The Perpetual Almanack of Folklore

This book is a fabulous compendium of Renaissance and Baroque life, beliefs, and traditions. The illustrations are perfect. Too bad this book has gone out of print. It should be in every living historian and historic interpreter's personal library.

When my daughter was born, I went on a search for material to connect her to her herritage and the seasonal changes, I wish I would have found this book earlier. I love it! While she may never need to know the best day to take care of internal ailments, why she shouldn't get married in green, What the inhabitants of London died of the week of February the 17th, 1719 ( what is Dropsie?) or how to make Eastertide Tansy she will know. This book is a wonderful tool to help anyone slow down and reconnect but, most importantly, it's FUN! From the Forward, ...it ( The Perpetual Almanack of Folklore) draws its material not only from almanacks and related mannuals of prognostication and astrology, but also from a wide range of other popular literature of the Tudor, Stuart and Georgian eras, much currently unavailable. This inclludes farming and medical handbooks, herbals both well known and obscure, printed cookery books and manuscript housekeeping instructions , the work of John Aubrey and other pioneer foolklorests, and such ephemera as chapbooks, broadsides and early newspapers.