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Authors: Susanna Clarke
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singing its name over and over againe. We were not at all enchanted by its song. An Ingeniose Spinner, Miranda, but no Poet. Fairies love to sing, but their Inventions are weak. They can get no further than a line or two until some kind Friend teaches them a new one."
We are all silent againe.
"And what did it sing?" sayz I.
"It sang: 'Nimmy, Nimmy Not; My name's Tom Tit Tot.'" sayz Mr Aubrey.
"Well!" sayz I, "I am very glad, deare Scholars, to heare that you have seen a Pharisee, but I am happier still that you have gott safe home againe. Goe to your dinner but I feare it will be a poore one."
Now comes the Pharisee creeping through the evening mist with the skeins of spun flax upon his arme. First I shall guess Solomon then I shall guess Zebedee. But then I must tell him his name and poore Tom Tit Tot must goe howling awaie to his cold and lonelie hole.
Now comes Sir John, all Frowne and Shadowe, on a horse as blacke as a tempest, with Wicked, Worse and Worst-of-all beside him. And when he haz seen the spun flax then he and I shall goe downe together to eate and drinke with the happy Scholars who even now are composing a chearfull song about four gentlemen who once sawe a Pharisee. And all our good Servants shall come home and each shall have sixpence to drinke Sir John's healthe.
"I am writing my historie," sayz I, "Where doe I begin?"
"Oh!" sayz Mr Aubrey, "begin where you chuse, Miranda, but putte it downe very quick while it is fresh and sprightly in your Braine. For remembrances are like butterflies and just as you thinke you have them flie out of the window. If all the thinges I have forgott, Miranda, were putte into His Majesties Navy, 'twould sink the fleet."
Among the many sources she drew upon for this story the author would particularly like to acknowledge folklorist Edward Clodd's wondeful 1898 rendition of Tom Tit Tot in Suffolk dialect.
IN THE LATE spring of 18 ___ a lady in the village of Kissingland in D ____ shire suffered a bitter disappointment.
Mrs Fanny Hawkins to Mrs Clara Johnson:
" . . . and I know, my dear Clara, that you will share my vexation when I tell you what has happened. Some months ago my sister, Miss Moore, had the good fortune to captivate an officer in the Regulars. Captain Fox shewed a decided preference for Venetia from the start and I was in great hopes of seeing her respectably settled when, by a stroke of ill fortune, she received a letter from an acquaintance, a lady in Manchester who had fallen sick and was in need of someone to nurse her. You may imagine how little I liked that she should leave Kissingland at such a time, but I found that, in spite of all I could say, she was determined to undertake the expense and inconvenience of the journey and go. But now I fear she is too well punished for her obstinacy, for in her absence the wretched Captain Fox has forgot her entirely and has begun to pay his respects to another lady, a neighbour of ours, Mrs Mabb. You may well believe that when she comes back I will always be quarrelling with her about it . . ."
***
Fanny Hawkins' amiable intention of quarrelling with her sister proceeded, not merely from a general wish to correct faulty behaviour, but also from the realization that if Venetia did not marry Captain Fox then she must look to Fanny for a home. Fanny's husband was the curate of Kissingland, a person of no particular importance in the society of the place, who baptised, married, and buried all its inhabitants, who visited them in their sick-beds, comforted them in their griefs, and read their letters to them if they could not do it for themselves - for all of which he received the magnificent sum of £40 a year. Consequently any moments which Fanny could spare from domestic cares were spent in pondering the difficult question of how an income which had never been sufficient for two might now be made to support three.
Fanny waited for her sister's return and, with great steadiness of purpose, told Mr Hawkins
We are all silent againe.
"And what did it sing?" sayz I.
"It sang: 'Nimmy, Nimmy Not; My name's Tom Tit Tot.'" sayz Mr Aubrey.
"Well!" sayz I, "I am very glad, deare Scholars, to heare that you have seen a Pharisee, but I am happier still that you have gott safe home againe. Goe to your dinner but I feare it will be a poore one."
Now comes the Pharisee creeping through the evening mist with the skeins of spun flax upon his arme. First I shall guess Solomon then I shall guess Zebedee. But then I must tell him his name and poore Tom Tit Tot must goe howling awaie to his cold and lonelie hole.
Now comes Sir John, all Frowne and Shadowe, on a horse as blacke as a tempest, with Wicked, Worse and Worst-of-all beside him. And when he haz seen the spun flax then he and I shall goe downe together to eate and drinke with the happy Scholars who even now are composing a chearfull song about four gentlemen who once sawe a Pharisee. And all our good Servants shall come home and each shall have sixpence to drinke Sir John's healthe.
"I am writing my historie," sayz I, "Where doe I begin?"
"Oh!" sayz Mr Aubrey, "begin where you chuse, Miranda, but putte it downe very quick while it is fresh and sprightly in your Braine. For remembrances are like butterflies and just as you thinke you have them flie out of the window. If all the thinges I have forgott, Miranda, were putte into His Majesties Navy, 'twould sink the fleet."
Among the many sources she drew upon for this story the author would particularly like to acknowledge folklorist Edward Clodd's wondeful 1898 rendition of Tom Tit Tot in Suffolk dialect.
IN THE LATE spring of 18 ___ a lady in the village of Kissingland in D ____ shire suffered a bitter disappointment.
Mrs Fanny Hawkins to Mrs Clara Johnson:
" . . . and I know, my dear Clara, that you will share my vexation when I tell you what has happened. Some months ago my sister, Miss Moore, had the good fortune to captivate an officer in the Regulars. Captain Fox shewed a decided preference for Venetia from the start and I was in great hopes of seeing her respectably settled when, by a stroke of ill fortune, she received a letter from an acquaintance, a lady in Manchester who had fallen sick and was in need of someone to nurse her. You may imagine how little I liked that she should leave Kissingland at such a time, but I found that, in spite of all I could say, she was determined to undertake the expense and inconvenience of the journey and go. But now I fear she is too well punished for her obstinacy, for in her absence the wretched Captain Fox has forgot her entirely and has begun to pay his respects to another lady, a neighbour of ours, Mrs Mabb. You may well believe that when she comes back I will always be quarrelling with her about it . . ."
***
Fanny Hawkins' amiable intention of quarrelling with her sister proceeded, not merely from a general wish to correct faulty behaviour, but also from the realization that if Venetia did not marry Captain Fox then she must look to Fanny for a home. Fanny's husband was the curate of Kissingland, a person of no particular importance in the society of the place, who baptised, married, and buried all its inhabitants, who visited them in their sick-beds, comforted them in their griefs, and read their letters to them if they could not do it for themselves - for all of which he received the magnificent sum of £40 a year. Consequently any moments which Fanny could spare from domestic cares were spent in pondering the difficult question of how an income which had never been sufficient for two might now be made to support three.
Fanny waited for her sister's return and, with great steadiness of purpose, told Mr Hawkins
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