Long Ago on the Internet

 

Roan Rose   ISBN:  149224158X

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Way back, more than 25 years ago, the Internet was a fairly new thing. Ordinary people, from their home personal computers, were finding their way into all kinds of list serves, usually aligned with some niche interest, from TV shows to movies to genealogy, to nascent gaming platforms. There was electronics tech talk, as well astronomy, mechanics, philosophy and music. Universities began connecting, sharing their resources. Fiction began to appear online. This was the time of the birth of what is now today's globe-spanning "social media" and the genesis of many mega-billion dollar fortunes, whose troll lord owners tyrannize the internet -- and the politics - of today's online world. 

In those innocent days, however, the internet was a magical open door for those of us fortunate enough to have a desktop computer and dial up service. Through that electronic door people with all kinds of interests could connect, people from all over the world, in my case, the English speaking world. We could make friends everywhere we shared a language; we could travel vicariously to places like England and Australia, or to the West Indies or Canada.

Through an online friend, I discovered sites for history lovers--one in particular called "Later Medieval Britain" (LMB) where people who were fascinated by the Wars of Roses had debates and heated exchanges with one another. Many of these folks were British, some were Australians. I was one of the first Americans on the list, because the fate of "the princes in the tower" had been an obsession of mine since childhood. (My own on-the-spectrum "penguin.")                                                                          Below: Richard III

  

I'd been advocating for the Yorkist side of this ancient strictly regional spat since I was a bookish kid, even arguing ("Rude American child") with the Beefeaters at the Tower of London in my young teens. I passionately believed that Richard III had been maligned, that he had not killed his nephews as his successors, the Tudors (Lancastrian side) alleged. Whatever the truth is, 500+ years later any evidence can only be circumstantial; we shall probably never know what truly happened to these poor little dynastic pawns, but that's not the subject here. 

My subject is the friends I made--on the Yorkist side of the ancient quarrel, naturally! As time passed, we shared about other things: our families, children and grandchildren, pets, gardens, as well as all the historical sources which were passed around and discussed at length. I didn't have a lot of money, but here was a way I could travel without going overseas. Looking back, I loved the time spent on the LMB and then searching libraries for the books about which I'd heard, but most of all, I loved these people, who were as touched as I was. 

I was writing a novel and many others on the listserve were too. We all had our own solutions of the whodunit, of course. When I finally got together the money to go to the UK, I managed to meet several of these much esteemed online voices. One of them drove a group of us around to various historical sites and museums. We had supper together in York in a little restaurant inside the medieval walls. One venerable gentleman, Geoffrey Richardson, who lived near York, had written books on the Neville/Plantagenet clan which were available in museum stores at the local castles and battlefields. I'd hoped to meet and walk upon his favorite battleground, but it never happened, for flooding rains drove all the tourists out of York. I was lucky to catch the last train that made it to London that week, and never had another opportunity again, for he passed away later that winter, taking all his wealth of knowledge and his caustic wit and unique northern turn of phrase with him.

Death happens more frequently in my world these days. I opened FB today--something I don't do much anymore. What used to be news from far-flung friends is now all advertisements, not the warm virtual connection that once was so reliably there. After scrolling down a bit, I suddenly came upon a funeral announcement for an old LMB Australian friend, one who was younger than I am. 

I was shocked and saddened. Meredith was a fellow Ricardian, a fellow writer, a spirited member of our listserve. Later, she became my online publisher and a talented editor too, but besides that I was acquainted with her husband, her children and grandchildren, her garden and her home. I knew her kitties too--these often pictured lounging luxuriously in bed.  Unasked, Meredith spontaneously sent several Aussie children's books which were informative, clever and funny for one of my southern granddaughters, kindly providing this little girl she'd never meet her first real view into life in far-off land. Another beautiful mind, full of learning, opinions, memories and humour, gone forever. RIP my dear friend!

~~Juliet Waldron      

Mysterious Mythical May

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Weather-wise, May can be a checkered month. I often saw snow in May in my upstate NY childhood during the early 50's. The last time I had such a surprise was while living near Hartford, CT, when I boarded a commuter bus, annoyed that I had snow all over my new high heels. The entire drive to bus, along slippery country roads, I'd seen the white stuff threatening to break the blossoming branches in orchards and front yards. I'm not likely to ever see that again! 

May even feels a little a little unsteady, at least inside my seasonally-minded head. From the little we can know about early European religions, it appears many of our ancient relations felt that way too. May was a between month--between winter and summer--neither one thing nor the other. In many cultures, then as now, it was a time of clearing out of the grime left behind by winter cooking and heating, of freshening and storing away of the heaviest clothing. On the farms, young animals now frolicked in the fields; fresh milk was in. The spring cycle of plowing and planting was already underway, but, in the spiritual sense, this month was a pause.

Now, you may be thinking "Well, what about May Day and May Eve, two nights of dancing, feasting, and coupling, with or without, benefit of clergy?" All that is also true. May traditionally began with a party. We are familiar with the British tradition has the men riding out at dawn wearing sprigs of blooming Hawthorn followed by the Maypole dance. Perhaps the disconnect is a result of a lunar calendar and a year which accomodated thirteen months instead of our twelve. At any rate,

the "unlucky" time, the time of mourning and cleansing, the time of celibacy and onerous spring cleaning, began later in our May, perhaps beginning on the 13th and extending until the 9th of June.

"Ne'er cast a clout ere May be out." (Don't change your clothing) This saying was current in Britain and even into northern Spain, for the idea of an unlucky May was widespread. May was a time to abstain from sex across ancient Europe, from Greece to the west in Ireland, explaining why, traditionally, May is unlucky for marriage. In Britain, the month is associated with the Hawthorn or "Whitethorn," the tree of the Crone Goddess Cardea, who cast spells using hawthorn branches. The Greek's called her "Maia," a deity the romantic poets have led us to believe was young and fair, but Maia actually means "grandmother," a goddess whose son conducted the dead to the underworld. The Greeks propitiated the old Crone at marriages--"for the custom was hateful to the goddess," by carrying five torches of hawthorn-wood.*  

In the temples, May was month of cleansing. Altars were purified, religious images were removed and washed, not only with water, but with rituals.  Ovid, in his Fasti, says that the Priestess of Juppiter told him that his daughter should not enter into marriage until "the Ides of June, (mid-month) for until then there is no luck for brides and husbands. Until the sweepings of the temple of Vesta have been carried down to the sea by the yellow Tiber, I must myself not comb my locks which I have cut in sign of mourning, nor pare my nails, nor cohabit with my husband, though he is High Priest of Juppiter. Be not in haste. Your daughter will have better luck in marriage when Vesta's fire burns upon a cleansed hearth."

In Welsh mythology, Yspaddaden Penkawr, the Hawthorne giant, was father to the Fair Olwen (She of the White Track). No man could have her until her father received a dowry of thirteen treasures--all nearly impossible to obtain, of course. At last, a hero arrived. This man, fated to marry her, was named Kilhwych. Olwen was kept mewed up in a castle which was guarded by nine porters and nine watch dogs--note all those magical numbers! Until the unlucky power of May was broken, the Hawthorn's curse held sway.

 In Ireland, we find  many legends concerning magical wells and associated Hawthorn trees. According to E.M. Hull 's "Folklore of the British Isles," a man who destroys a hawthorn tree will suffer the loss of his children as well as the death of all his cattle.  In "Historic Thorn Trees of the British Isles," It is noted that 'St. Patrick's Thorn' at Tin'ahely in County Wicklow was still celebrated into the 19th Century. Here, celebrants paraded to the church and circled the holy well. Here, they tore bits of cloth from their old garments and left them upon the thorns of the ancient Hawthorn that grew there. Long ago, all over Europe, this practice was a sign of mourning and propitiation that must take place before the time of weddings and bringing in the first fruits of summer, which would take place in June. 

I realize that this has been a long wander into the tangles of ancient mythology. Much of this information comes to me from a controversial source: "The White Goddess" by Robert Graves, who was a poet, and, naturally, often occasionally afflicted by bee in his bonnet fits of hubris and madness. Nevertheless, he was also a man who understood many ancient languages well and who moved in scholarly academic circles. I find it interesting that many of his suppositions, arrived at through his knowledge of ancient languages, has actually anticipated many of the new DNA researches into the migrations of people into Europe, from the steppes and even from what is now Turkey and the Middle East. It amazed him, and it still amazes me, all the journeys that the ancestors made and the places in which they ended.

~~Juliet Waldron

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