Posts Tagged: Yorkshire

  • Dr Who and the Daleks

    Who is a whovian?

    My Whovian life At 5:15 pm on 23 November 1963, the first episode of Doctor Who was broadcast on BBC One. It was delayed a few minutes because of the announcement of John F Kennedy’s assassination. I was a two and a half year old living in Guisborough, a small town in northern Yorkshire, England. […]

  • An image of the Belle Dame Sans Merci with a verse superimposed I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful—a faery’s child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. A shortened version of gloaming, gloam is used in the poem.

    Gloaming in Guernsey and Tasmania

    Gloaming in Guernsey Part of my summer reading over Christmas and New Year (2019-2020) has been The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It is a delightful novel set in the immediate post-war period on the channel island of Guernsey. Although quite a light novel, its plot slowly and cleverly unfolds the tragedies made […]

  • Image drawing of man holding stein. Text: Booze originally a verb meaning to drink a lot (from 1768).

    Nothing moderate about booze

    As Christmas approaches we will be looking forward to the seasonal feasts of rich food washed down with our favourite booze. On Christmas day we are likely to be very mellow by the end of the day, perhaps having anaesthetised ourselves against the stress of getting on with our family. So in honour of the […]

  • Mickle is a Yorkshire word still found in place names Micklethwaite (meaning great piece of land or meadow), Micklegate in York (great street) and Mickle Fell (great mountain or hill).

    MICKLE—a once great word

    Many a mickle makes a muckle, is a saying from the north of England (1). In Scotland: a wheen o’ mickles mak’s a muckle was recorded in the late 19th century (2). A Jamaican website reports a current Jamaican saying as: Every mickle mek a mockle (3). Mickle is a very old word which has survived fossil-like […]

  • Widdershins Childe Roland runs around the church

    The magic of widdershins

    In the ancient folklore of pagan Britain, to go widdershins (widershins or withershins) was, in a magical sense, to walk around an object against the sun. In the northern hemisphere to walk the opposite way to the movement of the sun, was to walk around an object counter-clockwise.

  • Wassailing's most common meaning is door-to-door Christmas carol singing - a common practice in England.

    Wassailing—be healthy at Christmas

    Behind the modern rituals of Christmas lurk old traditions tied to our magical, pagan past. Words provide a link to that magic. We have looked at Yule, a word that predates most native languages of Europe. Wassailing is our Christmas word. Wassail arrived in English from the Old Norse salutation ves heill meaning “be healthy” from […]