BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: GUEST,Lady A
Date: 08 Feb 04 - 11:20 AM

Go on then - I'll be Aelfleda as long as there's a Cuthbert & a girdle!
Yes, there are lots of spellings - something to do with the dark ages I suppose.

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: brid widder
Date: 08 Feb 04 - 10:04 AM

I would have thought 'Whitby Virgin' was an oxymoron

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 07 Feb 04 - 02:51 PM

I prophesy that beer will be drunk at the Tap and Spile in Whitby whilst strange noises surround the people, (well it is folk night:0))

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: Les from Hull
Date: 06 Feb 04 - 05:53 PM

ELFLEDA (Aelflaed) (653-714), Abbess of Whitby. Her father, Oswiu, king of Northumbria, and her mother Enfleda vowed to consecrate her in in-fancy to the religious life if he were successful in battle against Penda, the heathen king of Mercia. He won the battle of the Winwaed (654); accordingly, he entrusted her to Hilda, abbess of Hartlepool. A few years later, both went to Whitby, a double monastery ruled by Hilda, and later a mausoleum of the Northumbrian royal family. Enfleda and Elfleda became abbesses in turn; during Elfleda's abbacy the earliest Life of Gregory the Great was written there.

She was the friend of both Cuthbert and Wilfrid. In 684 she met Cuthbert on Coquet Island; he told her that her brother, King Egfrith, would die within a year and that her half-brother Aldfrith would succeed him. Later she was cured of paralysis by Cuthbert's girdle. Her skill as mediator was exercised in Wilfrid's favour at the synod of the river Nidd (705), when he was reconciled to both Canterbury and the church in Northumbria. She asserted that Aldfrith on his death-bed had prom-ised to obey the commands of the papacy concerning Wilfrid and had enjoined his heir, Osred, to do the same. This earned the praise of Wilfrid's biographer as the 'comforter and best counsellor of the whole province'.

Her relics were discovered and translated at Whitby c. 1125; her cult is attested only by late martyrologies. Feast: 8 February.

From the Oxford Dictionary of Saints. She seems to have lots of spellings, but in the book she comes right after the Eleven Thousand Virgins. Well who wouldn't?

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: GUEST,MC Fat
Date: 06 Feb 04 - 04:45 AM

Wasn't it Groucho Marx who said 'I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin !!' ?

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: Leadfingers
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 09:18 PM

If all the ladies in Whitby between the ages of Sixteen and Sixty were laid end to en down the High Street I wouldnt be at all surprised

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: Piddlin Pete
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 07:12 PM

Whitby virgin ???? Whats one of them then ????????

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: Les from Hull
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 12:40 PM

'Course you can, my dear. I'll get the needle and thread (for your costume of course). Perhaps Brid Widder can sort us out a holy person outfit. She's in and out of churches all the time.

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 12:01 PM

Do they do miracles??

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: GUEST,Lady A
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 11:48 AM

Can I change my mind & be the Whitby virgin instead?

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: Les from Hull
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 09:34 AM

Well I suppose it's my job to help get us back on topic Stuff about Aelfleda and Hilda

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 04:52 AM

You're just boasting Jim!
Quack!
Geoff.

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: GUEST,MC Fat
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 04:45 AM

Could be up for a big part !!! Is there room for the bendy balloon rapper ?

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 04:44 AM

We told the snakes they were going on a charabanc ride to Blackpool....

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: Gareth
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 07:09 PM

Driving the Snakes out of Yorkshire ???

I can see it now - " Hold on Lads, we'll soon be in Lancashire !"

Or is that how the Snakeshead Pass got its name ???

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: Les from Hull
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 04:07 PM

Actually The Ghost of Whitby Folk Festival Past is just Maggie in a sheet. I want to get some of those plastic ornamental chains so that Maggie has to provide her own sound effects - rattle, clang, clang! Then she comes on again with a sign round her neck as A Present From Whitby.

The snakes will be the traditional Whitby long balloons, so you'll only need to contact the RSPCLB (Whitby branch). If anybody's still got any left could they save us any green and yellow ones. We're going for accuracy here.

If we're collecting stuff for the dressing-up box, we're also featuring Captain Cook and Dracula and a Whitby Virgin. We can mug a nun for the Hilda gear. Scratch (Geoff?) should be dressed in Morris kit (preferably a kit made from lots of different sides' kit).

Anyway I'm giving all my secrets away. Anyone who's not going to be involved please regard this as the expensively-shot trailer that the actual production never seems to live up to.

Les

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: gnomad
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 03:40 PM

Happy feast day.

I expect if you are "meading" it all day we may meet at some point, should I bring my camera?

Paul S

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: GUEST,Lady Aelfleda
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 03:07 PM

Sounds great Les. Mind would we need to check with the RSPCS (snakes) before I start struggling with a boa constrictor! Also, I don't have to learn tin whistle to do any charming do I?
I'm dying to know who you've got lined up for Whitby FF past & present...

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 02:05 PM

Only nine idiots! So many will have to be disappointed then!

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: Les from Hull
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 01:54 PM

Actually I meant Whitby Scratch Mummers, but the Good Lady did kick all the snakes out of Yorkshire (or was that our 'ilda?). I started the writing before the research you know.

But I need you in the show as well Geoff. The character who stays on all the time and does the introductions and such is called 'Scratch' and does a little dance spot mainly to summon The Ghost of Whitby Folk Festival Past and Present (there's no Future!) to frighten Malcolm 'Ebeneezer' Storey. So you see the part's written for you. Could you let me have the name of your agent? Martin Scoresby has inquired about the film rights.

I'm sure there'll be a BIG part for Jim as well. Altogether I'll need about 9 idiots. I'll do the music and Maggie's down for the ghost parts. We'll do it at New Year, but I'd like to do it in Folk Week as well.

Les (writer and impresario)

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: GUEST,MC Fat
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 09:26 AM

Quaff a few for me also my fair Lady Aefleda. I will toast you from far distant Sheffield as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 03 Feb 04 - 04:55 AM

Kicking snakes out of Ireland???
Quack!!!!!!!!!!!
Geoff the Duck.

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: Les from Hull
Date: 02 Feb 04 - 06:05 PM

I suppose that this is as good a time/place to confess that I have started writing Whitby Scratch Morris's next hit show featuring (among others) the good Lady Aelfleda herself - doing the trick that St Patrick got rather famous for. The part's there for you if you want it, Jude!

Les

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 02 Feb 04 - 05:34 PM

Happy AFD.

Have you tasted the mead in the Black Horse and Endeavour? Is it up to scratch?   Have you considered Sherry as an alternative?

Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 02 Feb 04 - 03:53 PM

Have a lovely feast day Lady Aelfleda!

Subject: BS: Aelfleda's Feast Day
From: GUEST,Lady A
Date: 02 Feb 04 - 02:58 PM

Just thought that you would all like to know that it's Aelfleda's Feast Day on 8th February. A good excuse to have a few glasses of mead I think - which I will be doing in the Black Horse, Endeavour etc.etc.