Skip to content

The Law and Policy Blog

Independent commentary on law and policy from a liberal constitutionalist and critical perspective

Donate

You can support this independent law and policy commentary by PayPal

Subscribe

Please enter your email address to receive notifications of new stuff by me here and elsewhere.

Pages

  • About
  • Comments Policy

Categories

Recent Posts

  • Explaining a 31-month sentence for a tweet 27th May 2025
  • A close reading of the “AI” fake cases judgment 9th May 2025
  • How the Trump administration’s “shock and awe” approach has resulted in its litigation being shockingly awful 22nd April 2025
  • How the United States constitutional crisis is intensifying 17th April 2025
  • A note about injunctions in the context of the Abrego Garcia case 14th April 2025
  • How Trump is misusing emergency powers in his tariffs policy 10th April 2025
  • How Trump’s tariffs can be a Force Majeure event for some contracts 7th April 2025
  • The significance of the Wisconsin court election result 2nd April 2025
  • “But what if…?” – constitutional commentary in an age of anxiety 31st March 2025
  • A significant defeat for the Trump government in the federal court of appeal 27th March 2025
  • Reckoning the legal and practical significance of the United States deportations case 25th March 2025
  • Making sense of the Trump-Roberts exchange about impeachment 19th March 2025
  • Understanding what went on in court yesterday in the US deportations case 18th March 2025
  • “Oopsie” – the word that means the United States has now tipped into a constitutional crisis 17th March 2025
  • Oh Canada 16th March 2025
  • Thinking about a revolution 5th March 2025
  • The fog of lawlessness: what we can see – and what we cannot see – in the current confusions in the United States 25th February 2025
  • The president who believes himself a king 23rd February 2025
  • Making sense of what is happening in the United States 18th February 2025
  • The paradox of the Billionaires saying that Court Orders have no value, for without Court Orders there could not be Billionaires 11th February 2025
  • Why Donald Trump is not really “transactional” but anti-transactional 4th February 2025
  • From constitutional drama to constitutional crisis? 1st February 2025
  • Solving the puzzle of why the case of Prince Harry and Lord Watson against News Group Newspapers came to its sudden end 25th January 2025
  • Looking critically at Trump’s flurry of Executive Orders: why we should watch what is done, and not to be distracted by what is said 21st January 2025
  • A third and final post about the ‘Lettuce before Action’ of Elizabeth Truss 18th January 2025
  • Why the Truss “lettuce before action” is worse than you thought – and it has a worrying implication for free speech 17th January 2025
  • Of Indictments and Impeachments, and of Donald Trump – two similar words for two distinct things 16th January 2025
  • Why did the DoJ prosecution of Trump run out of time? 14th January 2025
  • Spiteful governments and simple contract law, a weak threatening letter, and a warning of a regulatory battle ahead 13th January 2025
  • A close look at Truss’s legal threat to Starmer – a glorious but seemingly hopeless cease-and-desist letter 9th January 2025
  • How the lore of New Year defeated the law of New Year – how the English state gave up on insisting the new year started on 25 March 1st January 2025
  • Some of President Carter’s judges can still judge, 44 years later – and so we can see how long Trump’s new nominees will be on the bench 31st December 2024
  • “Twelfth Night Till Candlemas” – the story of a forty-year book-quest and of its remarkable ending 20th December 2024
  • An argument about Assisting Dying – matters of life and death need to be properly regulated by law, and not by official discretion 28th November 2024
  • The illiberalism yet to come: two things not to do, and one thing to do – suggestions on how to avoid mental and emotional exhaustion 18th November 2024
  • New stories for old – making sense of a political-constitutional rupture 14th November 2024
  • The shapes of things to come – some thoughts and speculations on the possibilities of what can happen next 8th November 2024
  • A postcard from the day after an election: capturing a further political-constitutional moment 6th November 2024
  • A postcard from the day of an election – capturing a political-constitutional moment 5th November 2024
  • “…as a matter of law, the house is haunted” – a quick Hallowe’en post about law and lore 31st October 2024
  • Prisons and prisons-of-the-mind – how the biggest barrier to prisons reform is public opinion 28th October 2024
  • A blow against the “alternative remedies” excuse: the UK Supreme Court makes it far harder for regulators to avoid performing their public law duties 22nd October 2024
  • What explains the timing and manner of the Chagos Islands sovereignty deal? 20th October 2024
  • Happy birthday, Supreme Court: the fifteenth anniversary of the United Kingdom’s highest court 1st October 2024
  • Words on the screen – the rise and (relative) fall of text-based social media: why journalists and lawyers on social media may not feel so special again 30th September 2024
  • Political accountability vs policy accountability: how our system of politics and government is geared to avoid or evade accountability for policy 24th September 2024
  • On writing – and not writing – about miscarriages of justice 23rd September 2024
  • Miscarriages of Justice: the Oliver Campbell case 21st September 2024
  • How Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Harris and Walz is a masterpiece of persuasive prose: a songwriter’s practical lesson in written advocacy 11th September 2024
  • Supporting Donald Trump is too much for Richard Cheney 7th September 2024
  • A miscarriage of justice is normally a systems failure, and not because of any conspiracy – the cock-up theory usually explains when things go wrong 30th August 2024
  • Update – what is coming up. 29th August 2024
  • Shamima Begum – and ‘de jure’ vs ‘de facto’ statelessness 21st August 2024
  • Lucy Letby and miscarriages of justice: some words of caution on why we should always be alert to the possibilities of miscarriages of justice 19th August 2024
  • This week’s skirmish between the European Commission and X 17th August 2024
  • What Elon Musk perhaps gets wrong about civil wars being ‘inevitable’ – It is in the nature of civil wars that they are not often predictable 7th August 2024
  • How the criminal justice system deals with a riot 5th August 2024
  • The Lucy Letby case: some thoughts and observations: what should happen when a defence does not put in their own expert evidence (for good reason or bad)? 26th July 2024
  • And out the other side? The possible return of serious people doing serious things in law and policy 10th July 2024
  • What if a parliamentary candidate did not exist? The latest odd constitutional law question which nobody has really thought of asking before 9th July 2024
  • The task before James Timpson: the significance of this welcome appointment – and two of the obstacles that he needs to overcome 8th July 2024
  • How the Met police may be erring in its political insider betting investigation – and why we should be wary of extending “misconduct of public office” to parliamentary matters, even in nod-along cases 28th June 2024
  • What you need to know about commercial regulation, in the sports sector and elsewhere – for there is compliance and there is “compliance” 25th June 2024
  • Seven changes for a better constitution? Some interesting proposals from some good people. 24th June 2024
  • The wrong gong 22nd June 2024
  • The public service of an “Enemy of the People” 22nd June 2024
  • Of majorities and “super-majorities” 21st June 2024
  • The strange omission in the Conservative manifesto: why is there no commitment to repeal the Human Rights Act? 12th June 2024
  • The predicted governing party implosion in historical and constitutional context 11th June 2024
  • Donald Trump is convicted – but it is now the judicial system that may need a good defence strategy 1st June 2024
  • The unwelcome weaponisation of police complaints as part of ordinary politics 31st May 2024
  • Thoughts on the calling of a general election – and on whether our constitutional excitements are coming to an end 29th May 2024
  • Another inquiry report, another massive public policy failure revealed 21st May 2024
  • On how regulating the media is hard – if not impossible – and on why reviving the Leveson Inquiry may not be the best basis for seeing what regulations are now needed 4th May 2024
  • Trump’s case – a view from an English legal perspective 24th April 2024
  • Law and lore, and state failure – the quiet collapse of the county court system in England and Wales 22nd April 2024
  • How the civil justice system forced Hugh Grant to settle – and why an alternative to that system is difficult to conceive 17th April 2024
  • Unpacking the remarkable witness statement of Johnny Mercer – a closer look at the extraordinary evidence put before the Afghan war crimes tribunal 25th March 2024
  • The curious incident of the Afghanistan war crimes statutory inquiry being set up 21st March 2024
  • A close look at the Donelan libel settlement: how did a minister make her department feel exposed to expensive legal liability? 8th March 2024
  • A close look at the law and policy of holding a Northern Ireland border poll – and how the law may shape what will be an essentially political decision 10th February 2024
  • How the government is seeking to change the law on Rwanda so as to disregard the facts 30th January 2024
  • How the next general election in the United Kingdom is now less than a year away 29th January 2024
  • Could the Post Office sue its own former directors and advisers regarding the Horizon scandal? 16th January 2024
  • How the legal system made it so easy for the Post Office to destroy the lives of the sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses – and how the legal system then made it so hard for them to obtain justice 12th January 2024
  • The coming year: how the parameters of the constitution will shape the politics of 2024 1st January 2024
  • The coming constitutional excitements in the United States 31st December 2023
  • What is often left unsaid in complaints about pesky human rights law and pesky human rights lawyers 15th December 2023
  • A role-reversal? – a footnote to yesterday’s post 1st December 2023
  • The three elements of the Rwanda judgment that show how the United Kingdom government is now boxed in 30th November 2023
  • On yesterday’s Supreme Court judgment on the Rwanda policy 16th November 2023
  • The courts have already deflated the Rwanda policy, regardless of the Supreme Court judgment next Wednesday 10th November 2023
  • The extraordinary newspaper column of the Home Secretary – and its implications 9th November 2023
  • Drafts of history – how the Covid Inquiry, like the Leveson Inquiry, is securing evidence for historians that would otherwise be lost 1st November 2023
  • Proportionality is an incomplete legal concept 25th October 2023
  • Commissioner Breton writes a letter: a post in praise of the one-page formal document 11th October 2023
  • “Computer says guilty” – an introduction to the evidential presumption that computers are operating correctly 30th September 2023
  • COMING UP 23rd September 2023
  • Whatever happened to ‘the best-governed city in the world’? – some footnotes to the article at Prospect on the Birmingham city insolvency 9th September 2023
  • One year on from one thing, sixteen months on from another thing… 8th September 2023
  • What is a section 114 Notice? 7th September 2023
  • Constitutionalism vs constitutionalism – how liberal constitutionalists sometimes misunderstand illiberal constitutionalism 24th August 2023
  • Performative justice and coercion: thinking about coercing convicted defendants to hear their sentences 21st August 2023
  • Of impeachments and indictments – how many of the criminal indictments against Trump are a function of the failure of the impeachment process 15th August 2023
  • A note of caution for those clapping and cheering at the latest indictment of Donald Trump 8th August 2023

Archives

Masterdon link

Mastodon

“Twelfth Night Till Candlemas” – the story of a forty-year book-quest and of its remarkable ending

The day before the Winter Solstice, 2024

This post is about finally finding a book from one’s youth forty years later – and after nearly thirty years of searching.

It is also a tale about goblins and Christmas decorations; about the perils of ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence; and about the real value of librarians, cataloguers, indexers, and archivists – what should be called the Noble Professions.

And it is an account that ends with not one but two wonderful events.

So if you are sitting comfortably, with a suitable seasonal drink, we will start with a bit of background and with a historical excursion.

*

Once upon a time there was a story.

And the story was in a book – a child’s anthology: the sort of book that one used to get in school bookshops and advertised in the special catalogues that were common in English schools (and elsewhere) in the 1970s and 1980s.

All the books I had at the time got lost – house moves and so on – and since the world wide web made searching for second-hand books easy I have replaced the books one-by-one.

When you re-read such books, sometimes what one thinks are one’s own original ideas and expressions stare back at you and you realise where you got them from.

What the economist J. M. Keynes once said – “Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist” – has a far wider application.

Many of us are the slaves of what we read when very young.

*

But there was one book what eluded me, every time it was searched for.

What I could remember (or believed I could remember) was as follows:

– it was a story in an anthology;

– the story was about what will happen if you do not take your decorations down by Twelfth Night – for goblins and other ne’er-do-wells will go through your town and hide behind any remaining decorations and cause you mischief all year round;

– but there was a cure to this mischief if a certain thing was done on Candlemas – 2 February – and this was because of an esoteric rule which could be applied surreptitiously by those with special knowledge;

– the book was purple;

– the title or sub-title of the book, or of the story, was “from Michelmas to Candlemas” – the use of “Candlemas” was obvious from the story, and the “Michaelmas” I was certain about because it was a word I would again encounter in my late teens as a student, as it reminded me of the story/book.

(One of these memories, however, was false and another only semi-reliable.)

*

The story was important to me because it led to my passion for lore.

For me as a legal commentator, law (in its technical, black-letter sense) is practically far less important than what people – including lawyers and even judges – believe the law to be.

(Long-term followers may also recall my original blogging name was of a folklore hero who bested the devil by careful attention to what was actually agreed.)

And so this remembered Candlemas story had everything for a lover of lore and law: a predicament, an obscure rule, the skilled application of that rule, and a remedy.

*

How I searched for this story – usually every year in November or December.

At first, I searched the web generally – with text and then, as Google developed, for the book cover.

I searched sites which had pictures of the book catalogues of the time.

I searched the British Library, the Bodleian Library, and every library I could think of.

Nil-return.

*

It was a mini-exercise in being J. R. Hartley year after year.

After a while certain results became familiar – and I probably know more about devotional texts about – and adventure stories set at – Candlemas than many other people.

And it was always a pleasure to renew contact with texts like “[i]t is a very old enactment that no Gascon wines or Toulouse woad be brought into England in strange bottoms, and nothing which has been done affects them but was devised to restrain the folly of English merchants who ventured to Bordeaux at unseasonable times, and the restraint from Michaelmas to Candlemas, by avoiding dangerous times, will rather augment the traffic…” (emphasis added.)

I bought books of Christmas stories on the off-chance they would reprint the story I was looking for – a disconcerting number of which appear to have been edited by Gyles Brandreth.

Nil-return.

*

When social media came along, I would then appeal from time-to-time for any information.

Those who responded were often very helpful – and so yet more Christmas anthologies were bought, and further lines of enquiry followed.

I made direct contact with experts in folklore and fairy tales, but they were as non-plussed as me.

Still nil-return.

*

Along the way though, I found out a great deal about the lores of the twelve days of Christmas and Candlemas which contextualised what I could remember.

For example, both Twelfth Night and Candlemas have historically been the ends of the Christmas period – the latter being the fortieth day after Christmas.

And I discovered that Candlemas – which is also marked the purification (or what became known in England as ‘churching’) of Mary and the presentation of Jesus at the Temple – was once an annual event that was very important in English culture.

Indeed Charles I arranged his coronation to be held on Candlemas.

And royalists made a point of celebrating Candlemas as part of what we would now call “culture wars” of the 1600s.

One once-famous poet, the loyalist clergyman Robert Herrick published three poems about Candlemas, one of which urged the burning of decorations on that day, else bad things would follow:

Kindle the Christmas brand, and then

Till sunset let it burn;

Which quench’d, then lay it up again

Till Christmas next return.

Part must be kept wherewith to teend

The Christmas log next year,

And where ’tis safely kept, the fiend

Can do no mischief there.

(This ritual burning of decorations is a tradition that still has echoes today.)

After the culture wars of the 1600s, however, Candlemas became less popular – and soon it was all-but forgotten culturally, outside the annual blessing of candles at certain churches.

(On Candlemas in particular, see chapter 13 of The Stations of the Sun by Ronald Hutton, and on the place of Candlemas in the politics and religion of early modern England generally, see Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580.)

*

This was all fascinating, but it was not getting me any closer to the book or the story.

A couple of years ago, after the usual social media appeal, someone suggested I try the r/whatsthatbook thread on Reddit, where very clever and generous people spend time trying to identify books from the scantiest of details.

So I did.

And someone there corresponded with a suggestion which actually covered each of the data points I could recall about the book – and it had the right title, and the book even had a well-known editor.

This was an extraordinary find – how could I have missed this in all the years of searching?

Well.

The reason it had never been uncovered before was because the impressive looking account had been generated – entirely fabricated – by ChatGPT.

This false account has now been deleted, but the correspondent remarked when I said this looked like it had been auto-generated: “You’re right, I’ve tried chatGPT on some descriptions around here and it worked pretty well. However sometimes it has a propensity to spew random bullshit. I forgot because it’s so good in other areas. I’ll check better.”

I had never come across ChatGPT before – and so I have distrusted it ever since.

*

So this year – a couple of weeks ago – I did the annual appeal – but this time on BlueSky and Mastodon, and not on Twitter.

And yet again, people were helpful – anthologies were suggested and bought (though no further ones by Gyles Brandreth).

Someone again used ChatGPT, and they came up with:

“The book you’re describing sounds like “From Michaelmas to Candlemas” by Ruth Ainsworth. It was published in the 1970s and features seasonal stories aimed at children, including the one about the need to take down Christmas decorations by Candlemas to avoid goblins hiding behind them. The title references the traditional English calendar, marking the time from the feast of Michaelmas (September 29) to Candlemas (February 2). The story you mentioned aligns with themes found in folklore and poetry, including those by Robert Herrick. If this is the book you’re thinking of, it was indeed popular in school book clubs during that era.”

Again, like the account offered by the Reddit correspondent, this passage looks authoritative and plausible.

You will even notice how it neatly covers everything I could remember – giving equal weight to each data point and deftly joining them all together.

And again, what ChatGPT here had to offer was utterly – absolutely – false.

Like a fluent and practised (but unwise) liar it had contrived an account that fitted only the available information.

It was fake.

This year looked like another nil-return.

*

And then, something remarkable happened.

The appeal got this response:

Wow.

It was the same story, now looking up at me from a computer screen forty years later.

I remember the stylised first letter, the imagery, the pacing, the tone.

It did mention goblins as part of the ne’er-do-wells, but it was about a demon – not a goblin – who hid behind a sprig of holly.

(My insistence that it was a goblin was a semi-unreliable memory.)

And there was (who I now know was) Granny Hawkins being the holder of the all-important esoteric knowledge.

*

What had happened was this: Charlotte was far from a ChatGPT bot but instead a trained and experienced librarian.

(You can and should follow her here – she is a genius and a treasure, and she has found other odd things out for other people.)

She sensibly assumed some of the things I could recall would have more weight – be more reliable – than others.

(The “Michaelmas” was, it turned out, a false memory – and this had undermined my searches.)

She then used various permutations of my memory points until she found a match, and she then found a book which someone had scanned onto internet archive.

You can see the book here.

The details there found could then be cross-referenced against this truly amazing catalogue of fantasy short stories -and it was indeed in an anthology – alongside the Herrick poem!

The story had been found – because of a librarian using critical skills (and thereby not giving equal weight to each factor), an archive, and a catalogue/index.

Verily: librarians, archivists, cataloguers, and indexers are the Noble Professions.

For they organise information in a manner in which humans actually think – unlike ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence.

They are the holders of the old knowledge and skills.

*

So here is the book:

*

My initial reaction was that Charlotte had certainly uncovered the same story – but it was perhaps in a different edition.

The cover of what Charlotte had found was black – and I distinctly remembered the book being purple.

Nonetheless I ordered the book online – so I could read all the story again in physical form (I refused to read it on the archive – I could wait one more week after so many years).

And when the book arrived I noticed something.

The back of the book was purple.

Never judge a book by its front cover.

*

Before we come to the second wonderful event of this book-quest, here is the story of “Twelfth Night Till Candlemas” in full.

Note as you read how the old knowledge is used and the necessary rule are applied – and how the vicar ensures that a suppressed, secret ceremony can take place – there seems to be a great deal of cultural and religious knowledge behind this simple-looking children’s story.

*

“Of course!” said Granny Hawkins.

Of course.

*

But who was Ruth C. Paine?

It was certainly not this Ruth Paine (which made internet searches very difficult).

The editor Dorothy Edwards was a prolific author and editor – many of her books are still in print – and she was also involved with Listen with Mother.

(I said you should be sitting comfortably.)

But Ruth C. Paine was more elusive.

*

What I was then able to find out was that Ruth C. Paine had published stories in a number of Dorothy Edwards’ anthologies.

Here is another example, about the changing of the seasons, with a splendid line from a frog about how to deal with winter

*

‘I’m just off to the pond. I shall dive to the bottom and cover myself with mud and stay there. That is the only proper way to spend the winter,’ said Frog, and he hopped away.

*

I can also recommend the story about old Mother Merriweather in her Cuckoo Fair story, which deals with summer, in this other Dorothy Edwards anthology.

*

A bit more research showed that Ruth C. Paine had contributed a story for broadcast for Listen with Mother (thank you to the kind person who put the Radio Times listings archive online).

But otherwise it was really not surprising that an author from the 1970s and 1980s had so little online trace.

It crossed my mind that Ruth C. Paine could be a pseudonym of Dorothy Edwards – such things are not uncommon with busy editors who need to fill spaces in books and broadcasts.

Yet there was something about the distinctive depth of knowledge behind the Candlemas story which made it unlikely to be a throwaway pseudonym of someone else. And Dorothy Edwards often included her own stories in her anthologies.

Anyway, no matter: I had the book and the story.

That is where I thought this story would end.

*

And then the second remarkable event occurred.

Charlotte and I got this reply from the novelist Victoria MacKenzie:

And so Ruth C. Paine certainly did exist – and, as the Candlemas story indicated, she did have an extensive knowledge of religion and cultural history.

Her great niece has now kindly provided the following fascinating details:

“Ruth Cecilia Paine was my great aunt – my grandfather’s twin sister – and although she passed away in 2001, when I was just twenty-one, she was a big influence on my life. We wrote to each other regularly (I still remember her postcode, all these years later) and she was very encouraging to me about my education; at the start of each school year she sent me a little money for stationery, which I found incredibly exciting!

“I always knew that she had written stories for children, but that only a handful had been published – mostly in anthologies edited by Dorothy Edwards. As far as I knew, writing was a hobby, but I sensed it was one that meant a great deal to her. She often sent me books as gifts and occasionally I visited her in her flat in Canterbury where she lived with her lifelong companion, Lillian.

“She was a Christian and a church-goer all her life, latterly giving tours of Canterbury Cathedral. My dad told me that she’d been a missionary in India earlier in her life and I seem to half-remember a story she told me of travelling through a monsoon in a small aeroplane – understandably a terrifying experience!

“When she returned to in Britain she became a Religious Studies teacher, and her last job was at Hastings High School, before her retirement around the time I was born in 1980. Apparently she was regarded as quite formidable by my dad’s generation, but she was always very kind to me. I wish so much that she could have known her great niece would become a writer!”

*

The formidable Ruth C. Paine had indeed been a former missionary in her youth – Birmingham University records attest this.

This is Ruth Cecilia Paine in her teaching days:

And not only did Vicky MacKenzie provide this information and this photo, she also had a box of papers from her late great aunt, and in that box of papers were the original amended proofs of the personally influential story I had spent years looking for!

*

“Of course!” said Granny Hawkins.

Of course.

*

In a matter of days I has gone from the ritual despair of an annual fruitless, futile search, to not only having the story and the book – but to also seeing the actual manuscript of the story I had spent forty years thinking about and about thirty years searching for.

This was a wonderful, extraordinary turn-of-events.

*

Two things can perhaps be said by way of a conclusion to this story.

The first is that we should be wary of the mischievous demons of our own age – that is ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence – and to renew our trust in the Noble Professions who hold the old knowledge and skills: librarians, archivists, cataloguers, and indexers.

The second is that nowadays the real problem perhaps is not with Christmas decorations staying up too late, but with them going up too early, and with shops selling Christmas wares and playing Christmas music well before Advent, let alone Christmas.

We need new cautionary tales about when such things should be done and not done.

We are going to need some new goblins.

*******

I am very grateful to the heirs and holders of the literary estate of Ruth C. Paine for their kind permission for me to publish “Twelfth Night Till Candlemas” and “How Nip spent the winter”.

Editors would do well to contact Vicky MacKenzie to arrange permission to put her great aunt’s stories in new anthologies.

I am also grateful to Vicky MacKenzie for her kind permission to publish the unpublished corrected manuscript of “Twelfth Night Till Candlemas” and the unpublished photograph of her aunt..

Many thanks to Charlotte who not only found the story, but dealt with many follow-on queries.

Many thanks also to my friends who listened to previous versions of this post.

This post is dedicated to one of these friends, Nick, who is currently dealing with a challenging time – and who has also listened to me go on about story-telling for over thirty years. Poor sod.

Posted on 20th December 202424th December 2024Author David Allen GreenCategories Artificial Intelligence, Candlemas, Demons hiding behind Christmas decorations, Law and Lore

55 thoughts on ““Twelfth Night Till Candlemas” – the story of a forty-year book-quest and of its remarkable ending”

  1. Dr M M Gilchrist says:
    20th December 2024 at 10:45

    What a marvellous story (on every level)! So glad you found it, and discovered more about the author!

    Reply
  2. Julia O’Hara says:
    20th December 2024 at 10:48

    Thank you that is an amazing heartwarming story!

    Reply
  3. Brian Mace says:
    20th December 2024 at 10:52

    Fascinating story. I have two stories that I heard on the radio at my Grandma’s when I was about 6 (ie mid 1950s) that I have never been able to track down. Maybe I will try again in light of your success.

    Of course Candlemas is once again now celebrated as “Groundhog Day”.

    Reply
  4. stu says:
    20th December 2024 at 10:53

    What a wonderful story – and story within a story. Thanks for writing it David, and three cheers for Charlotte!

    Reply
  5. Hazel Rothera says:
    20th December 2024 at 10:59

    As a librarian who, like many in our profession, is currently wrestling with teaching students about the benefits and pitfalls of the proliferation of AI tools, and what each type is and is *not* good at (including the tendency of large language models to fabricate extremely plausible answers to questions without any cross-checking with reality) this was a perfect Christmas story for my last working day of this year. Thank you and enjoy your unexpected Christmas book!

    Reply
  6. Peter Battrick says:
    20th December 2024 at 11:07

    Nothing serious. Just Brilliant both in the efforts by the librarian/archivist and in the doggedness of Dan.

    Reply
    1. Liam Proven says:
      21st December 2024 at 11:10

      “Dan”?

      Reply
  7. Simon Pedley says:
    20th December 2024 at 11:07

    Fabulous post, and greatly heartwarming! My mum was a librarian all her life until retirement, and still volunteers in that capacity and as an archivist. I can therefore attest to the truth of your assertion as to the noble nature of those professions! Merry Christmas.

    Reply
  8. Ian John Bradbury says:
    20th December 2024 at 11:21

    What a wonderful story, it shows both the huge benefits of the world wide web for people to help each other in personal quests and questions and also the dangers of relying on the next big thing (ChatGPT/AI) to solve everything.
    Congrats on finding the book after so many years – but what will you look for next year?

    Reply
  9. Christopher Duggan says:
    20th December 2024 at 11:31

    Just a wonderful tale, and absolutely appropriate for this time of year. Thank you.

    Reply
  10. Judith says:
    20th December 2024 at 11:41

    What a lovely quest and I am so glad you found the story you were looking for. A couple of years ago I was trying to find a book I’d loved as a child and eventually found it by googling (“The children who were left behind” by Bruce Carter) but there is another that I can’t track down but you’ve inspired me to keep trying! Happy Christmas!

    Reply
  11. Quentin Lowe says:
    20th December 2024 at 11:43

    What a great post. Thank you so much!

    Reply
  12. Andrew Henry says:
    20th December 2024 at 11:47

    Surely “Kindle the Christmas brand” should be a monetized link to Amazon

    Reply
  13. E.M. Powell says:
    20th December 2024 at 11:51

    What a glorious post and such a welcome one at a time when it feels like the goblins are overrunning us all. Truly a treasure hunt!

    Reply
  14. Sue says:
    20th December 2024 at 11:53

    What a great story – remarkable perseverance to uncover the book and very salient messages for today.
    Thank you – a real pleasure to read.

    Reply
  15. Kathy Love says:
    20th December 2024 at 12:16

    How wonderful that you have your story back (needing a book you can’t find is a very special sort of itch) and that the malevolent goblins of ChatGPT/AU have been defeated by the Noble Professions! This is certainly my Christmas story for this year. Thanks for sharing it, David, and very best wishes for the holiday season.

    Reply
  16. Gillian Nobbs says:
    20th December 2024 at 12:55

    I feel like I’ve been sitting by an open fire, embers glowing and my cheeks flushed as I listened to a wondrous Christmas tale, an adventure of discovery and perseverance, of goodness and kindness. Thank you for telling the tale, a joy and a delight. It gives heart to the reasons to continue in the search for truth, meaning and true value. With a perfectly happy ending. Excellent.

    Reply
  17. Jacqueline says:
    20th December 2024 at 13:00

    I enjoyed this story about a story so much. So glad you found it at last. Agree entirely with Kathy about the defeat of the malevolent goblins. I was particularly impressed that the back cover of the book was indeed purple, just as you remembered. Happy Christmas everyone.

    Reply
  18. Katrina says:
    20th December 2024 at 13:49

    Thank you so much for this wonderful and very relatable account of your determined search for a much-loved book and story. I too have searched for books from my childhood, with limited success, and the details in your blog are very helpful so I will use them to further my ongoing search. Sparkling!

    Reply
  19. Geoff Jones says:
    20th December 2024 at 14:10

    Persistence pays!

    Reply
  20. Roy says:
    20th December 2024 at 14:23

    That is a delightful account going from years of thin, fruitless search to unexpectedly fruitful results at the point of success.

    A most enjoyable read, and so appropriate as a start to the season.

    Happy Christmas!

    Reply
  21. Simon Haslam says:
    20th December 2024 at 15:33

    David – thank you so much for this; one of the happiest bits of reading I have enjoyed in a very long time! And a lovely new account to follow on bluesky!

    Reply
  22. Barry Jackson says:
    20th December 2024 at 15:37

    Well! Wasn’t that a lovely way to start the weekend, I’ve spent time on the Internet looking for books from my youth but never for so long 😁

    Reply
  23. Jim2 says:
    20th December 2024 at 16:09

    As usual, very interesting. I had not heard of ‘The Christmas Brand”, to be laid up till next. Always something new to be found in dark corners.

    Glad you found your book. Merry Christmas to all.

    Reply
  24. Anne+Barlow says:
    20th December 2024 at 17:50

    What a lovely story of persistence, but also of the old style of writing and folklore which is not much appreciated nowadays.

    Reply
  25. John Blanshard says:
    20th December 2024 at 17:55

    It is a great story of persistence over the years. It also contains lessons regarding memory and recollection especially interesting from someone who has an awareness of rules of evidence
    It’s clear that your memory was mostly accurate but had gaps which were not significant enough to fool a librarian.
    Congratulations to you both.

    Reply
  26. Alex Korff says:
    20th December 2024 at 18:04

    This is a beautiful story, and turn of events. I’m slightly saddened that I was one of the ChatGPT ‘goblins’ in this otherwise lovely tale, but three cheers to all the Noble Professionals! Still – thankfully – much needed, even in the age of A.(not very, yet).I.

    Reply
  27. Martin Tolley says:
    20th December 2024 at 19:12

    Wow. Heart warming, and a bit tear-jerking at the same time. Thanks for sharing the details of your quest, a truly epic tale of adventure, villains, heroes and heroines.

    Reply
  28. tuwit says:
    20th December 2024 at 20:09

    On a similar tack, I’ve been looking for a book I had (and lost). I can remember its (paperback) cover (it was a photo), but Google image searches have proved fruitless. I can remember(?) snippets of it, but remembered “things” again produce no useful results from (text) web searches. It was a book of stories, chronologically sequential ones of an individual.

    The cover picture? Someone canoeing over a (vertical drop) waterfall.

    Just in case someone has seen or read the same.

    Reply
    1. TR says:
      10th January 2025 at 08:54

      Collector (and former teacher) of childhood literature of the 20th and late 19th centuries here. It would help to know the decade in which you read it, whether it was hardback or paperback, whether you are American or British (or Australian, Kiwi, SA, Indian, etc.), how old you were when you owned and read it, etc.

      I threw The Last of the Mohicans and some other search terms into Google, just to see what might come up (it does not match your memory of sequential stories, but it helped me to figure out what terms to use in the search). I came across Canoeing With the Cree by Arnold E. Sevareid, but if, for example, you are looking for an old Scholastic Books club paperback, that wouldn’t be it. If you can narrow down the variables and plug in some terms like: “paperback editions canoe waterfall cover,” and select Images, you may come across your treasured memory. I hope you do!

      Reply
  29. Kevin Hall says:
    20th December 2024 at 20:51

    What a fabulous story with a very satisfying ending. Our Christmas decorations are never left up after 12th night. Just tradition, of course, definitely not superstition. It’s a bugger trying to type with your fingers crossed though.

    Happy Candlemas

    Reply
  30. Tim+ says:
    21st December 2024 at 07:44

    Fascinating story – perhaps the start of your own Remembrance of Things Past novel. Wishing you a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

    Reply
  31. Michael Wells says:
    21st December 2024 at 08:12

    Dear DAG,
    What a marvellous tale of Christmas cheer. Wishing you and yours a Marry time and a Happy New year 2025.
    Michael

    Reply
  32. EK says:
    21st December 2024 at 08:22

    What a tale! And I’m glad to hear that such an epic search has had an equally epic conclusion.

    Reply
  33. Andrew McKeown-Henshall says:
    21st December 2024 at 08:49

    What a brilliant story to (almost) end 2024 with – I recognise and relate to do many parts – especially false memories – I hate to think how many times I’ve been on my own similar wild goose chase with trying to search for something but being foiled by a false memory of a detail.

    Just yesterday I encountered the same poisoning of knowledge by AI when searching for assistance on a computer related problem.

    Merry Christmas, and thank you for exercising my mind for another year through your commentary – I always smile when I see the notification that my monthly subscription has been paid! :-)

    Reply
  34. Mark Wilson says:
    21st December 2024 at 10:08

    David, thank you for the write up of a lovely story to which I can very much relate.

    I too am looking for a book I read as a child which has stayed with me all these years.

    It was a post-apocalyptic graphic novel that I borrowed from an American school friend around 1981.

    Like you, from time to time, I make further enquiries. I once checked every title in a database of graphic novels published prior to 1983.

    Like you, I have to question if all of my memories are factual.

    Perhaps, following your success, it is time to renew my search.

    Reply
  35. Geoffrey Thompson says:
    21st December 2024 at 10:30

    A wonderful story, David. Much appreciated.

    Reply
  36. Gil Laycock says:
    21st December 2024 at 12:36

    This is very pleasing to me, as I had memories of the same goblin/christmas decoration folklore and had been unable to pin them down. Like DAG my memory was incomplete, but in my case only remembering a few key aspects: twelfth night/Goblins coming through keyholes/smashed crockery and other mischief. I still have no recollection of where I came across it.
    For a long time, and having had no reason to discuss it with anyone else, I assumed this was common folklore shared by everyone.
    It was not until we started having decorations in our own household (early 2000s) that I had occasion to mention the need to take decorations down by 12th night, which was not controversial, but also the obvious (to me) dreadful consequences of not doing so. I was astonished to find that firstly my wife had never heard of this; and then nobody else in my family had heard of it either. I had somehow acquired some folklore with quite precise details (12th night, goblins coming in through keyholes, crockery smashing) that nobody else at all knew anything about.
    At various times I tried and failed to track it down with web searches. I vaguely attributed it to my late grandmother, although nobody else in the family recalled her mentioning it.
    I think I came across DAG’s annual twitter posts on this last year, and it was my first inkling that perhaps some other people had heard the same story. So of course the conclusion this year is very pleasing indeed.
    I was 12 in 1980, and as a child we certainly made use of those school book clubs – so this ties up well.

    Reply
    1. Ben Halstead says:
      23rd December 2024 at 11:57

      I remember the folklore (especially goblins breaking all the crockery) from a children’s book of facts and puns.
      It was illustrated by Quentin Blake – and after 20 minutes searching his extensive gallery of book covers, I think it was Funny Business
      https://quentinblake.com/books/funny-business, although I don’t remember the cover being yellow…

      Reply
  37. Pingback: e494 — License to Brick | Games At Work dot Biz
  38. Neil Wyatt says:
    23rd December 2024 at 15:11

    I’ll take this post as a prompt to thank Helen of Archifdy Ceredigion Archives.

    Based on my recollections, she tracked down a cartoon which appeared to show me and my friend published in the Cambrian News in 1985. I had lost my clipping of it some 25 years ago.

    Reply
  39. Jacquelyn MacLennan says:
    23rd December 2024 at 20:39

    This post was a surprise! I usually find myself agreeing with a point of right-headed sense flowing from some legal nonsense that you’ve pinned down. But today I’m just keen to find my own copy of this wonderful book. Not only is it edited by Dorothy Edwards who wrote our family favourite “My naughty little sister” series – but it has reminded me of a childhood favourite prayer “From ghoulies and ghosties, and Long Legged Beasties, and Things that go bump in the night – Good Lord deliver us”. Can’t be bettered.
    I’m delighted your quest has come to a close in such a positive way, and wholeheartedly support your views of the huge value of real people and librarians in particular. I also have examples of Chat GPT proposing some apparently plausible but factually totally & utterly incorrect response – be afraid, be very afraid…
    All the best for 2025. Thank you!

    Reply
  40. Pingback: “Twelfth Night Till Candlemas” – the story of a forty-year book-quest and of its remarkable ending – Archivalia
  41. Adam Goldman says:
    24th December 2024 at 05:44

    What a fantastic story about a story; thank you! The funny thing is, that book cover looks very familiar from my own childhood in the 1970s….

    Reply
  42. Grey Walker says:
    26th December 2024 at 16:07

    What a wonderful story to encounter on Boxing Day! I’m a member of the Noble Profession of Librarians, so I’m quite chuffed to read about Charlotte’s excellent work. I’m also someone who is in the process of tracking down books remembered from childhood, so I rejoice with you at finding a story you loved.

    Reply
  43. James says:
    26th December 2024 at 23:41

    Such a lovely post, Happy Christmas David

    Reply
  44. Philip Karl Booker says:
    30th December 2024 at 19:23

    I’m a bit late for this party, but allow me to briefly intercede with a very similar, completely different, unrequited and alas unrequitable search, perfectly illustrated by your now ex-conundrum.

    Having been very pleasantly uplifted by your story (and historical excursion) I felt compelled to write to tell you just how much I loved it.

    Except of course, uplifting as it was, it couldn’t in all honesty compare to that dizzying, all consuming, throw-caution-to-the-wind feeling, for which we are encouraged from a young age to gamble the rest of our lives.

    The problem being, the only real alternative in such circumstances is to tell you how much I liked it.

    I may as well have told you it was ‘nice’, since both words, in my opinion, suggest a minimum of effort and lack sincerity and are therefore, unlikable.

    ‘Really liked’ feels like an unsatisfying compromise, while adore is too strongly suggestive of worship.

    Sanskrit, has something like 96 different words for the various forms and degrees of love, yet the language of Shakespeare can muster but one.

    I’ve mulled potential candidates for as long as I remember, without finding a word that sufficiently fulfills the criteria I want expressed by the word I can’t find.

    The point of all this is, I liked your story much more than just liking it, and loved it much less than loving it, and hope some day a Charlotte or Vicky will successfully fill that unfortunate descriptive void?

    If, as I suspect, you’re thinking this comment is leaning awkwardly towards the ‘weird’, look no further than your opening suggestion.

    It appears I sat down very comfortably, with an “(un)suitable seasonal drink”.

    Hiccup New Year!

    PK

    Reply
  45. David Gordon says:
    1st January 2025 at 20:05

    Wonderful. Thank you.

    Reply
  46. J says:
    9th January 2025 at 03:29

    Great story!
    You might enjoy this old post by Timothy Burke on his previous Easily Distracted weblog. I used to use it to teach students how much a freed imagination helped searching back then…
    https://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/blog/2009/11/30/anatomy-of-a-search/

    Reply
  47. Jeremy G. says:
    9th January 2025 at 18:05

    This was such an inspiring read, as I currently have a similar project that has been going on for 15+ years now. There was a book of short stories I had as a child (10 – 12 years old, back in 1990 – 1991 time frame) that I got at a school book fair, and I vividly remember one of the stories about a hunting party getting trapped in a cave during a blizzard. Over the years I’ve gone through search engines, library indexes, asked on reddit (/r/whatsthisbook), probed ChatGPT, and all the other activities you’ve mentioned (except posting on Bluesky, may have to do that next). About 1x/year I spend 2 – 3 days intensely searching and then give up for another year.

    Congratulations on finding success! Your post gave me some renewed energy to pick it up and pursue it again, and to try some new avenues to see what I can turn up.

    Reply
    1. Mark Wilson says:
      13th January 2025 at 12:55

      Well, of course, there is the delightful classic 1993 book by Janet Ahlberg called It Was A Dark and Stormy Night about a boy who gets trapped in a cave/ kidnapped by brigands. Only 32 pages so short enough for an anthology.

      Reply
  48. Doug says:
    11th January 2025 at 01:33

    I’m struck by the similarity of the names “Ruth C. Paine” and “Ruth Ainsworth”. I can’t help wondering if somewhere in the ocean of data behind ChatGPT’s spew of falsehoods it had the real story, and the author’s name emerged in garbled form…

    Reply
  49. Daniel Lewis says:
    12th January 2025 at 20:34

    As a rare book curator (and currently also a book indexer, and former archivist), to my colleague Charlotte, I say BRAVA!!! There’s no substitute. I’ve had similar hallucinations with ChatGPT. When asked to give an overview of my latest book (Twelve Trees), it authoritatively offered up a number of trees that are mentioned nowhere in the book. Etc.! Great story, and thanks!

    Dan Lewis
    The Huntington Library

    Reply
  50. Ruth Carrod says:
    18th January 2025 at 10:50

    David, that was an enthralling and fascinating read on a cold January Saturday morning, thank you.

    , It took me back to ‘Listen with Mother’ which me and my mum listened to religiously every weekday afternoon before I started school. I could read before I started school, and my nan suggested mum should get me to join the children’s part of our local library, and a lifetime love of reading, books, and words was born.

    I still have my treasured and battered copy of Winnie the Pooh which my dad read to me as a bedtime story, with a different accent for each character. His Australian accent for Kanga was truly dreadful. But all of human life is in that book, as far as I’m concerned, including a hostile environment when Tigger first arrives.

    So I’m absolutely with you on the continued need for librarians and archivists, Noble Professions indeed.

    All the best to you x

    Reply
  51. Nigel Jones says:
    23rd February 2025 at 18:20

    re AI, have you seen https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/14/attorneys_cite_cases_hallucinated_ai/ where “attorneys involved in a product liability lawsuit have apologized to the presiding judge for submitting documents that cite non-existent legal cases.”
    I should have prefixed this with I’m not sure because how do I know the article was not written by AI!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Post navigation

Previous Previous post: An argument about Assisting Dying – matters of life and death need to be properly regulated by law, and not by official discretion
Next Next post: Some of President Carter’s judges can still judge, 44 years later – and so we can see how long Trump’s new nominees will be on the bench
Proudly powered by WordPress