10 for today

A German Danse Macabre from the 18th century. Everyone is taking part in the 'Danse Macabre' (dance of death) from the lowliest peasant to the royal family. No one escapes the dance of death.

A clock from the German town of Augsburg, 1640. The figure is wearing a funerary wreath, and is holding an arrow, the tip of which displays the time.

News from Nowhere. William Morris is pretty kickass

Mihoko Ogaki site here brilliant sculptures releasing starlight from corporeal forms, so beautiful

Michal Trpak sculptures. Truly brilliant! More here at his wonderful website

BRILLIANT!!! See here! Edible delicious Momento Mori's! What more could you want in cake?

In Finnish, Northern lights are called “Lights of the Fox”. It comes from the old beliefs, that says the lights come from the fox tail hitting the snow.

Artist: Linda Piekäinen, Link on artist's page: https://www.facebook.com/artbypiekainen

Read more about the brilliant Beltane here we need more festivals and feast days, they should be brought back! Tom Hodgkinson, editor of the Idler and writer of some of my favourite books, champions the treasuring of old world customs and festivals. If I lived in the UK, I would never stop obscure festival-ing.

The strange tale of the green children of Woolpit, folklore? real? Decide for yourself here

And the dancing plague of 1518! What a brilliant piece of history this is! More here. History that seems to border on the edge of myth and myth that seems to have genuinely been a part of history, is one of my favourite spheres to exist in mentally!

What about you? :)

All pics from Tumblr unless linked to site

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Scorpion Dagger

The MEGA talented artist James Kerr is behind the Scorpion Dagger Tumblr, link here

Check it out! So good ^_^

All gifs and video from Scorpion Dagger, all property of James Kerr

The Unicorns shorts are BRILLIANT! A must for the medievally-minded!

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Bayeux tapestry, Castles

Managed to find a full graphic of the Bayeux tapestry, as above. 

The Bayeux tapestry depicts the events before the Norman invasion of England, eventually leading to the Battle of Hastings.The Norman invasion of England happened in the 11th century. It is one of the most fascinating times in history. As the saying goes those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.

There is a WHOLE BOOK of castle cross sections out there that I plan to get my mitts on one day, wonderful! Castles are a living reminder of what the harsh reality of the past was like. A lot of sieges were only successful because, though the castle and its defences held up, their food supply within dried up. It's a fascinatingly small detail, but of huge catastrophic importance!

Top pic pinterest, lower pic from Amazon!

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10 for today

Kenojuak Ashevak: Ravens

Sharing bread in a 14th century illustration

Psychology of conciousness illustration, it would make a good album cover

Well I know where I would spend all my time if I lived in London

Check their sit out here if you are interested in a different way of approaching this crazy world of ours and this unmapped thing called life....

Alice Smith art, here is a link to her site really brilliant artist!

Medieval playing cards

made me laugh, because it's so true, but perhaps instead of the government we should bring back small scale farms to overgrow the producers of shitty supermarket produce, visit the local farmers market! The Canberra farmer's markets are great! I get great spaghetti squash on the weekends and a nice lady even gave me a wombok for free the other day because she said I had a nice smile ^_^

Simple pleasures

Does anyone else think it would be a good idea, in one way, to bring back the stocks? Not in a nasty "suffer BE HUMILIATED!" way, but in the sense that perhaps people would think twice about sillier/ pettier crimes? Just the psychological effect of knowing this was around might be enough? 

As I type this I'm aware of how evil it seems! There is such an ever present fear of humiliation, and sometimes what people describe as 'humiliating' such as a picture on their fakebook not getting enough likes, I wonder, imagine a time where your town could pelt you with rotting produce!

and number 10: just this reminder. A good graffito in my mind, so true

Pics from Pinterest and Tumblr

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Mont St Michel

If ever I return to France, Mont St Michel is at the top of my must see list, apart from Guedelon castle of course!

Just last week this magnificently beautiful flood happened which turned it into a temporary island, what a stunning feature.

I have since found out about an intentional medieval commune near my house, only a short drive away, I shall have to investigate it much further!

All pics from Tumblr, last one from link above

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Guedelon/ Secrets of the Castle with Ruth, Peter and Tom

I freaking LOVE!!!! this documentary series. Ruth Peter and Tom are a historian and archaeologists respectively and they immersed themselves in the Guedelon castle site, which is happening AS WE SPEAK/ type/ read: an experimental archaeological site, building a 13th century era castle with 13th century era technology. Read about Guedelon here, this is so amazing!

If they use a nail, it is made on site by the black smith, all the stones are dug cut and set by masons, the paint is sourced from local ochre, it is just the most amazing series about total immersion in historical methods so they are not forgotten or superceded by modern developments.

Here they are firing tiles they have set themselves in the site kiln:

Ruth, Peter and Tom sleep in a replica medieval hut (probably only while filming, but hey the concept is wicked!) and they also wear the clothes of the time and eat the food of the time (Pottage!)

Here is Guedelon in 2004:

And in 2014:

It is a slow process, but when you think they are making everything and sourcing it themselves, its pretty damn amazing, I am captivated!

They even use a tread wheel crane on site, as depicted above from a 13th century manuscript.

BEST of all, you can watch the whole thing online!

Link to the first episode!

All pics from stills. The BBC have done a marvellous job with this series!

Enjoy!

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Medieval margins

Snail Joust!

Medieval margin-alia, WTF!

Those monks must have been bored!

I really love the idea of these being an in joke or early graffiti or something! Or perhaps daily life is such a departure from those times now we can't even see what these drawings even slightly might be touching on!

These all came from a Tumblr post pointing these out! Brilliant!

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