I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers: Of April, May, or June, and July flowers. I sing of Maypoles, Hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of the bridal cakes.
I'm a real Kentish maid, you know.
I'm inspired by films from the early '50s, especially Jean Simmons in 'The Clouded Yellow' - and by vintage swing, psychobilly gigs, sea shanties, and English folklore.
In 'Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell,' I wanted to create the most convincing story of magic and magicians that I could.
I read Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which I think will subsequently be recognized as one of the first great novels of the 21st century.
I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story - the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the vast backcloths - which I could dedicate simply to: to England; to my country. ... I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.
There is nothing in England that exercises a more delightful spell over my imagination than the lingerings of the holiday customs and rural games of former times. They recall the pictures my fancy used to draw in the May morning of life, when as yet I only knew the world through books, and believed it to be all that poets had painted it; and they bring with them the flavour of those honest days of yore, in which, perhaps with equal fallacy, I am apt to think the world was more home-bred, social, and joyous than at present.
You can get this feeling of the English or Scottish or Irish or Welsh fairy, but it is by nature very elusive. It would be possible to pin down a German fairy, but the English one just vanishes, becomes the shadow under the trees.
Saint George and the Dragon!-Bonny Saint George for Merry England!-The castle is won!
Yet some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another place; and men say that he shall come again, and he shall win the holy cross.
Saint George he was for England, And before he killed the dragon he drank a pint of English ale out of an English flagon.
A famous man is Robin Hood, The English ballad-singer's joy.
There's not that much English folk music that is really that appealing.
England, a happy land we know, Where follies naturally grow, Where without culture they arise, And tow'r above the common size.
There are many Green Dragons in this world of wayside inns, even as there are many White Harts, Red Lions, Silent Women and other incredible things.
Of all the trees that grow so fair Old England to adorn, Greater are none beneath the Sun Than Oak, and Ash and Thorn.
