Mirror Mirror

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all…”

Nicola here, talking about magic mirrors! It’s possibly the most famous mirror quote in literature. The evil queen in Snow White has a magic mirror that each morning gives her the validation she is looking for by telling her that she is the most beautiful woman in the world. Until Snow White grows up that is, and the mirror, ever truthful, has to break the bad news to the queen that Snow White is a thousand times more beautiful than she.

I’ve always loved old mirrors. Not because I’m vain and enjoy looking at my reflection (or at least I don't think that's the reason!) but because they are often so very beautiful and it’s easy to see how myths and magic collect about them. When I was writing my first timeslip book, The Silent House, which is out later this year, I needed an object with magical qualities that had first started to exert its power centuries before the story begins. A mirror seemed the perfect item to choose.

By the way, the real life story behind Snow White apparently dates from the 18^th century when Philip Christoph von Erstal married his second wife and gave her a mirror as a gift. It came from the Lohr Mirror Manufacture, a company that made looking glasses that were so fine they were said to “speak the truth,” and show you exactly what you looked like with no blemishes. This “talking mirror” is still on display at the Lohr Museum.

Mirrors go back a long way. Glass mirrors dating back to the third century A.D. have been found in Egypt, France, Asia Minor and Germany. These mirrors were very small, only a few inches in diameter and the quality of the reflection was not good. For many centuries, metal mirrors of steel, silver and gold were preferred to glass until a technique was found for producing long, flat and thin glass, and craftsmen devised a way of spreading hot metal onto glass without causing it to break.

In the past the term "mirror" referred to metal mirrors as well as to crystal mirrors and mirrors of glass, whilst "looking glass" or "seeing glass" described mirrors made of glass compound. By the end of the twelfth century looking glasses were reintroduced in Europe, first in Germany and Italy, and later reaching England. A mixture of antimony and lead was heated two or three times. Molten resin was poured into the mixture, which was blown by means of a pipe into a spherical bowl with a hole in it. The bowl was shaken so that the mixture would spread around the inner wall, and the leftover liquid was drained out of the opening. The bowl was then left to stand until the amalgam had cooled and hardened, when it was cut in half to make two convex mirrors. Such mirrors provided a novel way of distorting the face but were not much used to provide a true reflection!

In sixteenth-century Venice the production of glass mirrors became an important industry, and techniques for making mirrors were significantly refined until they gave a very good reflection. The Bohemian glass industry was also world famous, and it was from there that the mirror in my story originates. Large glass mirrors were very difficult to make, and  so were expensive and difficult to get hold of. In mid-seventeenth century Venice a silver-framed looking glass, 115 cm by 65 cm, cost 8000 pounds, while a Raphael painting cost 3000 pounds in comparison. In a society where only the rich and aristocratic could afford a large mirror, they became status symbols but also items of aspiration. If you had a large mirror in your house you might be considered a social climber! This overmantel mirror from the V&A museum is a good example of a statement mirror!

Mirrors were frequently used as part of a courtesan's armoury and were important both in crafting a toilette and as artifacts that helped to define the intimacy of a dressing room. Small, mass-produced glass mirrors were also produced in sixteenth-century Venice, making their way to England by the middle of the century. While these were not hugely expensive, their use was mainly for those working at court, and mirrors the size of a powder compact were worn decoratively at the waist by women (which happens in one scene in The Silent House) and in the cap by men.  Out in the shires it was unusual to find mirrors mentioned in inventories, which suggests that most people did not possess one. This wasn’t surprising since a decent sized mirror could cost more than a horse!

Amongst the upper classes, however, the small "seeing glass" was particularly useful, as service in court circles depended so heavily on personal grooming. In his conduct book, The Book of the Courtier, Castiglione praises the courtier who shows "a meticulous regard for… personal appearance." But he also adds a warning in view of the rising interest with this newly industrialized means of reflection, criticizing those individuals who carry "a mirror in the fold of [their] cap[s] and a comb in [their] sleeve[s], … walking through the streets always followed by a page with a brush and sponge."  Mirrors, then, might suggest an unattractive obsession with one's appearance. That stigma still holds true today when cheap mirrors are widely available in all shapes and sizes. They are useful but do they promote vanity?

Mirrors have featured in a number of stories. In Through the Looking Glass, Alice climbs through the mirror to visit the world she can see there. In Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray the mirror reflects a perpetually youthful appearance. The Mirror of Erised in Harry Potter does not reflect a person’s face but their heart’s desire. There is something about the idea of the mirror and a reflection that seems to lend itself to magic of some sort,or to time travel or stepping between different worlds. In the fantasy world of books this is very appealing.

In real life it's a bit different - some people think magic is just superstition whilst others may secretly or not so secretly believe that they own things that bring them luck. We have a horseshoe above our back door, for example, that was a gift from a family member who insisted it would invite good luck into the house. The four leafed clover has a reputation for bestowing good luck if you find one although I never have. I do have a gorgeous little silver and glass necklace shaped like the Uffington White Horse which changes colour when you hold it in your hand. Now that feels like magic to me!

In The Silent House, Holly, my heroine, doesn't like magic, superstition or anything that cannot be explained rationally and I had a lot of fun challenging her beliefs and assumptions. But what about you? Do you believe in magic or do you dismiss it as no more than superstition? Do you like reading books with magic elements in them? And do you have any lucky charms of your own? 

Comments

[Mary Jo Putney]

How very interesting, Nicola! The nature of mirrors does invite thoughts of magic since they show the face, but reversed, not quite the same as the true face, but the only one we can see. I can see why the mirror is a perfect foil for your heroine!

[Anne Gracie]

This book sounds like such fun, Nicola -- can't wait to read it. I love old mirrors -- there is a soft sheen to many of them that's not the same as a modern mirror. I even like the speckled effect that happens when the backing starts to deteriorate.
Years ago there was a wonderful French serial on TV called The Image in the Mirror that certainly played games with the heroine's view of herself.

[Nicola Cornick]

It's fascinating isn't it, Mary Jo - not a "true" image but a reversed one. I love the symbolism of the mirror and what it stands for, and I love the conflict for someone like my heroine who doesn't want to believe in the supernatural but has to accept there is stuff that simply can't be explained!

[Nicola Cornick]

Thanks, Anne! Yes, I had a lot of fun with the book! I love that softness about some old mirrors. They feel as though they have a story to tell - all the things they have seen (or reflected!) I haven't heard of The Image in the Mirror. I must see if I can find that.

[Nicola Cornick]

Last night, by coincidence, I was watching a programme with Neil Oliver about Celtic history and he showed a metal mirror from the Iron Age that had been found in a burial. The historians thought the Iron Age people saw it as a way to communicate with their ancestors and as a portal into the past!

[Anne Gracie]

I just looked that program up, Nicola -- it was a long time ago -- 1985.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0280302/
I watched it in French with English subtitles.

[Christina Courtenay]

I love books with a little bit of magic in them and can't wait to read your time slip! I also adore mirrors (as decorative items), especially Venetian ones, they are so pretty! Fantastic post, Nicola! xx

[Jackie]

I enjoy a book with some magic elements in them and I look forward to reading The Silent House. I've never had any lucky charms but I know people who do and sometimes it seems they have given too much power to their lucky tie, or whatever it might be.

[Shannon]

This morning, on the bus I caught a flash of what I thought was a mirror. I knew it was someone putting on makeup, but I looked up. And then I did a double-take: she was using the camera function of her smart phone to put on her mascara.

As for magic in books, I love a touch of it now and again. And there's something lovely in a day when there's something good that cannot be easily explained except if it's luck or magic.

[Nicola Cornick]

Thanks for the link, Anne.

[Nicola Cornick]

Thank you, Christina! I'm so pleased you enjoyed the post. I do think mirrors can be absolutely gorgeous pieces of art.

[Nicola Cornick]

I guess that could be the problem with lucky charms, Jackie. if you put too much faith in them and then think they've let you down you're going to feel even more disappointed! Superstition is an interesting thing!

[Nicola Cornick]

LOL, Shannon! I've never heard of that before! The many uses of modern technology!