Glastonbury Medieval Fayre 2015

Held in the Abbey grounds over Easter weekend, Glastonbury Medieval Fayre makes for an enjoyable way to spend a day and this is exactly what we did yesterday.

There's a very good reason I don't get many photos of the locations of events.
That reason is my dad.

We decided to go on Saturday for various reasons, not least to ensure that I could get a proper night's sleep tonight as I'm flying home tomorrow. We probably didn't pick the best day for weather as the sun only made an appearance as the day was winding up but oh well, it's England!

All in all, it was a thoroughly delightful day. In fact, it seemed a lot stronger than last year's event. Perhaps this was because my remembering to pack a telephoto lens meant that we had some targeted things to focus on but I do genuinely think it was because the event was stronger this year.

Perhaps the highlight for spectators was the show performed by the Knights of the Damned Stunt team. They reenact a jousting tournament with great skill and a fair amount of theatrics. I've actually seen them a few times now, at various events, and have not grown tired of their performances. Indeed, we watched both shows on the Saturday to enable me to get some decent photos (a success) and both were different, high energy, and thoroughly entertaining!

The main battle is probably the focus of the day as various reenactment groups gather together to reenact a rather anachronistic battle - both Vikings and Napoleonic (I think) gunners were present, to give you some idea. It’s rather entertaining to watch the combination of people who don’t seem like they’re really into it and those who are about ready to tear each other’s arms off beating each other up in the name of history. That said, and for all the comedy included in the commentary and performance aspects, it’s really easy to see how chaotic a battle really would be. This was a (kinda) choreographed reenactment… imagine the reality whereby people were fighting for their lives amidst the crowd and noise. It’s something that’s hard to picture when our ideas of historic warfare come from a mixture of dusty history books and overly polished Hollywood films.

And that, of course, is the beauty, and the importance, of reenactment and of events like this one. It’s easy to teach people the information given in historical tomes. It’s hard to bring that history to life and to re-imbue it with life. Reenactment does just that. It takes the scholarship and makes it into something real, tangible, understandable, human.

Bonus photo of the most stunning sunset-ish moment.
Couldn't resist popping to the sea on the way home!

CD Review - 'Mistletoe and Wine' by Mediæval Bæbes

Genre: Medieval Christmassy stuff

Review: 

Formed by Katharine Blake of band Miranda Sex Garden, the Mediæval Bæbes consists of a varying line up of female musicians performing medieval inspired music. I’ve listened to the Mediaeval Baebes casually for some time now on last.fm or youtube (etc) but only bought their album Mistletoe and Wine a few weeks back, needing to find a piece to work on for my singing lesson.

Mistletoe and Wine, as you might have guessed from the title, is an album of Christmas/advent/etc songs, most of which featured on earlier albums (according to Wikipedia two songs are new, two are rerecorded. I’m not going to check). As a rule, I hate it when a CD contains a mix of songs off other albums, plus one or two new ones, because it always seems like a cruel ploy to get people to buy songs twice. ‘Gold editions’ of albums, containing bonus tracks, released a couple of months after the original album just when all the fans have bought the first album drive me bonkers too. Anyway, I digress. The point is, this is the first CD by the Bæbes that I have bought and therefore I’m not too worried about the repetition.

Now’s the point when I talk about album art or something like that. Well, I downloaded this one so haven’t really got anything to say. It looks like an okay design, as far as one can tell on iTunes album art. I don't really understand the seemingly random naked people but it is a deep shade of red which works for Christmas, and for me. It’s not fair to comment when you can’t see something physically but there’s nothing that jumps out as impressive in the album cover; it’s just okay.

Sadly, that seems to be my general opinion on the important bit, the music. There’s nothing awful but there’s very little that stands out as great either. There are some beautiful arrangements, some great vocals, but overall the album left me rather nonplused. Yes, I do feel guilty posting a review about something that I don't really like, hence the generally positive reviews, but here goes.

The tune I ultimately ended up working on in my own singing lessons is ‘Gaudete’. I love this piece, even if, having sung it heaven only knows how many times over the past month, I am sick of it! The vocals in the stanzas sound pure, clear and really pretty. The burden is pretty too but it just doesn’t sound quite right. The singers sound a bit bored, maybe that they’re trying too hard to sound like an angelic choir… they sound a bit bored. They’re singing “Gaudete”, or “rejoice”, but sound like they couldn’t care less.

And there we have the problem with this recording, in my opinion. It’s pretty but that’s all I can say about it as a whole. It’s got some lovely moments, some lovely musical aspects, yet it feels soulless.

My favourite piece on the CD is Kinderly which, despite having some of the most depressing lyrics going (thanks medieval hymns!) is a bouncy piece, sung in a round with a fair amount of percussion. It’s bouncy, quick, and complex sounding enough for it to have some character. Similarly, I enjoy Ecce Mundi Gaudium which also seems to have a bit of charisma.

Out of the slower pieces, it is The Coventry Carol that really stands out. This piece is exceptionally simple in presentation and that really works for it. Although there’s no obvious emotion in the rendition, the purity and simplicity of the harmonies makes it an evocative lament.

Overall, I find this CD really difficult. It’s beautiful but lacking, really lacking something, in my opinion. I’ve had the disk playing in the background a bit, and it’s been on in the car when driving as background noise while my mother and I chat. Although the music is, often, lovely, there’s nothing that I have been able to connect with and therefore there is little power in the CD and little to have a strong feeling about. I want to like it more than I do. I feel it could have been great. Sadly, there are a lot of people who do this genre and so much better.

If the idea of medieval-style Christmas music catches your fancy then you can preview the tracks and buy them if you like from here.

Book Review - 'Myths of the Middle Ages' by Sabine Baring-Gould

Rating: 2/5 stars

Synopsis:

"Have you ever heard of Sabine Baring-Gould? Besides being the author of the famous hymn "Onward Christian Soldiers", as well as scores of folk songs, essays, articles, and over 200 books, Gould was at one time the most prolific English author alive! Selected from his well-received collection of essays Curious Myths, here are the best of the best, edited with a very light touch in order to preserve the sometimes outlandish opinions and occasionally odd punctuation. An avid collector of rare and unusual information, and known for his linguistic ability and strange habit of insisting upon writing everything in longhand while standing at a lectern, he loved to delve deep into the odd comers of the world. This collection of myths will have you delving deeper too."

-from 'Myths of the Middle Ages' on Goodreads

Review:

On the day I received my exam results I visited Bath with the aim of buying myself a piece of jewellery, something I do on every significant day. This didn't work out so well with the woman in the jewellery shop being rather rude and me walking out empty handed. However, this did mean I had some extra time, and money, which was put to good use in the local Oxfam second hand bookshop.

I will admit that I bought this book because of the pictures. Call me fickle if you like but since I received an illustrated Odyssey and Iliad for Christmas when I was about eight I have been a sucker for illustrated mythologies. The illustrations, which I believe are by Peter Komarnyckyj who certainly drew the cover image, are really lovely and remain my favourite part of this book. In fact, they are what lift the rating.

'Myths of the Middle Ages' seems to jump from being a story book, telling the reader about the myths, to an interpretation of the myths and an academic account, to a biography of Sabine Baring-Gould, his life, and works. All of these aspects were very interesting but I didn't feel that they went together all that well. It made for rather a jerking, jittering read. If I'm completely honest, I enjoyed the introduction section to each myth the most out of all of the writing. I found myself reminded of Herodotus, in style, when reading Gould's writing on the myths and that is not a compliment!

The stories themselves, are usually told in brief. Gould then ties in pieces of 'evidence' to give a fuller picture of stories around the myths in question. Although this means that you get 'all' the story, although I've no doubt that the tales included were chosen as relevant by Gould, leading to omissions, it means that it's not really a story at all but rather a list of happenings. The tales wouldn't be interesting to someone who hadn't already got an interest in Medieval myths.

Then you get onto interpretation and ideas about where the stories and myths might have come from. The biggest complaint I have read about this book regards the somewhat tunnel visioned interpretation that Gould offers of the myths detailed, he being both Victorian, and a Christian Reverend. I would agree that there is a Christian emphasis to the myths, both in the choosing, and in the telling. That said, writing often tells us more about the people who wrote it and the times in which they lived than the times about which they are writing and I think that, if we can keep that in mind, it's not a bad thing at all. It's impossible to be objective. However, I do think Gould was trying to be objective, stating, "Like many another ancient myth, it was laid hold of  by Christian hands and baptised". All the same, it's probably not the most objective academic study of mythology available.

And that's the problem really. 'Myths of the Middle Ages' doesn't tell you the stories well. It doesn't give a seemingly full interpretation. It sets out to do too much and in trying to do that doesn't really do any of it. Overall, the book was a disappointment, I'm sorry to say.

To buy a physical copy of this novel on amazon click here. Although I don't think there's a kindle version available, Gould's work 'Curious Myths of the Middle Ages' is available from Project Gutenberg for free.