‘De Animalibus’ prior to 1220.  This familiarity with ‘secret’ knowledge of the east may, at the time of the Crusades when the secrets of the ‘infidel’ were regarded with suspicion, have added to his occult reputation.  Michael’s eccentric dress sense may also have added to his Wizardly credentials as he favoured a long robe, tied at the waste and topped off with a pointed hat.  This may have been in the style of an Arabic Sage but it did cause comment amongst his contemporaries.

The science of heresy

From Toledo, Michael travelled to Bologna, Padua (where he penned his treatise on Judicial Astrology), and Salerno where he may have taken on pupils including the famous mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci (creator of the Fibonacci sequence – so famous it even merited a mention in Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code!)

During this time his fame as a translator spread across Europe – even the pope sought out his skills.  One of his areas of expertise that the Catholic Church was less keen on was Judicial Astrology – the practice of divining the future by calculating the position of the planets and sun in relation to the Earth.  Unlike natural and meteorological Astrology which were reputable branches of the sciences, Judicial Astrology existed in the unholy borderlands between religion and science and was considered a heresy by the Catholic Church.  It was also one of the key factors in being considered a Wizard in the Medieval world.

At the crossroads of civilisation

Frederick II Holy Roman Emperor, artist unknown

Frederick II (1194-1250), Holy Roman Emperor was known as Stupor Mundi – the Wonder of the Age.  His court at Palermo in Sicily was situated at the crossroads of civilizations – where the Mediterranean world met the Islamic and Jewish; Frederick was an enthusiastic patron of learning and the sciences and welcomed scholars to his court.  Into this cosmopolitan and glamorous world came Michael Scott, his invitation secured by his fame as a scholar and philosopher.  Frederick wanted a description of the universe and thought Michael Scott was the man for the job.  He posed a series of questions that Michael was to answer.

When not defining the universe for the enlightenment of Frederick, he continued his work as a translator and  his study of alchemy and judicial astrology, writing:

“every astrologer is worthy of praise and honour since by such doctrine as astrology he probably knows many secrets of God, and things which few know.”

such words only help to illustrate why this branch of study rankled the Church so much – after all priests held the monopoly on the secrets of God not heretical scholars!

At Frederick’s Court Michael also produced a number of original works on astrology, alchemy and the occult sciences (not all were completed).  He also studied medicine and was credited with curing Frederick on several occasions.

It is said that he and Frederick enjoyed a close friendship although on at least one occasion it was a testing friendship.  Legend has it that Frederick asked Michael to calculate the distance between the top of a church tower and heaven.  Untroubled by this, Michael confidently produced the figures. Wishing to test his friend, Frederick secretly had the tower’s height reduced and asked the question again hoping to catch Michael out.  The canny Scott was too clever for the cunning Emperor though and responded by saying:

“Either heaven has drawn further away from the earth – or the tower has got smaller!”

Michael’s reputation was not entirely unblemished, he was thought to be a vain man, especially in relation to his scholarly works.  He also claimed to have turned copper into gold and was not above putting on public displays of miracle-working and manipulation to the astonishment of the general population.  Such showmanship would have further cemented his image as a wizard in the minds of the ordinary folk – pre programmed to believe in wonders and miracles rather than look for rational explanations.

This vanity and showmanship also granted him a place in Dante’s Divine Comedy.  Michael appears in the 8th Circle of hell and is introduced thus:

“that other there, his flanks extremely spare,Was Michael Scott, a man who certainly
Knew how the game of magical fraud was played”

And this despite Michael being Dante’s favourite astrologer!  His inclusion is likely to be a political gesture to the Pope and a swipe at the Pope’s sworn enemy ‘The Anti-Christ’ Frederick II.

Michael was also noted for his gift of prophecy and is credited with accurately prophesying the outcome of the Lombard War, the time and manner of Frederick II death and the manner of his own death.  Perhaps Frederick was not too happy having a date set for his demise, and eventually Michael left the glittering Court of the Holy Roman Emperor and continued his travels.

Returning Home

Michael’s final travels appear to have been through Germany, Italy and England and he may have planned to retire to a Monastery. At some point the pope must have got over Michael’s association with his arch nemesis and offered Micheal and arch-bishopric in Ireland but Michael turned the living down.

Lay of Last Minstrel 1806 Ed, collection of Lenora

It is said that Michael, having foreseen his own death being caused by a falling stone, took to wearing a metal hat; however, God or the devil (depending on your viewpoint) has a way of claiming His own. On attending church one day Michael removed his hat and was struck by a piece of falling masonry.  He died later from his injuries.  He is recorded as having died in 1236.

As with his birth, the place of his death and burial is disputed, however the most famous tale is associated with Melrose Abbey where it is said he was buried with his books of magic.

Sir Walter Scott has the Minstrel describe it thus:

“I buried him on St Michael’s night,
When the bell tolled one, and the moon was bright,
And I dug his chamber among the dead,
When the floor of the chancel was stained red,
That his patron’s cross might over him wave,
And scare the fiends from the wizard’s grave.”

Aftermath

Soon after his death, Michael Scott’s legacy was under scrutiny.  Although he was referred to as ‘The most renowned and feared sorcerer and alchemist in the thirteenth century’ he was also consigned to the 8th Circle of Hell by Dante; appeared in Cornelius Agrippa’s “De Occulta Philosophie”; was both derided and defended by later scholars for his occult studies; and entered into the folk memory of the borders as a wizard and magician.  The fact remains, however that he was one of the greatest thinkers of his day: an internationally renowned philosopher, translator and scientist.

Although Michael Scott may have been a little put out that his other scholarly pursuits have been overshadowed by his more occult practices; I don’t think his vanity would have been too pricked to learn that history had granted him the sobriquet: Wizard of the North.

Sources

BBC History, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/scottishhistory/earlychurch/oddities_earlychurch.shtml
Dante, Divine Comedy, Harmondsworth, 1977
New Scotsman, http://www.scotsman.com/news/scottish-wizard-who-tutored-the-pope-1-466356
Phillip Coppens, http://www.philipcoppens.com/michaelscott.html
Rampant Scotland, http://www.rampantscotland.com/famous/blfamwizard.htm
Scott, Walter, ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’, London, 1806
Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Scot and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_astrology

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The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson

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Alice Nutter, Demdike, Jeanette Winterson, Lancashire witches, Lancashire witchtrials, Malkin Tower, Pendle Witches, Review of The Daylight Gate, The Daylight Gate, witch trials, witches

A review by Lenora

The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson

I first came across the Pendle Witches in Robert Neill’s novel ‘Mist over Pendle’ (Published 1951). At the time I really enjoyed Neill’s version of events but I recall that the witches, Alice Nutter in particular, were not viewed particularly sympathetically. A lot has changed since Neill was writing: feminism for a start and a much greater understanding of how the socio-economic and political climate can trigger events such as witch trials.  With this in mind I was looking forward to reading Jeanette Winterson’s take on this most famous of English Witch Trials.

Background to the trials

The Pendle trials occurred in 1612 under the reign of James I of England (VI of Scotland). They were the first in England to be officially documented and set a precedent for allowing the testimony of a child to be accepted in court (previously the testimony of children had been considered unreliable).  In this case however it proved crucial to the case and for many its effect was devastating.

James was a monarch known for his interest in witchcraft:  he believed the Berwick Witches had tried to sink his ship in 1590; he wrote the  anti-witchcraft tract ‘Daemonologie; and he wasn’t above personally supervising the torture of women accused of witchcraft. Add to this feverish brew the Catholic lead Gunpowder Plot of 1605 (after which many of the accused fled to Lancashire) and you have a recipe for a paranoid and bigoted realm with both king and government ready to purge the land of witchcraft and popery.  The Daylight Gate examines both of these themes and how they become interchangeable – Thomas Potts has come to Lancashire hunting for witches whilst Roger Nowell is searching for fleeing Catholics.

The Daylight Gate

Although Winterson uses real historical characters and events (such as the meeting at Malkin Tower on Good Friday which set events in motion); she also creates an effective fictional back story for Alice Nutter that via the alchemist and occultist John Dee and his assistant Edward Kelley, links her to Old Demdike.  This helps to provide a reason why the well to do Alice was accused along with such a motley crew of broken and abused women of the Demdike and Chattox clans – and why she was at Malkin Tower on that fateful night. The tale also uses magical realism such as when the Demdike’s, holed up in Malkin Tower,  brew up spells and make severed heads speak in macabre scenes reminiscent of Macbeth.

However effective this is for the purposes the fictional story, for me this creates a historical problem.  Winterson portrays vividly and vicerally how brutalised and abused these women were, trapped by their gender and their poverty in a harshly misogynistic world; she effectively shows how that real seventeenth century world was far more dangerous than any imagined threats posed by witches.

Nevertheless by making these women into practicing witches possessed of real demonic powers,  I feel that in some way she is detracting from the historical reality of the suffering of thousands of ordinary women (and a surprising number of men) who found themselves wrongfully accused of, and executed for, witchcraft.  It might have been interesting to look further at what drove some of these individuals to admit ‘guilt’ and to claim they had called upon The Dark Gentleman to obtain unholy powers – to examine why these disgarded and dis-empowered women would to try to claim the right of fear or respect from their neighbours at such a terrible price… however I suspect that this would have been a different story entirely.

Despite this caveat, I really enjoyed the book and I found the ending very moving.  Winterson’s prose was beautiful and spare.  Her descriptions of the most graphic events such as rape and torture were not voyeuristic but were rendered more brutal by the matter of fact language; the settings of Pendle and Malkin Tower were wonderfully dark and ominous; the sense of the net closing in was palpable. And the ending: a tragedy already written in the blood of real people.

Jeanette Winterson’s ‘The Daylight Gate’ is available to purchase from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Daylight-Gate-Hammer-Jeanette-Winterson/dp/0099561832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1364137870&sr=8-1

as is Robert Neill’s ‘Mist over Pendle’

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mist-Over-Pendle-Robert-Neill/dp/0099557037/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1364137870&sr=8-2

Footnote on the Pendle Witches

Following the 400th anniversary of the witch trials there were calls for the accused to be pardoned and a statue of Alice Nutter was also erected in her home of Roughlee.

BBC news: Statue of Pendle witch unveiled

Burnley Express: Appeal for Queen to pardon Pendle witches

Folklore and legends of Skye: The Old Man of Storr

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folklore of skye, legends of skye, scottish fairies, scottish folklore, Skye, the fey, the old man of storr, the priest and the devil

The Mysterious Isles

The Old Man of Storr, image by Miss Jessel

Situated off the west coast of Scotland, the Isle of Skye is known for its beautiful scenery and unique land formations.  The spectacular ridge of hills (the result of a massive landslip) that runs for about 30km, form the backbone of the Trotternish peninsula in the north east of Skye contains one of the islands most recognisable landmarks, the Old Man of Storr (in Gaelic ‘Bodach an Stòrr’).

Taking its name from the escarpment on which it stands, the Old Man of Storr is the most famous of the rocky basalt pinnacles which dot the landscape.  Standing at an elevation of 2,359 feet and at a height of about 160 feet, its prominent position and strange shape have over the centuries given rise to a number of stories which even today imbue the landscape with a sense of mystery and romance.

The Priest and the Devil

Legend has it that in the early years of Christianity in Scotland, a dispute raged over the exact date of Easter.  In order to put an end to the quarrel, a priest from Skye decided to travel to Rome and speak to the Pope himself.  Climbing the Storr early one dawn just as the sun began to rise, he performed a spell which raised the devil and transformed him into a horse.  During the journey, the devil questioned the priest about the reason for the journey.  The priest had to use all his wits to answer the questions truthfully but at the same time avoid mentioning the name of “God”, which if uttered would break the spell resulting in the devil disappearing and the priest falling into the sea.  The priest was successful and despite the devil’s trickery, arrived in Rome, learnt the date of Easter and returned safely to Skye.  The devil was so impressed with the cleverness of his adversary that on leaving he was heard to utter the ominous words: “until we meet again”.

The Giants of Skye

Giants occur frequently in traditional Scottish folklore.  In particular they are associated with the landscape and peoples of Western Scotland.  The formation of many natural features was often ascribed to the exploits of these giants who frequently came into conflict with men, always coming off worse.  One of the enduring stories relating to the Old Man of Storr is that it was the thumb of a giant who when he died became buried in the earth.  Another version is that whilst fleeing from attackers, two giants, an old man and his wife made the unfortunate decision to look back and as they did so were turned to stone.

The Brownie and the Broken Heart

Brownie, image by Joseph Jacobs

Brownies are common in Scottish and English folklore.  They are said to resemble a hobgoblin,

“His matted head on his breast did rest;

A long blue beard wan’erd down like a vest;-

But the glare o’his e’e hath nae bard exprest”

 

During the day brownies are believed to hide in the house and at night do jobs for the family they have chosen to serve.  The slightest attempt to reward them for their service, will result in the brownie disappearing for ever.

The story goes that a villager by the name of O’Sheen saved the life of a brownie and never asked for anything in return.  Over time the two became good friends.  One day whilst the brownie was away, O’Sheen died of a broken heart following the death of his wife.  When the brownie returned and heard of his friend’s death, he was so upset, that he chiselled two rocks, a larger one in honour of his friend, which became known as the Old Man of Storr and a smaller one for O’Sheen’s wife.

The Fay

Fairies, image by John Anster Fitzgerald, edited by Lenora

The fay or fairies are often found in Scottish folklore and can include any type of magical creature such as gnomes, brownies, redcaps, the bean sidhe better known as banshees in Irish mythology and glaistigs, beautiful women with the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a goat found near ancient stones. Unlike in Victorian stories where fairies are depicted as small, cute and harmless, people in the past had a very different view of them. The belief that fairies were part of an unknown, dark and invisible world, a threatening malevolent presence to be feared can be seen in their portrayal in folktales where they are often shown as devious, tricking humans and even stealing their souls.

A man who walked up the hill every evening with his small wife found one day that they had grown too old and his wife could no longer climb to the top to join him.  The fairy folk who had watched them go up every evening, offered the old man the chance to always have his wife with him wherever he went.  The old man accepted the offer but the fairy folk tricked them and turned them both into pillars of rock, ensuring that they would indeed always be together.

Even today when people no longer believe in fairies, giants and brownies these tales still have the power to enchant and fascinate.  Appearing in films such as Prometheus and Snow White and the Huntsman, the power and mystery of the stones continue to play their part in shaping imaginations as well as their own legend.

Sources

Traverse of the Trotternish Ridge, http://www.theskyeguide.com/walking-mainmenu-32/34-stretching/205-trotternish

Supernatural & Mythical Stones of Scotland, http://seeker7.hubpages.com/hub/Supernatural-Mythical-Stones-of-Scotland

Skye: The islands and its legends, Otta F. Swire, 1961

Scottish folk and fairy tales, Sir George Douglas (editor), reprinted 2005

Phantasmagoria – The Eighteenth Century Horror Show

Tags

early cinema, eighteenth century, Etienne Gaspard Robertson, Gothic novels, history, horror, illusion, Magic Lantern, Phantasmagoria, pre-cinema

The thrill of the supernatural

Artist: Govard Bidloo.

In the past we were not so protected from death as we are now.  Death was not safely stowed away in clinical environments such as hospitals and care homes. Oh no – it was stalking you on the streets, it was in your home, in your bed and in your face.  Perhaps that is why human beings have always sought answers to the question of what awaits us when we finally shuffle off our mortal coil.  And while theologians and thinkers provided comfort and tried to provide answers in the form of religion or philosophy, the ordinary folk came up with folk tales and superstitions to explain the unexplainable.  And the byproduct of this was the delight in a good scare!

When beautifully horrid became horribly beautiful¹…

The eighteenth century saw the rise of the horror genre in the form of the ghost story and the Gothic Novel: The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole 1765; Vathek, by William Beckford 1786; The Mysteries of Udolpho by Anne Radcliffe 1794; to name but a few.  As well as the quietly chilling pass-time of reading about supernatural events, the eighteenth century also offered a more interactive experience in the form of the wildly popular phantasmagoria magic lantern shows developed from the 1760’s onwards.

The Magic Lantern:  from science to fantasy…

Magic Lantern, English c1818. Photo by By Edal Anton Lefterov

 The invention of the magic lantern is credited to Christiaan Huygens and Athanasius Kirchner in the 17th Century.  Kirchner’s early magic lantern was made up of a lantern with a concave mirror and a candle, with a tube at the side housing convex lenses at each end.  The hand-painted glass slide was placed between them.  These early magic lanterns were simple fore-runners of the slide projector and later film projector.

Initially they were used for scientific purposes, however their entertainment value was soon recognised and their purpose became less high-brow with shows featuring pastoral and mythological scenes.  However con-men and charlatans soon saw the potential of this new technology – claiming to be able to resurrect the dead (using magic lanterns as tools). In a world where most people were generally ignorant of science it was easy to prey on superstitious folk by claiming supernatural powers.

During the 18th Century magic lantern shows began to begin the transformation into Phantasmagoria.  JG Shroepfer who ran a coffee shop in Leipzig had an unusual side line in teaching the occult and performing seance’s.  By incorporating the visual effects of the Magic Lantern Shroepfer was able to create a truly memorable séance.  He was a victim of his own success, by the 1760’s his shows were so popular he became a full-time showman but came to believe the spectral images he created were real and eventually became delusional and committed suicide.

Science and Showmanship – Etienne Gaspard Robert aka ‘Robertson’

18th Century Phantasmagoria showing pastoral scenes by Arthur Pougin

Although there were further developments towards phantasmagoria during the 18th century , particularly in Versailles (Francois Dominique Seraphin with his popular Chinese shadow-play and Edme-Gilles Guyot who experimented with projecting ghostly images onto smoke) it was Etienne Gaspard Robert (1763 – 1837) usually known by his stage name ‘Robertson’ who truly made the Phantasmagoria into the phenomena it became.

Robertson was not the first to combine the popular elements of the séance with magic lantern technology – Paul Philador staged the first true Phantasmagoria show in 1793 in Berlin, Vienna and Paris, however Robertson was the best.

18th Century magic lantern, artist unknown (Dorotheum)

Robertson had a childhood interest in folklore and the occult, and in his memoirs he recalls going so far as to try and raise the devil by killing a cockerel.  As a young man he studied science and art and became particularly interested in optics.  Eventually his interests combined and on 23 January 1798 he staged his first Phantasmagoria.

Robertson’s shows were so popular because of his combination of science and showmanship.  He made significant developments in the use of magic lanterns – developing the ‘Fantoscope’ with improved optics and wheels.  The use of wheels may seem a simple innovation, but it was an important one as it allowed him to create the illusion of images moving or seeming to approach and recede from the audience by adjusting the position of the Fantoscope (an early form of zoom) much to the horror and delight of his patrons – he used this to great effect with his ‘Bleeding nun’ image (an image taken from Lewis’ Gothic Novel ‘The Monk’).

Being an artist he painted his own glass plates and used black backgrounds for his figures.  This coupled with projection on to smoke or transparent screens created the illusion that the images were floating free.  This effect that the images were all around the audience was heightened by the use of multiple moving Fantoscopes and multiple slides allowing images to dissolve into one another (Louis XVI transforming into a skeleton).  He also made good use of darkness and sound to disorient his audience even making use of the eerie glass harmonica to create Mesmer-esque ‘Celestial Harmonies’.  The mechanics of the illusion were also hidden from the audience further causing them to suspend disbelief.

The Phantasmagoria Phenomena

What made these shows so popular?  Timing has to be considered here, Gunning

points out that their popularity coincides with the aftermath of the French Revolution.  The Age of Enlightenment has created a ‘disenchanted’ universe, where science and reason replace superstition and the old religion.  In France this was epitomised by the Revolution.  Rising Gothic Romanticism also increased the popularity of the macabre, mysterious and the psychology of terror.

By time Robertson was putting on his shows in Paris, his audience had lived through the Terror that the Revolution descended into.  The shows began with Robertson explaining the science of the show, the rational explanation behind it all, then seeming to blow all of this out of the water by putting his audience through a terrifyingly real experience.

He didn’t claim that his phantoms were real, and in fact did much to popularise science, yet his audience were prepared to suspend disbelief and for the duration of the show at least, reacted as though what they viewed was real.  Gunning argues that:

“The effect of the phantasmagoria derives from a dialectic – not only between what we sense and what we know – but between what we know and what we fear we might actually believe.”

Robertson’s Phantasmagoria in the Capuchin Crypt, Paris

Beyond Robertson

Robertson kept his tricks as secret as possible, but eventually other rival shows took off and for a time Phantasmagoria shows were wildly popular – particularly in England but even being shown as far away as New York.

Photographic slides eventually replaced painted ones, and eventually developments in photography and later cinematography meant the Phantasmagoria became obsolete.  However, many of the techniques pioneered by these early shows influenced early cinema and later on, horror movies.  Both using zoom, dissolving images, stop-motion techniques to create their effects.

It is still sometimes possible to see a Phantasmagoria show – usually around Halloween – and as recently as 2006 Tate Modern featured a Phantasmagoria show as part of their ‘Nighmares of the Gothic: Fuseli, Blake and the Romantic Imagination‘.

Although I have never seen a Phantasmagoria show myself, a couple of years ago in Whitby I experienced a modern version of the genre when I came across a ‘Live’ horror event in the back room of a pub!  A friend and I paid our £5 and stepped into the darkness beyond – not sure what to expect.  We found ourselves thrust head first into a lunatic asylum from a horror film. We were soon screaming and running from axe wielding maniacs and scar-faced Satanists!  When we finally exited, we were both on a total adrenalin high exhilarated by the unexpectedly ‘real’ unreality we had just experienced – it seems not much has changed in the past 200 years!

Sources & notes

1. Fairclough, P (Ed); Three Gothic Novels, Penguin

Gunning, Tom: http://www.mediaarthistory.org/refresh/Programmatic%20key%20texts/pdfs/Gunning.pdf
Marion F, The Wonder of Optics, New York, 1871http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RKQIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA183&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false
Mead, Derek: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/phantasmagoria-were-the-18th-century-suicide-scary-theaters-that-gave-us-movies–2
Skulls in the Stars: http://skullsinthestars.com/2013/02/11/phantasmagoria-how-etienne-gaspard-robert-terrified-paris-for-science/
The Magic Lantern Society: http://www.magiclantern.org.uk/history/history6.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantasmagoria

Image Sources

Guilty Pleasures: Carry on Screaming

Tags

Carry on films, carry on screaming, hammer films, horror films, kenneth williams

Carry on Films are my Guilty Pleasure….

Sergeant Bung: ‘A young lady has disappeared and we’re anxious to trace her whereabouts’
Dr Watt: ‘Oh, whereabouts?’
Bung: ‘Hereabouts’
Mr Potter: ‘At 10 o’clock’
Bung: ‘Or thereabouts’
Constable Slobottom: ‘In this vicinity’
Bung: ‘Or roundabouts – we’re police officers’
Potter: [exasperated] ‘-or lay-abouts!‘

This is one of the classic scenes from Carry on Screaming – with a mix of carry on regulars such as Jimmy Dale and Kenneth Williams along side Harry H Corbett (standing in for Sid James as Sergeant Bung) – delivering the quick fire wit and word play of classic carry on films.

Studio Canal DVD

I have always loved the carry on films – especially the ‘historic’ or ‘literary’ parodies:  Carry on Henry with costumes better than some Hollywood Epics; Carry on Cleo sending up Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra with such verve; and one of my all time favorites Carry on don’t lose your head a less than decorous take on the Scarlet Pimpernel.

However, possibly the best Carry on Film ever made (in my opinion at least) is the fabulously creepy Carry on Screaming.  Directed by Gerald Thomas with and written by Talbot Rothwell it premiered in 1966 and lovingly parodied both the Universal Horror films of the 1930’s and the Hammer Horror films that were so popular at the time.  It deals in typical Carry on fashion with several of the staples of the horror genre:  Dracula (Dr Watt’s catch-phrase ‘Frying tonight’ is supposed to be a reference to Dracula ‘Flying tonight’); Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; Mad scientists; homicidal Egyptian Mummies; wolf-men; the vampire temptress; the virginal heroine/victims (with varying degrees of allure:  see Sergeant Slobottom in a frock for reference!) Even the title song was memorable and had its own legend attached to it – for many years fans thought Carry on regular Jimmy Dale was the singer (he wasn’t – it was actually Ray Pilgrim).

Jimmy Dale as Wolfman

One of the distinctive things about the film is the look of it – it really feels like a classic hammer horror from its dark sinister woods to the OTT cobwebbed Victorian mansion ‘Bide-a-wee’ with its crazy scientific paraphernalia in the basement.  This may be due to the influence of photographer, Alan Hume, who also worked on Hammer and Amicus horror films in the 1960’s.

The performances as well were wonderfully hammy – with Kenneth Williams playing the arch villan Dr Watt, Fenella Fielding oozing Hammer-horror sultriness as Valeria his sister.  The forces for good included Harry H Corbett playing Sergeant Bung, Peter Butterworth as his bumbling side-kick Slobottom and the gorgeously goofy Jimmy Dale as Mr Potter the window cleaner whose lady friend (played by Angela Douglas) had been abducted in Hokum woods (Hokum woods – love it!).

Smoking indoors was allowed back then..

Nutty slack

Other Carry on regulars also feature as bit players – Joan Simms as Bung’s shrewish, telephone-phobic wife; Charles Hawtrey (written in at the last-minute for the American market) does a very camp turn as a toilet attendant known as Dan Dan the —- Man. Even future Dr Who, Jon Pertwee,  has a cameo role as the police’s own mad scientist Dr Fettle.

I would like to end with a transcript of my favorite scene from Carry on Screaming, a scene between Sergeant Bung, Constable Slobottam and Dr Watt…the scene owes a lot to Abbott and Costello’s ‘Who’s on first’ sketch but is done with the Carry on teams inimitable style:

Bung: ‘Are you prepared to make a statement?’
Watt: ‘I did didn’t I?’
Bung: ‘I’d like my assistant to get it on the record sir.  Now, if I could have your name please.’
Watt: ‘Dr Watt’
Slobottom: ‘Dr-Who- sir?’
Watt: ‘Watt – Who was my uncle or was, I haven’t seen him for ages.’
Slobottom: ‘We appear to be at Loggerheads sir’
Watt: ‘No, this is Bide-A-Wee, Loggerheads is about 5 miles down the road.’
Slobottom: ‘No, no, about your name.’
Watt: [irritated] ‘Watt’
Slobottom: ‘What’s your name?’
Bung: [shouting] ‘Watt’s his name!’
Slobottom: ‘Thats what I’m trying to find out sir’
Bung: ‘Excuses, excuses, nothing but excuses.  Just get the statement down ‘I haven’t see or heard anything suspicious in the vicinity this evening.’
Watt: ‘You too ey?  So glad it wasn’t just me who didn’t…’

‘Frying Tonight!’

Sources

Images and quotes taken from the DVD version of the film:  Programme Content Copyright 1966 Canal+ Image UK Ltd; Script written by Talbot Rothwell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carry_On_Screaming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Hume
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060214/
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/466443/index.html

Clerkenwell House of Detention – History and Hauntings

Tags

Clerknenwell, Fenian bomb plot, haunted prison, House of Detention, victorian prison

“Look into despair, all ye who enter here”

These welcoming words hung above the entrance to Bridewell Prison for convicted prisoners in Clerkenwell and together with the nearby New Prison accommodating those awaiting trial, were a grim reminder of 17^th and 18^th century justice.   Bridewell Prison closed in 1794 and its functions were taken over by the Coldbath Field Prison.  The New Prison was rebuilt three times, the last being in 1847 when its name changed to that of the Clerkenwell House of Detention.

Originally three storeys high with a network of underground tunnels, it was one of the most important and busiest prisons in Victorian London taking in over 10,000 prisoners a year. Accommodating men, women and children on remand, it was considered to be less harsh that many of the other prisons.  Prisoners were allowed to keep their own clothes and hair was not forcibly cropped, although whether the inmates considered themselves to be lucky is anybody’s guess as they passed beneath a grisly replica head hung on the gates of the main prison “symbolising criminal despair[1]”.

A number of famous criminals spent some time at the prison including Richard Burke.  Richard Burke was a member of the Fenian Society (an organisation dedicated to the establishment of an independent Ireland).  Employed to purchase arms for the Society in Birmingham, Burke was arrested and sent to Clerkenwell to await trial.  On the 13 December 1867 in a failed attempt to rescue him, the Fenian Society planted gunpowder in the exercise yard.  The explosion killed a number of bystanders in Corporation Row, and some members of the group were later executed.  The incident became known as the Clerkenwell Outrage.

The Clerkenwell Outrage

The prison was demolished in 1890 to make way for the Hugh Myddleton School (which itself has now been converted into flats).  During the Blitz the tunnels were re-opened as air raid shelters.  In 1993, a small section of the 2½ acres of tunnels was opened as a museum and in 2000, shortly before it closed, I was fortunate enough to visit.  Until a few weeks prior to my visit, I had never heard of the House of Detention, despite having lived in London all of my life and having been on countless historical walks, so I was unsure of what to expect.  I managed to convince two of my friends to accompany me and full of curiosity we arrived at the museum.  From the start we realised that this was going to be an unusual experience as all we could see of the lady at the till was her hand as she took our money and gave us the tickets, the barred window having been blackened out.  We then descended into the ventilation tunnel (a brilliant piece of Victorian construction) and made our way along it. As we walked we were somewhat disturbed by a loud clanking sound.  Getting increasingly nervous as we got closer to the sound we finally discovered a mannequin chained to the wall, activated by a mechanism which enabled the mannequin to fall forward producing the sound of chains being jolted.

Image By Daejn

 Although much of the underground network of tunnels were nothing more than rubble, a number of rooms have survived, including the fumigation area, laundry, kitchen, transportation chambers and punishment cells.  The air smelt damp and many of the information boards and exhibitions were suffering from mould damage.  A number of mannequins representing the prisoners had been placed in the cells to give an impression of what it would have been like.  I am not sure if it was the sense of neglect, dim light, damp, silence (for most of the time we were down there we were the only visitors) or claustrophobic atmosphere but for the entire visit I felt strangely unnerved. I found myself watching shadows out of the corner of my eye and at the same time trying not to look too closely at any one thing.  The feeling of unease increased as I wandered through the museum and it was a sensation I realised my friends were sharing, judging from the fright we all had when another visitor appeared round the corner of one of the exhibitions.  Instinctively we stayed together, only moving from one room to another when we were sure we were all ready to move on.  The feeling of relief when we finally emerged back into sunlight and able to take a breath of fresh air was audible.  We decided then and there that it had been a very strange experience and that none of us would care to go down there again.

It was only a few years back when searching through the internet to see if the museum had reopened that I came across ghost stories connected to the prison.  Various sightings have been reported, the most common being that of a little girl crying, an old woman frantically searching for something and ignoring offers of help and the presence of an unpleasant individual who stalks lone women.  I can’t claim to have seen or heard anything but I have to admit that in all my time of going on ghost walks, visiting prisons, old houses, crypts and castles it was the most unnerving place I have ever been to.  If it is true that places absorb the emotions of those who were previously there, then the horror and distress of those incarcerated in the House of Detention must have been great indeed.  Today the tunnels and cells have been spruced up and sanitised and have been turned into a temporary exhibition and theatre space.  Whilst it may now no longer suffer from neglect and damp, if someone asked me if I wanted to go down there again, the answer I have to admit would be a firm no!

Sources

---

[1] http://www.london-ghost-tour.com/houseofdetention.htm

^ “CLERKENWELL HOUSE OF CORRECTION”, The Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times (London) (816): 204, 31 March 1877

By Daejn. (Own work.) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Highgate Cemetery, Part Two: A Walk Amongst the Dead

Tags

Highgate Cemetery, Highgate Vampire, London Cemeteries, Victorian Cemeteries, Victorian Death

The Victorian Way of death

Pathway amidst the graves

It was a crisp March day when I found myself making may way down Swains Lane, the lane that cuts through West and East Cemeteries.  I had always wanted to visit Highgate Cemetery, it features in so many of my favorite old horror films such as Tales from the Crypt and From Beyond the Grave (and always appears in my imagination accompanied by an overblown 1970’s horror soundtrack and maybe the odd scream as well…)

You would be unwise to wonder around Highgate Cemetery alone, many of the graves and monuments are fragile and a wrong step off the path could lead the unwary to spending some time up close and personal with a cadaver in a lead-lined vault that could be up to 30 feet deep. The cemetery is vast and has many secluded spots so rescue, should it even come, could be slow indeed….

Don’t be put off by taking a guided tour, touristy it might be, but it is also informative and the cemetery doesn’t lose any of its magic, especially if the group isn’t too large.  The guides are knowledgeable about the famous and not so famous persons buried here, and can help decode the Victorian language of death which written all over their tombstones if you have eyes to see it.  You only have to look at some of the more morbid Victorian paintings (dead shepherds, pining loyal hounds etc) or remember that they often had one last family photo taken with the dearly departed, to know that their attitude to death was very different from our own.

The Circle of Lebanon

One of the first things that struck me about the cemetery was how different it was to modern cemeteries.  Now gravestones are in formal rows, with standardised inscriptions – compared to Victorian exuberance (all weeping angels, obelisks and broken columns) – our way of death seems clinical and regimented.  In a modern cemetery you would never get such a tragic description as that of Emma Wallace Gray who died in 1854 at the age of nineteen “From the effects of her dress having caught fire”.  Her inscription reads thus:

In bloom of youth, when others fondly cling
To life, I prayed, mid agonies for death
The only pang my bleeding heard endur’d
Was, thus so early doomed to leave behind on
Earth those whom I so dearly lov’d.

The architecture too is something you would never find in a modern cemetery, the

Entrance to the Egyptian Avenue

picturesque chaos of the tombstones and mossy angels hidden amongst the trees all overgrown with grasses and wild flowers.  And the monumental grandiose mausoleums; the eerie circle of Lebanon with its use of the natural landscape – the mausoleum is crowned by a Cedar of Lebanon; the austere Terrace of Catacombs cut into the hillside; and of course the fabulous Egyptian Avenue (and the Egyptians knew a thing or two about death).  Walking through the dramatic gateway into the dank alley’s of the Avenue I truly felt like I was walking into another world – a city of the dead.

Highgate and the Macabre

Elizabeth Siddal –
public domain image via Wikimedia Commons

No Victorian cemetery would be complete without some macabre tales, and the one that stuck me most was that of Elizabeth Siddall.  Elizabeth was the beautiful wife and muse of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of the foremost Pre-Raphaelite painters, and herself a talented artist.  Elizabeth died tragically young, only 32, possibly as a result of addiction and depression.  She was buried in 1862 by a grief-stricken Dante Gabriel who tenderly placed a sheaf of manuscript poems by her cheek – how romantic.   But Elizabeth was not to rest in peace for long.  In 1869 Dante Gabriel must have been feeling considerably less grief-stricken and romantic because he ordered her exhumation in order that he could retrieve his manuscript….Hmm.

The Highgate Vampire

The Ham and High Gazette from March 1970

One thing that the tour did not mention was the legend of the Highgate Vampire.  This legend seems to have begun sometime in the late 1960’s, the cemetery was neglected and overgrown and attracted not only vandals but those interested in the occult.  There appears to have been some reports of strange goings on the cemetery and in Swains Lane: reports of dead foxes and of a tall dark figure with burning red eyes (Christopher Lee – I wonder?) scaring dog walkers and generally lurking in a sinister way.

In 1970 an occultist called David Farrant contacted the local newspaper the Ham and High Express and the legend was born…further sightings were recorded (although accounts often varied) and it was proclaimed by Farrant that the figure had Vampiric characteristics and that he and the British Occult Society that he was part of would exorcise it.  Another flamboyant figure, Sean Manchester, appeared at about this time.  The ‘Bishop of Glastonbury’*[please refer to comments section for more information] soon became a rival vampire hunter and a bitter enemy of Farrant (so much so that the best ‘hammer horror’ tradition he is alleged to have challenged his nemesis to a magical duel).

Whatever the truth of the legend, the impact was devastating. On the night of the ‘vampire hunt’ hundreds of ‘vampire hunters’ (many valiantly armed with cans of beer), stormed the police cordon around the cemetery and began basically trashing the place. Needless to say no vampire was found.

During the whole Highgate Vampire frenzy not only were monuments damaged but vaults were broken into, corpses attacked and even beheaded.  One gruesome story is that a local resident found a headless corpse sitting behind the steering wheel of his car.  This might sound funny, but really, it’s not, these desecrated corpses were not vampires or demons, just  ordinary people who had hoped to rest in peace.  Perhaps the real vampires of Highgate were Farrant and Manchester who fed off the media hype they  created.

A modern tragedy

Burials are still carried out in the Cemetery, and one of the modern interments the tour visited was that of Alexander Litvinenko the Russian exile and spy buried in 2006.  Litvinenko was poisoned using Polonium after taking tea with two of his Russian contacts, he died from the effects of the posion. I still remember the news footage showing him fighting for his life in his hospital bed.  He is buried here because the Victorian vaults are lead lined and therefore radiation proof.

His  story reminded me that everyone buried in Highgate, however long ago, was once a living breathing individual with their own personal story.  And that one day, despite our iphones and our apps we will all be dust just like them.

Epilogue

My final thoughts on Highgate Cemetery are best summed up by one if its famous incumbents, Christina Rossetti the poet.

Song

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet:
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

Sources

http://lizziesiddal.com/portal/

http://www.highgate-cemetery.org/index.php/home

http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/greater-london/hauntings/the-highgate-vampire-how-it-all-began-by-david-farrant.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highgate_Vampire

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19647226

http://brinkofnada.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/highgate-vampire.html

Highgate Cemetery, Part One: City of the Dead

Tags

Highgate Cemetery, London, Victorian Cemeteries, Victorian Death

History

Jacobs Island London Slum c1840

There was something rotten in the heart of London in the first half of the nineteenth century.  As the population in the capital grew at an alarming rate from just 700,000 in 1750 to 1.6 Million by 1831 so too grew the numbers of the dead that the city had to accommodate.  By the 1830’s London’s graveyards were as packed as its slums with corpses disposed of in shallow graves in burial grounds that were crammed in between taverns and shops; bodies were often quick-limed so plots could be reused; the stench of the charnel house must have hung over many districts of the metropolis.

Entrance to Highgate Cemetery

So great was the risk to public health that parliament was forced to act.  Between 1833 and 1841 legislation was passed creating the ‘London Cemetery Company’ (1836) to oversee a ring of park-like cemeteries encircling London – ‘The Magnificent Seven’ – thereby freeing up more space for the living and improving sanitation in the city.

17 Hectares of the Ashurst Estate set on a wooded hillside above Highgate Village formed the basis for Highgate Cemetery and the cemetery was opened for business on 20th May 1839, with its first burial (of Elizabeth Jackson) following only a few days later.

That Highgate Cemetery became such a fashionable place to spend eternity was largely thanks to the work of entrepreneur and architect Stephen Geary and James Johnstone Bunning who created Highgate’s distinctive Victorian Gothic architecture that appealed to the Victorians penchant for death.  The landscaping was completed by David Ramsay and gives the cemetery a naturalistic park-like feel.   It was a fashionable day out in its heyday.

Many famous people chose to invest in Highgate and also to be buried there: Julius  Beer the newspaper magnate built the magnificent mausoleum for his 8-year-old daughter Ada; other dead luminaries include Christina Rossetti the Victorian poet;  Elizabeth Siddal wife and muse of Dante Gabriel Rossetti the Pre-Raphaelite artist; Charles Cruft of dog-show fame; Michael Faraday, scientist.

Terrace Catacombs

Many families chose to purchase vaults or a place in the Terrace catacombs (made up of 55 family vaults, the catacombs could hold 825 people). In the 1830’s the going rate for a fair-sized plot was £3.  It costs a little more these days…

The Cemetery holds 170,000 people interred in 53,000 graves.  So popular (and profitable) was the cemetery that it had to be expanded and in 1856 the East Cemetery was opened.  The Karl Marx memorial is possibly the most notable monument in the East Cemetery – certainly the most controversial if the bomb attacks in the 1960’s are anything to go by.

Things didn’t go so well for Highgate Cemetery in the twentieth century – two wars and differing attitudes to death and burial saw the once meticulously maintained cemetery fall into disrepair and fall prey to vandalism and desecration.  In 1975 The Friends of Highgate Cemetery was founded  and to this day they have maintained and carried out extensive restoration of the monuments and graves.  They also conduct excellent tours in the West Cemetery – and this will form the basis of my next post.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_London#Population

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highgate_cemetery

http://www.highgate-cemetery.org/index.php/history

Starlight Castle

Tags

Gay Delevals, Holywell Dene, Northumberland, Seaton Deleval, Starlight Castle

In the County of Northumberland in the eighteenth century, there came to prominence an extraordinary family of eccentrics and entrepreneurs:  The Delaval’s of Delaval Hall.  The family’s history began with William The Conqueror and ended just shy of the Battle of Waterloo when the last remaining Delaval died in 1814.

Amongst their number was an accidental hero, industrial entrepreneurs and of course  a bevvy of pranksters, gamblers, theatrical types – the famous or infamous Gay Delaval’s of local lore.

Deep in the heart of Holywell Dene, not far from Delaval Hall, and situated on the hillside north of Seaton Burn, lies the remnant of what must be one of the eighteenth century’s most ambitious wagers: Starlight Castle which was built in 1750.

Legend has it that Sir Francis Delaval (1727 -1771) was planning to entertain a lady friend from out of the county.   Samuel Foote laid a wager: that he could not build a house for her to live in just a day.  It would have been unthinkable for any eighteenth century gentleman to turn down such a wager so Sir Francis set about planning the project and obtaining a team of builders.   Under the cover of starlight the builders began, finishing not just a house but a castle the following day.  Naturally Sir Francis won the bet – and perhaps he won the lady too…

The castle was lived in well into the nineteenth century, but now its lonely ruins remain hidden amongst overgrown woods and a tangle of brambles and briars.

Sources:

Green, Martin: “The Delavals A Family History”; Powdene 2010

Domesday Reloaded: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/domesday/dblock/GB-432000-576000/page/20

Postcard of Starlight Castle: http://www.seatondelavalhall.seatondelaval.org.uk/outside/assetts/info/starlight-castle-info.html