Loved this. You're so right about the Puffin Books/Folklore Myths & Legends thing. It influenced an entire generation, courtesy of the local library: a diet of Reader's Digest folklore, time-travel, hauntings, things witchy and dodgy stuff from Frazer's Golden Bough. I have two copies of FM & L- of course I do, bought from a second-hand book shop for three quid a piece. The prices today! I've seen the book change hands for hundreds.
Fabulous. I suppose there’s a double fruity pun there with Rowan Morrison, given rowan berries (and their mythological significance in Irish lore). The wheat stalks on the kettle stopped me dead: I hadn’t pictured such a thing for more than 40 years but OH MY GOD YES.
I’ll be honest, I love The Wicker Man and thinks it’s a bona fide classic, hence my celebration of its 50th anniversary in 2023 for CulturAll:
Excellent review. No I wouldn't show it to the kids, but hope they discover it for themselves. Strange how the 60's British hippy "folk-ways" (mostly about naming your van Gandalf and getting as much sex as possible) had soured by the 70s, more chaotic and likely to involve drug dealing and scary dogs. The hidden and then open violence of The Wicker Man reflects that change? (or just a return to reality after the Flower People fantasies, it probably wasn't pleasant in the real old days if you were eg the village idiot or an outsider, after the harvest failed).
Loved this. You're so right about the Puffin Books/Folklore Myths & Legends thing. It influenced an entire generation, courtesy of the local library: a diet of Reader's Digest folklore, time-travel, hauntings, things witchy and dodgy stuff from Frazer's Golden Bough. I have two copies of FM & L- of course I do, bought from a second-hand book shop for three quid a piece. The prices today! I've seen the book change hands for hundreds.
Fabulous. I suppose there’s a double fruity pun there with Rowan Morrison, given rowan berries (and their mythological significance in Irish lore). The wheat stalks on the kettle stopped me dead: I hadn’t pictured such a thing for more than 40 years but OH MY GOD YES.
I’ll be honest, I love The Wicker Man and thinks it’s a bona fide classic, hence my celebration of its 50th anniversary in 2023 for CulturAll:
https://culturall.io/the-wicker-man-at-50-a-weird-masterpiece/
Excellent review. No I wouldn't show it to the kids, but hope they discover it for themselves. Strange how the 60's British hippy "folk-ways" (mostly about naming your van Gandalf and getting as much sex as possible) had soured by the 70s, more chaotic and likely to involve drug dealing and scary dogs. The hidden and then open violence of The Wicker Man reflects that change? (or just a return to reality after the Flower People fantasies, it probably wasn't pleasant in the real old days if you were eg the village idiot or an outsider, after the harvest failed).