Maypoles, martyrs and mayhem

by Paul Sullivan, Paul Sullivan

This work offers insight into the part played by superstition in British history - the omens and beliefs that have guided kings and shaped the course of battles. Fact, myth and slapstick have all played their part in the story of these islands, and popular versions of events sometimes differ from those found in the standard history books.

This book contains over 400 current and continuing customs, over 300 things to see, and over 150 haunted sites. Each of the customs and celebrations included is given its appropriate day, from New Year's Day to Hogmanay, from Shetland to the Channel Islands. When relevant, a story or event is included.

Genres: Nonfiction

408 pages, Hardcover

First published October 13, 1994

About the author

Paul Sullivan was born in Trenton, New Jersey, but he says: “I spent the best years of my boyhood in Tennessee. My father and I did a lot of hunting and fishing and traveling through the South. Those years, until I was about fourteen, were very free years. We camped by lakes or rivers, or went off to see what was over the next mountain. My father had a great love of travel, learning, and books, and I took them away with me. The greatest gift he gave me was a library card. I learned about Hemingway and Jack London. And today my own books are in that same town library.”

In the 1980s he traveled: to South America, Central America, Europe, Africa, and the Arctic. “I kept notes and I wrote and found Royal Fireworks Press who thought my work good enough to print. They have published six of my novels, with two more novels and a book of short stories in the pipeline.”

Paul Sullivan bases his stories and novels on places he has been, things he has seen and learned. “I try to give them some value and write books that can be read from age eight to eighty and still be enjoyed. The greatest compliment a person often gives me after reading one of my books is simply, ‘I never saw it that way,’or, ‘I learned something.’”

Reviews

[Louise Culmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a terrific book for anyone interested in folklore. It is crammed with information on folk customs, legends, saints' days and unusual happenings for every day of the year. A mine of fascinating facts.

[Jacqueline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joy upon joy! 'Maypole, Martyrs, & Mayhem' provides a perpetual yearly calendar of our feast days, customs, eccentricities, and history, presented in a way that's engaging, funny, and fascinating. The 'headlines' of each day alone are worth getting the book for. I have learned loads!

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book in the '90's on a trip to London. Little did I know I would still be referring to it nearly twenty years later. (If I had known, I would have bought the hardback edition...the paperback edition I have is falling apart and yellowing with age and use.) I keep it by my bedside and read the entries daily. Some of the entries do not make any sense to me as they are Deeply British while some of them make me laugh out loud such as this entry for March 15:

"Today is the ides of March, ides being a monthly non-event in the old Roman calendar simply denoting the middle of the month....A soothsayer shouted the warning to Julius Caesar in the ...play by Shakespeare, days before the Emperor received fatal multiple entry wounds in the dorsal area. Romans thought the ides a bad day to marry or begin new ventures; but that was all - it was a perfectly good day for Caesarcide...." Quentin Cooper and Paul Sullivan, Maypoles, Martyrs and Mayhem (London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 1995), 73.