Oxfordshire Folktales (29 page)
Read Oxfordshire Folktales Online
Authors: Kevan Manwaring
Yet man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live. One of them would die a week after the war ended – yet his brief time with the Inklings left its mark – one of them would find his muse again; another find joy in an unexpected guise; two would rise to fame, but this you know. My story now has ended. But if you chance to visit the city of dreaming spires, pay the Bird and Baby a visit, sit in the Rabbit Room and raise a glass to the Inklings, whose doorways lie open still, waiting for you to enter.
During the thirties and forties, in The Eagle and Child, a pub in Oxford, every Tuesday lunchtime a group of writers who called themselves the Inklings would meet. Amongst them were a couple of Oxford dons who would become two of the most famous writers of the twentieth century, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, and some less well known authors but equally influential to the group, including Charles Williams. Here, working drafts of
The Lord of the Rings,
the Narnia novels and other works of literary importance were read out for the first time.
Sitting in the Snug Bar, called the Rabbit Room, sipping local ale, one imbibes something of the atmosphere that made the sharing of tales by this group of friends so conducive. It is a numinous place where storytelling, literature and listeners converge – a Mecca for all pilgrims of the imagination.
The embedded tale, which I call
The Queen of the Bloomsberries,
was an invented one about the beautiful society hostess Lady Ottoline Morrel, who held famous literary soirees at the lovely Garsington Manor, on the outskirts of Oxford. She was fêted by the Bloomsbury Set – among her elite clique were Bertrand Russell (her lover), Aldous Huxley, Rupert Brooke, and others. The Manor, no doubt, has its fair share of tales to tell too. These days it hosts an annual opera gala – so I’ll end this narrative perambulation of the county with a fat lady singing.
IBLIOGRAPHY
B
OOKS
Briggs, Katherine M.,
A Sample of British Folk-Tales
, (Routledge & Kegan, 1977)
Briggs, Katherine M.,
The Folklore of the Cotswolds
, (Batsford, 1974)
Carpenter, Humphrey,
The Inklings
, (Ballantine, 1981)
Crossley-Holland, Kevin,
Folk-Tales of the British Isles
, (Faber & Faber, 1991)
Evans, Herbert A.,
Highways & Byways in Oxford & the Cotswolds
, (Macmillan, 1924)
Falkner, John Mead
, A Pocket Guide to Oxforshire
, (1894)
Foss, Michael, ed.,
Folk Tales of the Britsh Isles
, (Book Club Associates, 1987)
Gantz, Jeffrey,
The Mabinogion
, (Penguin Classics, 1976)
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm,
Grimms’ Fairy Tales
Lewis-Jones, June,
Folklore of the Cotswolds
, (Tempus, 2003)
Marshall, R.M.,
Oxfordshire Byways
, (Alden Press, Oxford, 1935)
Millson, Cecilia
, Tales of Old Oxfordshire
, (Countryside Books, 1983)
Westwood, Jennifer,
Albion: A Guide to Legendary Britain
, (Book Club Associates, 1986)
Williams, Alfred,
Folk Songs of the Upper Thames
, (Duckworth, 1922/1971)
OURNALS &
O
THER
P
UBLICATIONS
Eastwood, David, ‘Communities, Protest and Police in Early Nineteenth-Century Oxfordshire: The Enclosure of Otmoor Reconsidered’,
The Agricultural History Review
, Vol. 44, No. 1, British Agricultural History Society (1996) pp. 35-46
Goodman, Robert, ‘Legend of the Thames’,
Paranormal
, No.49 (July 2010)
Inman, Peggy, ‘Amy Robsart and Cumnor Place’, Cumnor History Society
Readers Digest,
Folklore:
Myths and Legends of Britain
(1973)
‘Singing Histories: Oxfordshire’, taken from Sing London
(www.singlondon.org)
Spears, James E.,
The ‘Boar’s Head Carol’ and Folk Tradition
Folklore
, Vol. 85, No. 3. (1974) pp. 194-198
OPYRIGHT
First published in 2012
The History Press
The Mill, Brimscombe Port
Stroud, Gloucestershire,
GL
5 2
QG
This ebook edition first published in 2012
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© Kevan Manwaring, 2012
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EPUB ISBN
978 0 7524 7905 7
MOBI ISBN
978 0 7524 7904 0
Original typesetting by The History Press
Ebook compilation by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk