#George Trevelyan

[geopolicraticus]

TODAY IN PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

George Trevelyan and Historical Objectivity

Friday 16 February 2024 is the 148th anniversary of the birth of George Macaulay Trevelyan (16 February 1876 – 21 July 1962), who was born in Stratford-upon-Avon on this date in 1876.

Trevelyan wrote during the heyday of empire but lived long enough to see the end of empire, and he began as an academic who eventually left academia to become a full time writer of history—very successfully, as it turns out, as Trevelyan became one of the most widely read historians of his time. In this episode I discuss Trevelyan’s 1947 essay, “Bias in History,” which can serve as an introduction to the problem of objectivity in history.

Quora:              https://philosophyofhistory.quora.com/ 

Discord:           https://discord.gg/r3dudQvGxD

Links:              https://jnnielsen.carrd.co/

Newsletter:      http://eepurl.com/dMh0_-/

Podcast:           https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/nick-nielsen94/episodes/George-Trevelyan-and-Historical-Objectivity-e2fs15g

[beyourselfchulanmaria]

lol 😆 well said 👏🏼

教育……造就了大批能夠閱讀但無法辨別哪些內容值得閱讀的人。

G·M·特里维廉 (1876-1962) 英國歷史學家和學者。 He was a British historian and academic.

Education...has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.

George Macaulay Trevelyan

[miwhotep]

JAMES BOND REFERENCES IN MORIARTY THE PATRIOT

I am a big fan of James Bond since my early teenage years. I watched every movies and read all books, so when the Moriarty the Patriot manga first started using James Bond references, I basically screamed. And my voice got 100x louder when the iconic My name is Bond. James Bond. scene happened.

I always wanted to write an analysis of YuuMori's James Bond connections, so now here we are.

First, let's talk a bit about the actual James Bond universe. The character of James Bond - the MI6 agent numbered 007 with a license to kill - got created by Ian Fleming in 1953. He first appeared in the novel called Casino Royale. Fleming wrote 12 novels and two short story collections with the character. The novels soon got movie adaptations, too, the first James Bond movie was Dr. No in 1962, where Sean Connery played Bond. Currently there are 25 Bond movies.

The James Bond movies can be classified into eras by the actor who played Bond. In order, these follow:

Sean Connery

(George Lazenby - but everyone tends to pretend this movie never happened)

Roger Moore

Timothy Dalton

Pierce Brosnan

Daniel Craig

The movies didn't come out in chronological order when it comes to James Bond's life-happenings. Most movies can be watched as stand-alones - but the Daniel Craig era tried to built up a storyline, where the movies are tied to each other. The James Bond movies always have an iconic intro, sing by a popular singer of the current era (the last movie's intro song was by Billie Eilish.)

The James Bond movie universe started to fuse with the Sherlock Holmes universe thanks to the Alan Moore comic book series, The League of Extraordinary Gentleman (1999). Professor Moriarty appeared here as M - the title what later ended up with Mycroft. The Elementary series (and somewhat BBC Sherlock) continued this tendency, featuring Mycroft as someone who has ties to the MI5/MI6.

Professor Moriarty in TLoEG

The Moriarty the Patriot series features most characters who are important in James Bond movies. They are..

M - the leader of the MI6, which role was fullfilled by Albert and Louis.

Q - the inventor who keeps coming up with weapons and cars for James Bond. In YuuMori, Q is Von Herder, the blind mechanic mentioned in the Empty House Conan Doyle story.

Ms. Moneypenny - a secretary working personally for M. In the Daniel Craig era, she started as a field agent, but later moved to do office work. James Bond always gives her flowers and little souvenirs.

When it comes to James Bond, his personality in Moriarty the Patriot is similar to the canon one: loving good cars and guns, flirting with woman (especially Moneypenny) and while it's not vodka martini he orders in the pub when he met with Patterson, he asks for the drink shaken, not stirren. (On the other hand, the Macallan scotch he asks for is a reference to what James Bond drank in the Skyfall movie.)

The location of the MI6 in YuuMori is also similar to the James Bond movies: underground and underwater in the Thames.

The headquarter in Skyfall

The Q-sector

The Man with the Golden Army arc features other references for the James Bond universe. The arc's title refers to the movie/book The Man with the Golden Gun (Roger Moore-era) - the two stories only similarity is that both deal with special guns. In that arc, Sebastian Moran takes on the identity of the 006, Alec Trevelyan. The character originally appeared in the Goldeneye James Bond movie (Pierce Brosnan-era) played by Sean Bean. He had the number 006 and he was the mentor of James Bond (like Moran later on). He seemingly got killed off at the start of the movie (but later returned as a villain).

Alec Trevelyan in Goldeneye

Maybe not an intentional reference, but still interesting: the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies features an evil media mogul, Elliot Carver as a villain who likes orchestrating catastrophic incidents so his newspaper can be the first to write about them, manipulating people that way and gaining control in the media - kind of similar to Milverton (yes, the media mogul Milverton thing is from Sherlock, but still), who was the mastermind behind the Jack the Ripper murders then manipulated the public through the news he created. (I can actually see him orchestrating incidents in order to gain more power and become the King of Media, too.)

Elliot Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies

We've yet to see the main villain of James Bond: Ernst Stavro Blofeld, (first appearing in the Thunderball book) the head of the crime organization called Spectre. I wander when he will appear in YuuMori, if they appear at all, but I really wish!

I hope in the next stories YuuMori's James Bond world keeps expanding - that's such an interesting aspect of the series, I love to see more references!

[hpowellsmith]

Happy Fathers' Day to the various fictional dads I've created over the years: Mateo and Alejandro del Quiros, Walter Trevelyan, King Georges (RIP), Lord Beaumont (RIP), Rys's redacted dads, Caspar and Ferdinand Kraemer, Roland Frasada, Mr Marechal...

And Raimund and Tristan Garnett (begrudgingly)

And not at all to Lorenz de Luca, Mr Delacroix, Mr Hartmann, or Mr CremePC because they do not deserve it

But most of all to the male variety of Fiore Roldan, who's the dad I've written about the most and whom I've become very fond of indeed since coming up with the idea of Honor Bound fifteen months ago, and who doesn't deserve all the absolute misery I'm currently putting him through.

[kirkwallguy]

17 for trevelyans or amells? i dont know which one would be crazier

omg thats so fun ty....this one got away from me a little. here's an orlesian undergraduate essay that mentions the trevelyans

---

When we look as far back as the 9th era, we have to remember that much of what we consider to be common knowledge is more speculation than anything else. Lady Mary Trevelyan, for example, was one of the most well-known figures in the South for the latter half of the century and yet we have little concrete evidence that she even existed prior to 9:41, with even less being known about the home she grew up in. While there are records of her family spanning several centuries, the waters begin to muddy in the 8th era with the birth of her paternal grandmother. Famously, Dr Thomas Alexan has posited the theory that there was some complicated traumatic event that led to the purging of so many records and the subsequent reclusive nature of the family: a child borne out of wedlock, an affair, a crime of passion. There is, as many have argued, no real evidence of this. Alexan's writings were accused by peers of being all theory and no evidence, "he claims to hear the dragon's roar but can't show me its scales or shit" (Milland, 14:76).

But what do we do when all we have is the dragon's roar? From salvaged records, we are able to determine that the Inquisitor was the youngest of at least four siblings. Her oldest known sister, Jane Trevelyan, was reportedly sent to the Starkhaven Circle as a teenager (c.9:14) though what became of her is unknown. It is likely she either perished or slipped through the cracks after the tower was destroyed in 9:31, given that there is no record of her ever arriving at Kirkwall's notorious Gallows.

We know a little more about Julien Trevelyan, her older brother, due to the Templar order's meticulous bookkeeping. He was stationed at the Ostwick Circle in 9:13 and stayed there without incident for several years before being sent to Kinloch Hold in Ferelden. Unusually, his reasons for being sent away were redacted in his official records; given that Ostwick rarely shied from its soldiers' crimes (setting it aside from several other Circles at the time) this is doubly strange. We can only speculate as to whether the redaction was due to his noble status or due to a particularly personal or terrible crime. Either way, all communication between him and his family ceased immediately after. Any records of him in Ferelden also disappear around the time of the Fifth Blight, though many of Kincloch Hold's Templars were lost around that time.

Rose Trevelyan, of course, has been widely speculated about. While some depictions of her (such as Lily Smith's sensationalised 15:02 romance novel The Thorn) are largely fictional, many are based on what we have gleaned from letters exchanged, strangely enough, by members of the Hawke-Amell family. Through Bethany Hawke's letter to her brother, (see: The Bird's Shadow: A Collection of Bethany Hawke's Writings 9:35 - 9:61, 'Something terrible happened yesterday...', p. 65), we know both the cause and date of Rose Trevelyan's death, something unusual for a Circle mage of her era, particularly a Circle mage from Kirkwall just prior to the uprising. Many historians are rightfully irritated by the mytholisation of Rose, making claims that it is "disrespectful to treat dead women's trauma as a romantic fantasy" (Clark, 15:91), and expressing worries that it "conflates fact with fiction in a way that pollutes the truth as understood by wider society" (Angel, 15:43).  In my own reading of Smith's novel, however, I find that there is far more accuracy than she is given credit for. Her dedication to exploring 9th era Andrastrianism, for example, is commendable, especially compared to other notorious erotic historical romances, such as the works of George S. Flay or Steven Mire.

It is likely that even Lady Trevelyan knew little of these siblings. As far as we can tell, she never acknowledged them publicly - though, of course, her hardline beliefs on mages (including her apparent hand in Divine Victoria's ascension to the Sunburst Throne) may have given her reason to stay quiet. Interestingly, her relationship with her parents also appeared to be strained, with there being little recorded contact between them after the disbandment of the Inquisition. Given the family's secrecy, we can only guess what went on behind closed doors by pressing our ears up against them and listening for the roar.

[An excerpt from 'Historical accuracy, Lily Smith, and hearing the dragon's roar' - Maria Lapi, Orlais University, Undergraduate

Note from supervisor: Clark's issue with Smith's novel was probably more about the gratuitous nature of the sex scenes rather than the historical inaccuracies - have you read her analysis of sexuality and 9th era mages in Tethras' Tale of the Champion? Also, perhaps look further into redactions of Templar crimes at Ostwick to see if you can spot any patterns. We can discuss when I am back from the Entropy conference.]

[sweetjulieapples]

9 People You Want To Know Better Tag

Tagged by @snowpetrichor (Thank you for thinking of me!)

Tagging @liroutrozenberg , @silhalei , @rhaella-rhavelli and @dymme - I've been admiring you all from afar in the non creepiest way possible

if these tag thingys aren't your thing just pretend this never happened.

Three ships I enjoy:

At the moment I'm obsessed with Cullen x Trevelyan but I have been shipping Link and Zelda since I was 9 (especially BOTW/TOTK they are too adorable, plz). I'll always love Audrey x Nathan from Haven, one of my favourite shows.

First ship: Probably Mario and Peach.

Last song: Lo Air - Dead Poet Society

Last movie: Zombies 3, not by choice

Currently reading: A Storm of Swords - George R.R. Martin

Currently watching: House of The Dragon but I'm a few episodes behind and I've seen all the spoilers against my will.

Currently eating: A juicy mandarin

Currently craving: 48 hours of non interrupted sleep

[lenbryant]

Back in 2014 I saw this quote in the news and thought enough of it to write it down in my journal. Here's a fuller version of the quote.

“The dead were and are not. Their place knows them no more and is ours today... The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth, once, on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone, one generation vanishing into another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cockcrow" -- "Autobiography of an Historian", An Autobiography and Other Essays (1949).”

[dalekofchaos]

Bond Villain fancast

Fun fancast where I fancast iconic Bond villains for the modern day or if they were apart of the Craig era/next Bond's era

BD Wong as Dr Julius No

Michelle Gomez as Rosa Klebb

Alexander Skarsgard as Red Grant

Brendan Gleeson as Auric Goldfinger

Benedict Wong as Oddjob

Kyle MacLachlan as Emilio Largo

Christoph Waltz, Pedro Pascal and Mark Gatiss as Ernst Stavro Blofeld

Jason Schwartzman as Mr. Wint

Jesse Plemons as Mr. Kidd

Daniel Kaluuya as Dr Kananga/Mr Big

Rory McCann as Jaws

Chiwetel Ejiofor as Francisco Scaramanga

Stellan Skarsgard as Karl Stromberg

Peter Dinklage as Hugo Drax

Mark Strong as Aris Kristatos

Oded Fehr as Kamal Khan

John Malkovich as General Orlov

Jade Cargill as May Day

Benicio del Toro as Franz Sanchez

Timothy Granaderos as Dario

Jean Dujardin as Georgi Koskov

Georges St-Pierre as Necros

Dean Norris as Brad Whittaker

Ewan McGregor as Alec Trevelyan

Jodie Comer as Xenia Onatopp

Jeremy Irons as Elliot Carver

Daniel Radcliffe as Renard

Daisy Ridley as Elektra King

James Norton as Gustav Graves

Andrew Koji as Zao

Florence Pugh as Miranda Frost

[justabrowncoatedwench]

And now for my own fun tracking of my OCs ages in 9:52! xD (Added bonus of their LIs too.)

Hero of Ferelden

Solona Amell - 42 - Warden Alistair

Milena Cousland - 40 - King Alistair

Kalliana Tabris - 39 - Zevran

Marek Mahariel - 43 - Morrigan

Arien Aeducan - RIP - Ultimate Sacrifice

Inga Brosca - 42 - Leliana

Alanna (of Trebond) Surana - 40 - Zevran (aka George Cooper)

Champion of Kirkwall

Daylen Amell-Hawke - Left in the Fade - exes w Anders

Arienne Hawke - 46 - Anders

Yvanna Hawke-Vael - 46 - Sebastian Vael (rivalmance)

Daine (Sarrasri) Hawke - 46 - Anders (aka Numair)

Inquisitor

Tanith Trevelyan - 39 - Cullen

Kadan Adaar - 43 - Iron Bull

Atishavir Lavellan - 41 - Solas

Revassan Lavellan - 37 - Dorian

Alyssana Lavellan - 36 - Josephine (& OC Joslen Campana)

Isana Cadash - 34 - Sera

Keladry (of Mindelan) Adaar - 31

Rook

Tanith -> Alvaro Trevelyan [warrior, Lord of Fortune] - 38

Kadan -> Saaraban Adaar [mage, Veil Jumper] - 40

Atishavir -> Alyssana [rogue, Antivan Crow] - 36 - (in an open poly marriage)

Revassan -> TBD [Tal-Vashoth Reaper warrior, TBD]

Alyssana -> Revassan [rogue, Veil Jumper] - 37 - (single ready to mingle)

Isana -> dwarf [warrior, Grey Warden]

Keladry -> Alianne (of Pirate's Swoop) [rogue, Shadow Dragon] - 18

Bonus Round - My AU Fanfic Continuity:

HoF: Milena Cousland/Marek Mahariel

Champion: Arienne Hawke

Inquisitor: AU Solona Amell - LI: Cullen

Rook: Evanthe Amell, Mourn Watch mage OR Kieran Mahariel, Shadow Dragon mage

Dragon Age NPC Ages in DA: The Veilguard

This assumes that the 9 10 years between Dragon Age Inquisition and Dragon Age: The Veilguard refer to the Trespasser DLC (as in the last time Varric would have seen Solas; confirmed in Dev Q&A on 6/14/24). This places DAV in 9:54. Characters who showed up in a previous game will not be repeated in the lists for later games they also appeared in (i.e., Leliana is under DAO, not DAI).

Read more for length & spoiler reasons. The ages listed are assuming they have not had their birthday in 9:54 yet.

ETA1: I used the ages & evidence summarized by @dalishious in this post, superseding those ages with newer evidence where available or my own interpretation of textual evidence (when given a range I personally favor smack in the middle more often than not).

ETA2: Changed year/ages to reflect the Q&A information that Veilguard is 10 years post-Trespasser, not 9 as originally stated.

Dragon Age: Origins - 9:30 - 24 years prior

Alistair Theirin - 43

Morrigan - 49

Leliana - 50

Zevran Arainai - 48

Oghren Kondrat - 66

Wynne - RIP (would've been 71)

Shale - Eternal

Sten (now Arishok) - 67

Loghain Mac Tir - 75

Anora Mac Tir - 50

Dragon Age: Awakening - 9:31 - 23 years prior

Nathaniel Howe - 53

Anders - 54

Sigrun - 48

Velanna - 48

Dragon Age 2 - 9:30-9:37 - 24-17 years prior

Hawke - 48

Carver/Bethany Hawke - 43

Fenris - ~54

Isabela - 54

Merrill - ~47

Sebastian Vael - 46

Aveline Vallen - ~59

Varric Tethras - 53

Dragon Age Inquisition - 9:41-9:44 - 13-10 years prior

Josephine Montilyet - 41

Cullen Rutherford - 42

Cassandra Pentaghast - 50

Solas - ~2000 (appears mid-40s)

Sera - 32

Vivienne de Fer - 57

Blackwall/Thom Rainier - 58

the Iron Bull - 50

Dorian Pavus - 42

Cole - Ageless (appears 20, or he may have aged into his 30s if he were made more human in DAI)

Kieran - 22

[milenapetrofig]

A shortened history of England by Trevelyan, George Macaulay, 1876-1962 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Among George Macaulay Trevelyan’s British History books are England in the Age of Wycliffe, England under the Stuarts, The English Revolution 1688, England under Queen Anne, British History in the Nineteenth Century, History of England and English Social History. Lord Grey of the Reform Bill, Lord Grey of Fallodon, The Life of Bright and the Garibaldi trilogy are biographical works by the Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge from 1927 to 1940, Master of Trinity College from 1940 to 1951 and Chancellor of Durhan University. 

[wankerwatch]

Commons Vote

On: The Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) (Amendment) Rules 2024

Ayes: 135 (100.0% Con) Noes: 10 (100.0% SNP) Absent: ~505

Individual Votes:

Ayes

Conservative (133 votes)

Aaron Bell Alberto Costa Alex Burghart Alex Chalk Alicia Kearns Alok Sharma Amanda Solloway Andrew Griffith Andrew Jones Andrew Lewer Andrew Murrison Andrew Percy Andrew Selous Andy Carter Angela Richardson Anne Marie Morris Anne-Marie Trevelyan Anthony Browne Ben Everitt Ben Spencer Ben Wallace Bernard Jenkin Bob Blackman Bob Stewart Brandon Lewis Caroline Nokes Charles Walker Chloe Smith Chris Grayling Chris Philp Craig Tracey Damian Collins Damian Hinds Daniel Kawczynski David Davis David Duguid David Jones David Morris David Rutley David Simmonds Dean Russell Dehenna Davison Desmond Swayne Duncan Baker Elliot Colburn Felicity Buchan Fiona Bruce Gagan Mohindra Gareth Bacon George Eustice Graham Brady Graham Stuart Greg Clark Heather Wheeler Helen Whately Holly Mumby-Croft Iain Duncan Smith Iain Stewart Jacob Young James Cartlidge James Davies James Duddridge Jane Hunt Jerome Mayhew Jo Churchill John Baron John Hayes John Howell Joy Morrissey Julian Lewis Julian Smith Karen Bradley Katherine Fletcher Kit Malthouse Lee Rowley Lia Nici Louie French Lucy Allan Lucy Frazer Marcus Jones Martin Vickers Matt Hancock Matt Warman Matthew Offord Michael Ellis Michael Fabricant Michael Tomlinson Michelle Donelan Mike Wood Mims Davies Neil Hudson Nickie Aiken Nigel Huddleston Paul Holmes Peter Aldous Philip Dunne Philip Hollobone Ranil Jayawardena Rebecca Harris Rebecca Pow Richard Bacon Rob Butler Robert Courts Robert Halfon Robert Largan Robert Neill Robin Walker Royston Smith Sally-Ann Hart Saqib Bhatti Scott Mann Shailesh Vara Sheryll Murray Simon Baynes Simon Clarke Simon Fell Simon Hoare Stephen Hammond Stephen McPartland Stephen Metcalfe Steve Brine Steve Tuckwell Suzanne Webb Theo Clarke Theresa Villiers Tim Loughton Tom Hunt Tom Pursglove Tracey Crouch Victoria Atkins Victoria Prentis Will Quince William Cash

Noes

Scottish National Party (9 votes)

Allan Dorans Amy Callaghan Angela Crawley Anne McLaughlin Ian Blackford John Nicolson Marion Fellows Philippa Whitford Richard Thomson

[elegaeica]

rapunzel, inspiration taken from persinette, grimm fairytale, and petrosinella. primary. isabel may. arya stark, book & headcanon based. by request. fc tba. audrey fulquard, little shop of horrors, off - broadway revival & headcanon based. by request. joy woods. julia trojan, bandstand. by request. fc tba. amy march, little women, book & 2017 miniseries inspired. primary. kathryn newton. sybil crawley, downton abbey, canon divergent. by request. jessica brown findlay. cora hale, teen wolf, heavily canon divergent & headcanon based. primary. diana silvers. euphemia "effie" elmstone, dead boy detectives original character. secondary. ellie bamber. cat / courier six, fallout: new vegas. primary. dewanda wise. josie / the lone wanderer, fallout 3, canon divergent. primary. cailee spaeny. mary / sole survivor, fallout 4. secondary. lucy boynton. commander laura shepard, mass effect, canon divergent. primary. christina chong. sura tabris, dragon age, headcanon based. primary. sophia brown. amaya surana, dragon age, headcanon based. primary. anna sawai. aliena brosca, dragon age, headcanon based. secondary. sophie skelton. aurelia aeducan, dragon age, headcanon based. primary. jessie mei li. naya amell, dragon age, headcanon based. secondary. zoe robins aravas mahariel, dragon age, headcanon based. primary. amita suman. mina hawke, dragon age, headcanon based. secondary. sophie cookson. victorine trevelyan, dragon age, headcanon based. primary. arsema thomas. nicolette trevelyan, dragon age, headcanon based. primary. alicia von rittberg. maella lavellan, dragon age, headcanon based. primary. ambika mod. josephine montilyet, dragon age, canon compliant. secondary. freida pinto. the artificer, doctor who, original time lord character. primary. phydra, baldur's gate 3, seldarine drow of eilistraee. secondary. no fc. daefina roxana reaegis, dungeons & dragons, astral elf aberrant mind sorceress. secondary. holliday grainger. diana casta, dungeons & dragons, aasimar glamour bard & savior of elturel. secondary. riley hemson. sophie hatter, land of ingary trilogy / howl's moving castle. by request. nicola coughlan. george fayne, nancy drew, video games based. by request. ruby cruz.

[hpowellsmith]

if they haven't been done already, 🌪️ and ☁️ for royal affairs? i remember early on, you'd mentioned trev was supposed to be much more hippity hoppity chippity choppity but i'd love to hear about the other characters!

🌪️ TORNADO - what is the biggest change you've ever made to them? how have they changed from their original version?

Dominique: early on I started off some bits about them having romantic/sexy misadventures with Gallatin students, but it felt like a rehash of Florin's stuff and there also wasn't really space for it. Also there was a thing where Dominique was a smoker that got mentioned... maybe once in Chapter 2 or 3...? and I only remembered when I was doing the beta. It would have been OK but I had completely forgotten about it for the rest of the game, so I cut that little scene.

Trevelyan - yeah, they were originally more anti-monarchy and the suffrage was a side-issue to that, but I shuffled it the other way round so that there would be more that the PC could influence (it would be outside the PC's ability to abolish royalty as an institution!)

☁️ CLOUD - a soft headcanon

This is a funny one because I guess a headcanon for me can be a... canon if I want it to be? haha. But here are some things that were in my head but didn't get stated onscreen

Asher: they spend a LOT of time doing perimeter checks at Archambault and therefore end up bumping into Degen/Karson a bunch; they get on with them pretty well

Beaumont: their extended family is pretty concerned about them, in general, and their cousins offered for Beaumont to come and live with them, but Beaumont said no

Trevelyan: I can't remember if this was specified in the game but they have a brother who's quite a bit older than them, and his name is George, after the deceased King Georges.

Ask list here!

[leiabomsenso]

A educação produziu uma vasta população capaz de ler, mas incapaz de distinguir o que vale a pena ler.

George M. Trevelyan

[khuantru]

After a day’s walk everything has twice its usual value. – George Macauley Trevelyan 👟💛

[timeforabathblog]

8. The Blacksmith

Last year I was invited by the poet Grace Linden to take part in a creative research project about a traditional English folk song called 'The Blacksmith.' With Grace and four others (Rey Conquer, George Meadows, Edwina Attlee and Lilí Ní Dhomhnaill) I've since been delving into the cultural history of blacksmiths and coming up with creative responses to the song, with a view to producing an event and a book.

The song was first noted down by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1909, from Mrs Ellen Powell of Westhope near Weobley, Herefordshire. There are several versions of 'The Blacksmith', and it's been recorded many times by different singers / bands, including Shirley Collins and (in a favourite rendition of the group) Planxty.

For my contribution to the project, I started out by reading up on Wayland's Smithy, a Neolithic long barrow near the Uffington White Horse and the Ridgeway, associated from Anglo-Saxon period onwards with the Norse smith god Wayland. Wayland will, according to tradition, re-shoe a horse left up there over night.

Here's the Smithy photographed by Henry Taunt, around the same time that Vaughan Williams collected 'The Blacksmith'. Picnic at Hanging Rock eat your heart out.

This image is courtesy of Historic England Print Archives, from whom the photograph can be ordered as a 400 piece jigsaw puzzle.

I also fed the verses of the song into a generative AI that was being used a lot at the time (I think it was Dall-E Mini – hard to keep track of them)...

Other avenues included visiting a scale model of a blacksmith's studio at the Science Museum...

'Until about 1900,' says the Museum website,

a blacksmith's shop could be found in almost every community in Britain. George Bissell, a blacksmith with a shop in Myrdle Street, Stepney, made these exquisite tools of the blacksmith's trade between 1870 and 1886.

And I felt the project was a good excuse to re-watch Philip Trevelyan's beautiful 1971 documentary The Moon and Sledgehammer.

Another line of research was into picture postcards relating to Blacksmiths (mostly found on eBay). Photographic picture postcards of this kind were first popularised around the turn of the 20th century.

Typically they depict romantic, picturesque or humorous scenes.

Several refer to a poem by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, called ‘The Village Blacksmith’ (1840) – which is supposedly inspired by Longfellow’s visit to the village of Figheldean on Salisbury Plain.

In 'The Village Blacksmith,' the blacksmith is a pillar of the community, physically and morally sturdy, hard-working and patient, doing the same thing in the same place every day – apart from Sundays when he goes to church and is more emotionally expressive.

The moral of the poem is that the simple honesty of the blacksmith's artisanal life is something to aspire to for urban readers (and postcard senders/receivers) living in a time of rapid technological and social change.

Under a spreading chestnut-tree     ⁠   The village smithy stands; The smith, a mighty man is he,       With large and sinewy hands, And the muscles of his brawny arms       Are strong as iron bands...

The printing process for these cards seems to have involved dividing up colour layers and printing them separately. Sometimes this was used to mimic realistic colour images. Sometimes it was pushed a little further to create other visual effects. A few of the cards resemble risograph prints in this way.

The wider blacksmith trade was marginalised by mass production of metal objects during the “first” industrial revolution (1760-1840), and farriers were then generally sidelined by the rise of the motorcar from 1900 onwards. Thus there was probably an element of nostalgia to the idea of the blacksmith in the UK around the time these first picture postcards were being made, and when 'The Blacksmith' was first written down.

Some of the postcards nonetheless give an insight into the trade and working environment farriers that has the feel of social realism to it.

A recurring motif is the presence of a horseshoe on the door of the forge / smithy – a familiar “good luck” symbol (the ‘u’ like shape of the shoe being said to act like a bowl or vessel for luck). There are many theories about the origins of this symbol: it's an "apotropaic" symbol to ward off the evil eye at the threshold of a building; it's a fertility symbol; and so on. In this instance, it's possibly just an emblem for what the building is / the occupant’s trade.

Another thing that came up looking at blacksmith-related cards was these French cards dedicated to St Eloi, patron saint of metal workers, horses and other craftsmen and technicians. I found these funny and also thought they fitted strangely well with the lyrics of 'The Blacksmith'.

Many of these postcards seem to relate specifically to blacksmith/farrier work, but there are others that include cars and trains in the background, and I even spotted one with a woman as the main figure – she’s maybe clocking in or out..?

St Eloi (aka St Eligius) is the subject of a popular children’s song in France, as well as being the focus of a legend, where St Eloi cuts off the foreleg of a horse that doesn’t want to be re-shoed, before re-shoeing the severed leg, and then miraculously reversing the amputation.

Numerous areas of France have their own Fêtes de la Saint Eloi where processions featuring decorated horses move through the streets and people dress in traditional rustic clothing. Possibly these cards were made to celebrate those days (a St Valentine’s day for workers..?)

There’s also another possible association with these St Eloi cards, which also links us back to the folk song.

In France, farriers (and other craftspeople) who have completed their apprenticeship become compagnons for a certain amount of time, travelling the country and working for several masters, before finally becoming a master themselves. When they’ve finished the journey, they produce a chef d’oeuvre (a masterpiece) in the form of a bouquet de saint Eloi, which they usually then hang above or close to the entrance of their own atelier.

The same rite occurred in and between other European countries. In Germany, it was prominent in the middle ages until the Second World War and then revived in the 1980s. There the journey is called the Wanderjahre. For people like Albrecht Dürer and the Christian mystic and shoemaker Jacob Böhme, the wanderjahre was an important phase of creative and personal development. More broadly, it was a way for techniques and ideas to spread across the continent, and for intergenerational and intercultural connections to be made and maintained. In English the compagnons were called “journeymen” and this phase of travel “journeyman years”. The term remains in use in relation to boxing.

These young, single men travelling around and sowing their wild oats became a part of cultural imagination. One reading of the folk song, I suggest, is that the blacksmith is a journeyman. This would explain him staying for a limited time, going to another town, writing a letter, walking off through the fields… And more allusively it chimes with the association between the blacksmith and flowers, in the song, in the French cartes postales, in the bouquets de saint Eloi. Flowers, unlike a blacksmith's mature works, spring on an ephemeral basis. They act as fickle, fleeting love tokens.

In the case of these pictures and texts, you can imagine the blacksmith of the folk song becoming the blacksmith of Longfellow’s poem, becoming a pillar of the community – even while the subversive feminine perspective of the folk song lingers on.

I'll hopefully post about this project again in due course. The above is a tiny fragment of the things that have emerged / been created already and I'm really excited about what everyone is making. (My main contribution is going to be a series of picture postcards).

If you'd like to support the project, we are raising money through the sale of a poster, designed by Grace Linden, George Meadows and myself, and featuring a drawing by George M – buy here to help bring the Blacksmith to fruition! The poster was beautifully printed by Earthbound Press.