Comments on: The Mowing-Devil http://mercuriuspoliticus.wordpress.com/2008/06/07/the-mowing-devil/ A blog (mostly) about early modern culture Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:53:56 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Airminded · Mowing devils, old hags, and phantom airships http://mercuriuspoliticus.wordpress.com/2008/06/07/the-mowing-devil/#comment-168 Airminded · Mowing devils, old hags, and phantom airships Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:31:24 +0000 http://mercuriuspoliticus.wordpress.com/?p=211#comment-168 [...] at Mercurius Politicus has an excellent post up on the The Mowing-devil, an English pamphlet from 1678 which is famous among forteans because it contains an illustration [...] [...] at Mercurius Politicus has an excellent post up on the The Mowing-devil, an English pamphlet from 1678 which is famous among forteans because it contains an illustration [...]

]]> By: deleriad http://mercuriuspoliticus.wordpress.com/2008/06/07/the-mowing-devil/#comment-166 deleriad Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:53:43 +0000 http://mercuriuspoliticus.wordpress.com/?p=211#comment-166 There's something I haven't seen for a while. I did my MA on folklore and crop circles and the mowing devil was an interesting case study. Although your analysis of the narrative is pretty reasonable I think it's also worthwhile applying Hufford's notion of the experiential source hypothesis. Put simply, it works on the basis that people explain anomalous experiences within the pre-existing worldview of a particular culture. So for example, encounters which might once have been explained in terms of fairies are nowadays explained in terms of aliens, lights in the sky which were explained as zepplins at the dawn of the 20th century are now explained as UFOs and so on. In the vanishingly few cases of crop circles which are not demonstratably hoaxes there are, very rare, accounts of lights in the sky in vicinity and time of circle formation. It is thus possible, if unlikely, that the pamphlet attempts to explain an unusual event through applying well-known phenomena. It *may* be that the strange occurrence in the field is actually more real than the suspiciously neat cast of characters and events. Bruce There’s something I haven’t seen for a while. I did my MA on folklore and crop circles and the mowing devil was an interesting case study. Although your analysis of the narrative is pretty reasonable I think it’s also worthwhile applying Hufford’s notion of the experiential source hypothesis. Put simply, it works on the basis that people explain anomalous experiences within the pre-existing worldview of a particular culture. So for example, encounters which might once have been explained in terms of fairies are nowadays explained in terms of aliens, lights in the sky which were explained as zepplins at the dawn of the 20th century are now explained as UFOs and so on.

In the vanishingly few cases of crop circles which are not demonstratably hoaxes there are, very rare, accounts of lights in the sky in vicinity and time of circle formation. It is thus possible, if unlikely, that the pamphlet attempts to explain an unusual event through applying well-known phenomena. It *may* be that the strange occurrence in the field is actually more real than the suspiciously neat cast of characters and events.

Bruce

]]> By: Brett Holman http://mercuriuspoliticus.wordpress.com/2008/06/07/the-mowing-devil/#comment-165 Brett Holman Sat, 07 Jun 2008 12:12:21 +0000 http://mercuriuspoliticus.wordpress.com/?p=211#comment-165 Great post! This is a pretty common problem when people start combing old books and newspapers for 'anomalous' events: they pluck them out of their original context and cram them into their own. The phantom airships that I'm always banging on about on my blog are, inevitably, usually assimilated into ufology. Well, maybe they were alien spacecraft or interdimensional rifts or something, but that doesn't explain why people thought they were Zeppelins ... Great post! This is a pretty common problem when people start combing old books and newspapers for ‘anomalous’ events: they pluck them out of their original context and cram them into their own. The phantom airships that I’m always banging on about on my blog are, inevitably, usually assimilated into ufology. Well, maybe they were alien spacecraft or interdimensional rifts or something, but that doesn’t explain why people thought they were Zeppelins …

]]>