Straw Bear and Wicker Man

 

Cardinal Cox, the Peterborough punk poet with a strong penchant for the uncanny, has just published a new booklet, Fan Mail for a Film. It is a tribute to cult horror film The Wicker Man (1973). The eleven texts each allude to local folk customs from Peterborough or not far away, and have the authentic phrasing of popular ballads and traditional rhymes.

In ‘Slight Gods’, the poet considers the modern fates of ancient deities lingering in edgeland spaces: Andraste in ‘a corporation sports ground’, Erriapus in ‘an overgrown orchard’, Viridios in ‘a thicket on the by-pass’, Abandinus at a bridge over a litter-infested river. In a note, the author tells us: ‘They’re lumps of rock, disregarded in display cases at local museums . . . waiting for a chance to crawl back into our rituals’. This is a thoughtful re-imagining of original local gods in the contemporary world.

‘Dance’ is a chant which invokes the mystery of the miz-mazes, or Troy Towns, the labyrinths carved into turf in British villages or lonely places, and it links these to modern mazes created in the city, in playgrounds, gardens, and sanctuaries. The poem reads as an authentic children’s rhyme of the sort collected by the Opies and others, which often seem to suggest some half-understood ritual survival: ‘Pale ghost girl dances with me/In the middle you can’t see’. It is from the same world of spells and incantations known to the strange children in Machen's stories.

Also included is ‘Some Mummery’, the imagined text of a mummers play such as that partly recorded by John Clare from an old actor. In these and the other pieces, it is evident that Cardinal Cox has a deep understanding of local traditions, but also of how folklore works and how it is still an active force today, not only in the boisterous honouring of old customs, but also in new urban myths.

The booklet also includes a short essay on David Pinner, the author of Ritual (1967), the novel on which The Wicker Man was in part based, who was born in Peterborough.

Fan Mail for a Film is being released to coincide with the odd and uproarious Whittlesea Straw Bear Festival, a possible inspiration for the novel, which will next take place on 13 and 14 January 2023, but copies can be obtained now.

They are available free for an SAE from Cardinal Cox at 58 Pennington, Orton Goldhay, Peterborough, PE2 5RB or by email at cardinalcox1[at]yahoo[dot]co[dot]uk

(Mark Valentine)

Image: www.strawbear.org.uk, which also has information on the custom.