Look at the faces of the light keepers Thomas Marshall, James Ducat and Donald MacArthur. These three souls are at the center of a 120 year old mystery that is featured in a film now playing on Amazon Prime called "The Vanishing".
Chances are that when you hear the words “medieval magic”, the image of a witch will spring to mind: wizened old crones huddled over a cauldron containing unspeakable ingredients such as eye of newt. Or you might think of people brutally prosecuted by overzealous priests. But this picture is inaccurate.
To begin with, fear of witchcraft – selling one’s soul to demons to inflict harm on others – was more of an early modern phenomenon than a medieval one, only beginning to take hold in Europe at the tail end of the 15th century. This vision also clouds from view the other magical practices in pre-modern England.
In a forest clearing in central France, history is being made. Or more precisely, remade.
This is the Guédelon medieval construction site, a back-to-the-future project that involves recreating a 13th century castle from scratch.
How hard can that be in an age of electricity, power tools and hydraulics? Extremely, if you decide to do it using the methods and materials in use in the Middle Ages, as workers at Guédelon have been doing for the last 20 years.
Now the traditional skills being rediscovered here are in demand for the reconstruction of Notre Dame Cathedral, ravaged by fire in April.
The inferno reduced the cathedral’s roof, partly made with oak from the 12th century, to dust. Flames also consumed the 19th century spire, which collapsed and crashed through the Gothic stone vaulting. At the heart of the blaze, firefighters estimated, the temperature rose to up to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Read more »
No matter how you choose to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, the history of this holiday is certainly worth examining. The original St. Patrick accomplished much more than ridding Ireland of snakes, and he emerged from his pagan roots to become one of Christianity’s best known figures...
St. David’s Day is celebrated on March 1st across Wales and the wider world. But who was St David? What was he famous for? And in which Shakespeare play is a character forced to eat a leek in his name?