1. Winter Customs: Bonfire Night and Mumming
- Author
-
Jacqueline Dillion
- Subjects
Literature ,History ,Meteorology ,business.industry ,Bonfire ,business ,Folk culture - Abstract
In The Return of the Native Hardy introduces the inhabitants of Egdon Heath alongside a multi-layered exploration of Bonfire Night. Hardy’s reference to the ‘jumbled’ traditions of bonfire-making is not a prelude to any attempt to untangle the various meanings latent in the custom. On the contrary: it suits him better to bring into play the varied strands—Christian and pagan, rebellious and celebratory, communal and individual, local and universal, historical and instinctive—at different times in the novel, without privileging or excluding any one of them. This chapter will begin by establishing some of the etymological traditions associated with the word ‘bonfire’, before looking at portrayals of the seasonal bonfire in antiquarian and historical literature as they developed into the Christian and post-Reformation manifestations that Hardy would come to know personally in the nineteenth century.
- Published
- 2016