{"id":14792,"date":"2013-11-01T13:44:22","date_gmt":"2013-11-01T17:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=14792"},"modified":"2018-11-01T06:53:36","modified_gmt":"2018-11-01T10:53:36","slug":"who-from-their-labours-rest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/who-from-their-labours-rest\/","title":{"rendered":"…Who from Their Labours Rest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Entries<\/a><\/p>\n

[About the image: apparently in June of every year, the English village of Fornham All Saints<\/a>* holds a Scarecrow Festival, for which residents and businesses create scarecrows — such as the entries above — which they place all around town. The theme this year was “Characters from Cartoons or Adverts.” (For more, see Dave Catchpole’s album<\/a> on Flickr.) I don’t recognize the cartoons or adverts from which these were drawn, but I do like the scarecrows!]<\/em><\/p>\n

From\u00a0whiskey river<\/em>, in fine holiday form this week:<\/p>\n

At no other time does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Rainer Maria Rilke)<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

There was a time when the coming of this night meant something. A dark Europe, groaning in superstitious fear, dedicated this Eve to the grinning Unknown. A million doors had once been barred against the evil visitants, a million prayers mumbled, a million candles lit. There was something majestic about the idea.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Robert Bloch)<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

It is not our job to remain whole.
\nWe came to lose our leaves
\nLike the trees, and be born again,
\nDrawing up from the great roots.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Robert Bly)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from\u00a0whiskey river<\/em> (indeed safely on the other side of the Hallowe’en\/All Saints’ Day dividing line):<\/p>\n

Ghosts Never Appear on Christmas Eve!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes
\nWherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated,
\nThe bird of dawning singeth all night long:
\nAnd then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;
\nThe nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
\nNo fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
\nSo hallowed and so gracious is the time.
\n–Marcellus.<\/p>\n

So have I heard and do in part believe it.
\n–Horatio.<\/p>\n

So says the immortal Shakespeare [Hamlet<\/em>, act 1, scene 1]; and the truth thereof few nowadays, I hope, will call in question. Grose observes, too, that those born on Christmas Day cannot see spirits; which is another incontrovertible fact.<\/p>\n

What a happiness this must have been seventy or eighty years ago and upwards, to those chosen few who had the good luck to be born on the eve of this festival of all festivals; when the whole earth was so overrun with ghosts, boggles, bloody-bones, spirits, demons, ignis fatui, brownies, bugbears, black dogs, specters, shellycoats, scarecrows, witches, wizards, barguests, Robin-Goodfellows, hags, night-bats, scrags, breaknecks, fantasms, hobgoblins, hobhoulards, boggy-boes, dobbies, hob-thrusts, fetches, kelpies, warlocks, mock-beggars, mum-pokers, Jemmy-burties, urchins, satyrs, pans, fauns, sirens, tritons, centaurs, calcars, nymphs, imps, incubuses, spoorns, men-in-the-oak, hell-wains, fire-drakes, kit-a-can-sticks, Tom-tumblers, melch-dicks, larrs, kitty-witches, hobby-lanthorns, Dick-a-Tuesdays, Elf-fires, Gyl-burnt-tales, knockers, elves, rawheads, Meg-with-the-wads, old-shocks, ouphs, pad-foots, pixies, pictrees, giants, dwarfs, Tom-pokers, tutgots, snapdragons, sprets, spunks, conjurers, thurses, spurns, tantarrabobs, swaithes, tints, tod-lowries, Jack-in-the-Wads, mormos, changelings, redcaps, yeth-hounds, colt-pixies, Tom-thumbs, black-bugs, boggarts, scar-bugs, shag-foals, hodge-pochers, hob-thrushes, bugs, bull-beggars, bygorns, bolls, caddies, bomen, brags, wraiths, waffs, flay-boggarts, fiends, gallytrots, imps, gytrashes, patches, hob-and-lanthorns, gringes, boguests, bonelesses, Peg-powlers, pucks, fays, kidnappers, gallybeggars, hudskins, nickers, madcaps, trolls, robinets, friars’ lanthorns, silkies, cauld-lads, death-hearses, goblins, hob-headlesses, bugaboos, kows, or cowes, nickies, nacks [necks], waiths, miffies, buckies, ghouls, sylphs, guests, swarths, freiths, freits, gy-carlins [Gyre-carling], pigmies, chittifaces, nixies, Jinny-burnt-tails, dudmen, hell-hounds, dopple-gangers, boggleboes, bogies, redmen, portunes, grants, hobbits, hobgoblins, brown-men, cowies, dunnies, wirrikows, alholdes, mannikins, follets, korreds, lubberkins, cluricauns, kobolds, leprechauns, kors, mares, korreds, puckles korigans, sylvans, succubuses, blackmen, shadows, banshees, lian-hanshees, clabbernappers, Gabriel-hounds, mawkins, doubles, corpse lights or candles, scrats, mahounds, trows, gnomes, sprites, fates, fiends, sibyls, nicknevins, whitewomen, fairies, thrummy-caps, cutties, and nisses, and apparitions of every shape, make, form, fashion, kind and description, that there was not a village in England that had not its own peculiar ghost.<\/p>\n

Nay, every lone tenement, castle, or mansion-house, which could boast of any antiquity had its bogle, its specter, or its knocker. The churches, churchyards, and crossroads were all haunted. Every green lane had its boulder-stone on which an apparition kept watch at night. Every common had its circle of fairies belonging to it. And there was scarcely a shepherd to be met with who had not seen a spirit!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Michael Aislabie Denham [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Learning from History<\/strong><\/p>\n

They said, my saints, my slogan-sayers sang,
\nBe good, my child, in spite of all alarm.<\/p>\n

They stood, my fathers, tall in a row and said,
\nBe good, be brave, you shall not come to harm.<\/p>\n

I heard them in my sleep and muttering dream,
\nAnd murmuring cried, How shall I wake to this?<\/p>\n

They said, my poets, singers of my song,
\nWe cannot tell, since all we tell you is<\/p>\n

But history, we speak but of the dead.
\nAnd of the dead they said such history<\/p>\n

(Their beards were blazing with the truth of it)
\nAs made of much of me a mystery.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(David Ferry [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

Finally, here’s a radio-play sort of reading of a story I remember from many years ago, with maybe the best title<\/em> of a children’s-horror I can imagine: “The Thing at the Foot of the Bed.” I don’t know who wrote it. But<\/del><\/del> Written by Marian Leach<\/a>, it’s read here by one Dan Ocko, with appropriately spooky sound effects:<\/p>\n\n

_________________________<\/p>\n

* Favorite excerpt from that Wikipedia entry on Fornham All Saints: “The village sign depicts a helmet and crossed swords commemorating two battles that took place here. In c902 King Edward fought off a cousin to retain the English crown. In 1173 Henry II defeated the Earl of Leicester and a Flemish army at the Battle of Fornham. Today the historic village is more peaceful.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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