Carnival has begun! An 18th-century mask fan http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/104528?rpp=30&pg=1&ao=on&ft=fan&deptids=8&pos=1
Mrs Daffodil has not been idling in fancy-dress this week, but shares a caustic commentary on “The Ladies’ Man,” in case the upcoming High Feast of St. Hallmark throws one into the company of one of those serial adorers so unwittingly fatal to a girl’s reputation.
She also tells of a Wisconsin lady-inventor, a Mrs Gearing, who created a woodsy costume: a romper lined with sawdust, which was somehow supposed to emancipate Womankind. Simply barking.
Then Mrs Daffodil shares an interview with a hairdresser who takes pride in her profession of dressing the hair of the dead and comments on the use of “dead hair” in wigs and chignons.
On Sunday Mrs Daffodil intends to give some tips on how to look one’s best for the photographer of 1865 or 1921. Bring talcum powder and blue gauze.
This week at the Haunted Ohio blog:
A flap at Drayton Church, haunted by a uncanny black bird seen perching in the sanctuary and heard fluttering in the vault.
While it is hard to conceive of such a thing, a French widow claimed that her bouncing baby boy was begotten by her ghostly husband–dead for several years. Perhaps a too-fertile imagination was at work here.
From the archives, to whet one’s appetite for Valentine’s Day, Hearts and Powers, Cardiac Witchery and Vintage Advice on Choosing a Spouse.
Some favourite links: A woman after Mrs Daffodil’s own heart: Resistance fighter Nancy Wake.
A ritual horse burial from the War of 1812?
Never say never when it comes to historic dress.
A dash of humour in this cartoon, which, not to give away the punch-line, is about Roman soldiers.
The Chinese Year of the Monkey begins on Monday. This is the leader of the monkey orchestra and chorus by J J Kaendler, Meissen, c. 1755 http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1245667
This is the lead singer in the monkey chorus by J J Kaendler, Meissen, c. 1755 http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1440310.12
Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes
You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.
Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead.
Mrs Daffodil Digresses 