auctions , Blogroll , Current Affairs , Media , Mistletoe , music , social history , Tenbury Wells

Mistletoe Songs #1

by: Jonathan BriggsPosted on:

Following the recent media nonsense speculating that mistletoe traditions are on the wane, I thought about documenting various evidence to the contrary – not least the constant presence of mistletoe in book titles (lots of mistletoe-themed murder mysteries (!) and romances, in equal measure) , TV and film titles/themes (romance again, and, bizarrely, murder mysteries again) and in seasonal songs (romance only, I’ve not spotted any mistletoe murder songs yet). The whole gamut of that […]

Blogroll , Current Affairs , druids , Food and Drink , Gardening , Mistletoe , Religion , Science , social history , toxicity

Locating Lindow Man

by: Jonathan BriggsPosted on:

Whilst in Cheshire last weekend, on non-mistletoe business in Wilmslow, we took the opportunity to visit Lindow Moss, the peatbog where the bog body known as Lindow Man (and also, sometimes, as plain Pete Marsh) was discovered in 1984. The discovery of some mistletoe material in his gut, and some of the over-fanciful interpretations of that, has been discussed by me in the diary before – see 2009 and 2011 – and I thought it […]

berries , Blogroll , social history

Mistletoe Mysteries

by: Jonathan BriggsPosted on:

There are dozens, possibly hundreds, of novels with mistletoe in the title, though they are, mostly, romantic fiction and I tend to ignore those. But I was reminded, recently, of P.D.James’ The Mistletoe Murder (published in The Spectator in 1991 and in anthology The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories in 2016) and realised I couldn’t remember the plot, particularly the mistletoe bit, assuming there is one. So I re-read it yesterday and re-found, to my […]