M.J. Rose

The Penance of Eleanor, painted in 1900

The Duchess and the Necromancers

By Nancy Bilyeau

“On Monday, November 19th, 1441, the people of London lined the streets to observe an act of public penance. That morning a woman, perhaps forty years of age, bare-headed, plainly dressed, was rowed in a barge to Temple Stairs off the Thames. She stepped off the barge and proceeded to walk all the way to St. Paul’s Cathedral, carrying before her a wax taper of two pounds. Once she made it to St. Paul’s, she offered the taper to the High Altar.

The woman was Eleanor Cobham, mistress-turned-wife to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, only surviving uncle to the childless Henry VI and thus the heir to the throne. The duchess had been tried and condemned for heresy and witchcraft. This was the first of three days of ordered pilgrimages to churches, showing a “meke and a demure countenance.” Afterward, she would be forced to separate from her husband and live in genteel prison for the rest of her life….”

For the rest, click here.

This is a beautiful and heartbreaking story. Fascinating beyond imagination. A story that would make a most interesting and eye-catching film – Who wants to write the screenplay?

For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II

In 1978, Soviet geologists prospecting in the wilds of Siberia discovered a family of six, lost in the taiga

“Siberian summers do not last long. The snows linger into May, and the cold weather returns again during September, freezing the taiga into a still life awesome in its desolation: endless miles of straggly pine and birch forests scattered with sleeping bears and hungry wolves; steep-sided mountains; white-water rivers that pour in torrents through the valleys; a hundred thousand icy bogs. This forest is the last and greatest of Earth’s wildernesses. It stretches from the furthest tip of Russia’s arctic regions as far south as Mongolia, and east from the Urals to the Pacific: five million square miles of nothingness, with a population, outside a handful of towns, that amounts to only a few thousand people.

When the warm days do arrive, though, the taiga blooms, and for a few short months it can seem almost welcoming. It is then that man can see most clearly into this hidden world—not on land, for the taiga can swallow whole armies of explorers, but from the air…”

Read more here.
Follow: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter

From our friend Nancy over at the A Bloody Good Read blog comes a wonderful post about necromancy and more…

FROM HOMER TO THE HOBBIT: THE HISTORY OF THE NECROMANCER

By Nancy Bilyeau

Vampire. Witch. Zombie. Werewolf. Yes, they have us surrounded.

In films, books and TV series, it seems as if the supernatural run the show as never before. I admit to having my favorites.

When it comes to the fanged ones, I like to get down with Dracula, whether it’s in the hands of the one-and-only Bram Stoker, the gifted Elizabeth Kostova (The Historian) or the audacious Francis Ford Coppola in his adaptation (fantastic soundtrack). Anne Rice, Charlaine Harris and Justin Cronin have taken the vampire myth in fascinating directions. And, yes, I admit it: I’m a Twilight mom…

Please click here for the rest.