Lords, Kings, Viruses and Diarrhoea

Over Christmas I have twice seen it stated that The Lord of Misrule arrives on Twelfth Night to oversee the festivities. One time was in the letters page of The Independent, the other was in the TV programme, Tudor Monastery at Christmas.  Having spent my time from when I first got my non-fiction ticket at the library reading about superstitions, legends and customs; I was very surprised by this.  It was the first time I had heard it said that The Lord of Misrule arrived on Twelfth Night, and then it appears twice!  It seems illogical to me.  Why would he turn up at the end of the Christmas season?  Surely he arrives at the beginning and generally gets involved in mischief and fun all the way through?

I went to have a look in one of my latest books, a Christmas present from Aimo:

A Christmas Present

I would like to quote quite a long section from the introduction which has a bearing on this post and others (e.g. Clipping the Church in September):

"The real danger is from a far more virulent virus - the idea that all customs, indeed all superstitions, nursery rhymes, and anything that smacks of 'folkiness', are direct survivals of ancient pagan fertility rites, and are concerned with the appeasement of gods and spirits.  Although the suggestion of an ancient origin for our folklore was the central tenet of the Victorian and Edwardian pioneers of folklore collection, this notion has only become generally known in the last forty years or so, and has taken hold with astonishing rapidity; the majority of the population now carry the virus in one form or another, while some are very badly infected.  The problem here is not simply that these theories are unsupported by any evidence, but that their blanket similarity destroys any individuality.  All customs will soon end up with the same story.
Legends aside, there is no evidence that our customs have pre-Christian origins.  Not one single custom can be proved to have such ancient roots, and there is usually a thousand years and more separating the nominal conversion of the English in the seventh century from the first evidence of a custom's existence; the idea that such customs formed part of a secret underground alternative religion is therefore risible.  The whole panoply of vegetation spirits, earth goddesses, and the like has been invented in recent years, with no factual support, to provide a simplistic romantic and mystical backstory suited to the needs of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.  As a rule of thumb, apart from academic treatises, any description of the origin of a specific traditional English custom that uses the words 'pagan', 'fertility', or 'Celt' should be treated with extreme caution, and any description that uses the words 'sacrifice', 'Druid', 'earth goddess', or 'vegetation spirit' as complete nonsense."

I have seen that these origin stories are often put forward by the marketing departments of all kinds of organisations, tourist and heritage.  I know someone whose husband works for the National Trust.  His qualifications in either history or environmental sciences?  A modern languages degree and a PGCE.  His wife told me they had been to an amazing National Trust event where it was explained to them that woad contained narcotic drugs, and it was smeared on the body before battle to induce battle frenzy.  I pointed out that that was bollocks, and she replied we were told it by The National Trust.  Had perhaps someone with a marketing degree in said organisation written said piece of bollocks?  Because I can find no mention of any such drug content in Ivatis tinctoria, as it is a fairly easy fact to check.  The chemical constituents of a plant are a measurable quantity and not adjustable by bullshit.  Talking of shit, Culpeppper says: "Some people affirm the plant to be destructive to bees, and fluxes them"  It may give bees diarrhoea, but no mention of battle frenzy. 

People are indeed affected by the virus identified by Steve Roud, and want to believe in ancient pagan or "it was a drug" origins for anything old.  This process is not helped by the education system which has had a serious lack in history teaching, allowing the curriculum to be dictated by the same marketing departments that write the copy for the heritage industry.  Michael Gove now doesn't want History to be taught at all as a subject.  Maybe he fears citizens who are educated to think, assess sources, bias, and facts; and can tell an historical fact from a steaming pile of shit.

Interestingly enough the pagan community themselves, who were probably most involved at first in the "pagan survival" explanation of folklore, are now getting pretty wised up on it.  Thanks to the books of historian Professor Ronald Hutton in a large part, pagans themselves are aware of the likelihood that much has been made up with regards to the "ancient origins" of customs and practices.  They are ahead of the general population, who currently are very likely to say a custom is "pagan".

As for the character who rules over Twelfth Night, he is The King of The Bean, and in fact rules with his Queen.  They are part of the "things turned upside down" theme, which forms a part of many traditional celebrations, a general sort of Misrule or Mischief.  I cannot find in my reading today the specifics of The Lord of Misrule.  I also haven't yet found the link between The King of The Bean and Sean Bean.  But he was in The Lord of The Rings.