{"id":157,"date":"2014-10-11T06:20:36","date_gmt":"2014-10-11T06:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the-perfect-library.zonkdev.uk\/?p=157"},"modified":"2014-10-12T03:54:25","modified_gmt":"2014-10-12T03:54:25","slug":"still-she-wished-for-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/?p=157","title":{"rendered":"Still She Wished for Company"},"content":{"rendered":"

Still She Wished for Company \u2013 Margaret Irwin. The Bodley Head, 1937.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Still<\/a>Margaret Irwin\u2019s best-known work is a trilogy of novels about Queen Elizabeth I. The first of these, Young Bess<\/em>, was made into a Hollywood movie starring Jean Simmons\u00a0as the young Queen, Stewart Granger as the suave, handsome Thomas Seymour, and the not so suave and handsome Charles Laughton as Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII.<\/p>\n

Irwin also wrote two novels about James Graham, 1st Marquis of Montrose, who\u00a0fought a civil war in Scotland on behalf of the English king, Charles I. Montrose\u00a0achieved a number of spectacular victories but met a sticky end in Edinburgh in 1650. Wikipedia records his cause of death simply as \u201cexecution\u201d\u00a0although,\u00a0in true Game of Thrones<\/em> fashion, his head was mounted on a spike outside Edinburgh Cathedral. To make absolutely certain he wasn\u2019t going to reappear from beyond the grave his limbs were sent to Glasgow, Perth, Stirling and Aberdeen. You can imagine the scene in a tenement flat in Glasgow,<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u00a0was\u00a0that in this morning’s post Morag?\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOch, it was only one of Lord Montrose\u2019s legs dear\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Young_Bess_\"<\/a>

Still She Wished for Company…<\/p><\/div>\n

Irwin also wrote a number of ghost stories and two fantasy novels; the first of these, published in 1924, was Still She Wished For Company<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The story moves between the 1920s and the 1770s, following two heroines; 20th century Jan Challard, from\u00a0London, and 18th century Juliana Clare, the daughter of an aristocratic Berkshire family. The two heroines see one another from time to time through a magical time slip, but never actually meet.<\/p>\n

The title of the novel comes from the poem, The Strange Visitor<\/em>, published in Joseph Jacobs\u2019 1890 anthology, English Fairy Tales<\/em>. Like many of the tales collected by Jacobs it is terrifying.\u00a0A woman sits at her spinning wheel and wishes for company. As she spins and wishes, a series of disembodied body parts arrive one by one, starting with the feet:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u201cIn came a pair of broad, broad soles, and sat down at the fireside; And still she sat, and still she span, and still she wished for company.<\/em><\/p>\n

When the body is complete the woman asks it a series of questions culminating in,<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did you come for?\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

If I were writing a handbook for babysitters I would include the poem in the chapter, \u201cHow to Deal with Kids – and their Parents – \u00a0Who Give You a Hard Time<\/em>\u201d. It should be read aloud shortly before the parents arrive home.\u00a0The final line is:<\/p>\n

\u2026 \u201cI came FOR YOU<\/strong>!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

If this is delivered with sufficient gusto, accompanied by a quick change into\u00a0a Halloween mask, the child will levitate from its\u00a0bed, petrified with fear. The returning parents will then have to deal with the sleepless nights which follow and – if you\u2019ve really put in a performance \u2013 several months of counseling.<\/p>\n

Like The Strange Visitor<\/em>, Montrose\u2019s mangled body was reassembled. \u00a0Eleven years after his execution he was given a state funeral in Edinburgh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Still She Wished for Company \u2013 Margaret Irwin. The Bodley Head, 1937. Margaret Irwin\u2019s best-known work is a trilogy of novels about Queen Elizabeth I. The first of these, Young Bess, was made into a Hollywood movie starring Jean Simmons\u00a0as the young Queen, Stewart Granger as the suave, handsome Thomas Seymour, and the not so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":173,"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions\/173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}