Albion

Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) II, i, 1

Keith Thomas, Religion and The Decline of Magic

St Swithun, Benedictional of Æthelwold

British Library, London

Swithun (or Swithin) was Bishop of Winchester from his consecration on 30 October 852 until his death on 2 July 863

He is also known for the proverb:

St Swithun's day if thou dost rain

For forty days it will remain

St Swithun's day if thou be fair

For forty days 'twill rain nae mare

St John's Gate, Clerkenwell, 1842

John Wykeham Archer

Watercolour

British Museum

From The Folklore And Witchcraft of Herefordshire by Ella Mary Leather,

English folklorist (1874-1928)

Shedding the light of grace on all our ways.

Born of a noble and a royal line,

She brings to Christ her King a life more fine.

-- The Venerable Bede

St. Etheldreda, Queen of Northumbria, Abbess of Ely's Double Monastery aka Audrey, Athelthryth, Ethelreda, Edilthride, Ediltrudis, Edeltrude

Feast Day: 23 June

Saint Aethelthryth of Ely from the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold depicted in an illuminated manuscript

Sea Form (Porthmeor), 1958

Barbara Hepworth

Bronze

Seen at Barbara Hepworth in Colour at The Courtauld Gallery, London

Working in bronze marked a turning point in Hepworth's sculptural practice.

It allowed her to immerse herself in colour after a gap of about eight years. Her close collaboration with the Morris Singer Foundry led to the development of a variety of innovative patinas encompassing a wide range of colours, especially greens, and her favourite, a blue-green close to the colour of oxidised copper.

Sea Form (Porthmeor), named after a beach in St Ives, in Cornwall, has a mottled green patina with flecks of white. Its surface has been described as though 'salted from long immersion in seawater'.

Dented beaker, 300/400

England

Ceramics

The shrine of Walburga

This reliquary contains the skulls of the English nun St. Walburga (ca. 710-779, Crediton, Wessex ) and her two brothers, Willibald and Winibald.

Jug, 13th century

English red earthenware

Detail of a decorated jug from Scarborough, end of 13th century-early 14th century

terracotta

Dudzele, collectie Jan Tilleman, seen at WIDESCREEN

St Dunstan Medal

The large medal on a chain is inscribed with an image of St Dunstan himself (born in 909 and died in 988), an Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, a Bishop of Worcester, a Bishop of London, and an Archbishop of Canterbury.

An accomplished musician, jeweler, painter, blacksmith and statesman, he was canonised as a saint in 1029 and is amongst England's most popular saints.

The image shows the devil peeping over his shoulder, a reference to one of the legends about him. The story goes that one day at Glastonbury, he was in his forge working on some metalwork and the devil came up behind him and began to tempt him into evil ways.

Dunstan whipped around and caught the devil's nose with the blacksmithing tongs and held him tightly as he roared and raged. Eventually Dunstan got the devil to promise that he would never come to tempt him or any other monks again.

Another version of the legend is that Dunstan shod the devil in iron so that he would always be heard creeping up behind people. Because of these stories, the smithing tongs are St Dunstan's symbol.

Portrait of a Young Woman, c. 1740

William Hogarth

Oil on canvas

excerpt from The Old Vicarage Grantchester

(Cafe des Westens Berlin May 1912)

by Rupert Brooke

Just now the lilac is in bloom,

All before my little room;

And in my flower-beds, I think,

Smile the carnation and the pink;

And down the borders, well I know.

The poppy and the pansy blow. . .

Oh! there the chestnuts, summer through,

Beside the river make for you

Atunnel of green gloom, and sleep

Deeply above; and green and deep

The stream mysterious glides beneath.

Green as a dream and deep as death.

—

Oh, damn! I know it ! And I know

How the May fields all golden show.

And when the day is young and sweet,

Gild gloriously the bare feet

That run to bathe…

Peter Cushing

English actor

Born 26th May 1913

The Glassblower 1944

Mervyn Peake 1911-68

Oil on canvas

City Art Gallery, Manchester

In the Second World War, Peake was commissioned by the War Artists Advisory Committee to record the making of cathode ray tubes, used in radar. He went to Chance Brothers' glassworks, in Smethwick, near Birmingham.

Peake was entranced by the glassblowers' grace but saw how hard they worked. He wrote, in his poem The Glassblowers:

It is the ballet of gold sweat. It is

The hidden ballet of the heavy feet

And flickering hands: the dance of men unconscious

Of dancing and the golden wizardries.

Rough clothed, rough headed, drenched with sweat, they are