Tag: Jane austen

Runaway Weddings: We Dash To Gretna Green

Welcome back to the adventures of Scotland The Brave in the UK of Great Britain. With his Guardians, Scotty explored London, Stonehenge and Bath, Plymouth, Glastonbury, Cardiff and Ludlow, and Chester, and Liverpool. (Note: This post also appears on Mawsonbear.blog)

Scotty the Brave in his trusty steed or tour bus at last heads to Scotland

Next, they mounted their trusty Tour Bus and travelled to the Lake District. (Catch up with the story by clicking those links.) Now they are bound at last for Scotland. From Bowness-on-Windermere, the road took them through Cumbria and up past Carlisle.

Map of Scotty's route from Lake Windermere to Gretna Green
Dash to Scotland

To the Famous Blacksmith’s Shop:  Two miles over the border with Scotland they came to the village of Gretna Green where Scotty readily identified the Famous Blacksmith’s Shop by the big words, “Famous Blacksmith Shop” written on it.

Photo of the Blacksmith's Shop at Gretna Green under a rainy sky

REGENCY NOVELS: This place was important for eloping couples and it still is for every reader of Regency Period novels. Scotty sometimes joined our Teddettes Jane Austen Bookclub as they read all the novels of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer. Many ‘Regency’ novels feature an elopement to Greta Green. In Pride and Prejudice, for instance,  when Lydia Bennet elopes with George Wickham she leaves a note to say their destination is Gretna Green. (In fact, they stay in London and are tracked down by Mr Prejudice. But I digress.)

The Tedettes Jane Austen Book Club with their Regency novels
Tedettes Jane Austen Book Club

The Dash for Gretna Green: Thousands of eloping couples made their ‘dash’ across the border to reach this very building, often with furious fathers and jilted fiancés in hot pursuit. We couldn’t look inside The Famous Blacksmiths Shop because a wedding was being conducted at that very hour. Although that particular couple had not eloped (as far as we knew) they were still getting married over the famous anvil. But why an anvil?

The old Blacksmiths Shop in Gretna Green painted white with black trimmings and chimneys

Runaway Weddings: Gretna’s “runaway marriages” began in 1754 when a new marriage law for England and Wales meant a parent could veto the marriage of a person under the age of 21. But in Scotland, if a declaration was made before two witnesses, almost anybody had the authority to conduct the marriage ceremony. The blacksmiths in Gretna Green became known as “anvil priests” . For nearly 200 years the blacksmiths married couples over the now famous Marriage Anvil. The ringing sound of the hammer banged down on the anvil would signify that another couple had been joined in marriage.

The Guardians clasp hands under the handclasp sculpture at Gretna Green

These days hundreds of couples still marry here and also renew their vows here. In the picture above, Scotty’s Guardians were actually trying to shelter from the rain but since they were on the spot they did a handclasp as well.

View when passing though Dumfries and Galloway

On to Glasgow: From the border to Glasgow is 110 miles, not so far at all really, but this stretch of country, now called Dumfries and Galloway, holds much history.

View when passing though Dumfries and Galloway which have lots of wind turbines

For a long time it was wild ‘Borders’ country, which neither English nor Scottish crowns fully controlled, and where the fearsome reivers stole cattle and spread strife. (The ancestors of one of the Guardians had been among these dread reivers. More of that later.) All these events had taken place in the countryside sliding by outside Scotty’s window seat in the bus.

In the next episode, Scotty sails on bonny Loch Lomond. Don’t miss that one! (Click on the FOLLOW buttons so as to not miss anything.

BOOKS with Scotland in them (our Scotty, that is)

Scotty is the star of a very special book called When A Brave Bear Fights Cancer: A Get Well Soon Gift by Carola Schmidt. In the book, Scotty a little bear who gets a bad sickness called cancer. He’s worried and often scared because cancer is scary.  But the doctors and nurses and other patients help him. The book is to help kids feel much more brave when they are getting treatment. It’s available in paperback and Kindle. Look for the brave little bear wearing trews on the cover.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is bb-3-cover.jpg

You can also see Scotty in all the books by Mawson. One is called It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In (in that one he delivers the post) and another is She Ran Away From Love (he delivers the post again.) In Dreamy Days and Random Naps you can see him being a king and also a superb guitarist. Don’t miss that one! This is what the books look like:


Mawson Bear and his friends Caddy Bear and Bomund Bear hold books by Mawson

Mawson’s Guardian says: You can find Mawson’s books on this Link here, and on his Writer-Bear Page on Amazon.

‘Eyes of a Hunting Cat’: Jane Austen’s short novel, Lady Susan

 Lady Susan, a short novel in letter form, remains unknown to many Austen fans even though a movie version, Love and Friendship, was made recently.

The Tedettes Jane Austen Bookclub with their discoveries about Jane Austen
The Tedettes Jane Austen Bookclub with their discoveries about Jane Austen

The novel is packed with exquisitely written barbs and eyebrow-raising cynicisms, the best delivered by Lady Susan herself as she confides her schemes to her ally, Mrs Johnson. Here is Lady Susan speaking of the wickedly expensive schooling of her 16 year old daughter, Frederica.

Not one lover to her list

“To be mistress of French, Italian, German, Music, Singing, Drawing etc. will gain a woman some applause but will not add one lover to her list.”

Austen is thought to have written Lady Susan before Northanger Abbey, but exactly when is not known.  The Austen-philes quoted below guess at 1803, 1805 and 1808, which puts Austen in her mid to late twenties. She wrote the first version of Pride and Prejudice, of course, when younger still.

A Lion In The Path

“Lady Susan … (is) a lion in the path of those persons who would call Jane Austen charming, soothing, refreshing etc.  G. H Lewes, when he recommended Charlotte Bronte to “follow the counsel which shines out of Miss Austen’s mild eyes” was unaware of Lady Susan, where Miss Austen’s eyes are those of a hunting cat. … In controlled grimness it looks forward to a masterpiece never written.”

Sylvia Townsend Warner, novelist, wrote the assessment above in a 1951 essay published by The British Council.  (The essay, sadly, is probably no longer available, even if you do have one shilling and sixpence net*).

Before Becky Sharp there was Lady Susan

But David Cecil, author of  A Portrait of Jane Austen , is among many Austen-philes determined to keep Miss Jane’s eyes as mild as possible.

“Lady Susan Vernon is a sort of blue-blooded Becky Sharp, an unscrupulous adventuress, far more sensational in her evil doing than any character in Jane Austen’s later books.”

The Tedettes Jane Austen Book Club knit and read
The Tedettes Jane Austen Bookclub (and Knitters). Their main bother is to find the bonnets.

Cecil thinks of the novel as a youthful experiment, even a mistake.

“It is lively and readable … All the same, Lady Susan is not a success. Jane Austen had no acquaintance with smart society and has to describe it from hearsay: with the result that her picture lacks the intimate reality with with she portrays the country gentry … We may suppose she realised this for she made no effort to have the book published in her lifetime … She was gradually learning her art.”

The Perils of Gout

Mawson’s Guardian thinks that if a reader’s frisson of guilty delight is a desirable part of entertainment then young Austen had thoroughly learnt her art.  Even the brutal lines in Lady Susan  that make Cecil wince are delivered superbly. Here is Lady Susan commiserating with Mrs Johnson about her husband’s gout.

“My dear Alicia, of what mistake were you guilty in marrying a man of his age!  just old enough to be formal, ungovernable, and to have the gout – too old to be agreeable, and too young to die”.

Mr Johnson (Stephen Fry in the movie) has forbidden Alicia from seeing Lady Susan on pain of her being despatched to his properties in America if she persists, for he believes Lady Susan to be a Bad Influence.  If you’ve never seen Fry play a ruthless role, watch on as he delivers the line, “I hear the Atlantic crossing is very cold this time of year”.

Subtle, Terrifying

The Teddettes Jane Austen Book Club with their editions of Jane Austen novels
The Tedettes with their prized Folio editions of Jane Austen’s work

 Richard Church, in the Foreword to the Folio edition of Austen’s shorter works, is perplexed that Austen even penned such a work as Lady Susan.

“This is a masterpiece, powerful, subtle and terrifying. It is as cruel as Les Liaisons Dangerous by de Lachol. This Lady Susan may well be compared to  ..  Madame de Merteuil for coldness of soul, amoral cruely and icy lust. What was this feature of Jane Austens’s personality? so primitive, unladylike and deadly? Here was no chronicler of the drawing room and the country house tea party.”

 Bright Eyes

“In her person she was very attractive. Her figure was rather tall and slender, her step light and firm, and her whole appearance one of health and animation. In complexion she was a clear brunette with a rich colour, she had full round cheeks  with a mouth and nose rather small but well-formed, bright hazel eyes and brown hair forming natural curls around her face.”

What kind of eyes did Jane Austen really have?   Here is a word-portrait penned by her nephew. (Jane and Cassandra loved the role of Aunts.)

Hmm, so hazel eyes, greenish eyes, and bright. The green of a hunting cat’s eyes, perhaps?

Take your own look at Lady Susan who herself certainly seems to deserve that description. And then enjoy Kate Beckinsale’s excellent portrayal in the inexplicably renamed, but otherwise guiltily-delightful film, Love and Friendship.

Where to find Lady Susan, in various editions: On Amazon and at Booktopia.

PLEASE FOLLOW US At Baffled Bear Books .
Simply plonk your paw on the FOLLOW buttons on this very page.
You can also follow on Amazon and on GoodReads. We are also on Instagram, and Tiktok, and Anchor/ Spotify and Mastodon (link is @mawsonbear@mastodon.au. )