Curious Myths of the Middle Ages

Description

The Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould of Lew Trenchard in Devon, England, was an Anglican clergyman, hagiographer, antiquarian, writer, folk song compiler and diverse erudite. His bibliography includes over 1240 books, although his book count remains to flourish. His family residence, the mansion of Lew Trenchard, nearby Okehampton, Devon, has been maintained as he had it reconstructed and is today a hotel. He is commemorated specifically as a hymn writer, wherein the most popular is Onward, Christian Soldiers and Now the Day Is Over. He also transliterated the chorus, Gabriel’s Message, to English from the Basque language.

Sabine made several novels, such as The Broom-Squire set in the Devil’s Punch Bowl, Mehalah and Guavas, the Tinner, a compilation of eerie tales, The Lives of the Saints in 16 volumes, and the life account of the queer poet-rector of Morwenstow, Robert Stephen Hawker. His folkloric lessons brought about The Book of Were-Wolves, among the much often quoted lectures of lycanthropy. He regularly wrote novels while standing, and his writing desk can be viewed in the mansion.

His much everlastingly successful writing was Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, first printed in two halves between 1866 and 1868, and reprinted in several other editions from then on. “Each of the book’s twenty-four chapters deals with a particular medieval superstition and its variants and antecedents,” comments critic Steven J. Mariconda. H. P. Lovecraft worded it “that curious body of medieval lore which the late Mr. Baring-Gould so effectively assembled in book form.”

He authored most of the Westcountry: his books of this subject contain: A Book of the West. 2 vols. I: Devon; II: Cornwall; Cornish Characters and Strange Events. London: John Lane reprinted in 2 volumes, first and second series; and Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.
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