#Sarah Clegg

[justforbooks]

The Dead of Winter by Sarah Clegg

From the devilish Krampus legend to a spot of disembowelment, the author takes us on a scary romp through Europe’s most disturbing festive folklore

Shaggy figures with snarling masks and metre-long horns, scenes of wild drunkenness, random assaults on strangers, witches winding your intestines out on a stick, a giant “Yule Cat” who will eat you if you’ve failed to put on new clothes for the day – no, it’s not your annual family get-together, at least I hope not. It’s a compendium of European seasonal lore from the dark side, as explored in this excellent short book by historian and folklorist Sarah Clegg. She combines a trove of good stories with a serious critique of earlier mythographers’ ideas about them, and also takes us on adventures ranging from pre-dawn graveyard walks to the terrors of Salzburg’s pre-Christmas “Krampus night”, named for the monstrous masked figures who prowl its streets on 5 December.

Clegg approaches Christmas by a broad avenue, so we get chapters on Venice’s carnival, Saturnalia festivals in ancient Rome, the witchy shenanigans of Epiphany Eve (also known as Twelfth Night), and the wassails of January, in which good health is wished to apple trees by waving horses’ skulls at them. What all these celebrations share is a mood of maniacal excess and social exuberance. Practices include “guising”, or putting on animal disguises; “mumming”, or enacting plays; and “knocking” – going around banging on doors, asking for treats, and even dragging out unwilling residents to join the merriment. The mayhem can spill over into violence, especially in the town of Matrei in Austria, where the Krampus-like “Klaubauf” figures barge into houses and fight in the streets, to the extent that local authorities advise tourists to stay away and the hospital’s emergency department prepares for an influx of injured people. Even Clegg does not venture to Matrei, but the Krampus night she attends in Salzburg is only slightly less extreme. As she strolls amid the usual market scenes of fairy lights and glühwein stands, she is set upon by a Krampus who whacks her with two sticks. It’s all good festive fun – except that she still has the bruises and welts far into January.

Krampus is traditionally an assistant to Saint Nicholas, or Santa Claus, and even the white-bearded chuckling one himself can be less pleasant than we might think. His punitive side now survives mainly in the idea that he will bring no gifts if you’ve been naughty. That’s nothing compared with the punishments inflicted by other characters in the winter-festival tradition. In northern Europe, Saint Lucy is usually visualised as a gentle, white-clad maiden with a feast day on 13 December. But she can turn from sweetness to savagery in an instant if she catches you going to work instead of celebrating on that day, or if you have forgotten to put out snacks for her and her friends. She is the one who likes winching out your intestines, but for variety she sometimes also seizes children, removes their internal organs, stuffs them with straw, and sews them up again.

In the 19th century, a shift took place towards more polite Christmas behaviour, especially in Victorian Britain. Santa Claus became portly and took to riding around with reindeer. The feasting became less about chaotic public drinking sessions and more about a family dinner presided over by the master of the house: it affirmed the hierarchy rather than upending it. The topsy-turvy elements of the season were transferred to other celebrations such as carnivals and pantomimes, and door-to-door knocking and treating became more associated with Halloween. In England today, the tradition of raucous Christmas home intrusions survives only in the (slightly) less scary form of doorstep carol singers.

Where the wilder rituals remain, they have become more self-consciously folkloric. Clegg introduces us to the wassailers of Chepstow, with their horses’ skulls on poles, and the Marshfield Mummers of Gloucestershire, who dress up like giant ragged mops and put on a play. These events are well-attended, suggesting a revival of interest; Krampus runs have even become popular in parts of the US. Clegg suggests that this might reflect an increasing disenchantment with the tame, Victorian-style Christmas, especially now that it’s so commercialised. The frenzies of last-minute gift shopping or trying to get a train or plane ticket home can’t compete with the frenzy of running around with an animal head.

If so, these mixed feelings about the 19th-century family Christmas were there from the start. Clegg notes that the century that created that kind of Christmas also created a new kind of historian, keen to find dark and ghastly “pagan” rituals lurking behind the politer ones. In 1890, James Frazer’s The Golden Bough sought a key to all mythologies in a supposed long-lost midwinter rite, during which a king was killed so as to be reborn as a new king in spring. The idea was exciting, and the book became a bestseller. The problem, says Clegg, is that there was no good reason to think any such rite ever existed. The book was “a collection of wild, unsubstantiated statements”, built upon a titillating fantasy of “primitive” fertility rituals.

Frazer has been demolished many times before, but Clegg sees his ideas living on in our tendency, even now, to assume that modern practices are rooted in a timeless hinterland of mysterious, pagan antiquity. This is misleading in several ways, she argues. First, we know too little about what really went on in the undocumented past. Second, it casts the people of long-ago Europe as passive transmitters of tradition, rather than as active agents who reimagined and adapted their celebrations through time. “Never mistake folklore for something ancient and unvarying,” she writes. Like most of what humans do, it is “creative and dynamic”.

Also, the notion of solemn and ancient mysteries ignores the idea of having fun. When the fifth-century Bishop of Ravenna, Peter Chrysologus, inquired into local festivities, people assured him that it was all “just for fun”. He thought they were putting him off the scent of something more sinister. For Clegg, they were probably telling the truth. If people, given a day off work and a good excuse, choose to race around dressed as animals, drink a lot and bash each other with sticks, perhaps they do it because it’s a holiday and it’s a laugh.

I’m not surprised Clegg is so attuned to the possibility of fun as a major cultural force, because she has a strong sense of it herself. Her book is both thought-provoking and filled with amusing asides and quips. Like Gibbon, but with more brevity, she puts many of her best jokes in footnotes. We need all the fun we can get, because, as she reminds us in one of her own more serious moments at the end of the book, “beyond the glow of firelight, the shadows are waiting”.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[stromuprisahat]

... according to Church dogma, demons had no gender, making the existence of the female Gello demon an impossibility. Worse still was that the notion of independent demons challenged the omnipotence of God: the loss of a child was a punishment from God, caused by the sin of the parents. People whose children died were supposed to do penance, not blame the loss on a demon.

Woman's Lore (Sarah Clegg)

Gods, I ~love~ Christianity!

Something awful happened to you?!

Your fault!

[lilibetbombshell]

[abookishshade]

Book Haul (May 2024)

Paperbacks (thanks to a cool book fair in my city) -

The God of Small Things

A Fine Balance

The White Tiger

Audiobooks (thanks to audible offer) -

The Body Keeps the Score

Woman's Lore

[bookjotter6865]

Winding Up the Week #404

An end of week recap “One can never have enough socks. Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn’t get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.” – J.K Rowling (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone) I hope those of you who celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah have a wonderful time over the festive period. I wish you peace, pleasure and a great many presents in the form of books. I…

[doobydoobydoowau]

"It is also clear from these monsters that the loss of a child (or the inability to have one in the first place) was not thought of solely as a personal tragedy for a woman - it was a failure of womanhood. Lamia and Gello may be sympathetic, but they are monstrous nonetheless. Lamia is, fundamentally, a woman who is unable to keep her children alive, and whilst there might be understanding of the pain this causes her, she is nonetheless demonised for it. Gello, meanwhile, is tormented not just because she died young, but because she never married or had children. There is no suggestion that her lost life could have taken a different path - she is not driven to furious murder because, had she lived, she could have composed great poetry, or written works of philosophy, or become an athlete. The failure to marry or have children, or to keep existing children alive, turned Lamia and Gello from beautiful young women into monsters, demons who were entirely outside of civilised society. They had failed at being women, to such an extent that they were women no longer."

- Sarah Clegg, 𝘞𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯'𝘴 𝘓𝘰𝘳𝘦: 4,000 𝘠𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘚𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘴, 𝘚𝘦𝘳𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘚𝘶𝘤𝘤𝘶𝘣𝘪

[kaggsy59]

"The image as key fits the lock but will not turn." @renardpress #all that remains

Sometimes, it’s the slimmest works which can have the biggest emotional heft… The most recent arrival from Renard Press as part of my monthly subscription was a title which intrigued me from the start. A small but lovely paperback with flaps and colour illustrations, it’s called “All that Remains” by Sarah Hemings & Vanessa Clegg. The book contains a mixture of poetry, paintings and prose pieces…

[witchyfashion]

Discover the monsters, witches, and other ghoulish creatures that make up lesser known Christmas folklore in this gleefully creepy guide–perfect for horror fans who love the wintry holidays. When you think about Christmas, you likely picture mangers, glowing fireplaces, sweet carolers, and snow-blanketed hills. But behind all this bright magic, there’s something much darker lurking in the shadows. In The Dead of Winter, Cambridge-trained historian Sarah Clegg delves deep into the folklore of the Christmas season in Europe, detailing the way its terrifying and often debaucherous past continues to haunt and entertain us now in the twenty-first century. Perfect for the growing mainstream audience obsessed with horror and monsters, this guide makes the perfect gift, beautifully packaged in a stocking-stuffer-friendly trim size. 

buy here

[peregrination-studies]

24 books in 2024

It is 2024, and I am here yet again with my bookish hopes and dreams!

I did this challenge last year (available here), and in 2022 (available here), and I'm STOKED to do it again this year! As is my way, I have been planning and revising this list for some time. My Goodreads overfloweth with ideas.

As always, if you have book recs, please send them my way! And, if you're participating in the challenge this year, I'd love to see your lists!

Without further ado, I gladly present to you my 24 in '24 book list:

Sci-Fi and Just for Fun :)

1) Randomize by Andy Weir (read April 2024)

2) Next by Michael Crichton (read May 2024)

3) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (read April 2024)

4) With a Little Luck by Marissa Meyer (read February 2024)

Environmental Science/Ecology/Books Relevant to my Studies

5) Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth by Buckminster Fuller (read April 2024)

6) Must Love Trees: An Unconventional Guide by Tobin Mitnick (read April-November 2024)

7) Scientifically Historica: How the World’s Great Science Books Chart the History of Knowledge by Brian Clegg (read November 2024)

8) Letters to a Young Scientist by Edward O. Wilson (read November 2024)

Reading Around the World

9) The Eighth Continent: Life, Death and Discovery in the Lost World of Madagascar by Peter Tyson (Madagascar)

10) Everything is Wonderful: Memories of a Collective Farm in Estonia by Sigrid Rausing (Estonia) (read April-November 2024)

11) Willoughbyland: England’s Lost Colony by Matthew Parker (Suriname)

12) A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa and Daniel Hahn (Translator) (Angola) (read November 2024)

Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge/Classics

13) The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (read April 2024)

14) The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir, H.M. Parables (Translator and Editor), and Deirdre Bair (Introduction) (read December 2024)

15) Gidget by Frederick Kohner (read November 2024)

16) Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (read December 2024)

Recommended by Friends

17) Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (recommended by @hedonism-tattoo and many, many others) (read December 2024)

18) Howl’s Moving Castle by Diane Wynne Jones (also recommended by many people now. @permanentreverie posted about it recently tho, and that was what really made me decide to include it on this list!) (read April 2024)

19) Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson (recommended by @daydreaming-optimist ) (read April 2024)

20) The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (recommended by @kaillakit) (read May 2024)

Eco-Psychology

21) Ecopsychology by Lester R. Brown (read December 2024)

22) Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times by Alexis Shotwell (read April 2024)

23) Radical Ecopsychology: Psychology in the Service of Life by Andy Fisher and David Abram (foreword) (read December 2024)

24) Sight and Sensibility: the Ecopsychology of Perception by Laura Sewall

Bonus

25) Bride by Ali Hazelwood (read February 2024)

26) Open Heart Surgery by Johanna Leo (read March 2024)

27) A Short History of the World in 50 Books by Daniel Smith

28) Candy Hearts by Tommy Siegel (read February 2024)

No pressure tagging: @daydreaming-optimist @kaillakit @permanentreverie @noa-the-physicist @silhouette-of-sarah @captaindelilahbard @senatorhotcheeto @the-bibliophiles-bookshelf @skyekg @of-the-elves @obesecamels @courageisneverforgotten @willowstea @its-me-satine @deirdrerose @notetaeker @theskittlemuffin and anyone else who wants to do this!

[camlannpod]

hi! I'm sure someone's asked this before, but I've just listened to your podcast (I'm really enjoying it) and I was wondering if you had any good arthurian/medieval book recommendations (preferably queer)

OMG NO ONE HAS ASKED BEFORE AND I'M SO HAPPY YOU DID THANK YOU AND I HOPE YOU'RE WELL ALSO

Spear by Nicola Griffith - great trans focused novel about Peredur

Gwen and Art are Not in Love by Lex Croucher - sugary sweet YA queer romance where Gwen and Arthur are each other's beards

Here Lies Arthur by Phillip Reeve - bit edgy and not as explicitly queer because it's older, but it's very Welsh and I love it, again very trans Peredur

I've heard good things about Mordred, Bastard Son by Douglas Clegg, Legendborn by Tracy Deonn and Lancelot and the Wolf by Sarah Luddington. Next on my to-read list is Once & Future by Amy Rose Capetta!

In other mediums, I've heard great things about High Noon Over Camelot, a story album by The Mechanisms (guessing from your username you might be familiar :p), and I really love the comic series Once and Future by Kieron Gillen. (Tragically though, the comics aren't especially queer).

Honestly Le Morte d'Arthur, the Mabinogion and Gawain and the Green Knight are, in my opinion, pretty damn queer, as well as a lot of the other Arthurian source texts.

Also to be clear I am at all times extremely open to recommendations on this subject, so if anyone wants to recommend anything please do!

[deathlessathanasia]

What were your thoughts on Women’s Lore by Sarah Clegg?

It was an interesting read. I especially learned a lot of things about Lilith that I didn't know before.

[stromuprisahat]

In some ways these dismissals of our demonesses [from their male scholarly contemporaries] might seem legitimate: we can, after all, be fairly confident that there weren’t snake-women flying around murdering children, nor virgin ghosts returning from the grave to kill young women. Perhaps the men who ridiculed Gello-believers were just logical, thoughtful individuals: philosophers, who understood the natural world better than the ‘foolish old women’ around them. However, this defence only holds up so far. As we’ll see plenty of men – even educated, religious, revered ones – were quite happy to accept myths about seductive snake-women who wanted to murder sailors, or monsters disguised as beautiful women trying to trick innocent men into marrying them. It wasn’t the existence of magical snake monsters that disturbed the cool logic of their minds – it was the existence of magical snake monsters who didn’t focus their attentions on men. We can also see this, to a lesser extent, in ancient Greece and Rome – there are no slightly patronizing rationalizing accounts about the sexy version of Lamia.

Woman's Lore (Sarah Clegg)

[ravenya003]

Stuff I Read/Watching in October...

The Power of the Dark Crystal: Volumes 1 – 3 by Simon Spurrier, Kelly Matthews and Nicole Matthews

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

Snowbound! by Anne M. Martin

The Dollhouse Murders by Betty Ren Wright

The Ghost in the Dollhouse by Kathryn Reiss

Carmilla by Sheridan le Fanu

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Cassandra Speaks: When Women Are the Storytellers, the Human Story Changes by Elizabeth Lesser

Woman’s Lore: 4,000 Years of Sirens, Serpents and Succubi by Sarah Clegg

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

The Grownup by Gillian Flynn

Seawitch by Skye McKenna

Dracula (1931)

Horror of Dracula (1958)

Viy (1967)

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)

Dracula (2020)

Abbott Elementary: Season 2 (2022 – 2023)

Vampire Academy: Season 1 (2022)

Interview with the Vampire: Season 2 (2024)

The Dragon Prince: Season 6 (2024)

Slow Horses: Season 4 (2024)

More details on blog...

[bobbie-robron]

Classic ED schedule - week 36 (2024)

UK START TIME FOR THE WEEK: 1:40 P.M.

02-Sep: 16-Dec-2005 (4234), 19-Dec-2005 (4235)

Alan & Adam are at a standstill over Terence and Steph’s feelings about her brother. Cain focuses on Sarah as Debbie clearly isn’t bonding with her daughter.

03-Sep: 20-Dec-2005 (4236), 21-Dec-2005 (4237)

Cain forces Emily to leave but Debbie offers up a shock proposal to Emily leaving them both stunned. After Sarah’s christening, Emily and Sarah drive away from the village.

04-Sep: 22-Dec-2005 (4238) - Emily departs until Oct-2006, 23-Dec-20035 (4239)

All react to Emily and Sarah’s departure while Debbie is unapologetic. The Sugdens search for Sarah find them at the bus station but come up empty. The Dingles celebrate Christmas at Granny Clegg’s.

05-Sep: 25-Dec-2005 (4240/4041) 1 hour episode, no ‘2nd’ episode

Belle is missing and the search is on. But Daz is also missing… both are stuck in a shaft that is slowly filling with water! Tom gets Jimmy released from a police cell and what’s worse, realizes his son is a broken man!

06-Sep: 26-Dec-2005 (4242), 27-Dec-2005 (4243)

Sadie passes Matthew’s test of loyalty (him or the business) suggested by Jimmy. Nicola humiliates Kelly over her gift to Rodney. Jimmy realizes Sadie & Matthew are together but Tom doesn’t believe him (at least to his face). Laurel decides on a New Year’s Eve party!

[manuscripts-dontburn]

Year of Wonders

Author: Geraldine Brooks

First published: 2001

Rating: ★★★★★

I loved this book as much as you can love and enjoy a book about a plague. Beautifully written and offered to the reader through the eyes of a young, common but intelligent and strong woman, it plunges you into a heartbreaking story of one year in a disease-stricken village, with colourful characters who develop in front of you as the heroine comes to know them. The ending, after all the realism of human nature and history, felt a little too fantastical (or could have been yet another book), but it was not completely unwelcome after all the pain.

Legends & Lattes

Author: Travis Baldree

First published: 2022

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

The best word I can use to describe this book is "inoffensive". There is nothing I would particularly hate or that would deserve to be torn to shreds, but it was also very, very dull. At first, I thought this was a fantasy response to the wonderful sci-fi comfort books by Becky Chambers, however, the difference is that Chambers takes you on a comforting journey full of wonder, discovery, and original concepts. Travis Baldree´s story is like a ComicCon attendee: dressed up in something that is actually not all that important to what person he is underneath the costume. The fantasy aspect had no impact on the story at all, the most fantastic thing about the whole "world" being that some people do not yet know coffee. You could place the exact same story into contemporary New York. The language is not particularly beautiful and if you had chapter headers, you would not need to read anything else to get the plot.

Chapter 1: I buy a stable. Chapter 2: I hire a craftsman. Chapter 3: We work on the stable. Chapter 4: I hire another person. Chapter 5: We start selling coffee. Chapter 6: We design menus Chapter 7: We have live music now Chapter 8: We invent a cup to go etc. etc.

The characters are bland figures who are either nice or not nice, you never really get to know anything about any of them except that they are nice or not nice. Just cause. When done well, I love the comfort and low-stakes literature. But this was really just words on paper passing me by. Maybe it is just me though. After all, I really don´t like coffee.

Woman's Lore: 4,000 Years of Sirens, Serpents and Succubi

Author: Sarah Clegg

First published: 2023

Rating: ★★★☆☆

This was definitely interesting, though a little ent-ish ("It takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say.") Simply put, while I found new bits of history I am happy to file into my brain, the book seemed overtly too long and with the same point repeated in every chapter. And it all ends up being about one thing. I should probably also mention that this particular woman´s lore is limited to the mythology of Mesopotamia and Greece, so do not expect anything Asian, Native American, or from other parts of Europe, etc.

King Midas and the Golden Touch

Author: M. Charlotte Craft, Kinuko Y. Craft

First published: 2003

Rating: ★★★★★

A lovely version of a famous myth, stunningly illustrated by Kinuko Craft. Would love to have each and every single picture of hers on my walls.

Victoria The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire

Author: Julia Baird

First published: 2016

Rating: ★★★★★

After having read a lot about Victoria, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this book and that it still had things to teach me. Well-researched and well-written, it definitely benefits from the sensitivity of the female author for its subject as well as a balanced mixture of intimate life and politics. not a definitive biography, but definitely one that introduces and describes the fascinating Queen brilliantly.

The Women of the Copper Country

Author: Mary Doria Russell

First published: 2019

Rating: ★★★★☆

At times I felt the characters were a little bit too simplistic in their "good" and "bad" roles, firmly fitting into an imaginary slot of hero and villain. But the writing was really good, the story kept me hooked and yes, there was a moment when I simply felt too many things at once - and such moments make memorable books for me. Also: fuck capitalism.

The Gift: 12 Lessons to Save Your Life

Author: Edith Eger

First published: 2020

Rating: ★★★★☆

A notable addition to Eger´s previous book The Choice, with less history and more lessons she learned from life and now offers to the rest of the world. Sometimes the tone of the book seems quite forceful, but it is always rooted in compassion. Edith Eger wants everybody to heal. And made me realize what I had suspected for a while now: I too would much benefit from some kind of therapy.

Godmersham Park

Author: Gill Hornby

First published: 2022

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Godmersham Park is more of a portrait of a life of a domestic in the early 19th century rather than a story with a plot, which made it sometimes difficult for me to keep reading. I liked the portrayal of warm friendships between Anne and some of the members of the Austen clan and the author certainly can make the atmosphere vivid. Eventually, though, the banality captured in the majority of the pages prevailed over the more positive aspects.

Weyward

Author: Emilia Hart

First published: 2023

Rating: ★★★★★

Three different stories that yet are the same. Three women bound by blood, legacy, and love of nature. Three victories over prejudice and cruelty. I loved everything about this book.

The Lives of Saints

Author: Leigh Bardugo

First published: 2020

Rating: ★★★★★

I picked this book up simply because I really wanted more from that world and I got exactly what I had wanted. Gorgeously illustrated, this slim volume is skillfully disguised as both myths and hagiographies, which at the same time could work as unrelated fairy tales. I enjoyed it very much.

Anne of Avonlea

Author: L.M. Montgomery

First published: 1909

Rating: ★★★★☆

A sweet book I thoroughly enjoyed, it gave me a welcome respite from the stresses of reality.