Doileck
Mirabel Cecil
The Land of England Dorothy Hartley (Macdonald and Jane's £6.95) Country Wisdom Gail Duff (Pan £1) The distinguished author of that invaluable stoveside companion, Food in England, published 25 years ago, continues to delve into the rural history of England. Miss Hartley is an author to approach with respect, as someone who knows her onions, not to mention her wild bees, fungi and tracklements.
The Land of England is a countryside coffee-table book which can be dipped into for nuggets about our rural origins. Its author is romantic about our history and our countryside. This can cloud her view of history and her determination to find a continuous thread running through the ages can jar: for instance she says 'when they were new, castles stood up as clean and uncompromising as office blocks .. Well, maybe; though I had not noticed any bowmen in the upper windows of Centre Point nor any weeds and wild flowers blowing round its tatty base. Her historical speculations can lead her into comic byways, too. She says, for instance, The right of the feudal lord to claim the maidenhead of dependents if he so wished is thought of with horror, but at the time the custom was accepted and had its kindly uses . . Probably for every unwilling girl there would be 100 experienced wenches not one penny the worse. And for every lord who behave like a licentious tup. there must have been ordinary decent men who observed the custom for the insight it gave them, and to keep the good will of women.' Quite.
This apart, on the subject of our land and its customs Miss Hartley is a treasure-trove of information. And how much one prefers her trenchant and erudite guide to country folk-lore to such 'pundits' as Gail Duff, author of Country Wisdom. This is billed in the blurb as 'an encyclopedia of recipes, remedies and traditional good sense'. Actually it is a colle-ction of clichés and platitudes and Doileck Sayins' Oi Daht Norivver got Said, to paraphrase the New Yorker. The section entitled 'Weather Lore' starts, 'the daily life of the countryman has always been affected by the weather'; the section on country food, 'a man can't work with too much in his stomach, but he doesn't like to be hungry'.
According to the blurb Gail Duff is 'well known for her original and lively broadcasts on Radio Medway'. One can imagine her in her Laura Ashley dirndl writing out recipes for hedgehog and nettle soup by the light of a home-made tallow candle.
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