Nyckelharpa.

I had never heard of a nyckelharpa until last Sunday but was privileged to get the opportunity to both see and hear it for the first time in Arundel. The player, Jeff Swann, kindly gave a talk and a demonstration.

Originally it is believed to have come from Slovakia in the 1500s.  Despite many German churches depicting the instrument in their wall paintings this is most likely a red herring as the artists would have travelled throughout Europe and already been familiar with it. Later on it became very popular in Sweden but it is thought that it was introduced to them by the Wallonian miners from Belgium. Sweden has a rich seam of iron ore, but only when the foreign miners showed them how to extract it by blast furnace methods were they able to turn it into pig iron and thus found an industry based upon it.

Related to the hurdy gurdy it is a bowed instrument with keys that act as frets to the wire strings. The keys allowed the miners to play without causing additional stress to their already arthritic and calloused hands. Older versions had drone strings. It makes a beautifully haunting sound if somewhat more sombre than I usually favour. Jeff made his from scratch in six weeks from Swedish spruce for the box because it resonates and the other components from maple and curly birch. For more info about Jeff further details can be found here http://www.nyckelharpa.co.uk/

Chatting to Jeff afterwards we discovered we had already encountered him last year at the Medieval Joust and he is in our local Morris side. Small world!

Arilx

Twelfth Night.

Being a bit of an old fuddy duddy and traditionalist I've waited until today before taking my Chrimble decs down. 'Tis also the start of the wassailing season [I'm going to three this month woohoo] so here's an appropriate recipe to fill your glass in celebration and raise in cheer for the Spring months soon to come!

Wassail Punch

[serves 10-12]

5 quarts of cider

7 tbsp brown sugar

3 sliced oranges

4 cloves

1/4 tsp grated nutmeg

2 bananas

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Heat cider slowly with sugar, orange and spices until almost boiling. Pour into a bowl and add thinly sliced bananas. Serve immediately.

Wassail!

Arilx

Handsel Monday

This was a rural Scottish tradition which was popular until the late 19th century and took place on the first Monday of the New Year. Handsel is a Saxon word meaning "deliver into the hand" and in this tradition it translated as a small gift monetary or otherwise given by an Employer to his servants or an adult giving a penny to any child he encountered in the morning.

There were various ideas regarding appropriate gifts. Nothing sharp could be given otherwise the relationship between the giver and recipient would be severed nor was an empty purse deemed acceptable. If the purse had a small amount of money in it the belief was that it would bring good luck money wise for the coming year.

Some Employers went far further than gifts for their charges. They laid on a sumptuous breakfast with oatcakes, cold beef, shortbread and many other treats and people enjoyed their day of leisure by playing sports and games. In one participants shot at a target painted low on a barn door and the winner received a small prize known as wads and another called Blind Barrow in which blindfolded competitors pushed a wheelbarrow towards a post and whoever got the closest won.

Sounds like a merry jape!

Arilx

'Orrible Weather.

No park run for me today....I am a light weight [in fact no weight] and refuse to run in the pouring rain, although braver souls than me did. Together with my dear chum accidentally double booking herself [we've all done it especially when it's the changeover from the old diary to the new] I ended up with a free day at home. Huzzah for, as ever, I had a cunning plan....

I picked up a heavily reduced bag of lemons earlier in the week and immediately earmarked it for a spot of lemon curd making this weekend. Now I love the stuff but I hate the faff of having to babysit it for hours, stirring continuously whilst waiting for it to thicken. Fabulous because this is now a thing of the past because I trialled making it in the slow cooker last year [I talked about wanting to make the kit I've got work harder for me in a previous post] and it was a breeze. Same method used again and time freed up for some of the other domestic trivia I had planned.

Slow Cooker Lemon Curd

4 lemons zested and juiced
100g butter
450g caster sugar
4 medium eggs

Check that you have an oven proof bowl that will fit into your slowcooker with the lid on first....I didn't last year and had to transfer the gloopy, sticky mess into another one. A procedure to be avoided if possible!

Zest and juice lemons. Put them together with the butter in a pan and gently melt over a low/medium heat. Remove from heat and add in the sugar stirring until it has dissolved. Set aside whilst you boil enough water to come halfway up the side of the bowl in the SC. Whisk 4 eggs in the ovenproof bowl and then gradually add the lemon mix whisking all the time.

Cover the bowl with foil and place in the SC. Add the hot water so it comes halfway up the bowl's side and then put lid on. Cook on low for 3-4 hours.

Remove curd from the slow cooker. Beat well and then transfer to sterilised jars. Seal and leave to cool. Keep in the fridge for 3 weeks.

I guess you could make this with 4 limes or 2-3 oranges depending on size if you fancied a variation.

Next on my slow cooker experimentation will be yogurt making.

Arilx

The January Man.

I heard this track for the first time last year sung live by Damh the Bard at the Anderida Druid Conference. It's taken from his Antlered Crown and Standing Stone CD and the lyrics are below in the comments. I find it very moving.

Arilx

Give A Little Extra.

I support a couple of charities with a regular monthly donation, do the daily clicks for a couple more, charity volunteering, donate and buy from charity shops etc etc but there's always more I can do but with a modest income just giving money to everyone [much as I'd love to] is not possible so I have to be a bit cannier to find other ways to help.

Today I've joined this site. I'm don't buy a lot but often my son will ask me to order him something or when I do make an online purchase for us at least I know that it's helping someone a little bit. It's a comparison site that donates to your chosen charity if you go to the purchase site via them. There are masses of charities to choose from- after much deliberation I've gone for Friends of the Earth.

https://www.giveasyoulive.com/

Arilx

New Year's Day!

Firstly a very Happy New Year to one and all. They say time flies when you're having fun....it seems to be going at double speed these days!

Well chaps absolutely no plans to make any resolutions whatsoever here for me at GBT. I am full of admiration for those who make them and can stick to them but personally I find them generally rather depressing and often focused on deprivation. I just don't respond well to that type of approach and if anything's going to make me misbehave it will be that! That's not to say that there won't be changes...I've got a head full of ideas and a plan beginning to formulate of where I'd like to be in a year's time but things will evolve gradually and I shall continue to nip and tuck as I have done this year. What I won't be stopping is the positive behaviours that I have mastered this year so I can come off the chuckle pills altogether [I've already been able to reduce the dosage twice] once the clocks go forward.

Snigger- I have signed up for a dry January with our local radio station. Anyone who knows me in real life will find that an amusing concept as I do enjoy a small alcoholic beverage on a regular basis. Please don't think I'm a drunken old sot but I will have to rethink my behaviours on a Friday and Saturday night when I'm to be found with a glass of Hobbity Booze in my paw [unless I am driving]. I could give you some old blarney about I'm doing it for health reasons but I'd be telling porkie pies....I'm doing it to get in the draw for a £500 spa break! I've had to sign a disclaimer so there really won't be any cheating.

Anyway for those of us who have made resolutions in previous years and fallen at the first hurdle this one's for you.....

See you in the bar on 1st February!

Arilx