Defence Against the Dark Arts Part XXX: Richard Barham's Ingoldsby Legends

My first encounter with Richard Barham's Ingoldsby Legends was in the pages of Rider Haggard's exciting adventure story King Solomon's Mines. 

The hero Allan Quatermain says that while he is not a literary man, he is very devoted to the Old Testament and the Ingoldsby Legends. He reads these two books for the comfort of the familiar and the wisdom that they contain. 

He refers to and quotes from the Legends several times, and in the sequel Allan Quatermain says that he often reads them when awake at night.

Intrigued by these references and hoping to find a new source of good reading material, I decided to get the book so that I could experience its attractions for myself. I found a very old copy in a second-hand bookshop and opened it eagerly when I got home. 

There was much more material in the book than I was expecting, and I wasn't disappointed in the stories either. I found many of the Legends very amusing and enjoyable to read. I could now understand why this book always accompanied Allan Quatermain in his wanderings.

An overvew of the Ingoldsby Legends
The Ingoldsby Legends, or Mirth and Marvels, to give the book its full and very appropriate title, is a collection of around 65 miscellaneous stories and poems, many with a supernatural element. 

The Legends are attributed to 'Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor', but they were actually written by the Reverend Richard Harris Barham. 

Much of the material in the Legends is based on traditional Kentish myths, legends and folklore. 

There are many references to ghosts, witches and demons, and Old Nick i.e. the devil makes many appearances. However, as the Legends are intended to entertain the readers they are just as funny as they are frightening. 

More memorable material from Dion Fortune's occult novels

This is yet another article in the series inspired by Dion Fortune's occult novels. It contains a few more of her thought-provoking propositions.

Three essential qualities
The Demon Lover contains what might be called a person specification for advanced occult work:

“Dr Latimer had brains and kindness, but no strength; the hard-faced man had brains and strength, but no kindness; the newcomer had all three, and Veronica knew by this that he was a far greater man in every way than either of the others was ever likely to be.” 

Each of these qualities needs to be developed to a far greater than average degree. Finding people who meet two of the requirements must be difficult enough; good luck with finding someone who meets all three! Such people may exist in fiction, but how many are to be found in real life? 

Balancing the qualities
Assuming that kindness includes mercy and that strength includes justice, this further extract from The Demon Lover is of interest because it reminds me of of a very similar statement in a very different novel:

“...although unbalanced mercy is but weakness, unbalanced justice is cruelty and oppression.”

When I first saw this, I immediately thought of some words from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre that support the above proposition:

“Feeling without judgment is a washy draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition.”

Feeling that is not balanced with rationality may well be not much good to anyone on the receiving end, and judgement that is not balanced with compassion may indeed be too harsh for most people to digest.

Inspiration and creativity in Conan Doyle's Magic Door

This is yet another article in the series inspired by Through the Magic Door, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's little volume of essays about books, reading and associated topics.

This post highlights two propositions that Conan Doyle makes about inspiration and creative people: he suggests that inspiration comes from outside and that creative people are often frail and die young.  

It also mentions a few other writers in connection with these topics. 

Inspiration comes from outside
Conan Doyle says this about the source of inspiration:

“...the feeling which every writer of imaginative work must have, that his supreme work comes to him in some strange way from without, and that he is only the medium for placing it upon the paper...Is it possible that we are indeed but conduit pipes from the infinite reservoir of the unknown? Certainly it is always our best work which leaves the least sense of personal effort.”

That last sentence is often very true. Rudyard Kipling said something similar when he gave his Daemon credit for assisting and inspiring him in his work: he said that the writing he did under this influence was 'frictionless'. 

Conan Doyle's mention of a conduit pipe reminds me of another of Rudyard Kipling's Daemon-related images: he likens the end of a good run of genuine, friction-free creativity to “the water-hammer click of a tap turned off.”

Many other writers have speculated about where their inspiration might come from. 

Robert Louis Stevenson for example said that it came from vivid dreams caused by the Brownies!

Frances Hodgson Burnett thought of herself as just the custodian rather than the originator of her gift. So where did this gift come from then?

Maybe some fiction writers really do channel or download their works and ideas from somewhere.

Fifteen years of blogging and still a little more to come

As mentioned in the article that marks the tenth anniversary of this blog, the very first post is dated September 9th 2009, the ninth day of the ninth month of the ninth year of the century.

It is worth repeating that the number nine is associated with magic and with Odin, or Woden, the seeker after knowledge and wisdom who is associated with magic and mystery and is said to inspire creativity.

Another five years have passed; today is the fifteenth anniversary of the launch of this blog, and once again it is time to take stock.

A little more about the viewing figures

In the article about the mystery of the most popular posts, I said that I monitor the blog statistics. This is just for interest's sake: I am not influenced by these figures when deciding what to write about. 

I have since seen a huge increase in the number of views for the article about Princess Margaret's death. I found that this happened just after one of the TV programmes that dramatise the royal family had featured her. People had been searching online for more information and found my article!

I was very surprised to see the first article about Madeleine L'Engle's Zachary Grey or Gray suddenly appear in the top ten list. I discovered that this is a case of mistaken identity: there are a few real-life Zachary Greys and Grays of interest!  

While it is understandable why the greatest number of views will always come from the US, it is still a mystery why this blog gets more readers from Germany than from the UK.

How many more articles will there be in the future? 

I have been mining the past for inspiration for many years now, and the returns have been slowly and steadily diminishing.

Defence Against the Dark Arts Part XXIX: Andrew Murray's London scenes

Andrew Murray (1917 – 1998) was an artist who painted in the naïve style.

I like his depictions of London very much. I used to buy many of his greetings cards and postcards. I even met him once.

Red buses, black taxis and groups of white, triangular-shaped clouds appear in many of his London scenes. Critics might say that if you have seen one of these pictures, you have seen them all!

A few examples are enough to give a good idea of Andrew Murray's style.

This picture of Piccadilly Circus is typical of his London cards:

Trafalgar Square is another major London landmark:

The River Thames looks rather narrow in this one of Lambeth Palace and the Houses of Parliament: 

This is the Lakeside Terrace at the Barbican:

Six of Andrew Murray's London scenes appear on this 1,000-piece jigsaw:

Andrew Murray painted cities other than London and he also painted Biblical and other subjects, but in my opinion his best work consists of pictures such as are shown above.

A further scene of interest from a Dion Fortune occult novel

A key scene in Dion Fortune's occult novel Moon Magic inspired an article about communicating via metaphysical means. 

In this scene, Priestess of Isis Lilith Le Fay describes how she attracted the right person to her by sending out a call on the right wavelength.

In another significant passage in this novel. Lilith Le Fay describes how she looked for clues to the pattern and purpose of her occult work:

“...it suddenly occurred to me that there was a kind of pattern running through my slowly formulating work which I had not observed before. It is well known to those who deal with the hidden side of things that such patterns exist, they are, in fact, caused by the invisible forces with which we work, and when these have been got in hand and are being directed by a planning will, the pattern appears. I knew, therefore, that if I could discern the plan of the pattern, all would be clear. There is a central thread that runs through all these things; find that, and you have the clue. 

I know how to look for this thread — one seeks that which recurs and keeps on recurring. In the present instance there was one recurring factor, and one only...”

She is talking about unseen influences, the invisible forces that are at work in our lives! 

Dion Fortune wrote elsewhere about the part that the Unseen sometimes plays in certain people's  lives; here, she may be referring to a hidden hand that operates behind the scenes.

I find these words very interesting. They have a much wider application. Many people would benefit from performing a similar exercise, one in which they look back and try to identify and learn from important recurring factors in their lives.

Plans, patterns, threads and clues
This article is not the place to cover the exercise in depth, but in summary there are three steps to take: the first step involves looking for recurring factors, both good and bad, in key aspects of someone's life; the next step entails treating these factors as clues to a master plan and indications of what should or should not be done; finally, the practitioner might consider who or what might have designed and implemented the patterns and and laid the clues.

Some alarming words about wars from Taylor Caldwell

I have been noticing more and more occurrences of the alarming prediction that World War III is both inevitable and  imminent.

There are many conspiracy theories about the causes of major wars; they often involve power and money: 'cui bono' and all that.

These sinister theories may be new to some people, but they have been circulating for a very long time. There is nothing new in the observation that differing factions often unite in the face of a common enemy either. 

The author Taylor Caldwell, who has been mentioned in a few articles on here, said something in a book first published in 1952 that is very applicable to the current global political situation:

“You see,” went on the doctor warmly, “when a nation threatens another nation the people of the latter forget their factionalism, their local antagonisms, their political differences, their suspicions of each other, their religious hostilities, and band together as one unit. Leaders know that, and that is why so many of them whip up wars during periods of national crisis, or when the people become discontented and angry...

Attacking another nation, then, acts as a sort of catharsis, temporarily, on men’s fear of their immediate neighbors. This is the explanation of all wars, all racial and religious hatreds, all massacres, and all attempts at genocide.”

From The Devil's Advocate

The recent series of violent riots in the UK is an indication that all is not well here. The US economy is reported to be slowing down, with many job losses.

Are the people becoming increasingly discontented and angry? Are the US and the UK moving towards a time of national crisis?  

If so, are the leaders going to whip up a war or two? 

Benjamin Disraeli too had something to say on the subject of conflicts between nations.

Perhaps we should take his advice and hope for the best but prepare for the worst.