The Battle of the Frogs and Fairford's Flies: Miracles and the Pulp Press During the English Revolution

by Na Na

How did ordinary people, caught up in the violent political and social dislocation of the English Revolution, perceive such astonishing events? The Battle of the Frogs & Fairford's Flies attempts to answer this question through a close study of some 500 newsbooks and pulp publications produced from 1640 to 1660. Like The Great Cat Massacre and The Cheese and the Worms, this fascinating and original work enters the world of enchanted belief, superstition, folk religion, and magic.

Genres: History, 17th Century, Read For School

320 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1993

Reviews

[Thomas Schulte · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading Charles II, it was interesting to get this anthology of responses to the Interregnum and preceding Second English Civil War through popular "newsbooks" printed up of miraculous/ominous events ala The Book of Miracles (although this has nowhere near the pictures, just one per chapter). The average Englishman, it appears, was shaken to his core by the overthrow and execution of Charles I, cruelly abrogating his divine right and upsetting an assumed world order. In their confusion and fright, writers praised Royalist highwaymen, feared witches, extolled Fortean wonders, and excoriated spiritual anarchists like Adamites and Ranters.