Wakenhyrst

by Michelle Paver

‘Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.’ VOLTAIRE

How pertinent to the present age.

His beard was clotted like a sheep’s behind

There’s many a wrong thing done by godly folk.’

the good doctor advises countering the urge to self-pollute with cold sponge baths and oatmeal porridge. He also suggests shunning ‘lewd pictures’ – which is rather rich, coming from him.

Excerpt from Grayson’s book on physiology: ‘Woman is an animal that micturates once a day, defecates once a week, menstruates once a month and parturates once a year. Her inclination to copulate depends upon her rank, the lady being never so inclined, the female of the labouring classes always.’

Poor dear. Defecates only once a week?

between religion and superstition there was no difference, since both were based on unreason. To kill a man to redeem the sins of others was as irrational as tapping a hole in one’s eggshell to stop a witch using it as a boat.

this church was built in the years after the Black Death had killed a third of the people. It was built out of fear. It’s a bribe to God: Please don’t do it again.

the old-fashioned ways which decreed that a woman was unclean after confinement, and must be cleansed before she could resume her place in the congregation. For some reason Leviticus stipulated that the period of uncleanliness was twice as long if the baby was a girl. Having a girl made you twice as dirty.

During the sermon she continued to reflect on ‘all things bright and beautiful’. The Lord God didn’t make them all. The herons and warblers in the fen, the starlings and willows and purple marsh-grass: it existed because of Mr Darwin’s process of evolution.

‘Hasn’t it ever struck you as horrible,’ Maud went on, ‘that the symbol of our religion is an instrument of torture? “He suffered on the cross that we might live…” Why? How can torturing a man do any good? How can blood wash away sin? Because God says so?

the man who painted this picture was rather more honest. He knew that it all boils down to a threat to keep people in line. That sketchy promise of Heaven if you do what you’re told – and the certainty of endless torture if you don’t. Take that, peasants. Now back to the fields and don’t even think about improving your lot.

whoever painted that picture painted the demon from life.

This reminds me of MR James' "Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book"