The Victorian Case of the Turnip-Wielding Trick-Or-Treater
Today, if you don’t wish to hand out candy on Halloween, you can simply switch off your porch light to indicate that you are not at home to trick-or-treaters. Unfortunately, not all trick-or-treaters accept this withdrawal from the holiday with good grace. Some even retaliate by smashing pumpkins in your driveway or against your front door. Disgruntled trick-or-treaters in the Victorian era had similar responses.[…]Continue Reading
Shades of Victorian Fashion: Butter, Lemon, Gold, and Yellow
During the Victorian era, yellow was believed to be the color most similar to light. With shades ranging from the palest butter to the liveliest lemon, it was suitable for morning dresses, day dresses, evening gowns, and seaside wear. Fashion magazines and color experts of the day recommended restricting clear, bright yellows to spring and summer. However, shades of yellow could be seen in fashionable dress throughout the year, often in the form of gloves, a decorative fan, a frilly parasol, or a stylish hat. In today’s article, we look at some of the loveliest examples of the color yellow in Victorian fashion.[…]Continue Reading
Shades of Victorian Fashion: Orange, Pumpkin, and Peach
Unlike popular autumnal shades, such as golds, browns, and burnished reds, the Victorians generally regarded the color orange with disfavor. Fashion magazines of the day advised against wearing orange dresses, calling the color ugly and claiming that it was unflattering to every complexion. Even worse, as fashion historian C. Willett Cunnington reports, some believed that the color orange implied “a degree of animal passion which the pure ought not to possess.” I had not intended to give orange an article of its own, but it’s Halloween today and I can think of no better occasion to showcase a selection of this much maligned—but nonetheless striking—shade of Victorian fashion. […]Continue Reading
A Victorian Halloween Party
Despite their reputation for straight-laced sobriety, the Victorians celebrated Halloween with great enthusiasm—and often with outright abandon. Victorian Halloween parties were filled with fun, games, and spooky rituals, some of which still feature at Halloween parties today. Many of the games had origins in pagan religion or medieval superstition. Others were merely a means of making merry with one’s friends. Regardless, Halloween parties of the 19th century were an occasion for indulging in what author Hugh Miller describes in his 1876 book Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland as:
“….a multitude of wild mischievous games which were tolerated at no other season.”
Jane Eyre and the Legendary Gytrash
(Image Courtesy of The Wellcome Library, CC BY 4.0.)
According to Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel, Jane Eyre, a Gytrash is a goblin or spirit which takes the form of a horse, mule, or large dog. Typically found in the North of England, the Gytrash “haunted solitary ways” and often surprised unwary travelers as they journeyed alone in the dusk. Jane Eyre herself encounters what she believes to be a Gytrash one bleak, January evening as she is walking from Thornfield Hall to post a letter in the nearby village of Hay. Alerted to its arrival by a loud, clattering noise, Jane observes:[…]Continue Reading
