Sunday 2 November 2014

Boke of Seynt Albans 1486

The Book of Saint Albans was written in the Middle Ages
by Dame Juliana Berners (which was extremely unusual as not many
of the men in those days could actually read or write, let alone the women).

 

The subject matter was venery from the Latin "venor" - I hunt.
(Not to be confused with its other meanig - the pursuit of sexual pleasure.)
It covered subjects such as hunting, angling and falconry
and even contained a "treatyse of fysshynge wyth an angle".

 
The poem part of which appears on a cushion I designed for Greyhound
Rescue West of England (pattern available from their site)http://www.grweshop.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Gifts_27.html
was first published in this book all those centuries ago.
 
The reason for this long preamble is that the book also includes
a very comprehensive list of collective nouns which are always
amusing, often colourful and occasionally downright rude!
 
 
Here's some of my favourite animal ones:
 
cats - a pounce
cockroaches - an intrusion
eagles - a convocation
flamingoes - a stand
peacocks - an ostentation
wombats - a wisdom
zebras - a dazzle
 
He obviously thought it was funny.
 There's even some for groups of people:
boys - a blush
shepherds - a sodom
tailors - a proud showing
 
Looks more like a "scowl" than a "skein" to me.
 And now here's the real nitty gritty: 
seamstresses - a scolding
dreams - an embroidery
knitters - a skein
elderly women - a cross stitch
stitchers - a bliss!
 
Now what shall we call a collection of Long Doggers?
Keep it clean please.


 
 
 
 


3 comments:

  1. So you think we're all a bunch of perverts. You may just have a point and I don't mean your needle either.

    ReplyDelete