#Traditional Christmas prints
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Festive Christmas Tree Wall Art | Elegant Holiday Decor
Bring the magic of the holidays into your home with this festive Christmas tree wall art. Featuring a beautifully decorated tree adorned with classic red ornaments and ribbon bows, this artwork creates a cozy and joyful atmosphere. Perfect for living rooms, entryways, or dining areas, this elegant piece adds a touch of traditional holiday charm to your seasonal decor.
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#Christmas tree wall art#Festive holiday decor#Red and green Christmas artwork#Traditional Christmas prints#Cozy winter wall art#Holiday season wall decor#Christmas home inspiration#Festive living room art#Modern holiday prints#Classic Christmas decorations#Red ribbon tree art#Christmas canvas print#Elegant holiday wall art#Winter home decor#Seasonal wall prints#Christmas ornaments artwork#Rustic Christmas tree art#Holiday decor ideas#Red and gold wall art#Christmas wall art for home
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acrylic painting i did for my parents
#they usually have that picture printed out and hanged up every christmas#so a big painting is surely better than an a4 print on printing paper#star trek#tos#star trek tos#spirk#k/s#kirk/spock#star trek the original series#james t kirk#spock#art#traditional art#acrylic#painting#h draws
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Day 9 - Winter Solstice

#art#traditional art#alcohol markers#snow#winter#winter solstice#pen drawing#night#moon#stars#snowing#aesthetic#cozycore#peaceful#trees#12 days of christmas#christmas tree#nature#outdoors#animals#cat#paw prints#witchblr#paganism#pagan
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it glows in the dark
#it shines#in the dark#linocut#print#art#traditional art#glow in the dark#halloween#the nightmare before christmas#oogie boogie
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Spiny Dogfish Shark (01) watercolor print
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Find watercolor art print and cards on PaintingsByKF Etsy shop!
#art#original art#artists on tumblr#painting#sketchbook#my art#traditional art#etsyseller#my art blog#nature#spiny dogfish#dogfish#sharks#shark week#oceanlife#watercolourpainting#watercolor paper#watercolor art#watercolor painting#illustration#fun art#simple and cute#cute sharks#giftsforfriends#christmas#christmas gift#birthday gift#happy halloweeeeeeen#art print#etsyartshop
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Towards the end of each year, as fireplaces are lit and hot cocoa is made, Americans have made it a tradition to revisit their favorite classic holiday books, movies and songs.
And though ghost stories may seem out of place in present-day American holiday celebrations, they were once a Christmas staple, reaching their peak of popularity in Victorian England.
A Dark, Spooky Time of Year

Like most longstanding cultural customs, the precise origin of telling ghost stories at the end of the year is unknown, largely because it began as an oral tradition without written records.
But, according to Sara Cleto, a folklorist specializing in British literature and co-founder of The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic, the season around winter solstice, has been one of transition and change.
“For a very, very, very long time, [the season] has provoked oral stories about spooky things in many different countries and cultures all over the world,” she says.
Furthermore, spooky storytelling gave people something to do during the long, dark evenings before electricity.
“The long midwinter nights meant folks had to stop working early, and they spent their leisure hours huddled close to the fire,” says Tara Moore, an assistant professor of English at Elizabethtown College, author of 'Victorian Christmas in Print' and editor of The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories.
“Plus, you didn’t need to be literate to retell the local ghost story.”
Effects of the Industrialization Revolution

It was in Victorian England that telling supernatural tales at the end of the year — specifically, during the Christmas season — went from an oral tradition to a timely trend.
This was in part due to the development of the steam-powered printing press during the Industrial Revolution that made the written word more widely available.
This gave Victorians the opportunity to commercialize and commodify existing oral ghost stories, turning them into a version they could sell.
“Higher literacy rates, cheaper printing costs, and more periodicals meant that editors needed to fill pages,” Moore says.
“Around Christmas time, they figured they could convert the old storytelling tradition to a printed version.”
People who moved out of their towns and villages and into larger cities still wanted access to the supernatural sagas they heard around the fireplace growing up.
“Fortunately, Victorian authors like Elizabeth Gaskell, Margaret Oliphant, and Arthur Conan Doyle worked through the fall to cook up these stories and have them ready to print in time for Christmas,” Moore says.
Industrialization not only provided tools to distribute spooky stories, uncertainty during the era also fueled interest in the genre, says Brittany Warman, a folklorist specializing in Gothic literature and co-founder of The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic. She adds:
"Interest was driven by the rise of industrialization, the rise of science, and the looming fall of Victorian Britain as a superpower.
All of these things were in people's minds and made the world seem a little bit darker [and] a little bit scarier.”
Stories Find a Wide-Ranging Audience

Telling horror-filled holiday tales continued to be a family affair in England, even when they were read rather than recited.
“We know from illustrations and diaries that whole families read these periodicals together,” Moore says.
The popularity of Victorian Christmas ghost stories also transcended socioeconomic status, according to Moore.
They were available to read everywhere from cheap publications to expensive Christmas annuals that middle-class ladies would show off on their coffee tables.
Their broad audience was reflected in the stories themselves, which sometimes centered around working class characters and other times took place in haunted manor houses.
“These upper class settings were intended to invite readers from all classes into an idealized, upper-crust Christmas, the type todays’ fans of Downton Abbey still enjoy as entertainment,” Moore adds.

Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella A Christmas Carol has forever linked the British author with the holiday season, but his contributions to Christmas in Victorian England — including the tradition of telling and reading ghost stories — extend far beyond Jacob Marley’s visit to Scrooge.
In fact, Cleto says that Dickens played a “huge part” in popularizing the genre in England.
“He wrote a bunch of different Christmas novellas, several of which involved ghosts, specifically,” she says, “and then he started editing more and more Christmas ghost stories from other people, and working those into the magazines he was already editing. And that just caught like wildfire.”
Dickens also helped shape Christmas literature in general, Moore says, by formalizing expectations about themes like forgiveness and reunion during the holiday season.
American Christmas Traditions: More Syrupy Than Spooky

Although countless trends made their way from England to America during the Victorian era, the telling of ghost stories during the Christmas season was not one that really caught on.
A Christmas Carol was an immediate best-seller in the United States, but at the time of its publication, Dickens was arguably the most famous writer in the world and already wildly popular.
The novella’s success in the U.S. likely had more to do with Dickens’ existing (massive) fan base than it did Americans’ interest in incorporating the supernatural into Christmas.
“American Christmas scenes and stories tended to be syrupy sweet,” Moore explains.
"There were a few American writers of the period trying to put Victorian-style Christmas ghost stories into American culture,” Warman says, including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James.
Washington Irving made a similar and earlier attempt, slipping the supernatural into Christmas-themed short stories published in 1819 and 1820.
Warman theorizes that America’s reluctance to embrace the Christmas ghost story tradition had to do, at least in part, with the country’s attitudes towards things like magic and superstitions.
“In America, we generally had a bit of a resistance to the supernatural in a way that European countries didn't,” she explains.
“When you come to America, you come with a fresh start. You come with a secular mindset and the idea that you were leaving the past behind. And some of these spooky superstitions were thought of as being part of the past.”
Another reason telling spooky stories never took off as a Christmas tradition in the United States was because it became more firmly established as a Halloween tradition, thanks to Irish and Scottish immigrants.
“That really impacted culture here, because they brought with them a concept similar to Halloween and that became, for America, the time period for ghosts,” Warman explains.
Traces of the Tradition

Other than A Christmas Carol, there is another piece of pop culture that reflects the Victorian Christmas tradition: a single line from a song written and released in 1963 by American musicians.
First recorded by Andy Williams, the song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” lists 'scary ghost stories' as one of the highlights of the holiday season.
Although it’s unclear why the writers of the song (Edward Pola and George Wyle) included the tradition, Cleto says that it’s possible that the lyric is a reference to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
“It's only the one text,” she notes, “but it's such a big deal here in the US and the UK, and is pretty much all that Americans know about Christmas ghost stories in isolation.”
#Christmas#Christmas Ghost Stories#Victorian Era#1800s#19th century#Victorian England#oral tradition#written records#Sara Cleto#winter solstice#folklore#British literature#spooky storytelling#Tara Moore#steam-powered printing press#Industrial Revolution#ghost stories#Brittany Warman#Victorian Christmas#Charles Dickens#A Christmas Carol#Jacob Marley#Scrooge#Halloween
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There's a couple of weekday holidays this year so we're doing some progress pics! Did another linocut for this year's card :)
Support me on: ko-fi | insta | etsy | cara
#my art#traditional art#artists on tumblr#art#wip#my wips#art wip#linocut#printmaking#block printing#prints#christmas cards#holiday cards
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6x9 inches. Recently finished, gouache on mixed media paper. I felt a little rusty when I started painting but I'm pretty happy with the end result! I have more in this series to finish, but I'm pretty sure it's not happening by Christmas. Mainly because there are nine more of them.

#my art#art#artists on tumblr#artwork#cat art#cat#victorian#gouache painting#traditional art#painting#christmas#animal art#not for sale yet but will be eventually#because I am poor and can't afford ink to make prints#and haven't gotten around to listing the original
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Christmas Collection 2023
I know I know I know — no one wants to think about Christmas between December 26th and November 1st, but I finally finished my cozy little paint with me making of video for my homemade Christmas cards on YouTube and want to share them here.
Most of these pieces are available as prints on my Fourthwall (linked in my about section) and I plan to make them into Christmas cards people can purchase next year. If you see this and don’t mind helping me out — which paintings (aside from the reindeer and woman carrying presents) would you purchase as a Christmas card? I’d like to get an idea of which ones are most popular. 😊✨
youtube
#small artist#art prints#original art#traditional art#artists on tumblr#my art#artwork#art#christmas#homemade#christmas cards#acrylic painting#painting#Youtube
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https://trendyshirtsandgear.etsy.com
Cute animal PNG graphics. Download all 70 plus bonus extras using the link above
#cute animals#animal art#animal print#sticker shop#magnets#kids crafts#craft supplies#christmas crafts#crafts#arts and crafts#traditional art#nursery wall art#nursery decor#scrapbook#preschool activities#funny cats#funny dogs#dinosuar#fat piggy#peppa pig#chow chow#cute dog#cute cats#cuteness#the penguin hbo#penguins.gif#cat gif#dog gif#bear print jumper#teddy sweatshirt
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Christmas Bells Wall Art | Festive Holiday Decor Print
Add a touch of holiday cheer to your home with this beautiful Christmas bells wall art. Featuring classic golden bells, vibrant holly leaves, red berries, and a festive red ribbon, this artwork brings warmth and joy to any space. Perfect for Christmas decor in living rooms, entryways, or dining areas, this piece captures the magic of the season. Brighten up your home for the holidays
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#Christmas wall art#Festive holiday decor#Golden Christmas bells#Christmas print for home#Traditional holiday wall art#Christmas ribbon and holly#Christmas decorations for living room#Festive red and green decor#Holiday canvas print#Vintage Christmas art#Christmas berries artwork#Seasonal wall art#Christmas bells painting#Winter holiday decor#Christmas home inspiration#Holiday wall print#Classic Christmas decor#Elegant Christmas art#Rustic holiday wall art#Red ribbon and bells print
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Capture the heart of family bonds with our Family Merge Photo Service! 🌟 Crafted for unforgettable moments, it's the perfect blend of memories in one frame. 📸✨ Gift joy, gift love! 🎁💖 #FamilyMerge #MemoriesReimagined #PerfectGift
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#etsy#etsyseller#etsyshop#menswear#home decor#handmade#handcrafted#halloween#history#travel#traditional art#canvas painting#acrylic on canvas#webtoon canvas#oil on canvas#canvas art#painting#print#gift ideas#christmas gift
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short n' sweet ♡ valentines day special adrien ( delinquent oc ) x student president m reader
ⓘ fluff fluff fluff ! jealous adrien , reader gets confessed to by a girl
A day where cupid strings his bow and aims his arrow at couples is the day you spend the most time stringing up heart decorations around the school. Its only a few small splashes of pink ribbons and red hearts since Valentines isn't a huge thing—some people simply don't enjoy it as much as Christmas or others—but it's a nice opportunity to liven up the school with some fun flare.
For the most part, you can see cheesy couples receive bouquets neatly arranged into something pretty for their partner or love letters being handed out the old-fashioned way. You weren't a big celebrator seeing as you didn't have a romantic partner. Of course the occasional chocolates being given to friends was a tradition you practised when nobody bothered to give you a flower or a sweet confession.
But this year was different.
After finishing the decorations, you took the time to wander the grounds before returning to your councillor room. It was early enough for the walk to be rather peaceful with the occasional wave to people you knew when they walked by. Reaching the room you, place your hand on the doorknob, twisting it until it makes that click before a hand plants on your shoulder.
“Been awhile.”
You turn your head to see him in the flesh. Adrien, with that shit-eating grin. It was completely out of character for him to show up so early—or show up at all. That fact alone sent shivers down your spine. A coincidence that he shows up bright and early on valentines day?
“Bit late but,” Adrien takes a moment to exhale before his eyes meet yours.
“Will you be my valentines?”
You stand there, blankly staring at him. No flowers, no chocolates and certainly no handwritten love letter stamped with a wax seal as you were wishing for. He couldn't have been this unromantic. For all you knew, Adrien was just some ill-mannered guy who weaseled his way into your life thinking he had you wrapped around his finger just because you two 'hooked up' underneath the staircase.
“No.” Short and sharp; unintentional or not. Sure you liked him, a little more than you'd ever wanted to admit, but Valentines was meant to be unrealistically romantic, a day where you can feel like you're living in those old romance films.
“What?” You could hear the confusion in Adrien's voice as he watches you brush past him and slam the door infront of his face, drowning out his complaints through the door.
That whole ordeal in the morning definitely wilted your mood. The entire morning session of classes felt like a drag as if time was purposefully going slower each time you glanced at the clock.
You were probably the first person to leave the classroom when you were dismissed, rushing out to your locker to reunite with your friends in hopes of charging your social battery.
“Hey— prez? I have, um, something for you.” The nickname felt like deja vu, like you've been called it countless times by a certain someone. But it wasn't him; it was a girl around your age or even younger. In her hands was a square, pink box with 'milk chocolate' printed in a cursive font. Her face was flushed pink and it looked as though if she met eyes with you, she'd melt under your gaze. On top of the chocolates was a pretty letter with equally pretty handwriting.
It undoubtedly made you smile even if it was just a little.
You accepted her gift, making sure you flashed a polite smile at her before watching her scurry off like it had been the hardest thing of her life to come up to you like that. It was charming in a way. You skimmed the letter which was mainly just her stating her appreciation for you and how she wanted to get to know you better with her name signed at the bottom with a small heart next to it.
A few of your friends who had just made it out of class had witnessed the whole scene, patting your back and pawing at the chocolates like hyenas. It wouldn't hurt to share the love, especially when your friends seemed like they'd die without sugar.
You let them all take one before sealing the box and placing it in your locker for later, you pocketed the note just so you didn't accidentally lose it or have it slip out.
Come to think of it, the more the day went by, the more you noticed a lack of Adrien. Usually he'd make an appearance by now, whether that was to stare at you with a smirk while you walked by eachother or to 'accidentally' brush your arm on any opportunity he got.
You made nothing of it though, it was probably because he thought today was boring—given all the couples would boast their affection towards eachother in the hallways—and decided to skip. It was typical of him to do so. But it still weighed in your mind all the way until the home bell rung.
Your locker was the last stop before you could go home, opening the metal door to see that your box of chocolates were gone; replaced.
Godiva chocolates in the shape of a heart, a letter sealed in an envelope, and a bouquet of flowers that look strangely like the ones from the school garden was neatly arranged in your locker.
“Do you like it?” You practically jump out your skin as your turn to see the man you haven't seen the while day.
“You put this here?” You ask, looking back at the gifts stuffed in your locker.
“Who else would— nevermind don't answer that.” You could tell from the furrowed set of his eyebrows that he was pissed off about something, like it bothered him enough to replace the chocolates you were given.
“I thought that maybe you didn't like how forward I was this morning.” It was one of those rare occasions where Adrien wouldn't have that cocky look on his face or that teasing lilt to his tone. He wore an almost shy expression, like he wasn't used to giving gifts this romantic.
“Seeing as you liked that girl's gift so much.” You could hear the venom roll off his tongue when he said that.
You glance down at what Adrien gave you. Godiva wasn't a cheap brand and those flowers would probably have taken Adrien awhile to personally pick and choose the ones you liked to plant in the gardens. Your heart flutters at the thought that maybe Adrien was gone the whole day because he was trying to pick up gifts for you, all cause he felt a little guilty.
“I know its over the top but—” “I like it.”
He pauses and stares down at you like its the most baffling thing in the world to hear you say 'I like it.' You look up at him, and you can't hold your smile back—this time, you smile wholeheartedly.
“Thanks, Adrien,” You look both ways to see if anyone was watching and you lean up to kiss just shy of his lips on the corners of his mouth. It was a quick peck as you almost instantly pulled back to pack up your things and walk past him.
He stands there, frozen in place before his own fingers touch his face, grazing over the spot you kissed him at.
There's a sharp bang of his fist against the neighbouring lockers as he internally crumbles, holding his face like he needed to shield what was left of your fleeting kiss.
A victory perhaps?
a / n ; dividers made by anitalenia , and the gift graphics are made by my dearest anby !
#servicpop — fics/drabbles#servicpop — ocs#bottom male reader#oc x male reader#sub male reader#male reader#x bottom male reader#mlm nsft#uke male reader#top character#amab reader
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Hey. Hi. Hello. Today I learned about the existence of 15th century Welsh poet Gwerful Mechain and that she apparently has a surviving work of erotic poems.
Please. For Christmas. For Yule. Please tell me more because I can't read Welsh.
Heh heh. Oh, Gwerful Mechain is the absolute best.
(Quick housekeeping to keep the post manageable - I previously wrote about things like cynghanedd and cywydds and englyns and such here, so check that if you need an explanation.)
What's fun is that we don't know a ton about her, because not a lot got written down about people in her time. Her surviving work covers a 40ish year span at the end of the 1400s to just into the 1500s, but we don't know when she was born or died or anything like that. We know her parents' names? And that she was from Mechain, hence the bardic name. And that she married a guy and had a daughter, something which actually does mark out her body of work as different from her contemporaries; being a wife and mother, she couldn't do the usual bardic role of travelling the country to spread news and play at courts. This means she doesn't have any of the praise poetry that a lot of male bards produced about the lords that hosted them.
But, there's stuff we can piece together about her. For one thing, she was not just literate (not a universal skill for anyone at that point, but especially for women), but she was astonishingly well-read and had what appears to be a classical education, given her poetic references and traditional Welsh meters. For another, her work often had recurring themes of religion, sex, and women's rights, sometimes all at the same time.
At the point Gwerful was active, Welsh bardic culture heavily featured ymrysonau. An ymryson is like... well, I hesitate to say "sort of like a rap battle" after the way everyone and their dog now thinks that's what the Mari Lwyd does, but they were like a cross between a rap battle and the publication war between two rival academics. A bard would write an englyn and publish it in the local parish newsletter. Another bard would see this, and write their own englyn about how stupid the first bard's englyn was, and publish it in the same newsletter. The first bard would see this and retaliate. The second bard would retaliate to that. And on and on it would go, like a printed tennis match for all the parishioners to enjoy, until someone wrote a conclusive verse OR until someone went "Lol, you got me good there" and bowed out with dignity. Sometimes, these things were fucking vicious; but other times, they were just banter between two bards who knew each other and were enjoying the chance to keep their poetic skills in tip top condition.
Now, Gwerful was an active and enthusiastic participant in ymrysonau. We have many examples of her work from these. There are two of particular note that I'll list here, each against a different bard:
Dafydd Llwyd o Fathafarn. Mathafarn and Mechain are not so distant from one another, so no real surprise that these two locked horns a lot, but the impression I always got from their ymrysonau is that they were good mates, actually. These fell into the 'banter' category more often than not. Dafydd was a Welsh Nationalist who was hoping for a Welshman to rise up and throw off the yoke of English oppression, and most of his work is about that, but he turned up the filthy erotic shit for any ymryson with Gwerful because BOY HOWDY was that her specialty. IIRC she did occasionally poke fun at his Welsh Nash leanings, especially his obsession with Mab Darogan (OLD Welsh idea that translates to the Son of Prophesy - the Arthur-style figure that will one day drive out the English overlords), but mostly their ymrysonau were incredibly beautifully-written odes that could be summed up as "Dafydd, my man, my good friend, I mean this sincerely: suck my entire clit".
She often won.
Ieuan Dyfi. God, what a fucking asshole. This one was not banter. Gwerful played for blood with this prick.
We actually would know nothing about Ieuan Dyfi if not for Gwerful Mechain, because it was her poetic response to him that meant his only surviving poems made it to the modern day; that, and the record of him being brought before a church court where he admitted adultery with Anni Goch, a married woman. Oh, and the record of him being brought before the law courts at Liverpool, accused of domestic abuse and gambling? If I remember right?
Two things to know that set the scene for what came next:
One of Gwerful Mechain's surviving poems is an englyn considered to be possibly the oldest extant poem about domestic violence written by a woman: I’w gŵr am ei churo (To the husband who beats her)
Dager drwy goler dy galon - ar osgo I asgwrn dy ddwyfron; Dy lin a dyr, dy law’n don, A’th gleddau i’th goluddion.
There are a lot of translations for this one to try to keep its poeticness, but this one is pretty good:
Through your heart’s lining let there be pressed, slanting down, A dagger to the bone in your chest. Your knee smashed, your hand crushed, may the rest Be gutted by the sword you possessed.
She has others, too, that deal with sexual assault, and something scholars often note about Gwerful is her remarkable knowledge of the law as it pertained to women's issues. So she was not, you see, a woman with a high view of a man accused of domestic violence anyway.
But then Ieuan Dyfi wrote five poems about Anni Goch, the married woman he'd fucked, each more "Wow dude, she said no" than the last, culminating in I Anni Goch; a full cywydd of misogynistic Medieval-incel bullshit about how false and evil women are, which listed all the false and evil women of history including classical and mythological figures.
And. Well. Gwerful had some views.
Her responding cywydd - I ateb Ieuan Dyfi am gywydd Anni Goch - basically blasted the guy back into his own impact crater and disintegrated him. What she did with it, essentially, was to mirror his cywydd. Where he'd gone "Isn't it so true how great men throughout history have always been brought low by women, amirite lads? Here's examples", Gwerful went "Isn't it so true how 'great men' throughout history have behaved appallingly and fucked up through their own actions and then somehow managed to blame women, amirite lads? Here's examples." Where his examples had been historical figures, so were hers. Where his had been classical, so were hers. Where he went Biblical, so did she.
And what's so interesting about that last one is how pointed she was with it - for some reason, in his big list of evil women, Ieuan Dyfi did not go for the most obvious and low-hanging of fruit (no pun intended) - he doesn't cite Eve. In response, Gwerful also sidesteps the most obvious and low hanging of fruit - she doesn't cite Mary. In so doing, she makes it clear that she doesn't even need to.
There is no record of him responding to her. IIRC, there is a record of him doing three years in prison.
But! Outside of all of that, the big thing Gwerful was known for was her erotic poetry. You'll be unsurprised to hear that it wasn't written for shits and giggles - much like today, women of the time were told that most of their value was in their looks, and they had plentiful insecurities about their bodies. Gwerful wrote her erotic stuff to confront those insecurities and shine a light on the issue. There are so many examples of this, but far and away the most famous is definitely Cywydd y Cedor - roughly translated, 'Ode to the Vulva'. Though I have also seen it titled Cywydd y Gont - Ode to the Cunt. It's such a shame that the English language is literally, physically not capable of cynghanedd, because it means unless you learn Welsh you will never understand the beauty and the lyricism of the piece, and how it elevates and undercuts the content at the same time; but it's a joyful, masterful, irreverent work that uses the fancy language male poets were forever dedicating to the rest of a woman's body and applies it squarely to the vulva. In fact it basically opens with "Men are cowards, describe more cunts or gtfo" before launching into its main subject matter. The last line is pro-pubic hair, too, like I really must stress how much Gwerful Mechain would have to offer Tumblr if you could speak Welsh. This is probably her most widely translated piece, though, you can definitely find English versions. Although you can tell how blushing and reticent the translator is - and therefore how sanitised their translation is - by whether they've called it Ode to the Vulva/Cunt, or Ode to the Pubic Hair.
Needless to say, the original is not sanitised.
(Actually, I should also say - this one is also a response piece, probably, but in this case to a bard who lived a century earlier - Dafydd ap Gwilym, the absolutely legendary and uncontested king of Welsh romance poetry. He wrote a poem called Cywydd y Gal - Ode to the Penis. I have only just put two and two together on that.)
As a final note, I should say that my personal favourite Gwerful Mechain poem on this subject, mind, is actually I'w morwyn wrth gachu - to the maiden who is shitting. It's an englyn written in Gwerful's customary high poetic form, but it is what it says - it describes a woman taking a shit, and farting as she does. Beautiful and magical and disgusting and banal, all in one go:
Crwciodd lle dihangodd ei dŵr - ’n grychiast O grochan ei llawdwr; Ei deudwll oedd yn dadwr’, Baw a ddaeth, a bwa o ddŵr
Funnily enough, it's hard to find a good translation for this one lol.
My attempt:
She crouched where her water escaped - creased From the cauldron of her heat; Her two holes were arguing, Shit came, and a bow of water
Eh. It's so bland in English. Honestly, if you could read Welsh...
Anyway, if anyone reading this can read Welsh and wants to read some of Gwerful Mechain's stuff - including some of the pieces she was responding to in the ymrysonau - you can find a load here. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed!
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two movies that play with history in costuming in ways that make Brain Go Brrrr for me:
Jingle Jangle, A Christmas Journey (2020). the actual plot was very much a "this is fine but I'm not the intended audience and I didn't watch it as a child, so it will never have the nostalgia factor and it doesn't particularly compel me as an adult. and that's okay!" situation
but the COSTUMES. oh my god. Cheyney McKnight calls this "Afro-Victorian," and they did it in such an amazing way. one part that struck me is the way the clothes change over time- they didn't have to start it with 1860s-inspired fashions and then make the 30 Years Later timeskip clearly 1890s. it's a fantasy land; people would have forgiven them. but they DID and it's SO COOL
beginning of the movie. the hoops! the little perched hats! this is clearly like 1865, but it works in a lot of both fantastical twists and colors and patterns inspired by various African cloth-dyeing traditions
main character's adult daughter, after the timeskip. puffed sleeves! menswear-inspired tailoring! this is clearly Fantasy 1890s!
main character's granddaughter and her friends post-timeskip. honestly, I say African-inspired textile colors and prints, but some of these would definitely not be out of place in classic European Victorian fashion. mostly the plaid on the white girl here. appropriate skirt lengths for little girls! Cute BootsTM! hats on 99% of the female characters in this shot!
the other is The Favourite (2018)
early 18th century is severely underrepresented in film. the 1690s-1710s were gorgeous and I will die on this hill. plus the way they play around with laser-cut trim and exaggerated hair and makeup is heightening the period look, not watering it down to suit modern sensibilities
Queen Anne and her lover are doing something here; I forget what. I liked the movie, but it wasn't a- pardon the pun -favorite
would she have been wearing full-on masc clothing to shoot? probably not. is it reasonably accurate masc clothing for the era, but Stylized? yes! Also This Is Hot so I'm not complaining. maybe I'd be more into butches if they wore historical menswear...? anyway I digress
holy Tim Burton wet dream I love it so much
do I think Black Panther deserved to win the Oscar that year because the designer had to create a whole visually cohesive clothing culture from scratch? yes. do I still love the costumes in this movie? YES.
so like. it's not that I require 100% accuracy! I just like movies to be having a conversation with history rather than shouting over it, if that makes sense. (also avoiding my specific pet peeves- just be normal about corsets and put women's hair up/add hats where there should be hats. please?)
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