Fabric of Folklore
Folktales can be strange, mystical, macabre and intriguing. Join us as we explore the stories, culture and people behind the folklore. We go beyond retelling the legends, myths and fairy tales of old. We look at the story behind the lore, behind the songs and traditions to understand more about what they mean, and their importance. These stories, many originating as oral histories, inform us of what it means to be human; what it means to be an integral part of this Earth. Stories of magic and wonder bind us. They connect us through invisible strands, like the gossamer fibers of a spiders web. Folktales have the power to demonstrate how, although we live in drastically different locals, our hearts and minds beat as one human race. We are weaving the fabrics of our past and present stories, to help us better understand ourselves and to awaken us to a more compassionate and caring world community. As we explore the meaning of existence through folklore we hope to inspire future generations to lead with love and understanding.
Fabric of Folklore
The Medieval Harvest and Christmas Celebrations with Alli Templeton
Were the medieval times a dull era? In episode 66 Alli Templeton, a historian and author of the blog Medieval Wanderings, sets the record straight. She describes the period as colorfully vibrant and absolutely fascinating. Our discussion focuses on the traditions around the harvest, the importance of community and Christmas celebrations. We discuss the societal structure of the Middle Ages, including feudalism, the roles of women, and the significance of agricultural cycles. Allie describes medieval harvest traditions, festive celebrations, particularly focusing on Christmas customs and the adaptation of pagan practices by the Christian church. We also delve into the importance of storytelling, poetry and even give some example of medieval riddles seen in medieval entertainment.
www.medievalwanderings.com
Allie's Journey into Medieval History (11:12 - 23:45)
• Allie became interested in medieval history through a TV show about castles
• Discovered the colorful characters and fascinating stories of medieval times
• Pursued a history degree while caring for her autistic children
• Started a blog called Medieval Wanderings
• Walked the 'Iron Ring' of castles in North Wales as part of a castle quest
• The Middle Ages: Time Period and Society (23:45 - 35:26)
• Middle Ages generally accepted as 1000 years from mid-400s to 1485 in England
• Society organized in feudal system and three estates (fighters, prayers, workers)
• Discusses roles of women in medieval society
• Life revolved around agricultural cycle and religious calendar
Medieval Harvest and Traditions (35:26 - 45:19)
• Two main harvests: hay harvest in June and main harvest in August/September
• Describes harvest celebrations and customs
• Mentions the importance of fire in festivals and traditions
• Discusses how Christian church adapted pagan customs
Medieval Christmas and Celebrations (45:19 - 55:46)
• Advent period was a time of fasting and reflection
• Christmas celebration lasted 12 days, starting from Christmas Day
• Describes Christmas feasts and traditions in castles and noble homes
• Mentions the tradition of the boy bishop
Christmas Greenery and Traditions (55:46 - 01:04:31)
• Discusses the use of holly, ivy, and mistletoe in Christmas decorations
• Explains the pagan roots of these traditions and how the church adapted them
• Describes the 'kissing bow' tradition
Storytelling and Riddles in Medieval Times (01:04:31 - 01:13:02)
• Importance of storytelling and poetry in medieval entertainment
• Discusses the Exeter Book, a collection of Anglo-Saxon verse and riddles
• Shares examples of medieval riddles and their solutions
Medieval Customs in Modern Celebrations (01:13:03 - 01:20:21)
• Allie shares how she incorporates medieval traditions into her family's celebrations
• Discusses brewing mead, playing medieval games, and cooking medieval recipes
• Plans to cook a medieval feast for Christmas using authentic recipes
Future Projects and Conclusion (01:20:21 - 01:27:04)
• Briefly mentions Twelfth Night traditions and the origin of Christmas cake
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Fabric of Folklore website
Welcome, folksy folks. Welcome to Fabric of Folklore. I am your hostess, Vanessa Y. Rogers, and this is the podcast where we unravel the mysteries of folklore. Storytelling is an act that brings us together. We tell stories to guide us, to instruct us, to entertain us, to pass on information, but also to bind us as a group. Folklore goes beyond story, however, and also includes things like traditions. Last year, Melanie Kirkpatrick joined us to talk about the history of the American Thanksgiving. And one fact that surprised me was that Thanksgiving wasn't official until 1941, when Congress passed a resolution for all states to celebrate on the same day. But even more importantly, it wouldn't be a holiday at all if it weren't for Sarah Joseph Hale, who is considered by many to be the mother of Thanksgiving because she lobbied for the celebration for three decades, finally convincing Abraham Lincoln to proclaim Thanksgiving as a national holiday. It's important to understand how our celebrations came to because they involved the hearts and labor of individuals to give rise to a time in which we can celebrate with our family and friends today. So if that sounds like a podcast you want to continue to listen to, hit that subscribe button so you make sure to get notifications every week when our podcast drops, whether you're watching on YouTube or you're listening on your favorite podcasting platform. And if you are a subscriber, thank you so much. We really appreciate you. And if you would consider giving us a review, either with stars or with a written review, it helps the algorithm point our podcast to people who also might enjoy a podcast all about folklore like this one. We have a fantastic harvesty Thanksgiving episode for you today. Today we'll be talking with Allie Templeton about the medieval customs of the harvest through the Christmas period, including storytelling, riddle verse, and festivals. Allie Templeton is a medieval historian with a passion for all things medieval. She is the creator of the blog Medieval Wanderings and says that the medieval period is crammed with big personalities, vibrant colors, fascinating tales, and it's her mission to bring them all back to life. So thank you for joining us, Ali.
Alli:You're welcome. Nice to be here.
Vanessa:So let's start with how did you get interested in medieval history? How did you become the medieval historian?
Alli:Wow. Okay. Well, it was about 10 years ago and it happened like that with the TV program Very Strange. I was mother of a very young child who was showing signs of autism. And I was, I actually remember pottery. I'd always had an interest in history. My son was going to start school, like the year after, and it does Connect. So I was pottering around my kitchen and I saw a trailer for a TV show. It was three episode series called Castles. And I saw it. And now before, I have to admit right now, before, I had an interest in history, always certain periods, but I will admit now, I wasn't at all interested in the Middle Ages. I thought they were dull and boring. I had no idea, absolutely no idea at all. And I thought castles were boring, crumbled down, ruins. I couldn't have been more wrong if I tried. And I saw this trailer and I do. I remember where I was in my old house in my kitchen. And I remember looking at this trailer and thinking I might watch that. And I tuned in, just out of interest and I watched the first episode. By the end of the first episode, I was hooked. And I said to my husband, can we go to a castle? And then the second episode was all about Edward I and his invasion of Wales, North Wales, where we are now, and his castle building project, which the castles here in North Wales that they call the Iron Ring, which he built to subdue the Welsh in the 13th century. They are a World Heritage site now. So they're some of the best castles in the uk, if not the best castles in the uk. And by the end of the second episode, I was saying, can we go to Wales? I really want to go to Wales and see the castles. And it went on from there. I started reading books. I read books on castles, life in castles. But then I discover it went out from there. I discovered all the characters, the colorful characters that built the castles, that lived in them, that ran them, the staff. I remember reading stories in some of these books that I just couldn't believe. They were jaw dropping. And I would read them and I would say, you couldn't make this up. You could not. Who needs fiction when you've got stories like this? And it just went from there. And it went from castles to the land around it and to the people that worked on the land. It wasn't just it was the kings and nobility, but also just everyday life. I became fascinated with a day in the life in the Middle Ages of just ordinary people, or a normal day in the life of a castle when it wasn't at war. And everything I found was just in glorious Technicolor. It made the whole period come to life. And I hadn't realized how much the period had influenced our world today. It basically was a period of huge transformation and a lot of the institutions we have these days, the buildings, they were all underpinned by the Middle Ages. And so when my son went to start school, it became obvious that he was autistic as he got towards school age and he had to go to a special school. There wasn't any childcare, still isn't really for autistic kids. So I was very much tied to the school run. So I wasn't able to really realistically go back to work as I had thought I would. And so I decided, well, I've got this massive passion that I've discovered with the Middle Ages, so I'll do a history degree. So I did, and I did a history degree instead. And I've never looked back. I've just never looked back.
Vanessa:You know, to be fair, when you go to a castle without any understanding of what it was about, the people, it is kind of boring. It's just rocks and rubble.
Alli:Yeah, absolutely.
Vanessa:It's really the history that makes it interesting, right?
Alli:Very much so. Very much.
Vanessa:And before we got started, you started to tell me how you started the blog. Can you tell a little bit about that?
Alli:Yeah, well, I, I mentioned that, you know, my favorite or some of my favorite castles are what now constitutes the Iron Ring in North Wales. And they are a series of castles that Edward the First built after he'd invaded Wales in the 13th century to subdue the Welsh and bring them under his control. And that was in those days. You did that by building castles. And I, I can't remember how I had the idea. I think I was in a restaurant, I'd had a few glasses of wine and I suddenly said to my partner, I suddenly said to my husband, I'm gonna walk the Iron Ring. And he just sort of looked at me blankly. Right, okay. And I, it actually decided, it actually took form as a plan. And that was about 2017, 2018. And I actually did the castle quest, as I call it, in 2019 now. It involved walking from Chester just on the English Welsh border where Edward I actually left Chester to march his troops into Wales. And we followed that route walking all the way around North Wales and we stopped at all the castles and I reported on the castles, but I also reported on our adventures. You know, the walking adventures. I mean we're talking. It's 70 odd miles. And I also told in stages I do a post every day. And I started this blog just to follow the castle quest. And every day I was hosting, I did an episode of. It was a heck of a saga. It's a real good story. And I did the story of the invasion and how the castles came to be. And as I went all the way around, and it was the most fantastic two weeks, it really was. And I only did the blog for that. And then afterwards, I had a lot of contacts saying, don't stop. So I just carried on with the blog and I did a medieval quest. Later on in that year, I decided I'd do a quest to look into Mead and the history of Mead. And it just went on from there. And I. Many years on from 2019, but it's been good. It's been good fun.
Vanessa:So did y'all stay in, like, hotels or abbeys or. Where did you stay? Did you camp?
Alli:No, we didn't camp. Not a good idea with. Well, it's actually two autistic kids we've got, because my daughter is as well. She's older. It's different in girls, but even still. So, no, for the first week we stayed in hotels as went round. And then in the second week went. We returned to a cottage that we'd stayed in before, in not far from Carnarvon, because that was a bit further over, you see, that we could. We used taxis or what have you, to get to the points that we'd left off the previous day. And we just walked the whole of North Wales and it was wonderful. Got to know the place intimately, you know, when you do. When you walk it, you do. But it was. It was probably one of. One of the best holidays ever and I learned such a lot and I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was good fun and it was a challenge doing all the walking and then the posts in the evening as well. But it was. It was so worth it.
Vanessa:Did your kids have a hard time with the walking?
Alli:Well, at the time, my son, Nathan, he was. He was in a push chair, so most of the time he was in the push chair. Some of it that was a bit more tricky, I just did with my daughter. And my husband would pick us up at the end of the walk. And he loves castles, actually. He loves going to castles. So we do a walk sometimes. One day it would take. Because the castles were placed roughly about a day's march apart, so that if one of them came under siege, you could get a garrison quickly from another one of the castles to help out to defend the castle. So sometimes it would take a couple of days. Sometimes, you know, you do it in one day. But then we would have the next day just exploring that castle and he would. He. He loves it. He. I don't know why. But he thoroughly. And, and he's learned a lot as well. He can identify a fireplace which, you know, in a ruin is pretty good because it's a hole in the wall really, with the flu. Yeah, he can identify a. Well, he understands what the castle keep was. So, you know, we all learned a lot from that. So yeah, it was a bit of everything, but it works. It worked really well.
Vanessa:That's. That sounds so wonderful that I want to do that now.
Alli:It's good.
Vanessa:When were the Middle Ages and can you describe it for us? Paint a picture of what it looked like.
Alli:Okay, well, the Middle Ages, it's a bit of a movable feast, frankly. It depends where you are in the world. I mean, in different. The beginning and end of historical periods are usually marked with some sort of major change. Whether that be it might be political, economic, religious, or even a technological massive invention. Like, for instance, a lot of people in Germany would consider the end of the Middle Ages when Johannes Gutenberg brought his movable type and printing press out, because that was a massive technological revolution and that was sort of mid-1450s. In other areas they would look at the, perhaps the Reformation when that started in the early 1500s. But in, for my purposes, in England it's generally accepted that it's a period of about a thousand years. And that is from after the. The romans left in 410. Then the Saxons started coming over from the Germanic tribes started coming over due to the Angles. The Saxons to invade settle over here about the mid-400s. So about a thousand years from then on. And the end point certainly for me, and it is generally accepted in, in England that the Middle Ages came to the end on 22 August 1485. Precisely with the death. Yeah, exactly. I can pin it down to one day and that was the Battle of Bosworth when the last Plantagenet king, Richard iii, was tragically killed in the Battle of Bosworth and Henry vii, the first Tudor king, took his crown and wore it on the battlefield.
Vanessa:And so what's the period after a medieval times then? Like what comes next?
Alli:Yeah, that will be the early modern period, really. I mean archaeologists or it also varies with different disciplines because archaeologists tend to look at the end of the Middle ages in the 1540s with the dissolution of the monasteries that Henry VIII so kindly inflicted on us all. But I'm not a fan of the Tudors, I'm afraid, but that doesn't make sense to me or to most historians. It's a massive Change of political leadership, of kingship and a new dynasty. You know, Henry Tudor was the one that took over from Richard III and he spawned the Tudor dynasty. So for most historians it's 1485, 22nd of August.
Vanessa:And so what was life like? What, what did it look like for an average person? I guess there's no, basically two different classes, right? The peasants and then the aristocrats. Or were they called aristocrats?
Alli:Yeah, yeah, it was. If you think of the pyramid, it was what it was. Society was organized in what we would call the feudal system. If you think of a pyramid, very hierarchical. So you had the king at the top of the pyramid on his throne and then the next level down where his nobles, his major barons, his nobles, his family. And then below that you had the knightly classes. And below that, right at the bottom were the peasants, everybody else, but actually made up 90% of the population. But society was also organized in what we call the three estates. And the three estates were three types of people. And the first one was those who fight. And that would have been the knights, the nobles, the king who would defend the land and fight for the king's causes. And then you would have the second estate, those who pray. And that was the church, the clergy who were responsible for the spiritual well being of all the citizens and their afterlife. You would say masses for the dead to make sure they didn't have to spend too long in purgatory. And that was a big thing. And church again. In the Middle Ages, the church year, the religious year was central to life. It was punctuated by saints days and religious holidays and it revolved around that. And then the third estate was those who work. So that was basically everybody else. So you had the fighters, you had the prayers and you had everyone else. It's a bit of a simplistic thing because I mean, those who work would have incorporated, you know, you, not just your peasants who work there land, but you had your innkeepers, your traders, your merchants. So they were all those who work. But it was basically structured in a very hierarchical way. And within these three estates, I mean, if you were a woman in Middle Ages, you flew under the radar a little bit in that you. It was a very patriarchal society. So women were, well, downtrodden to an extent, but don't believe that they were totally slaves to men. They weren't. They, they did have some power. So. So for instance, if you had a, a wealthy merchant in a town who had a cloth making business for instance, and that he would have run it with his wife. And now if that merchant dropped dead, then his wife could take over and run the business with the support of her staff. So you could, there were power and also, you know, queens, nobles, wives. If you had a lord of a castle, for instance, who went off to battle or went away for some business, then the lady would run the castle again with the support, steward and her staff. But women did have power and they also had influence. It's amazing how much influence women did have, but it's not written an awful lot about, because the major decisions were made by the men. But they had wives who often would advise, chip in. And the husbands, well, a good husband would listen. I recently read a book as about the first daughters. And he had the 13th century king and he had five daughters and they, they would intervene on behalf of people working for them or their favorite friends. And he would listen to them and he would make decisions, you know, accordingly. So they, women did have power and they did have influence, but it was more beneath the radar and that women, also canny women knew how to navigate the system to get what they wanted. So you did, they did have agency and they did have some power and influence.
Vanessa:But that's good to hear.
Alli:Yeah, yeah. It was a patriarchal society though. There's no getting away from it. So it was good.
Vanessa:One of the things that you mentioned was that it, the life really revolved around the agricultural cycle as opposed today. Can you, can you talk to us a little bit more about that?
Alli:Yes, I mean, it did revolve around the agricultural cycle. I mean the growing of crops and farming, harvesting was, it was crucial to life in those days. You didn't have big supermarkets and you couldn't just go and buy something that you didn't have to hand. If, I mean, a bad harvest could mean the difference between life and starvation. So the agricultural year was, it was pivotal. It, it could influence all sorts of things. If the weather was, if the weather was bad, we have a mini ice age in the Middle Ages and that brought all sorts of problems. So, you know, take heed. Global warming and climate change is not always good, but yeah, it was a very important time. And the harvest, the agricultural year, it was very clearly set out. You started off with your harrowing, which was preparing the ground and then you had to sow the seed and the seed was evenly distributed over the ground. That was a skilled job. There were a lot of actually skilled jobs in the Middle Ages. And it was very important that everything was done at the right time. Because, I mean, for instance, if you were too late with your harvest, if you left it too late or you didn't get the work done on time, you know, the crops would be vulnerable to the rains and you'd face starvation. So it was really important that timing was kept to and that everybody did their job and people cooperated, communities all cooperated with each other. And that's one of the things I love about the Middle Ages, is that there was so much more community focus and pulling together. It's almost like, you know, World War II Blitz spirit only year round, all the time. And everybody came to get. Would come together for the common good.
Vanessa:Right. Because if, because if the harvest was not successful, everybody starved. So it was basically everyone help or everybody starves, right?
Alli:Yeah, pretty much, yeah. But they would have. And this is where, you know, the traditions would come in because at certain points of the agricultural year there would be big celebrations. We'll go into that later. But there would be points in the agricultural year where it would be marked perhaps beforehand with a ceremony or an occasion. For instance, that there were two harvests in the medieval year and the first one was in June and that was the hay harvest. And that was very important. The hay harvest was. Was very important. Cutting that grass, getting it into dry, because that was the hay that would feed the animals over the winter, sustain the breeding animals over the winter. So that was important to get in the haying was. The haying first harvest was preceded on the 24th of June by the feast of St. John the Baptist that had pagan roots. It was involved fire. Now fire is. Is very important right back through time immemorials into the dawn of time, you would. People would be sent out to collect bones and rubbish and they would build this massive bone fire and light it. And that was said to ward off evil spirits and dangerous dragons that were roaming around at that time. And you get boys going out into fields with brands and waving them around to ward off these pesky beasts. It was a big celebration. They would light also because we're talking, well, end of June, so it's summer solstice time. They would light a great big cartwheel on fire and roll it down the hill. And that would symbolize the sun having reached the top of its apex in the sky. And then it was starting to go downhill now towards the winter months. And that would symbolize that it was also considered good luck to jump over the fire, which I Wouldn't try. Don't try this at home. It was. It was supposed to be. Presumably, if you got out the other side alive, it was good luck. So I wouldn't recommend that at all. The fire has ties to much older traditions. There were a lot of fire festivals. I mean, if you go to May, you have Beltane, the Celtic festival of fire. And it had practical functions. It would keep you warm, it would give you light and you could cook over it and it offered you a degree of protection, say, because, well, if you're all huddled around the fire, you're not likely to get attacked by wild animals so much. So it was seen as. It was also spiritually, it was seen as a bridge between the living and the world of the gods, or the world of the fairies, the other world. It was seen as a bridge between worlds. And it was also seen as a symbol of renewal. I mean, the sun is a big ball of fire in the sky and fire was seen as a symbol of renewal. Like when the sun comes back, we get the growing season. But also, I mean, if you think of the phoenix, of course, the phoenix was a mythical bird that lived for 600 years and then it built its own funeral pyre, jumped on it and then arose again. It was reborn from the ashes. And that's what. That's a fire myth as well. So fire and very linked with sun worship and fire is a big part of folk festivals and celebrations. When the Christian church came in, they looked at it as. Instead of this pagan belief of sun worship, they looked at it as representing the light of Christ banishing the darkness. So a lot. This is where we get the Christian festivals overlapping or being overlaid. Yeah.
Vanessa:How did John the Baptist get attached to that?
Alli:Well, it's. It's all part of the. When. When the Christian church came over in the 6th century, of course, all these missionaries were sent out to convert as many people as you as they could. Most people. People were. Were pagan in those days still. And so to make the new religion attractive to the big, the wider populace, they had to think about how they could impose, still allow them to have their festivals, their celebrations, but they Christianized them instead. And so you get the Midwinter Revels, which were very pagan. You get the Midwinter Rebels, of course, they put Christmas on top of it. So it became a Mass for Christ instead of the pagan. You will like. Yeah, that's what it originated as. But Midwinter festivals were usually a celebration of the return of the sun in anticipation of the growing season and to Cheer everybody up in the darkest months. So they put Christmas over that. And I mean, another one would be imlock, which was 1st of February, the beginning of February. Imlock actually it was the pagan festival and it actually means in the belly. So it means basically the world is pregnant with spring coming. It's, it's coming. It's, it's. Yeah, it's on its way. And the Christian Church imposed candle mass on that instead. And they, that involved light and fire. They brought light and fire into that as well. And candle mass was when a load of candles were blessed and taken in a procession through the mass in anticipation of spring. But, you know, that's what, how they won Everybody over. And St. John the Baptist was another one of those. It would have been, you know, a folk celebration of the beginning of the first harvest. But all the, they didn't like all the symbolism of fire and sun worship and all this. So they thought, well, look, we'll Christianize it if we give it a saint, then, then it's more palatable. They can still carry on celebrating, but we'll celebrate a Christian instead.
Vanessa:Very smart.
Alli:Yeah, but the thing with the. Yeah, but the thing with the folk festivals now, the best thing is that they suppressed whatever they could, whatever customs they could. Or as I say, they overlaid them with Christian ones. But some of them, they couldn't. Some, some of the customs were so deeply entrenched in the pagan way of life that they wouldn't, the pagan people, the ordinary people, wouldn't let go of them. And so the Christian church either ignored them. Well, mostly they ignored them. They tried to dissuade people and they did sort of fade eventually. But a lot of those hung on in the form of superstitions and customs and folk festivals. And it became, these parts became. That they wouldn't let go of. They became folk fun, basically. And they, yeah, they became, they got absorbed morbed into the everyday people and they were still trotted out at all the different celebrations. So we, our customs and traditions are a real mix mash of ancient things like fire and light, celebrating the light. We've got all kinds of things which we'll get onto. But they hung on and kept their roots in all the festivals that were Christianized. So it's a mixed mash of both.
Vanessa:Yeah, and so the, you were describing the festival of St. John the Baptist, but then there's another harvest period. What was that one?
Alli:Yeah, well, that was the main harvest. Yeah, the hay harvest was. Was the. More to the bit, the earlier part of summer, but the main harvest was what really mattered. It started off, it was August and September was the main harvest and it started off with Lammas Day and Lammas day was the 1st of August. Lammas comes from the Saxon for loaf mass, and it was a festival of the first fruits of the harvest. A loaf would be baked from the first grain cut and it would be taken into church and blessed. But it's funny how it's hung onto the Saxon name, but it's also. And this is where the two merge. It's also. It comes. The name also comes from the Celtic God Lou, because in Irish, in the Irish language, Lunasa is August. And the God Lou represented the sun and light. And they would have this lamas day to represent the first. The first grain cut and they would make the loaf of the season. And then after that, it was. It was the first fruits and celebrating the promise of spring coming to fruition. But then the hard work all began. The day after that, they were all off to do the harvest. And as I said, this was a crucial time. Everybody, it was all hands to the pump. It was a very important time. You would have. Men, women and children were all involved in cutting the corn. The men and sometimes the women would use sickles and scythes to cut. There was oats, barley, corn, the wheat. It all had to be taken in. And you'd even have children gathering fruits and, you know, feeding chickens, doing jobs that the adults would normally do and even looking after younger children. Everybody had their part to play. And you'd work from dawn to dusk. You'd have a short break in the middle. It was backbreaking work. It was very heavy manual labour. And also the Lord would conscript laborers on his land to farm his own harvest, to gather his own harvest in. So there was not only the peasants gathering their own crops in, they had to work, spend a certain amount of time on working on the Lord's harvest as well. And it all had to be gathered up, collected into sheaves and taken into the barn for processing, threshing and drying out. So a massive amount of work on. On throughout August and September. But towards. Towards the end of the harvest, right at the end, they started to relax a little bit and, you know, when it got to the last bit of the last field, they might relax and start having a bit of fun. The last stand of corn might be cut by a nominated young lady, or they might put it together in the sheaf and. And the men would throw their sickles at it until it fell over and whoever knocked it over won. Or they might have a race to see who could finish their line first. So things started to relax a bit towards the end of the harvest.
Vanessa:I remember hearing something along the lines of that the summer that school children get is because of the harvest period or because children were needed for farming purposes. Is that. Is that correct or does that line up with what you know?
Alli:Well, yes, I suspect it would to an extent. Bearing in mind they weren't, you know, the vast majority of the people in. I said 90% were classed in the work lower orders of society and vast majority of people in the Middle Ages lived in the countryside and worked in agriculture. And there weren't the schools there. There were some monastic schools, there were a couple of schools in town, but it cost a lot of money, so most kids were partly educated at home, but they. Because you were expected to stay within your status, within your level of status. So if you were a peasant, your children would be peasants as well, and most of your education would be bringing up the children to carry on your work, so you would learn the skills that you would need in future life as a peasant farmer. So there weren't really the schools. So I think, I suppose that a part of that education would have been taking part in the harvest because they were going to have to take it over eventually anyway. But I suppose you could see a link with. With harvesting because, I mean, let's face it, August, which is it the same over there? Because here it's August is the holidays, this is the school holidays. So I suppose maybe later on in history when there were more schools, you know, perhaps that was. That was the case. But it would. It would certainly add up, wouldn't it? Yeah, it would certainly make sense. But then one of the things I.
Vanessa:Read when we on your blog was that they had a. Sometimes they would have a harvest doll. Can you. Oh, yeah.
Alli:Yeah, no, that's right. Yeah, they did. Again, this was. This was breathe a sigh of relief because the harvest was done, it was finished at last. And the. There was. The last sheaf of corn was decorated like a harvest doll and it was carried into the church with great ceremony and lots of singing and merriment. It was drenched in water and then it was kept to replant into the soil for next year to bring good luck, to symbolize and to encourage good luck in the next year's harvest. But yeah, that actually was the forerunner of our corn dollies. Do you. Have you heard of corn dollies? Do you? I don't know whether you have them over there.
Vanessa:Oh, I don't think. I mean, not today. But I remember going to look at those villages, you know, historical villages, and they showed you how to make. I guess it was the material that comes off of the corn, the outside. The shoe.
Alli:You weave it?
Vanessa:Yeah.
Alli:You weave it together. Yes. Yeah. Well, I remember going to a craft fair many years ago when my daughter was little, and we met a lady there who was weaving corn dollies. And it's very sad because she told us she was the last one in the region, last person in the region who made corn dollies. And they're these little. Usually little things, but they are kept. If you find them these days, they are kept as a symbol of good luck. And that ties into that harvest doll. But that doll would be plowed back into the soil to bring luck for the next harvest. So it does link to the corner. It's a shame that we've lost. We've lost so many of these customs, and I do think it's really sad. But, yeah, that it was. It was very symbolic of good luck. And, you know, they. We've got one somewhere that I think we picked up from. From probably that craft fair, actually. But. But that was the beginning of the. The relaxation part, because the hard work had been done and the harvest home.
Vanessa:Is that what it was?
Alli:Yeah, the harvest home. That's right. The harvest home was a massive party held by the Lord for all his tenants on his land. And it marked the end of the harvest and everybody could kick back and relax. No more hard work. Well, at least not. Not on that scale for a while. And there was. The hall was decorated, there was feasting, the ale flow. There was singing, shouting, lots of revelry, lots of bawdy behavior. You could just basically kick back and relax. And sometimes a nominated peasant from the lord's land would be. Or a group of them would be summoned to sing the harvest home, to welcome in the harvest at the beginning of the party. And that, you know, that marked the end of the agricultural year. So the next was back to the harrowing again, which was when you were preparing the ground floor, but he was doing some backbreaking work. But this is the thing. One of the things I love about the Middle Ages is that people worked hard. They worked really hard. They worked together, but they played hard as well, and they played together hard. So it was a time, in some ways, it was a time in which extremes. But I think in a good way, really, we've lost something in that. I think we've. We've lost something along the way of that communal activity and that pulling together for the greater good.
Vanessa:Yeah, that reminds me of. We don't have Amish in our area, but I remember I lived in Ohio for a little while and learned that the Amish come together anytime anyone needs a barn built. And so from all over the area, all the families will come together and they'll build the barn together as a community. And it's a very gratifying thing. And you don't even. I mean, instead of, like, having to beg people or pay someone, all these people come and give their time because they know when it's your time that you need something, that they will all come and help you build it as well. I really liked that tradition, and I agree. I think that we've lost that because were kind of all in our own spaces. And we do have gatherings, we do have fall festivals, but it's not the same gratification. Right. Because we haven't put in that hard work. Someone else, you know, we're just going to take some pictures with some pumpkins, right?
Alli:That's right. Yeah, it is. I mean, over here, what you see, the whole Harvey. The whole harvest thing, you know, most people don't have anything to do with it these days.
Vanessa:You just.
Alli:You drive past fields and you've got massive mechanized combine harvesters going up and down, and you don't see the people. It's. It's, you know, one person driving a huge machine. Where's the community? It's a shame. Where's. Where's the communal. So I know it was hard work, but like, I. I can't help thinking that we've lost something as well. I mean, we have. We have harvest festivals, but usually that's something in a village hall or a church. And yeah, you. You do come together in a way, but it's on a much smaller scale. It's just not the thing it used to be.
Vanessa:But now, are there anyone. Is there anyone who's trying to keep the harvest Home festival alive? Is. Are there any sort of remnants happening in. In your area that resemble it at all?
Alli:I wish I could say yes, but I can't. I can't. I honestly can't think of any. I mean, as I say that, I think, you know, the main thing these days would be. Would be just the harvest festival in the local church or village. Some places, actually. Yeah, some places have a Harvest supper. And actually where I, before I had my daughter, I did live in a little village in Northamptonshire and they would have a harvest supper at this time of year where the village would come together and be divided into groups and then each. That they would be nominated catering houses if you like. And each group would go to one member's house who had done a starter and then you'd, you go to the next person's house who had done the main course and then everybody in that group would meet up with all the other groups in the vicar's house perhaps who had done pudding. And that was probably the only real example apart from the religious harvest services that I can actually think of. I'd forgotten about that. So I'm glad you remember. That was good. I enjoyed those. But, but no, I mean that I honestly can't think. We don't wheel cartwheels on fire down hills anymore.
Vanessa:I would imagine after that see like an entire village burning down from.
Alli:Yeah, that might be. Yeah, that might be a good thing. Yeah. Jumping through. I mean even all the way back to the Celtic times, pre Roman, they would light bonfires on hills and again it was considered good luck to jump through the fire. I can't imagine how many people live to tell the tale. But you, if you drove your cattle your through the fire but not through the, but between the fires. That was supposed to cleanse them of any impurities and ensure their health for the coming year. So we. No, I honestly can't think of anything like that anymore really. I wish I could, but the nearest I could get is the festivals in churches and what we used to do back in Northamptonshire. So I mean some villages have traditions but it's a shame. It's about perhaps the safer ones maybe the parties or the harvest dolls. Maybe it would be nice if more people learned to do corn dollies, for instance, at the harvest time of year. And you know, maybe we could have a bit more of a tradition with those to ensure good luck for the year to come. That would be nice. But.
Vanessa:Yeah.
Alli:Yeah.
Vanessa:Okay. So that ended in September. And then what happens between then and Christmas?
Alli:Well then you start your, you do sow your winter crops so the, basically the whole cycle starts again, but then we're getting towards the darker months so things start to close down a little more. But, and right at the end of the year there's very little agricultural work to be done and that's when you get the beginning of the Christmas thoughts turned towards Christmas. It Started with Advent, which started the first Sunday after St Andrew's Day, which was the 27th of November. So the first Sunday after that were going to have them. And again, it's very different from today in that Christmas nowadays is. Well, it's. It's a retail festival, really, isn't it? A lot of the time. And I do find that quite sad because basically, at the beginning of Advent every, or even before, I mean, I don't know about you, but we get Christmas adverts on the telly at Halloween. Yeah.
Vanessa:So we have Thanksgiving in between Halloween and Christmas, and so there is a little bit of that. So, like, some people try and focus on Thanksgiving, but some people, directly after Halloween, we'll start putting out Christmas decorations just to elongate the celebration too early.
Alli:I tend to resist it for as long as I possibly can. I mean, I'm having to start thinking about it now because. Well, because there's so much to do. Yes, but the Christmas adverts have been around for ages. But Advent, of course, we all have chocolate Advent calendars now and basically you get into December and everybody, all the parties start, don't they? You've got all the massive Christmas decorations, you've got all the feasts, everybody's eating mince pies. But in the Middle Ages, it was the opposite. In the Middle Ages, Advent was a time of fasting, quiet, reflection, contemplation, penance, because Advent or Adventus in Latin was, means the coming or the arrival. So they were preparing themselves for the arrival of Christ. So Advent was. Was a period of fasting. It was the opposite. You closed down. You didn't. You. You didn't do any of the party that was reserved for the feast of Christmas. And, and in Advent, you. You had three days a week when you had to fast. Wednesdays, Saturday. No, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays were what was called ember days. And you weren't allowed to eat meat, you weren't supposed to have dairy. You had one meal a day and that was either fish or vegetables. You weren't allowed conjugal rites. All that was off the menu because that was considered inappropriate. So there weren't any weddings. There were never any weddings in Advent for that reason, because usually a wedding is consummated, but that wasn't allowed. So we all had to behave. Because also they regard the Christian church introduced the idea of the Second Coming. And so in some ways you were preparing for the anniversary of Christ's arrival, and in other ways you were preparing for Christ coming Back to sit in judgment of the world's sins. So you have to be good. Hey, maybe that's where the naughty and nice list comes from.
Vanessa:Oh, yeah. Yes. So when is this period? When is this period of quiet reflection?
Alli:Yeah, well, this was this. It was the first Sunday after the 27th of November up until Christmas Eve. Right. Up till Christmas Eve. So the whole. Anytime you're opening an Advent calendar door, it would be the period of Advent, basically.
Vanessa:Okay, okay.
Alli:So. So that long. The only tradition, the only exception was the boy bishops. Have you heard of boy bishops before? Okay. Well, the ceremony of the boy bishop that. That happened on the 6th of December, which is St. Nicholas's Day. St. Nicholas's the patron saint of children. And a young boy was selected by his. From a chorister, was selected by his fellow choristers and an entourage to accompany this boy. And he became a bishop for the period until the Feast of the Holy Innocents. And that was the 28th of December. And he would preside over the liturgy, he would sit in the adult seats. And it buys into this idea of role reversal. And there's a lot of role reversal, and that comes from a pagan tradition. So the children became the adults in that. That scenario. And he would be dressed in full episcopal garb and he would give blessings. He wasn't actually allowed to perform the Mass. That was a step too far. But he would fulfill this role all the way through until the Feast of the Holy Innocents, which was when, you know, when Herod slayed all the young children to try and rid himself of the newborn Jesus. And that was the only exception to the rule of Advent and this reflecting and quiet living.
Vanessa:So that part is connected to Saturnalia, is that right?
Alli:It is connected to Saturnalia, yes. You're absolutely right. The, A lot of the traditions can be traced back to Saturnalia. The, the. Right. That was the Roman Midwinter festival. It was, it started off, I think it was the 17th of December was a celebration of the God Saturn, who was the God of farming and the harvest. And he was celebrated on 17th December. It started off as day and it extended to a week as the period went on. Because it's amazing how people take advantage of this and extend the holiday period.
Vanessa:Yes.
Alli:There was a joyous carnival like atmosphere in the streets. I mean, there was gift giving, there was singing, merriment, drinking. They had games, they lit wax tapers like candles. There was storytelling. This is Rome. Yeah. And, and then they Even wore silly hats, pointed cone shaped hats called pileus, which, so and there was a very much a subversion of the social order and this is where it comes from where the slaves were invited to dine with their masters and sometimes the masters would serve the slaves. And it was this inversion of the social norms that seems to crop up again and again. And it really took root and that surfaces in lots of the celebrations including the Twelfth Night ones. But we haven't got there yet.
Vanessa:Okay, so let's get there because. So there's a Twelfth Night bread. And is that on Christmas Eve? Is that when the Twelfth Night starts or tell us about what comes after the Advent.
Alli:Well, sure. Well that thing took us up to basically to Christmas Eve. But the good thing, it sounds really hard and it sounds, you know, people today would think oh, I couldn't do that and how awful. I couldn't miss out on all that fun. But when you think about it sounds hard but if you were fasting for a stop, the meat would go further. So if you had fast days, the meat in leaner times in the middle of winter it would go further and also if you were more restrained then that opened the door for a really full on Christmas. And they had two weeks off at Christmas. They had the full fortnight off. But we don't. The trouble is what we do now is we have all our celebrations all the way through Advent or from Halloween or wherever and by the time Christmas comes, we're almost Christmasing out. We'd almost had enough of it. So we tend to have Christmas Day and Boxing Day and that's it. Everything comes down. Whereas in the Middle Ages it was all gearing up towards the Christmas festival and it started on Christmas Day and you had the full two weeks off. Everybody did had the full two weeks off. There was very little agricultural work to do. So this was a time where everybody could let their hair down and relax and it's again, it's a shame that we don't have that now. But everybody's back to work, aren't they? Usually the day after Boxing Day. But yeah, so it opened the door for a full proper Christmas festival. And you had your big Christmas feast on Christmas Day and there were immense celebrations because Christmas and Easter were the two biggest celebrations in the Christian year. But now would you celebrate.
Vanessa:Go ahead.
Alli:No, sure, go ahead, yeah.
Vanessa:Would you celebrate with your family or would you go to the Lord's Hall. Or how. Where would those festivals happen? Or where would those feasts happen?
Alli:Yeah, well, the. The lord was obliged to give his tenants Christmas dinner. Sometimes you have to take your own plate and your own knife. Didn't have forks, but they might have to take their own knife. They might have to take some bread. But the lord provided a meal for them. Yeah, so there was a bit of that. There was. The whole of the castle staff would come together and celebrate. There would be. And obviously the family. There'd be a massive Christmas feast they had. Because they didn't have turkey that didn't come along till much late later. The goose was the dish of the day and there'd be this massive procession in. Imagine a castle decked out with all the greenery, beautifully decorated. And the feast would be brought in, headed up by a boar's head on a platter, which actually came from a Viking tradition. And they used to sacrifice balls at Christmas. Christmas. And it was all part of their Viking celebrations. But that hung on. And the boar's head was brought in at the start of the celebrations. And they'd have that and they'd have goose and they'd have all sorts of things. They'd have cheeses, nuts, all sorts of dishes, exotic fruits, oranges and figs and. And they'd have pastries and they'd have several different courses. And the sweet was mixed in with the savory. They didn't really distinguish sweet and savory. So you'd have a load of dishes brought out and there would be a bit of everything in it, and then that would be taken away and another load of dishes would be brought in. So huge feast. And in between them, you'd have the ultramore. Or. Or if you were really wealthy, a subtlety. But the entrepreneur were little nibbles to entertain your guests, and they were either gilded, covered in sugar, little nibbles to try. Or if you were really wealthy, you'd have a subtlety brought in. And a subtlety was basically, it's food as theatre, it's a sugar sculpture. And it would be in the shape of a ship or animal or some scenic display, perhaps, gilded. And that would be there to impress your. Your guests. So are they really pushing Barrel Boat out for the Christmas celebrations? But the. Sorry, yeah, carry on.
Vanessa:I was just gonna ask. There was something about the Twelfth Night bread or. Are we not there yet? Is that later?
Alli:Yes, sorry. Yes, yes, that's right. The Twelfth Night was the end of the Christmas season.
Vanessa:Oh, see, I don't Know what all of these are, because I. I don't. I. Why don't you celebrate them anymore? But.
Alli:Yeah, of course. No, absolutely. Why would you? Yeah. No. Christmas went on for the traditional 12 days. Brilliant. This is what I wish we had now. But as I said, we're all Christmases out by Christmas Eve in this country, and probably there as well. But for the 12 days, you'd have, you know, you deck the halls. The Christmas greenery was brought in, and that was a big part of Christmas, the bringing in of the greenery. You'd have holly, you'd have evergreens, holly. And holly was. It was all pagan. Christmas greenery was all pagan. But what. The church sort of accepted it in. They had to accept it because this is one of the things the pagans wouldn't let go of. So they accepted holly, and holly became the. The crown of thorns on Christ's head. So. And. And they said that the holly was the wood that the cross had been built from. So holly was allowed into churches. All right, we'll take that. Ivy, on the other hand, holly was considered very male. Ivy was female. It would because ivy had to cling on to something to grow, and it was weak. It was a symbol of weakness because they climb up trees for support and up the side of buildings, so that was female and weak. So that had to stay outside. So that was just left to the peasants. The peasants would still take it into their house, but the church didn't like that. And they also. They tolerate it, but only outside the church. But the worst thing was mistletoe. Yeah, mistletoe. Mistletoe was the hardest to take into Christian tradition, and they just didn't buy it. It was too pagan. There was too much flirtation around it. There was too. Too many myths. Druids revered it, for a start, so they didn't like that. And now the God Boulder was killed. The Norse God Boulder was killed by an arrow made from mistletoe. And his mother, Frigg wept so much that her. Apparently her tears became the berries on the mistletoe. And she stood under this tree where the mistletoe was growing, and she kissed everybody who passed in peace. And she asked that people just meet under this mistletoe and kiss in peace and remain friends. So that's where that came from. The church didn't like that. In the end. In the end, somebody came up with an idea, trying to get the church to accept it. Someone came up with the idea that it wasn't holly. That the cross was made from, but mistletoe. There was a tree once called mistletoe, and they built the cross from this mistletoe. And the mistletoe plant had been so ashamed to be associated with. With the death of Christ that it shriveled and cut itself off from the earth. Of course, it's a parasite. And it turned into a parasite because the mistletoe obviously doesn't. It grows on trees and it doesn't touch the ground. So it cut itself off from the ground and it just ended up a wizened little parasite growing in trees because it was so ashamed. But it didn't catch on. That didn't catch on. So mistletoe never made it. But again, it got. It got incorporated into homes and castles in the form of the kissing bow. The kissing bow was greenery. It was a beautiful spherical wooden shape all decorated with greenery, with mistletoe under. Underneath it. And the kissing bow was hung up in the halls and as part of the celebration. So it was domestic but not religious. The mistletoe.
Vanessa:This is also great. Okay. And then during this time, they did storytelling and riddle verse, which I would love for you. We're starting to run a little bit long, so.
Alli:Yeah, sure.
Vanessa:One of your favorite riddles, and we'll tell the answer at the end. But this was a common thing that they did, right?
Alli:Yeah, it was. We're going back in time now. Fast reverse to the Anglo Saxon era and imagine coming into a mead hall. Imagine coming into the. One of the palaces of one of the Saxon kings, say Edwin from Northumbria, and his wonderful palace of Ying. They were all wood constructed, but they were brightly colored, decorated, wonderful big fire in the middle. Of course, there was no telly or anything other entertainment center. They made their own. And medieval people loved stories, folk stories, even at court, you know, you had the stories of King Arthur, you had courtly romances. So folk stories caught on everywhere. But again, earlier, you had the epic poems like Beowulf, who vanquished the monster. That was terrifying the people of Eret in their wonderful mead hall. This was written down about 10, about a thousand A.D. And there is. The other thing they loved was a riddle. They loved poetry. It was all handed down in the oral tradition. It was all. You'd have someone reciting this great epic poem of Beowulf, or you'd have a captive audience sitting there. Imagine all the flames and the candles going and the feast in the background. And what a way to round off an evening, but with a cracking good story. And the other thing they loved, as I said, was riddles. Now, there is a book in Exeter Cathedral, a manuscript called the Exeter Book, and it's the oldest, largest and best preserved anthology. It's the only really real thing of its kind of Anglo Saxon verse. They loved poems, they loved elegies, sad stories of wandering, dispossessed knights who lost all their people through conquest. And their lord had been slaughtered and he's looking for another knight and he's grieving. And so there was a lot of that. But there were also these riddles, and they were great fun. Anglo Saxon people loved riddles. So I have a few here. Shall I read you one? Yes, we'll have to figure out. Well, the riddles were basically little short verses which I've got translated into English. And they would all describe an object or something from nature or animal or a weather phenomena. And the riddles would be written as a person. You would. It would be anthropomorphized. So you'd have a voice, a person's voice. You'd imagine it to be a thing that was talking to you, and this inanimate object was talking to you about what it was and what it saw and life from its perspective. And you had to work out what the riddle was. So if we look at one, I can read to you, right? How about this one? Riddle 11. There were 95 of these riddles preserved in the Exeter Book, and they're just good fun. We have one here. Riddle 11. My coat is dark, My dress bright red and gleaming. In my garments I fool the foolish and urge the silly on unwise journeys. Others I steer on a useful path. I know not why they thus maddened, mind stolen, deep perverse, should praise my crooked ways to all. Woe to them in their acts when they bring their precious boards on high, if they from folly have not yet refrained. So basically, what we're looking at there is. You're looking at something that makes people do dark things. And perhaps in moderation can be wise. But as this object or this thing, you might think, well, why do you keep coming back again and again when it makes you do darkness things? So there's somewhere in. In the rhymes will be a telling line, and that will tell you what it is. So that's one. Do you want another one?
Vanessa:We give them. Shall we give them the answer? Or you want to wait till the end so they can think about it?
Alli:It's up to you. You say, what do you think?
Vanessa:Let's go ahead and give them the answer. Right.
Alli:Now you want to give them the answer. Okay, well, the answer is wine. Because when you think about it, I fool the foolage and urge the silly on unwise journeys. So, yes, basically you get drunk and do daft things which relate to. Some things never change over time.
Vanessa:Exactly. All right, yeah, let's do one more.
Alli:Do one more. Okay. Right, well, I have. Here, let me see. Okay, this is a good one. This is a good one. Listen for the telling phrases because they'll be outside. I'm gonna put my glasses on for this. I can't see. There we are. Right, that's better. Sorry. Okay. Riddle five. This is riddle five. I am an exile. Iron wounded, bade blade battered, Battle sated sword weary war I see often fight foes I fear. No comfort or help comes for me in cruel strife before I am wrecked among warriors. But hammered blades hack me Hard edged h hand work of smith strike me in strongholds I must say for a crueller clash. No cure was ever found by folk in their fields which could heal my wounds with herbs. But day and night, through deadly blows, the sword's wounds widened my flesh. So we have here something presumably that is used in battle.
Vanessa:What throws me off on this one is I'm an exile because a lot of.
Alli:Yeah.
Vanessa:There are very telling lines in it, but the I am an exile kind of through me. Do you know what that was about?
Alli:That I did find hard to fit into it. But I suppose a push. You could say that. Yeah, I suppose you could say that. Once they've run the course of their usefulness, they're discarded. Maybe that's. That's the only thing I can think. But the clues are sort of iron wounded, blade battered. It's obviously not organic because herbs can't heal my wounds. And basically the more I'm in battle, the more I get hurt, the more, the wider my wounds get. So hammered blades hack me. That's the sort of thing that. They're the real clues.
Vanessa:Yes. And should we go ahead and give the answer? I like this one too.
Alli:Yeah. The answer is a shield. So put the shield up. It's been battered and bruised in battle, and I suppose once it was damaged to a certain degree, it was probably useless. So it would have been thrown away because shields weren't.
Vanessa:It would have to be smelted. Right. Or could it be, like remade?
Alli:Not really, because shields were actually wood. They weren't. They weren't metal. So the clang, clang that you see in so many. You see in so Many films. That's. That's not right. No, they were. They were actually largely wood, mostly pieces of. Of wood with leather on them or some. Some of them were coated with leather. They were painted, of course, with. With heraldry as well. So, yeah, they. I mean, once they were pretty strong, very strongly made, but once they've been damaged beyond a certain degree, and this one does certainly sound as though it was. Had to have been exiled. I suppose it would have had to have been replaced.
Vanessa:Oh, that makes more sense to me now because I just imagine like, you know, reforming it out of metal, but I guess that would not be really possible with a wooden.
Alli:That's right. Swords. Yes. Swords could be reformed and polished and made good, but shields less so. So that's probably where that comes from.
Vanessa:Now, since you've done a lot of research on this time period, have you taken up any traditions yourself from these medieval customs and their traditions and beliefs? What are you incorporated?
Alli:I do, yes. I. We try to bring some of the medieval into our Christmas every year and we bring in the Christmas greenery, we go out to the woods, we cut greenery down and we bring that in. So that's one of the things that we do. Fresh greenery. And what else do we do? I've brewed my own meadow as well, which was good fun. Yes, I did a medieval quest. Well, mead was a huge drink and it's actually making a bit of a comeback these days. I did a medieval quest after I did the castle quest and I looked into the history of mead and that was absolutely fascinating as well. It really was. And part of that quest was we decided to brew our own mead. We decided to give it a go and it's really good and we. We drink some of that every year. So bring that in. What else do we do? Storytelling. Storytelling around the fire. There are medieval ghost stories, so. And I know ghost stories are a tradition anyway, so we do that too now. We. Some of the games that we played, they played a lot of games in the Middle Ages. They had a board game called Nine Men's Morris. It was a strategy game and you had to. Had to win over your appointment with rows of three. And you had to take your. It is a bit. Some ways, like Chesters, you. You had to take your opponent's pieces. We've got a copy of that. We do that. We have. We have tried a. Well, a very small yule log, but when you were supposed to keep a yule log burning throughout the entire Christmas season. But our Fireplace isn't big enough for that. At least it shouldn't. If your log went out, you were in trouble. So we try and. Well, maybe not. We probably in trouble, but it was. It was a nice try. But this year, we are actually doing our Christmas dinner. We do medieval cooking. And this year we've decided our Christmas dinner is going to be based on medieval recipes. And instead of doing the traditional. Well, it's never traditional frost because we're vegetarian anyway. But instead of doing the roast. Roast dinner with a vegetarian equivalent, we're actually going out in the garden. We will light my fire pit, and we have a big tripod and a cauldron, and we're going to cook up a medieval feast. And we're going to do some dishes from the Middle Ages, so there won't be a potato in sight, because they didn't have potatoes in those days. But there are some fabulous dishes that we're going to do. One's called egadoose, which is a medieval sweet and sour, Interestingly, a lot of that. There were these recipes around, although, unfortunately, medieval recipes tended to miss out either the sweet or the sour. But a couple of them actually did integrate them both. That is absolutely delicious. So I'm going to do that. Mixes of spices. There's one that is called capon in orange sauce, and that uses all the spices, dried fruit. So it's a. It's very Christmassy ingredients. And oranges make this lovely rich sauce. Very rich sauces. Don't let anyone tell you the Middle Ages were dull because even the food was colorful. Beautiful, rich sauces and lovely flavors. And we use. We use. I don't know whether you have corn over there, but it's a. It's. It's a very good meat substitute that passes pretty well for chicken. So we. We use that instead of the capon, which was a. Which was a type of bird chicken. But we are going to cook a medieval feast for Christmas, and we're going to have. Wow. Yeah, they had lasagna, so we're going to have that as well. The Normans brought sort of macaroni, cheese and lozenge, as they called it, which was like lasagna. It was pasta, but they didn't have tomatoes, but they did pasta layered up with butter and cheese, and they had a little stock and baked in the oven. And that. That was. The Normans brought those. That over. So we're gonna have a really nice medieval feast. So we do something medieval every year. We do. It's a family tradition, though, unfortunately. It's not, you know, it's not the wider tradition.
Vanessa:Yeah. And now will you be documenting this on your. On your blog? On the Medieval Wandering blog?
Alli:I thought of that. I might do.
Vanessa:I bet people would be interested in those recipes.
Alli:Yeah, I do. I do a Christmas post of some sort every year. So, yeah, I will do. Looking at one of the. One of the traditions in the Middle Ages. So, yeah, I will be.
Vanessa:You should take a picture of your children trying all these dishes for the first time.
Alli:Yeah, that's right.
Vanessa:Yes.
Alli:Yeah. Now, whether we'll actually make it for the full 12 days. It would be nice.
Vanessa:Yeah, yeah. So you have some exciting projects that are coming up that you are starting. You're starting a YouTube channel called Hikes Into History. We don't have a lot of time, but can you just give us a short summary of what that's going to look like?
Alli:Yeah, that is. Yes, a YouTube channel coming next year. Hikes Into History is based. Basically, I will do a walk where I'm a big walker, as you'll see if you go to my website. But we love walking, but we love a good story as well. So the idea is to do a walk. There's some fabulous countryside around different parts of England and Wales and beyond. And the idea is to do a walk and tell a story of a particular event or happening or person in history. And we will take in a site that is integral to that story. So the walk will be centered around this particular site and the idea is to have a nice walk, tell a great story, and there will be a link to the website where you can download a map. So should you want to. Are you over here or you're going to be in an area at any time, you can do the walk as well. So that's the idea of that, is bringing the stories to life. It's another way of bringing the stories to life and to walk through the landscape that it happened in, so you can feel a part of it. And some of it, obviously some of it's changed, but you know, it's still the same ground, even if it's been built up over the centuries and changed. But it's nice to walk through history and tell a really good story and that's. That's what that'll behind it. So hopefully it will engage people in history. It won't just. For the Hikes Into Histories won't just be medieval, there will be some. Some other periods covered as well. So it's a bit. A bit more. A wider range, but it should be good fun.
Vanessa:And now do you have that YouTube channel already? Can, will we be able to share it with our guests or is it not created yet?
Alli:It's. No, it's a. Watch this space. It's coming next year. Okay. Yeah. So, so have it. Have, keep an eye on the website if medieval wanderings dot com.
Vanessa:Okay.
Alli:And, and come and join us on some walks as well. Have, have a laugh reading about some history and in the meantime and come and join us next year.
Vanessa:Well, we've come to the end. Is there anything we've missed that we haven't covered? I know we. There's so much. But is there something that you wanted to mention that you didn't get a chance to.
Alli:Well, I suppose very briefly. Twelfth Night, end of holiday. The night before Twelfth. Twelfth Night before the decorations had to come down, big party. And that's where your bread comes in. But that's the origins of Christmas cake. It was a Twelfth Night cake and inside was hidden a bean and a pea. And whoever found the bean was the king of the bean. And whoever found the woman that found the pea was the queen of the pea. And they were nominated peasants to oversee all the revelries on the last night. Huge bash to celebrate the end of Christmas. So yes, that's where your Twelfth Night comes in. And then the day after all the decorations had to come down.
Vanessa:That's so cute. I really love that.
Alli:So Christmas cake actually started as Twelfth Night cake. That was, that was the Twelfth Night. So that was the end of Christmas holiday before all the peasants had to go back to work. So. So yeah, what we need is a proper 12 day holiday. We need the 12 days of Christmas back.
Vanessa:We do. Because you're right, especially when you're a parent, it's. Christmas is exhausting. By Christmas Day you're just like.
Alli:If you did it the medieval way, you wouldn't be. You could enjoy it.
Vanessa:We'd probably be worn down by the Twelfth Night though.
Alli:Well, yes, but in a good cause.
Vanessa:Yes.
Alli:It's all worth it.
Vanessa:Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Ali.
Alli:You're very welcome. Lovely to talk to you. Thank you.
Vanessa:And thank you folksy folks, for joining us on this medieval harvest Christmas episode. What do you think about harvest? Have you ever thought about it before? What it took to bring in the harvest or what we've lost with the loss of the communal harvest gathering? Like I said before, all of our. Her links. Well, I guess her blog will be up on our website with the show notes. And our blog. Our website is www.fabricoffolklore.com and you'll be able to find her link and Potentially when her YouTube channel comes up, it'll be up there as well. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure that you're sharing it. Share it with your friends, with your family, with your best friend. It helps when we get recommendations. People pick it up and love it. Give us stars and write a review. That's so helpful. We appreciate you for following us. Folksy folks. And until next time, keep the folk alive.
