Here’s a question for you: originally, how many ‘plagues of Egypt’ were there? If you answered ‘ten’, you need to read on. The so-called ‘ten plagues of Egypt’, described in the Book of Exodus, have been the subject of considerable commentary and analysis, but in this post we’re going to […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle reviews James Raven’s erudite and informative history of that ubiquitous invention, the book In the Exeter Book, one of the jewels in the crown of Anglo-Saxon literature, a riddle appears which begins: Some enemy deprived me of my life […]
‘Yankee Doodle’ is a classic American song, a patriotic tune that is also the state anthem of Connecticut. But where did the words to ‘Yankee Doodle’ come from? And what is the history of this popular tune? Before we delve into an analysis of these issues, here’s a reminder of […]
‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ is one of the most famous Christmas songs. It is also, perhaps, the one that has attracted the most theories and origin-stories relating to its meaning and history. What each of the gifts given on the twelve days of Christmas might represent, for instance, has […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle reviews Stephen Coote’s English Literature of the Middle Ages Stephen Coote’s English Literature of the Middle Ages (Pelican) was published thirty years ago, in 1988. It’s taken me until this week to read it, but it’s one of the most […]