Word Wenches

Hair

Anne here and today I'm talking about hair — specifically hair in the Regency and Victorian eras, not just hairdos but exploring a few attitudes to hair.

Hair (on the head — not so much elsewhere) has long been regarded as a woman's glory, and for much of history most women grew it long. Short hair on a woman signified that either they had been ill and their hair cut off to conserve their strength, or that some other disaster had befallen them. In Ancient Greece when the burial of the dead in the ground began, widows would cut their hair and bury it with their husbands. Centuries later women accused of being Nazi collaborators had their heads forcibly shaved to shame and humiliate them. 

However in the Regency era it became very fashionable (if also a trifle daring) to chop off your hair.  Thus we have some young ladies looking like this. This is a portrait of Lady Caroline Lamb.

At the same time, other young ladies kept their long hair and their maids arranged their hair in elaborate updos. (If you want to watch a short video on how to create a regency-era hairdo, click here.) Only young girls wore their hair loose, as long, loose hair on a woman was supposed to carry sexual connotations. When she turned 15 or 16, a girl would put her hair up, signaling her new status as a young woman. Married women and older women often covered their hair for the same reason. See my post on turbans.

The appropriation of statues from Ancient Greece and Rome, and works of art brought back by travelers returning from the Grand Tour, sparked a fashion for the "classical look" with curls and hairstyles resembling those statues and drawings, with hair worn in a simple chignon, with curls and ringlets softening the face or trailing over the shoulder.

Movie Review - Hilma

Christina here with a movie review, which is something the Wenches thought we would try occasionally this year if we came across one we would really like to recommend. As the film in question is biographical, I have combined it with information about the subject of the movie, who was a real person.

I have to admit I don’t often go to the cinema to see Oscar-worthy films because I usually find them either boring or too sad. (I’m very shallow in my movie choices!). It has always seemed to me that the more heart-wrenching the story, the more Oscars it gets. And I don’t handle sad endings well. However, a little while ago I let my neighbour drag me along to see a film called Hilma. It’s a true story about a Swedish artist called Hilma af Klint, and she was more or less unknown until fairly recently.

The Simple Joy of Elemental Creativity

Andrea here, Just the other day, I was brainstorming with a good friend about about her elderly mother and the challenges of keeping her spirits up as aging restricts the things she can do. Her mother is an artist, who did very meticulous and detailed (and wonderful!) collages out of found paper throughout her career. But her eyesight and manual dexterity are not what they used to be, and so she doesn’t get up with the same verve to embrace the day as she once did.
 
It got me to thinking . . . and an idea occurred to me. I’m a huge fan of Henri Matisse’s paper cut-out collages, which he began in later life when the rigors of painting became too much of a physical challenge. Their bold colors and exuberant simplicity are wonderful—he called them drawing in paper. So I showed them to my friend and suggested that a simple pair of big scissors and an assortment of bright colored paper might rekindle her mother’s artistic eye—and be easy enough to handle that it wouldn’t be discouraging.

Jane Austen’s Career

Pat here:

The heroine of the Regency historical mystery series I’m currently scribbling is a novelist. She’s not poor, but she has expenses her income can’t meet. So I was interested in how much she might earn as a beginning writer. Of course, Jane Austen instantly came to mind.

It’s a fascinating bunny hole to dive down. Did you know writers had to pay for publication then? It didn’t necessarily have to be upfront, but one way or another, they paid for the printing. If one was well known and had an influential patron who could recommend your books so a group of people would pay in advance, one might serialize and pay as you go. Neither my heroine nor Austen were in that position.

What We're Reading in January!

Nicola here, introducing this month’s What We’re Reading. As usual we’ve got an interesting mix, and we’re really looking forward to hearing about your latest reads as well. Looking at my Kindle, all the most recent books on there are recommendations I’ve picked up from the other Wenches and these posts.

Having read every single one of the Jayne Castle Harmony and Rainshadow series, with attendant dust bunnies, I turned to the Arcane series and now to the Fogg Lake series, which is a contemporary romantic suspense trilogy with paranormal elements. There’s a Midwich Cuckoos vibe going on here. Years ago, the small town of Fogg Lake experienced something called The Incident, a mysterious explosion in the cave system beneath the town. The residents were knocked unconscious and when they recovered, they found they had new psychic powers.

Book 1 in the series is The Vanishing,written under her Jayne Ann Krentz name. Catalina Lark and her friend Olivia St Clair witness a murder when they are teens but no one believes them as it took place in the caves of their hometown Fogg Lake, and people think they were hallucinating. Years later, Olivia disappears and it becomes clear that someone is hunting the witnesses to the murder. Catalina sets out to find her friend with the help of Slater Arganbright, a mysterious operative from a shadowy law enforcement agency called The Foundation.

There are lots of parallels with the futuristic books in terms of the special powers that the protagonists possess, the strong heroines and the very hot heroes and even hotter romance. But – no dust bunnies!

A Library of Your Own

Christina here. When I was young, I dreamed of having my own library. The old-fashioned kind, of course, with built-in shelves in the Gothic style and special ladders for climbing up to reach the top. Perhaps even a double-height room with a little balcony running round the top where you could walk around to peruse those shelves. It has to be the ultimate fantasy for a booklover and I can’t help but picture the library in the Disney film Beauty and the Beast – just perfect!

(There is a list of five real life libraries here that would suit me just fine, although with slightly more realistic expectations, my ideal is the one at Saltram House, a National Trust Property in Devon).

My library was going to be very specific though, not like the general one downtown. It would be specially curated to contain only romantic fiction, some historical fact/biographies, possibly a few thrillers, and coffee table books, including those relating to my favourite artists. And the romantic books had to all have Happy-Ever-After endings – no sad ones allowed. No Gone With the Wind (although I might make an exception for that one as it’s a classic), absolutely no Tess of the D’Urbervilles and no Thorn Birds. And yes, even if I hadn’t read the books added to that library, I would have checked the ending of each and every one just to make sure.

A Cocky tale

Anne here, and this time I'm not going to be digging into any history, just a little bit of personal history. I hope you'll forgive me, but I'm in the last stages of a book, and don't have time to dig out some historical tale for you. This story was inspired by the photos you see in this blog which were taken by my friend, Cate Ellink — they took me right back to when I was a child, and we had a sulphur-crested cockatoo, just like the one in the photos. (And aren't the photos superb?)

I first met Cocky (he never did get a proper name) when I was a child walking to my primary school in a small country town. He lived on the end of a long chain and frequently hopped back and forth along the long peaked roof of a neighbor's garage, calling out things to passers by, things like "Hello Cocky", and "Hello Pooh!" and dancing up and down, his yellow crest bobbing.

Then one day those neighbors moved, to Melbourne I heard, and Cocky with them, I assumed. Later that week I was wandering with my dog down near the lagoon near where we lived on the outskirts of town, when I heard, "Hello Pooh," from high up in a nearby tree. It was Cocky. The neighbors must have released him into the wild. 

Now cockatoos are wild in Australia. They circle in great screeching flocks, or graze quietly on grassy swards, nibbling on grass roots, or perch en masse in gum trees chattering noisily. But a cocky that's been tamed or raised in captivity could never survive in the wild — even at the age of ten, I knew that.

The Long and Winding Rhodes

Andrea here, looking out on another very grey, gloomy and cold day here where I live. January has been a dreary month, so it’s no wonder that I’m in the mood to plot more foreign adventures to sunny climes, especially as this past November I took my first trip abroad since before the pandemic.
 
For me, travel—even if it's done in an armchair—always brightens the spirits. It sparks a sense of wonder as I explore new sights, sounds and tastes. And of course, it  lights a fire to the imagination if I get to visit place that I want to feature in my books. The November trip—an amazing cruise from Istanbul to Athens—was extra special because it did include a fascinating place that I have in mind for upcoming stories . . .

Fond of Fire

By Mary Jo

Taming fire was surely one of the most significant developments in human history.  Probably the discovery happened numerous times and numerous places, but the results were profound. Fire provided warmth, hot food, the ability to venture out into darkness, fire pottery and bricks.

It could also be a tool for long distance communication.  There's a marvelous scene in The Return of the King, the third Lord of the Rings movie, where signal fires are lit to summon the troops to battle.  It's breathtaking to watch the fires catch on distant peaks.

 

Heirs and Spares

Nicola here, talking slightly tongue-in-cheek about a certain trope in fiction, that of birth order. The concept of the “heir and the spare” is something that has been discussed quite a lot lately and it’s a theme that those of us who read historical romance are very familiar with. The noble family is desperate to have an heir (usually male, since women can’t inherit the majority of British titles) and that person will be expected to carry on the traditions of the family, inherit the title and any entailed fortune that goes with it. They will be in line to take the responsibility for the crumbling stately pile and if it really is crumbling, find an heiress whose inheritance fortunately comes from trade or some other source, to prop it up. It feels like a heavy weight for the heir to carry. The emphasis here is on responsibility and continuity. However, there’s a snag. What if something happens to the heir? Then you will need a spare – two boys at least – to ensure the continuation of the family line. So, to be on the safe side, most families try not to stop at one.