HOW many have danced under the moon’s spotlight or held hands, looked up into the heavens and promised each other the earth? ‘I love you to the moon and back’ might be a common phrase, but, beware, that which shines brightly does not necessarily bring good fortune. Indeed, in Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare advises that we should be wary of ‘the fickle moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circle orb’. And, in Othello, that: ‘It is the very error of the moon. She comes more nearer earth than she was wont. And makes men mad.’
The full moon has long been said to influence behaviour. It’s no coincidence that the word ‘lunatic’ is derived from Luna—the personification of the moon in Roman mythology. Hippocrates diagnosed those ‘seized with terror, fright and madness during the night’ as having been ‘visited by the goddess of the moon’. In England, it was once possible for murderers to appeal for clemency if they committed an evil deed during a full moon.
Reach for the moon
Inhabitants of Wiltshire are known as ‘moonrakers’; an epithet resulting from the days when French and Dutch spirits were brought into England illegally and temporarily hidden in, for example, the murk of village ponds. At one location (perhaps the Crammer pond, Devizes), local smugglers were surprised by the excise men as they retrieved barrels sequestered there. They excused their activity by saying they thought the full moon was a round of cheese that had dropped into the water—the excise men, thinking the locals somewhat lacking in intelligence, went on their way.
Denne historien er fra December 02, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra December 02, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
