Victorian Musings

Power of sea be yours, Power of land be yours, Power of heaven. WEST HIGHLAND BLESSING
The great Celtic scholar Dr. Anne Ross once said, 'Everyone with European roots can consider themselves of Celtic origin.' People who are not directly descended from Irish, Welsh, or Scottish families tend to think they have no Celtic roots, but in reality so many different European tribes contributed to the creation of Celticism, and over thousands of years such a mixing of populations has occurred, that virtually anyone alive today with European ancestry can be said to have Celtic origins.
Samhain Goddess, 'The Crone' by Angela Jayne Barnett
The old people had runes which they sang to the spirits dwelling in the sea and in the mountain, in the wind and in the whirlwind, in the lightning and in the thunder, in the sea and in the moon and in the stars of heaven. I naught but a toddling child at the time, remember well the ways of the old people ~ Carmina Gadelica
The early Celts divided …

The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, home to the Great Exhibition of 1851

 The Great Nave of the Crystal Palace, photograph 1854, Philip Henry Delamotte, V&A
The Great Exhibition took place at London's Hyde Park in 1851 inside a building called the Crystal Palace. The Crystal Palace was 1,848 feet long and 454 feet wide and covered 19 acres of London's Hyde Park. The idea for this building was the brainchild of Henry Cole. However, it was designed by Joseph Paxton head gardener at Chatsworth and close friend of John Atkinson Grimshaw. The man who would ensure this great 'happening' was none other than Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria.  The Great Exhibition took place over five months from May to October 1851, six million visitors came to what was basically a massive trade show. There were 100,000 exhibits from all across the globe where Art and Science came together in an effort to stimulate industrial design. For instance,Fine Art objects were not permitted u…

In this engrossing novel of historical suspense, New York Times bestselling author Alison Weir tells the dramatic intertwined stories of two women—Katherine Grey and Kate Plantagenet—separated by time but linked by twin destinies . . . . involving the mysterious tragic fate of the young Princes in the Tower.

When her older sister, Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Days’ Queen, is executed in 1554 for unlawfully accepting the English crown, Lady Katherine Grey’s world falls apart. Barely recovered from this tragic loss she risks all for love, only to incur the wrath of her formidable cousin Queen Elizabeth I, who sees Katherine as a rival for her insecure throne.

Interlaced with Katherine’s story is that of her distant kinswoman Kate Plantagenet, the bastard daughter of Richard III, the last Plantagenet king. In 1483, Kate travels to London for Richard’s coronation, and her world changes forever.

Kate loves her father, but before long she hears terrible rumors about him that threaten …