Medieval Death Trip

A Podcast Exploring the Wit and Weirdness of Medieval Texts

Tag: Gervase of Tilbury

Concerning Redcaps

Cover Image for Episode 118: detail from the Maastricht Hours, British Library Stowe 17, fol. 260v.

For our eleventh anniversary episode, we follow the fairy path of the redcap, from recent cinema through tabletop gaming, into Victorian folklorists and Romantic balladeers, and finally hunting up their ancestry in medieval manuscripts.

Today’s Texts:

  • “Redcap.” Monster Manual III, edited by Greg Collins, John D. Rateliff, and Gary Sarli. Wizards of the Coast, 2004. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/monster-manual-iii/page/n137/mode/2up
  • Henderson, William. Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders. W. Satchell, Peyton, & Co., 1879. Internet Archive.
  • Leyden, John. “Lord Soulis.” Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, vol. 2, edited by Walter Scott, James Ballantyne, 1803, pp. 353-388. Google Books.
  • Leland, Charles Godfrey. “Etrusco-Roman Remains in Modern Tuscan Tradition.” Congrès International des Traditions Populaires, Première Session, Paris 1889, Société d’Èditions Scientifiques, 1891. Google Books.
  • Gervase of Tilbury. Otia imperialia: Recreation for an Emperor. Edited and translated by S.E. Banks and J.W. Binns. Clarendon Press, 2002.
  • Thomas of Walsingham. Historia Anglicana. Edited by Henry Thomas Riley, vol. 1, Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1863. Google Books.
  • Croker, Thomas Crofton. Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland. 2nd ed., John Murray, 1838. Google Books.

References:

Image: detail from the Maastricht Hours, British Library Stowe 17, fol. 260v.

Concerning Conjoined Twins, Some Incorruptibles, and Royal Murders

Cover image from for Episode 111. Detail from the Rutland Psalter, British Library Add MS 62925 f. 72r.

We continue on from last episode’s look at the Green Children of Woolpit with a further consideration of what it meant to wonder at a marvel in the middle ages, with additional illustration of some wondrous things from William of Malmesbury.

Today’s Texts

  • Gervase of Tilbury. Otia Imperialia. Edited and translated by S.E. Banks and J.W. Binns, Clarendon Press, 2002.
  • Isidore of Seville. The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville. Translated by Stephen A. Barney, W.J. Lewis, J.A. Beach, and Oliver Berghof with Muriel Hall, Cambridge UP, 2006.
  • William of Malmesbury. Chronicle of the Kings of England. Edited by J.A. Giles, translated by John Sharpe and J.A. Giles, George Bell & Sons, 1895. Google Books.

References

  • Bynum, Caroline Walker. “Wonder.” Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion. Zone Books, 1992.

Audio Credits

  • “Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel.” In “22 Short Films about Springfield,” The Simpsons, season 7, episode 21, written by Richard Appel et al., 14 April 1996.
  • “The Boy Who Knew Too Much.” The Simpsons, season 5, episode 20, written by John Swartzwelder, 5 May 1994.
  • Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Directed by Mel Stuart, screenplay by Roald Dahl, Paramount Pictures, 1971.

Image Credit: Detail from the Rutland Psalter, British Library Add MS 62925 f. 72r.

© 2025 Medieval Death Trip

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑