Twelfth Night - when we (gladly) take down the decorations, these days.

'5th January, the eve of the Twelfth Day after Christmas of feast of the Epiphany. Formerly this was a time of great merrymakjing when the Bean-King was appointed......' (Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable)

Shakespeare's play of this name was probably so called because it was written for acting at the Twelfth Night revels.

I'm sure there's more that many can add to this, but it's a start.

Dido

The old pagan Saturnalian practices reached their climax on Twelfth Night. During the Middle Ages Christmas was celebrated in a season of twelve days.

In France the Bean King was appointed by being served La Galette du Roi, a cake containing a bean. This person ruled over the evening's entertainment of games, dancing, and music.

Thank you but I do know what Twelfth Night is. My question is about costume parties evidently held on that night as part of British? folklore.

Ginny, I have never heard of anyone holding/attending a costume party (in the UK we would say 'fancy dress' party) on Twelfth Night. But then I have never heard of a 'Bean King' either!
Is this book set in modern times or the past? I suppose such a party could have taken place hundreds of years ago.

Thanks, Veer. The book is set in our time. Google shows some children's fancy-dress parties for Twelfth Night in the UK but that's it. From what you are saying, it must not be a common custom. The author, Martha Grimes, is an American who writes mysteries set in Britain. Maybe her research is faulty!

Ok, so you know. So why did I bother?

Twelfth Night costume parties are a big deal in South Louisiana and adjacent states where there's a large number of Catholics; and they are very much an adult thing, though there are also parties for children. It's the starting shebang of the six weeks leading up to Mardi Gras, the final all-out partying frenzy before the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday and six weeks of solemnity. The King Cake (La Galette du Roi, mentioned above by books4joy) with its garish green-, purple- and yellow-sugared icing is served just about every day (it's really a coffee cake). Instead of a bean, most Luzianna King Cakes have a plastic "baby" doll poked inside (the icing covers the hole), and the diner who gets the baby has to supply the next King Cake.

Twelfth Night costumes are usually garish and outlandish, and some people really do up their faces with bizarre makeup. Harlequin costumes seem to be a favorite -- there's probably some history behind that which I don't know. Evidently Twelfth Night parties were at one time a big deal in parts of Britain, too -- I guess the Catholic parts -- but Britons don't seem to be as observant of the liturgical calender as they once were. But perhaps there are still hold-outs, or there are those who would like to resurrect the custom. I wouldn't say Grimes's research is wrong; but from your description, Ginny, it's apparently not as common in the UK, at present, as she seems to indicate.

Frieda, are you still there? Since you are so familiar with New Orleans, I want to recommend a NF book to you: "Rising Tide" by John Barry. It is the shocking true story of the great Mississippi flood of 1927 which changed American history. The author must have been clairvoyant, as he wrote it before Katrina hit, etc. I think this would be "right up your alley" as we say....very revealing about the inner workings of N.O.

I am not familiar with the works of Martha Grimes and have no idea if they are available over here in the UK and was just wondering if she just assumes we hold Twelfth Night parties in the UK. I checked her out on Google and apparently many of her books are set in 'Britain' where she spends time.
Just as a matter of 'literary interest' I am curious as to how accurate are authors who write about countries other than their own. I know sub-editors etc are meant to check for obvious 'howlers' but I wonder if many get through the net.
The only one that springs to mind is when I was reading a piece that claimed to be written in the first person by an English girl who said "I ride to work on the bus each morning."
Only a small thing, but in the UK we never ride the bus. We may ride a bike or a horse, but we go by, take, travel by bus.
I am sure there are plenty of blunders made by UK writers when putting themselves into the shoes of folk from other countries.

Interesting point, Veer. Another American mystery writer who sets her books in the UK is Elizabeth George. But she evidently lives in London for a good part of the year and has people vet her slang which, in my opinion, she overdoes in order to appear authentic. George is a much more ambitious writer than Grimes tho I read on some website that years ago, Grimes claimed George was poaching on her territory.

So perhaps Grimes made a howler and her editor didn't catch it. Or perhaps she was not implying that Twelfth Night parties were widespread and just put one in the book for atmosphere.

One last thought. Writers suffer from having their work edited by those who know less about the subject than they do. I know that first-hand. It is possible that the writer who misused "ride" wrote it correctly UK-style but had it altered for an American publication. You know they did that with the first Harry Potter and perhaps all of them.

Martha Grimes does come up on Amazon UK-fwiw.
I like her-she does spend time in Britian and the US-her other series is set in the Southwest and there was a Superintendent Jury book that crossed over.
I think we all get very protective of our territory. Jodi Picoult wrote a book, Plain Truth set in the Amish country of Pennsylvania. We read it in my book club, and the mistakes she made, seeing as she lives in the neighboring state of NY, bugged us. did she visit at all? She "mis-described" (that should be a word) the courthouse and "downtown", she goofed on some Amish culture, but the biggest one that irked us is...you can't buy beer in convenience stores in PA.(does that say something about my book club?) However, only Lancaster County readers would notice, and they really didn't affect the story that much-it could be set in any conservative religious community.

Here's more info on what are usually called Twelfth Night Revels:
This by Virginia Marin

The Twelfth Day of Christmas, celebrated as the Feast of Epiphany in many parts of the world is often as important as Christmas. Epiphany falls twelve days after Christmas which, if one counts correctly, is January 6th. It is traditionally when the Magi, or the Three Wise Men, arrive from the East bearing gifts for the Christ Child. In some countries, it is traditional to give and receive gifts on Epiphany rather than on Christmas, in honor of this event.

The Vigil of Epiphany, January 5th, is known as Twelfth Night. This day has become quite popular in the United States for gala celebrations. The home festivities are often taken into the streets where the mood is Mardi Gras-like. Indeed, in some locals, Twelfth Night is the early beginning of the Lenten celebration.

But, public Twelfth Night celebrations are far removed from the deeply religious meanings associated with the Vigil of Epiphany. The Catholic Church, and some others, celebrate the Vigil of Epiphany as well as Epiphany with Mass, and a change in the liturgical colors of vestments and altar coverings. A public Twelfth Night, on the other hand, looks back to a pagan celebration filled with merrymaking when the Bean-King was
crowned. The festivities derive from the Saturnalia of ancient Rome which occured during the same time as Christian celebrations. Shakespeare's play, Twelfth Night, was named and written for the festivities of the Pagan Twelfth Night revels.

Today, traditional celebrants of Twelfth Night partake of a cake in which a few beans were inserted prior to baking. The first male and female to find a bean in their piece of cake are crowned King and Queen for the night. The cake is decorated in traditional colors of purple, green, and gold icing. Purple represents Justice, green represents Faith, and gold represents Power. It is customary for the King and Queen to host next year's Twelfth Night party.

Twelfth Night parties are similar to a masquarade in that participants wear costume and may often be masked. Three favorite costumes are those depicting the Magi--Casper, King of Tarsus; Melchoir, King of Arabia; and Balthasar, King of Saba.
Some of the King costumes are extremely ornate with jewels, and fur. Of course, each wears a crown.

The names of Epiphany change somewhat with different cultures. Some places retain the 5th-Century French and English name of Feast of Fools. In Spanish cultures it is known as Three Kings' Day. In Eastern Orthodox churches, Epiphany is known as Theophany. Epiphany, therefore, traditions differs from country to country.

I am sure there are plenty of blunders made by UK writers when putting themselves into the shoes of folk from other countries.Indeed, it happens. Laurie Graham in The Future Homemakers of America has one of the American gals homesick for shopping malls and Cheese Whiz -- the trouble is the story is set in 1952, which was before shopping malls were common (what few there were, if any, weren't called "malls" yet, anyway) and Cheese Whiz (the stuff in the jar) wasn't on the market until the late 1950s and Graham was probably mixing it up with Velveeta. My mother caught those anachronisms when she read FHofA; I didn't notice them. Curious to know if Mother was right, I looked up those two things and found she was.

Jonathan Raban, who has lived in the U.S. for a number of years, writes Britishisms when the characters/speakers are supposed to be Americans. A few British expressions from more cosmopolitan Americans are not unusual, but I've wondered about his rural-types in Montana and the Upper Mississippi Valley of Scandinavian and German extraction sounding as if they just arrived from the south coast of England.

As CeCe says, we are most aware of and annoyed by the gaffes that pertain to our particular parts of the world. Outside those places, most readers wouldn't know and probably wouldn't care, much.

I almost forgot that this isn't "The Great Stink" thread, since we are having a similar conversation there.

cece I agree that Picoult, in dealing with the Amish way of life etc should have made a point of doing her homework properly or sent her researcher out to stamp around in the area. And do you notice (well in the UK anyway) how in newspaper articles journalists rely far too heavily on searches of various web sites for info. and very frequently get basic facts wrong. This seems especially true with 'travel' articles. It often feels as though these reporters have not left the comfort of their own armchairs.

Frieda I really enjoyed Graham's Future Homemakers . . . Of course I didn't notice the 'cheese' thing, but wondered how accurate her 'ear' was for an American idiom ( is that the word I want?) She does various 'English' ways of speech very well and in her latest book Gone With the Windsors introduces a deaf character and really must have studied the speech patterns. You need to read it to 'hear' it.

I have been meaning to read J Raban's Old Glory for years. Would you recommend it or do all the characters speak with plumbs in their mouths?

I have read a few Elizabeth George mysteries, and found some of her dialogue and detail decidedly unBritish, but cannot come up with exact examples now.

Vee, Graham did quite well with American idiom. As I recall (but I can't directly quote any examples), her prepositions were sometimes a bit off -- things like: My daddy had a store in (or in the) Main Street.
Store is right, not shop (unless it's a Flower Shop or a Beauty Shop or the storeowner wants to add a la-ti-da cachet to her business), but Americans would say: My daddy had a store on Main Street. Also, I don't live in Oahu; I live on Oahu, but in Hawai'i. That sort of thing. Prepositions are notoriously sneaky critters, though, and they are used as variously in different regions within the U.S. as they are in other English-speaking populations. The "misuse" of prepositions seems to annoy some people a lot, but I think it's a picayunish mistake evenly when it's dialectically inaccurate. Graham, I noticed, remembered to have her Americans say articles; e.g., the hospital, at the university, etc.

Raban can be a snot, sometimes. Other times he's so dead-on that I have to laugh. Yeah, I will recommend Old Glory, though it's not my favorite of his books -- I probably like Bad Lands: An American Romance best. As Larry mentioned in the "Stink" thread, auslander writers seldom get the country they visit right, according to the natives. Travelogues -- unless they are mealymouthed, ga-ga, and dismissable -- probably provoke as much ire as they do entertainment. But it's all about one writer's impressions and travel books should always be read with a healthy amount of salt handy, in my opinion. I prefer the curmudgeons to the swooners, most of the time.

freidag-how true about those sneaky prepositions: here in south-central PA the old-time many-generation natives "get on line" while waiting to buy tickets, funnel cakes, etc. Those of us who are only 30 year residents still just line up. I love stuff like that.

cece, here in the UK we don't wait in line although we might be told to line up and form a queue.
Does Frieda live on Oahu because it is an island? Over here we live in England but I might holiday on the Isle of Wight. Our daily paper, in its obituary columns always says so-and-so was born at somewhere or other (I would say in.)
On the other hand I believe the Welsh don't have a word for at so as the DH, who used to work at a school just within the borders of Wales, recounts, the boys were told, by a Welsh-speaker, to wait on the bus-stop. As this stop took the form of a 'shelter' with a roof, the boys climbed on top and when shouted at to come down there were the usual cries of "But Sir, that's what you told us to do."
I noticed on Netla's thread about Uni v college she says that Swift went to college at age 6 which to a 'Brit' is an Americanism; we would put of before the 6.
I expect there are hundreds of other eg's. and gradually our 'English' is becoming more trans-Atlantic.