Winnie the Pooh Went Into the Public Domain, and Someone Already Turned the Story Into a Slasher Film: Watch the Trailer for Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood and Honey

in Books, Creativity, Film, Video - Arts & Culture | September 2nd, 2022

Deep in the Hun­dred Acre Wood

Where Christo­pher Robin plays

You’ll find the enchant­ed neigh­bor­hood

Of Christo­pher’s child­hood days…

Those sweet­ly sen­ti­men­tal lyrics were penned not by A.A. Milne, cre­ator of Win­nie-The-Pooh but rather the Acad­e­my-Award win­ning song­writ­ing team of broth­ers Robert and Richard Sher­man, who also penned the scores of Mary Pop­pins, Chit­ty Chit­ty Bang Bang, and The Jun­gle Book.

If you are under the age of 60, chances are your con­cept of Pooh, Eey­ore, Piglet, Kan­ga, Roo, Owl, Rab­bit and Tig­ger is informed by Win­nie the Pooh and Hon­ey Tree, the 1966 Dis­ney car­toon that launched a suc­cess­ful fran­chise, not E.H. Shepherd’s charm­ing illus­tra­tions for the 1926 book, Win­nie the Pooh, which entered the pub­lic domain this year.

This means that Milne’s work can be freely repro­duced or reworked, though Dis­ney retains the copy­right to their ani­mat­ed char­ac­ter designs.

Jen­nifer Jenk­ins, direc­tor of the Cen­ter for the Study of the Pub­lic Domain at Duke Uni­ver­si­ty, told the Wash­ing­ton Post that the bulk of the inquiries she field­ed in the lead up to 2022’s pub­lic domain titles becom­ing avail­able had to do with Win­nie the Pooh:

I can’t get over how peo­ple are freak­ing out about Win­nie-the-Pooh in a good way. Every­one has a very spe­cif­ic sto­ry of the first time they read it or their par­ents gave them a doll or they [have] sto­ries about their kids…It’s the Ted Las­so effect.We need a win­dow into a world where peo­ple or ani­mals behave with decen­cy to one anoth­er.”

Ummm…

Judg­ing by the trail­er for their upcom­ing live action, low bud­get fea­ture, Win­nie the Pooh: Blood and Hon­ey, Jagged Edge, a Lon­don-based hor­ror pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny, is not much inter­est­ed in Ted Las­so good vibes, though they do man­age to stay with­in the lim­its of the law, equip­ping a black clad Piglet with threat­en­ing tusks, and dress­ing the tit­u­lar “sil­ly old bear” in a red shirt that doesn’t exact­ly scream Tum­my Song.

More like Texas Chain­saw Mas­sacre.

Pro­duc­er-Direc­tor Rhys Frake-Water­field whose as-yet-unre­leased cred­its include Peter Pan’s Nev­er­land Night­mare and Spi­ders on a Plane told Vari­ety that “we did as much as we could to make sure [the film] was only based on the 1926 ver­sion:”

When you see the cov­er for this and you see the trail­ers and the stills and all that, there’s no way any­one is going to think this is a child’s ver­sion of it.

Here’s hop­ing he’s right.

The trail­er traf­fics freely in slash­er flick tropes:

A biki­ni clad young woman relax­ing, obliv­i­ous­ly, in a hot tub.

A hand held cam­era track­ing a des­per­ate, and prob­a­bly doomed, escape attempt through the woods.

Unnerv­ing warn­ings writ­ten in blood (or pos­si­bly hon­ey?)

The child­ish scrawl on the sign demar­cat­ing the 100 Acre Wood is both faith­ful to the orig­i­nal, and unmis­tak­ably sin­is­ter.

Equal­ly dis­turb­ing is the let­ter­ing on Eeyore’s home­made grave mark­er. (SPOILER: as per Vari­ety, a starv­ing Pooh and Piglet ate him…and appar­ent­ly dis­card­ed a human skull near­by.)

The “enchant­ed neigh­bor­hood of Christo­pher’s child­hood days” has gone decid­ed­ly down­hill.

Direc­tor Frake-Water­field paints Pooh and Piglet as the pri­ma­ry vil­lains, but sure­ly the col­lege-bound Christo­pher Robin deserves some of the blame for aban­don­ing his old friends.

On the oth­er hand, when a col­lege-bound Andy tossed his beloved child­hood play­things in a give­away box at the begin­ning of Toy Sto­ry 3, Buzz and Woody did not go on a mur­der­ous ram­page.

As Frake-Water­field described Pooh and Piglet’s devo­lu­tion to Huff­Post:

Because they’ve had to fend for them­selves so much, they’ve essen­tial­ly become fer­al. So they’ve gone back to their ani­mal roots. They’re no longer tame: they’re like a vicious bear and pig who want to go around and try and find prey.

An inter­view with Dread Cen­tral offers a graph­ic taste of the vio­lent may­hem they inflict, even as Christo­pher Robin, as clue­less as a biki­ni clad inno­cent in a hot tub, bleats, “We used to be friends, why are you doing this!?”

Unsur­pris­ing­ly, the film’s tagline is “This Ain’t No Bed­time Sto­ry.”

View pro­duc­tion pho­tos, if you dare, here.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo.  Her alle­giance has long been with the 1926 ver­sion. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

What’s Enter­ing the Pub­lic Domain in 2022: The Sun Also Ris­es, Win­nie-the-Pooh, Buster Keaton Come­dies & More

Hear the Clas­sic Win­nie-the-Pooh Read by Author A.A. Milne in 1929

The Orig­i­nal Stuffed Ani­mals That Inspired Win­nie the Pooh

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Dolly Parton Reads Free Bedtime Stories to Kids: Watch Readings from Goodnight with Dolly

in Books, K-12, Music, Video - Arts & Culture | August 30th, 2022

How­ev­er old you may be, you’re nev­er too old to have a chil­dren’s book read aloud to you by a paja­ma clad Dol­ly Par­ton.

So snug­gle up!

Every episode of Good­night with Dol­ly finds the coun­try music icon in bed, glam­orous­ly made up as ever, read­ing glass­es perched on her nose.

She intro­duces her­self not as Dol­ly Par­ton, but the Book Lady, an hon­orif­ic bestowed by the child ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the Imag­i­na­tion Library, the non-prof­it she found­ed in 1995 to fos­ter children’s love of books and read­ing.

The selec­tions are all titles that Imag­i­na­tion Library par­tic­i­pants have received free in the mail, with the Book Lady’s com­pli­ments.

Once things get rolling, the cam­era shifts to the illus­tra­tions, with Dol­ly’s zesty nar­ra­tion as voice over.

She low­ers her voice to play Grand­pa in the late Floyd Cooper’s Max and the Tag-Along Moon and the freight train in the 90th anniver­sary edi­tion of Wat­ty Piper’s The Lit­tle Engine That Could.

If her dra­mat­ic recita­tions occa­sion­al­ly include a bun­gled prepo­si­tion, we can’t imag­ine authors tak­ing umbrage.

In addi­tion to the mil­lions of chil­dren who ben­e­fit from Imag­i­na­tion Library mem­ber­ship, authors and illus­tra­tors whose titles select­ed for inclu­sion reap incred­i­ble rewards in the form of increased vis­i­bil­i­ty, sales, sta­tus, and of course, the good feel­ing that comes from being part of such a wor­thy project.

And we sin­cere­ly hope even the prick­li­est gram­mar stick­lers won’t blow a gas­ket over the odd “ain’t” and region­alisms born of Dolly’s East Ten­nessee moun­tain roots. In addi­tion to com­ing from an authen­tic place, they’re deliv­ered with a lot of heart and zero affect.

Though a word of cau­tion to par­ents plan­ning to let Dol­ly take over tonight: the series may be billed as bed­time sto­ries, but Parton’s mis­chie­vous sense of humor is liable to have a non-soporif­ic effect.

“Are you still awake?” she crows direct­ly into the cam­era after There’s a Hole in the Log on the Bot­tom of the Lake, author-illus­tra­tor Loren Long’s crowd pleas­ing com­ic spin on the cumu­la­tive camp song sta­ple. “I want to throw you in a lake if you don’t get in bed!”

The Book Lady is also fond of shar­ing a high ener­gy snip­pet of what­ev­er song the evening’s tale has put her in mind of.

Matt de la Peña’s Last Stop on Mar­ket Street, with award win­ning illus­tra­tions by Chris­t­ian Robin­son, inspires a few lines from Poor Folks Town, from 1972.

Come on down

Have a look around

Rich folks livin’ in a poor folks town

We got no mon­ey but we’re rich in love

That’s one thing that we’ve got a‑plenty of

So come on down have a look around

At rich folks livin’ in a poor folks town

(“If that won’t put you to sleep, I don’t know what will,” she teas­es, after.)

After Dol­ly bids her lis­ten­ers good­night, the book’s author or illus­tra­tor is usu­al­ly giv­en a chance to have a word with the par­ents or care­givers, to stress how read­ing aloud deep­ens famil­ial bonds and share child­hood mem­o­ries of being read to.

De la Peña, whose book fea­tures a grand­moth­er point­ing out the sort of non-mon­e­tary rich­es Dol­ly’s moth­er also val­ued, takes the oppor­tu­ni­ty to thank the self-effac­ing star’s efforts to “reach work­ing class com­mu­ni­ties” — pre­sum­ably through rep­re­sen­ta­tion, as well as books intend­ed to cul­ti­vate a life­long love of read­ing.

Enjoy a playlist of Good­night with Dol­ly episodes here.

Learn more about the Imag­i­na­tion Library here.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Dol­ly Parton’s Imag­i­na­tion Library Has Giv­en Away 186 Mil­lion Free Books to Kids, Boost­ing Lit­er­a­cy World­wide

Dol­ly Parton’s “Jolene” Slowed Down to 33RPM Sounds Great and Takes on New, Unex­pect­ed Mean­ings

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

 

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The Brooklyn Public Library Gives Every Teenager in the U.S. Free Access to Books Getting Censored by American Schools

in Books, Current Affairs | August 22nd, 2022

We have cov­ered it before: school dis­tricts across the Unit­ed States are increas­ing­ly cen­sor­ing books that don’t align with white-washed con­ser­v­a­tive visions of the world. Art Spiegel­man’s Maus, The Illus­trat­ed Diary of Anne Frank, Alice Walk­er’s The Col­or Pur­ple, Toni Mor­rison’s The Bluest Eye, and Harp­er Lee’s To Kill a Mock­ing­bird–these are some of the many books get­ting pulled from library shelves in Amer­i­can schools. In response to this con­cern­ing trend, the Brook­lyn Pub­lic Library has made a bold move: For a lim­it­ed time, the library will offer a free eCard to any per­son aged 13 to 21 across the Unit­ed States, allow­ing them free access to 500,000 dig­i­tal books, includ­ing many cen­sored books. The Chief Librar­i­an for the Brook­lyn Pub­lic Library, Nick Hig­gins said:

A pub­lic library rep­re­sents all of us in a plu­ral­is­tic soci­ety we exist with oth­er peo­ple, with oth­er ideas, oth­er view­points and per­spec­tives and that’s what makes a healthy democ­ra­cy — not shut­ting down access to those points of view or silenc­ing voic­es that we don’t agree with, but expand­ing access to those voic­es and hav­ing con­ver­sa­tions and ideas that we agree with and ideas that we don’t agree with.

And he added:

This is an intel­lec­tu­al free­dom to read ini­tia­tive by the Brook­lyn Pub­lic Library. You know, we’ve been pay­ing atten­tion to a lot of the book chal­lenges and bans that have been tak­ing place, par­tic­u­lar­ly over the last year in many places across the coun­try. We don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly expe­ri­ence a whole lot of that here in Brook­lyn, but we know that there are library patrons and library staff who are fac­ing these and we want­ed to fig­ure out a way to step in and help, par­tic­u­lar­ly for young peo­ple who are see­ing, some books in their library col­lec­tions that may rep­re­sent them, but they’re being tak­en off the shelves.

As for how to get the Brook­lyn Pub­lic Library’s free eCard, their Books Unbanned web­site offers the fol­low­ing instruc­tions: “indi­vid­u­als ages 13–21 can apply for a free BPL eCard, pro­vid­ing access to our full eBook col­lec­tion as well as our learn­ing data­bas­es. To apply, email bo***********@**********ry.org.” In short, send them an email.

You can find a list of Amer­i­ca’s most fre­quent­ly banned books at the web­site of the Amer­i­can Library Asso­ci­a­tion.

NOTE: We’re see­ing reports on Twit­ter that a teacher in Nor­man, OK has been ter­mi­nat­ed for let­ting a stu­dent know about the Brook­lyn Pub­lic Library’s free library. While this report has­n’t been ful­ly sub­stan­ti­at­ed, teach­ers who want to rec­om­mend this resource should pro­ceed with cau­tion. Par­ents could seem­ing­ly refer BPL’s free library to stu­dents with less con­cern about retal­i­a­tion.

via KTVB

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Texas School Board Bans Illus­trat­ed Edi­tion of The Diary of Anne Frank

Ten­nessee School Board Bans Maus, the Pulitzer-Prize Win­ning Graph­ic Nov­el on the Holo­caust; the Book Becomes #1 Best­seller on Ama­zon

The 850 Books a Texas Law­mak­er Wants to Ban Because They Could Make Stu­dents Feel Uncom­fort­able

Umber­to Eco Makes a List of the 14 Com­mon Fea­tures of Fas­cism

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Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Has Given Away 186 Million Free Books to Kids, Boosting Literacy Worldwide

in Books, Education, Music, Video - Arts & Culture | August 19th, 2022

Dol­ly Par­ton cre­at­ed her Imag­i­na­tion Library, a non-prof­it which gives books to mil­lions of chil­dren every month, with her father, Robert Lee Par­ton, in mind.

“I always thought that if Dad­dy had an edu­ca­tion, there’s no telling what he could have been,” she mused in her 2020 book, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics:

Because he knew how to barter, he knew how to bar­gain. He knew how to make every­thing work, and he knew how to count mon­ey. He knew exact­ly what every­thing was worth, how much he was going to make from that tobac­co crop, what he could trade, and how he could make it all work

Despite his busi­ness acu­men, Parton’s father nev­er learned to read or write, a source of shame.

Par­ton explains how there was a time when school­ing was nev­er con­sid­ered a giv­en for chil­dren in the moun­tains of East Ten­nessee, par­tic­u­lar­ly for those like her father, who came from a fam­i­ly of 15:

Kids had to go to work in the fields to help feed the fam­i­ly. Because of the weath­er and because of con­di­tions, a lot of kids couldn’t go to school.

I told him, “Dad­dy, there are prob­a­bly mil­lions of peo­ple in this world who don’t know how to read and write, who didn’t get the oppor­tu­ni­ty. Don’t be ashamed of that. Let’s do some­thing spe­cial.”

Par­ton is con­vinced that her father, whose pride in her musi­cal accom­plish­ments was so great he drove over with a buck­et of soapy water to clean the bronze stat­ue her home­town erect­ed in her hon­or, was proud­er still of a nick­name bestowed on her by the Imag­i­na­tion Library’s child ben­e­fi­cia­ries — the Book Lady.

Togeth­er with the com­mu­ni­ty part­ners who secure fund­ing for postage and non-admin­is­tra­tive costs, the Book Lady has giv­en away some 186,680,000 books since the project launched in 1995.

Orig­i­nal­ly lim­it­ed to chil­dren resid­ing in Sevi­er Coun­ty, Ten­nessee, the pro­gram has expand­ed to serve over 2,000,000 kids in the US, UK, Aus­tralia, Cana­da and the Repub­lic of Ire­land.

Par­tic­i­pa­tion can start well before a child is old enough to attempt their ABCs. Par­ents and guardians are encour­aged to enroll them at birth.

The Imag­i­na­tion Library’s lit­tlest par­tic­i­pants’ love of books is fos­tered with col­or­ful illus­tra­tions and sim­ple texts, often rhymes hav­ing to do with ani­mals or bed­time.

By the time a read­er hits their final year of the pro­gram at age 5, the focus will have shift­ed to school readi­ness, with sub­jects includ­ing sci­ence, folk­tales, and poet­ry.

The books — all Pen­guin Ran­dom House titles — are cho­sen by a pan­el of ear­ly child­hood lit­er­a­cy experts. 

This year’s selec­tion includes such old favorites as The Tale of Peter Rab­bit, Good Night, Goril­la, and The Snowy Day, as well as Parton’s own Coat of Many Col­ors, based on the song in which she famous­ly paid trib­ute to her moth­er’s ten­der resource­ful­ness:

Back through the years

I go won­derin’ once again

Back to the sea­sons of my youth

I recall a box of rags that some­one gave us

And how my mom­ma put the rags to use

There were rags of many col­ors

Every piece was small

And I did­n’t have a coat

And it was way down in the fall

Mom­ma sewed the rags togeth­er

Sewin’ every piece with love

She made my coat of many col­ors

That I was so proud of

The Imag­i­na­tion Library is clear­ly a boon to chil­dren liv­ing, as Par­ton once did, in pover­ty, but par­tic­i­pa­tion is open to any­one under age 5 liv­ing in an area served by an Imag­i­na­tion Library affil­i­ate.

Pro­mot­ing ear­ly engage­ment with books in such a sig­nif­i­cant way has also helped Par­ton to reduce some of the stig­ma sur­round­ing illit­er­a­cy:

You don’t real­ly real­ize how many peo­ple can’t read and write. Me telling the sto­ry about my dad­dy instilled some pride in peo­ple who felt like they had to keep it hid­den like a secret. I get so many let­ters from peo­ple say­ing, “I would nev­er had admit­ted it’ or “I was always ashamed.”

Learn more about Dol­ly Parton’s Imag­i­na­tion Library, which wel­comes dona­tions and inquiries from those who would like to start an affil­i­ate pro­gram in their area, here.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Texas School Board Bans Illustrated Edition of The Diary of Anne Frank

in Books, Politics | August 18th, 2022

Accord­ing to a recent sur­vey con­duct­ed by the Texas State Teach­ers Asso­ci­a­tion, 70% of sur­veyed teach­ers said they were seri­ous­ly think­ing about leav­ing the teach­ing pro­fes­sion. “Lin­ger­ing stress from the pan­dem­ic is a fac­tor, but it isn’t the only one. Inad­e­quate pay, polit­i­cal attacks on edu­ca­tors and the fail­ure of state lead­ers to pro­tect the health and safe­ty of stu­dents and school employ­ees also have com­bined to dri­ve down the morale of teach­ers to the low­est lev­el in recent mem­o­ry and endan­ger our pub­lic school sys­tem,” TSTA Pres­i­dent Ovidia Moli­na said.

We recent­ly saw how Texas’ edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem has become a vast polit­i­cal mine­field, with con­ser­v­a­tive leg­is­la­tors attempt­ing to ban 800+ books from school libraries–pri­mar­i­ly because the books make stu­dents feel “uncom­fort­able.” This week, the Keller Inde­pen­dent School Dis­trict in Fort Worth, Texas decid­ed to can­cel an acclaimed illus­trat­ed adap­ta­tion of The Diary of Anne Frank, echo­ing the recent deci­sion by a Ten­nessee School board to ban Maus, the Pulitzer-Prize win­ning graph­ic nov­el on the Holo­caust. The ban of The Diary of Anne Frank was trig­gered by a par­ent com­plaint, which the right-lean­ing school board decid­ed to hon­or. Why would think­ing peo­ple want to opt out of teach­ing in the Texas edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem? It’s not hard to imag­ine.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Ten­nessee School Board Bans Maus, the Pulitzer-Prize Win­ning Graph­ic Nov­el on the Holo­caust; the Book Becomes #1 Best­seller on Ama­zon

The 850 Books a Texas Law­mak­er Wants to Ban Because They Could Make Stu­dents Feel Uncom­fort­able

Umber­to Eco Makes a List of the 14 Com­mon Fea­tures of Fas­cism

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The Oakland Public Library Puts Online a Collection of Items Forgotten in Library Books: Love Notes, Doodles & More

in Archives, Books, Libraries, Photography, Writing | August 15th, 2022

Librar­i­ans are cham­pi­ons of orga­ni­za­tion, and among its best prac­ti­tion­ers.

Books are shelved accord­ing to the Dewey Dec­i­mal sys­tem.

Cat­e­gories are assigned using Library of Con­gress Rule Inter­pre­ta­tions, Library of Con­gress Sub­ject Head­ings, and Library of Con­gress Clas­si­fi­ca­tion.

And Sharon McKel­lar, the Teen Ser­vices Depart­ment Head at the Oak­land Pub­lic Library, col­lects ephemera she and oth­er staffers find in books returned to the OPL’s 18 loca­tions.

It’s an impulse many share. 

Even­tu­al­ly, she began scan­ning them to share on her employ­er’s web­site, inspired by Found Mag­a­zine, a crowd­sourced col­lec­tion of found let­ters, birth­day cards, kids’ home­work, to-do lists, hand­writ­ten poems, doo­dles, dirty pic­tures, etc.

As Found’s cre­ators, Davy Roth­bart and Jason Bit­ner, write on the magazine’s web­site:

We cer­tain­ly didn’t invent the idea of found stuff being cool. Every time we vis­it our friends in oth­er towns, someone’s always got some kind of unbe­liev­able dis­cov­ered note or pho­to on their fridge. We decid­ed to make a bunch of projects so that every­one can check out all the strange, hilar­i­ous and heart­break­ing things peo­ple have picked up and passed our way.

McKel­lar told NPR that her project “lets us be a lit­tle bit nosy. In a very anony­mous way, it’s like read­ing peo­ple’s secret diaries a lit­tle bit but with­out know­ing who they are.”

The finds, which she stores in a box under her desk pri­or to scan­ning and post­ing, are push­ing 600, with more arriv­ing all the time.

Search­able cat­e­gories include notes, cre­ative writ­ing, art, and pho­tos.

One arti­fact, the scat­o­log­i­cal one-of-a-kind zine Mr Men #48, excerpt­ed above, spans four cat­e­gories, includ­ing kids, a high­ly fer­tile source of both humor and heart­break.

There’s a dis­tinct­ly dif­fer­ent vibe to the items that chil­dren forge for them­selves or each oth­er, as opposed to work cre­at­ed for school, or as presents for the adults in their lives.

McKel­lar admits to hav­ing a sweet spot for their inad­ver­tent con­tri­bu­tions, which com­prise the bulk of the col­lec­tion.

She also cat­a­logues the throw­away fly­ers, tick­et stubs and lists that adult read­ers use to mark their place in a book, but when it comes to place­hold­ers with more obvi­ous poten­tial for sen­ti­men­tal val­ue, she finds her­self won­der­ing if a library patron has acci­den­tal­ly lost track of a pre­cious object:

Does the per­son miss that item? Do they regret hav­ing lost it or were they care­less with it because they actu­al­ly did­n’t share those deep and pro­found feel­ings with the per­son who wrote [it]?

Actu­al book­marks are not exempt…

Future plans include a pos­si­ble writ­ing con­test for short sto­ries inspired by items in the col­lec­tion.

Browse the Found in a Library Book col­lec­tion here.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Pub­lic Library Receipt Shows How Much Mon­ey You’ve Saved by Bor­row­ing Books, Instead of Buy­ing Them

Free Col­or­ing Books from World-Class Libraries & Muse­ums: Down­load & Col­or Hun­dreds of Free Images

The New York Pub­lic Library Cre­ates a List of 125 Books That They Love

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Discover The Key of Hell, an Illustrated 18th-Century Guide to Black Magic (1775)

in Books, Religion | August 11th, 2022

Accord­ing to the Book of Rev­e­la­tion, the return­ing Christ arrives sur­round­ed by sev­en can­dle­sticks. In its author’s prophet­ic dream, “his head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire.” From his mouth issues “a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations.” It’s a star­tling image, cre­at­ed for sym­bol­ic pur­pos­es. With­out a key to what those sym­bols mean, the text remains obscure. It is, after all, a vision giv­en to a mys­tic her­mit exiled on an island.

Many a Rev­e­la­tion-inspired mag­i­cal gri­moire from suc­ceed­ing cen­turies also remains near­ly incom­pre­hen­si­ble to non-adepts. Such is the case with the “strange 18th-cen­tu­ry man­u­script called Clavis Infer­ni (key of hell),” as Ben­jamin Breen writes at Slate. “Filled with invo­ca­tions, cryp­tic sig­ils, and paint­ings of super­nat­ur­al beings” — such as the illus­tra­tion from Rev­e­la­tion above — “the book defies inter­pre­ta­tion — as it was meant to do.” Also, like Rev­e­la­tion, the tex­t’s author­ship is mys­te­ri­ous, and yet sig­nif­i­cant to our under­stand­ing of its intent.

The Key of Hell is attrib­uted to a Cypri­anus, a name that “prob­a­bly refers to St. Cypri­an of Anti­och (d. 304 CE),” Breen writes in a post at Atlas Obscu­ra, “a very com­mon apoc­ryphal attri­bu­tion for medieval mag­i­cal texts, since Cypri­an was reput­ed to have been a pow­er­ful magi­cian and demon-sum­mon­er before con­vert­ing to Chris­tian­i­ty.” The use of pseu­doepig­ra­phy — an author assum­ing the name of a long-dead fig­ure — was com­mon prac­tice through­out the his­to­ry of both the­o­log­i­cal and alchem­i­cal writ­ing. Rather than an attempt at decep­tion, it could sig­nal the con­tin­u­a­tion of a tra­di­tion of occult knowl­edge.

The title page of the Key of Hell “seems to date it to 1717,” writes Breen, but a Sothe­by’s cat­a­logue entry claims, “the script seems to be of the late 18th cen­tu­ry” and dates it to 1775. At the Well­come Library — who host the text online in its entire­ty — we find this “Har­ry Pot­ter-esque” ori­gin sto­ry:

Also known as the Black Book, [the Key of Hell] is the text­book of the Black School at Wit­ten­berg, the book from which a witch or sor­cer­er gets his spells. The Black School at Wit­ten­berg was pur­port­ed­ly a place in Ger­many where one went to learn the black arts.

Writ­ten in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and “the Mag­i­cal Alpha­bet devised by occultist Cor­nelius Agrip­pa in his Third Book of Occult Phi­los­o­phy from 1510,” notes Flash­bak, the man­u­script is “filled with invo­ca­tions to spir­its and demons — includ­ing a Hebrew invo­ca­tion for sum­mon­ing God.” (It also includes help­ful instruc­tions for ban­ish­ing sum­moned spir­its.) The man­u­scrip­t’s full Latin title — Clavis Infer­ni sive mag­ic alba et nigra appro­ba­ta Meta­trona — trans­lates to “The Key of Hell with white and black mag­ic approved by Meta­tron,” an archangel in the Tal­mu­dic and Kab­bal­ist tra­di­tions. The use of this name sug­gests the spells with­in come from a high­er author­i­ty.

Breen, how­ev­er, found some unusu­al com­men­tary on the book’s pos­si­ble author, includ­ing the idea in Den­mark that Cypri­anus was “a fel­low Dane so evil dur­ing his life­time that when he died the dev­il threw him out of Hell,” writes pro­fes­sor of Nor­we­gian lit­er­a­ture Kath­leen Stokker. Cypri­anus was so enraged by this treat­ment that “he ded­i­cat­ed him­self to writ­ing the nine Books of Black Arts that under­lie all sub­se­quent Scan­di­na­vian black books.” Anoth­er apoc­ryphal sto­ry iden­ti­fies Cypri­anus as a “rav­ish­ing­ly beau­ti­ful” Mex­i­can nun from 1351 (?!) who met a “gory” end.

Who­ev­er wrote the Key of Hell, and for what­ev­er rea­son, they left behind a fas­ci­nat­ing book of sor­cery full of curi­ous illus­tra­tions and a cryp­tic cos­mol­o­gy. See Breen’s attempts to deci­pher some of its key sym­bols here and make your own with the full text at the Well­come Library.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Exquis­ite Water­col­ors of Demons, Mag­ic & Signs: Behold the Com­pendi­um Of Demonolo­gy and Mag­ic from 1775

1,600 Occult Books Now Dig­i­tized & Put Online, Thanks to the Rit­man Library and Da Vin­ci Code Author Dan Brown

A Big Archive of Occult Record­ings: His­toric Audio Lets You Hear Trances, Para­nor­mal Music, Glos­so­lalia & Oth­er Strange Sounds (1905–2007)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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The Book of St Albans, One of the Finest Medieval Manuscripts, Gets Digitized and Put Online

in Books, History | July 26th, 2022

This past month, on the eve of the June 22nd feast of St Alban, the library of Trin­i­ty Col­lege Dublin announced that it had dig­i­tized the “13th cen­tu­ry mas­ter­piece” the Book of St Alban, a rich­ly illus­trat­ed man­u­script that “fea­tures 54 indi­vid­ual works of medieval art and has fas­ci­nat­ed read­ers across the cen­turies, from roy­al­ty to renais­sance schol­ars.”

Cre­at­ed by the Bene­dic­tine monk Matthew Paris, the man­u­script “chron­i­cles the life of St Alban,” notes The Irish Times, “and also out­lines the con­struc­tion of St Alban’s Cathe­dral in Hert­ford­shire.” The text and illus­tra­tions explain the ori­gins of a cult of St. Alban, the first Eng­lish mar­tyr, that began to spring up after his 4th cen­tu­ry death.

Accord­ing to the Ven­er­a­ble Bede, the Eng­lish monk who wrote the Eccle­si­as­ti­cal His­to­ry of the Eng­lish Peo­ple, the mar­tyr­dom of Alban involved a few mirac­u­lous events. Sen­tenced to die for his refusal to renounce Chris­tian­i­ty, Alban sup­pos­ed­ly peti­tioned God to dry up the Riv­er Ver so he could more quick­ly reach the place of his exe­cu­tion.

This mir­a­cle caused Alban’s Roman exe­cu­tion­er to fall to his feet, spon­ta­neous­ly con­vert, and refuse to kill the saint. A sec­ond exe­cu­tion­er stepped in to behead them both, where­upon this man’s eyes popped out of his head. “He who gave the wicked stroke,” writes Bede, “was not per­mit­ted to rejoice over the deceased; for his eyes dropped upon the ground togeth­er with the blessed mar­tyr’s head.”

In the illus­tra­tion of this gris­ly sto­ry (top) from the man­u­script, we see the exe­cu­tion­er hold­ing his eyes in his hand, and Alban’s head appears to have been caught by the hair on a tree branch above. Anoth­er illus­tra­tion, fur­ther up, shows a char­ac­ter named Her­a­clius mak­ing off with Alban’s head.

In a lat­er leg­end, Alban’s head rolled to the bot­tom of Holy­well Hill, and a well sprang from where it came to rest. On the sup­posed site of Alban’s exe­cu­tion now stands St Albans Cathe­dral, once St Albans Abbey, where the Book of St Albans remained for 300 years until Hen­ry VIII dis­solved Britain’s monas­ter­ies in 1539.

The book is writ­ten in both Latin and Anglo-Nor­man French, “which made it acces­si­ble to a wider sec­u­lar audi­ence includ­ing edu­cat­ed noble women,” Trin­i­ty Col­lege’s Caoimhe Ni Lochlainn writes. “It was bor­rowed by noble ladies of the peri­od, includ­ing the King’s sis­ter-in-law Count­ess of Corn­wall, Sanchia of Provence, and oth­ers.”

The man­u­script even­tu­al­ly made its way to Trin­i­ty Col­lege Dublin in 1661, where it has remained ever since, and where its “most­ly framed nar­ra­tive scenes” have been admired by a select few. Now every­one can access the book and its illus­tra­tions, made with a “tint­ed draw­ing tech­nique,” Lochlainn notes, “where out­lined draw­ings are high­light­ed with col­ored wash­es from a lim­it­ed palette. This tech­nique was dis­tinct­ly Eng­lish, dat­ing back to the Anglo Sax­on art of the 10th cen­tu­ry.”

See all the gris­ly details of this fas­ci­nat­ing arti­fact at Trin­i­ty Col­lege Dublin’s Dig­i­tal Col­lec­tions, and learn more about the man­u­script in the video just above.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Medieval Mas­ter­piece, the Book of Kells, Has Been Dig­i­tized and Put Online

The Illu­mi­nat­ed Man­u­scripts of Medieval Europe: A Free Online Course from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado

How Illu­mi­nat­ed Medieval Man­u­scripts Were Made: A Step-by-Step Look at this Beau­ti­ful, Cen­turies-Old Craft

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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