An Elizabethan Wonder Woman?

[55_degrees_north]

Have you ever heard of "Long Meg of Westminster" ?

Came across a reference on a discussion of comic book superheroines of all things, which made mention of this mythical female, variously described as being of hop-pole height or steeple height and had various adventures chronicled in a pamphlet entitled

"The life of Long Meg of VVestminster containing the mad merry prankes shee played in her life time, not onely in performing sundry quarrels with diuers ruffians about London: but also how valiantly she behaued her selfe in the warres of Bolloingne."

Details are sketchy based on a websearch, she was variously said to have confronted thieves, or defended a woman being beaten, or fought in one of the many wars with France, but some of the wilder stories have her as almost like a female Gulliver with London as Lilliput.

Allegedly, she's buried in the corner of Westminster Abbey....

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Ther's an article at the following site (But, for it you must pay!):

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1983.1703_49.x

 

[Sthenno]

I'm not sure that 'Long Meg' was ever a person, as such, more an umbrella term given to items of unusual size that developed into a mocking nickname given to tell women.

There's a big piece of marble over a grave in the southern cloister of Westminster Abbey dubbed "Long Meg of Westminster", but this is the name given to the architectural feature rather than an indication of who is buried there.

Long Meg and her daughters is also a standing stone formation near Penrith in Cumbria.

 

[naitaka]

I thought Long Meg was a cannon...but that's Mons Meg.

Perhaps at some point the name got started from an actual person, like 'Big Bertha' Krupp.

 

[rynner2]

E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.

Long Meg of Westminster.

A noted virago in the reign of Henry VIII. Her name has been given to several articles of unusual size. Thus, the large blue-black marble in the south cloister of Westminster Abbey, over the grave of Gervasius de Blois, is called “Long Meg of Westminster.” Fuller says the term is applied to things “of hop-pole height, wanting breadth proportionable thereunto,” and refers to a great gun in the Tower so called, taken to Westminster in troublous times. 1
The large gun in Edinburgh Castle is called Mons Meg, and the bomb forged for the siege of Oudenarde, now in the city of Ghent, is called Mad Meg. 2
In the Edinburgh Antiquarian Magazine, September, 1769, we read of “Peter Branan, aged 104, who was six feet six inches high, and was commonly called Long Meg of Westminster. (See MEG.) 3
Long Meg and her daughters. In the neighbourhood of Penrith, Cumberland, is a circle of 67 (Camden says 77) stones, some of them ten feet high, ranged in a circle. Some seventeen paces off, on the south side, is a single stone, fifteen feet high, called Long Meg, the shorter ones being called her daughters. (Greek, megas, great.) 4
“This, and the Robrick stones in Oxfordshire, are supposed to have been erected at the investiture of some Danish kings, like the Kingatoler in Denmark, and the Moresteen in Sweden.”—Camden: Britannia.

http://www.bartleby.com/81/10481.html

I have a facsimile of that edition of Brewer's on the desk in front of me, so I can confirm the article is there! 8)

 

[55_degrees_north]

Thanks for the replies folks,

The pamphlet reference by Pietro is probably where the exaggerations started. It's one I'd found reference myself and the title probably gives much of the story away.

As for the name "Meg". If "Jack" was the generic British/English folklore name for a bloke, doesn't take much for "Meg" to be the female equivalent e.g. the Mons Meg cannon.

<edit> just read your post rynner. Bang goes my Meg theory above. So "she" was actually a "he"! I think I know a song about that...</edit>

It looks like "Long Meg" was just a fiction probably based on a real woman of tall stature.

Not sure what the average height for an Elizabethan was, but I'd guess if the 'real' Meg was around 5ft 8 inches, she'd qualify as a giant...er...giantess

 

[rynner2]

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume III. Renascence and Reformation.

XVI. Elizabethan Prose Fiction.

§ 25. The Gentle Craft.


The Gentle Craft, the third work, consists of a series of tales, dedicated to the shoemaking cult. The first two stories, Sir Hugh and Crispine and Crispinus, relate to early and noble patrons of the gentle craft; but these works are not in Deloney’s best style. They aim at romantic and Euphuistic effects, and the author, obviously, is uneasy under the greatness of his themes. The third story, Simon Eyre, moves into the actual, and relates the career of the philanthropic founder of Leadenhall (c. 1450), who, from a shoemaker’s apprentice, became lord mayor. A comic underplot is added, in which a Frenchman and a Dutchman clumsily intrigue in broken English for the hand of a serving-maid, and this forms an excellent counterpart to Simon’s stately progress through ceremonies and banquets. The principal figure in the next story, Richard Casteler, is that of Long Meg of Westminster, a serving-maid, whose rattling deeds of 1540 or thereabouts had, before 1582, become the subject of both ballad and pamphlet. 37 The story consists of a series of attempts made by Meg and her rival, Gillian, to win the love of the hero-apprentice. A most effective situation is brought about when the two maids arrive at the same hour at the supposed trysting-place in Tuttle Fields. They each awkwardly offer an awkward explanation for their presence there, but each sturdily refuses to leave the field; and
in this humour, they sat them down, and sometimes they stalkt round about the field, till at last the watch met with them, who, contrary to Gillian’s mind, took pains to bring them home together. At what time they gave one another such privie flouts that the watchmen took no little delight to hear it.

The upshot of it all is that the desirable Richard marries neither, whereupon Meg indulges in a soliloquy reminiscent of Falstaff:
“Wherefore is griefe good?” asks the disappointed maid. “Can it recall folly past? No. Can it help a matter remediless? No. What then? Can grief make unkind men courteous? No. Then wherefore should I grieve? Nay, seeing it is so, hang sorrow! I will never care for them that care not for me.”

http://www.bartleby.com/213/1625.html#txt37

 

[rynner2]

What Joseph Campbell Didn't Tell You: From 18th Century England's Long Meg ...

It was their misfortune at St. James's Corner to meet with two thieves who were waiting there for them and took an hundred marks from Willis the Carrier, and from the two wenches their gowns and purses. — Meg came up immediately after, and then the thieves, seeing her also in a female habit, thought to take her purse also; but she behaved herself so well that they began to give ground. Then said Meg, Our gowns and purses against your hundred marks; win all and wear all Content, quoth they. — Now, lasses, pray for me, said Meg — With that she buckled with these two knaves, beat one and so hurt the other, that they entreated her to spare their lives — I will, said she, upon conditions. — Upon any condition, said they — Then, said she, it shall be thus :

That you never hurt a woman, nor any company she is in.
That you never hurt lame or impotent men.
That you never hurt any Children or innocents.
That you rob no carrier of his money.
That you rob no manner of poor or distressed.

Are you content with these conditions? We are, said they. I have no book about me, said she, but will you swear on my smock tail? which they accordingly did, and then she returned the wenches their gowns and purses, and old Father Willis the Carrier an hundred marks.

The men desiring to know who it was had so lustily be-swinged them, said, To alleviate our sorrow pray tell us your name? She smiling, replied, If any one asks you who banged your bones, say Long Meg of Westminster once met with you.

. . . .
The Wars in France being over, Meg came to Westminister, and married a soldier, who, hearing of her exploits, took her into a room and making her strip to her petticoat, took one staff, and gave her another, saying, As he had heard of her manhood, he was determined to try her — But Meg held down her head, whereupon he gave her three or four blows, and she in submission fell down upon her knees desiring him to pardon her — For, said she, whatever I do to others, it behoves me to be obedient to you; and it shall never be said, If I cudgel a knave that injures me, Long Meg is her husband's master; and there use me as you please — So they grew friends, and never quarrelled after.

http://www.pseudopodium.org/ht-20000613.html

(This is fun! )

 

[rynner2]

Indeed, the poet who included in his epic [Beowolf] the fiery dragon story, which links the hero Beowulf with Sigurd and Siegfried, appears to be doubtful about the mother monster's greatness, as if dealing with unfamiliar material, for he says: "The terror (caused by Grendel's mother) was less by just so much as woman's strength, woman's war terror, is (measured) by fighting men". 1 Yet, in the narrative which follows the Amazon is proved to be the stronger monster of the two. Traces of the mother monster survive in English folklore, especially in the traditions about the mythical "Long Meg of Westminster", referred to by Ben Jonson in his masque of the "Fortunate Isles":


Westminster Meg,
With her long leg, p. 156
As long as a crane;
And feet like a plane,
With a pair of heels
As broad as two wheels.

Meg has various graves. One is supposed to be marked by a huge stone in the south side of the cloisters of Westminster Abbey; it probably marks the trench in which some plague victims--regarded, perhaps, as victims of Meg--were interred. Meg was also reputed to have been petrified, like certain Greek and Irish giants and giantesses. At Little Salkeld, near Penrith, a stone circle is referred to as "Long Meg and her Daughters". Like "Long Tom", the famous giant, "Mons Meg" gave her name to big guns in early times, all hags and giants having been famous in floating folk tales as throwers of granite boulders, balls of hard clay, quoits, and other gigantic missiles.

The stories about Grendel's mother and Long Meg are similar to those still repeated in the Scottish Highlands. These contrast sharply with characteristic Germanic legends, in which the giant is greater than the giantess, and the dragon is a male, like Fafner, who is slain by Sigurd, and Regin whom Siegfried overcomes. It is probable, therefore, that the British stories of female monsters who were more powerful than their husbands and sons, are of Neolithic and Iberian origin--immemorial relics of the intellectual life of the western branch of the Mediterranean race.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/mba/mba13.htm

 

[rynner2]

From Prize-fighting to Pugilism
The Indigenous Martial Arts of Britain (1630-1730)
By Louie Pastore : March 2004

...................

In August 1725 Figg and a woman called Long Meg of Westminster fought Ned Sutton and an unnamed woman; Figg and Meg won the prize of £40.

http://www.martialartsplanet.com/magazine/styles/pugilism.htm

 

[rynner2]

Contesting Cultural Norms: Cross-Dressing

Hic Mulier and Haec-Vir (both 1620) combine the hoary genres of attacks on and defenses of women with satire on contemporary fashion, specifically the fad of female cross-dressing, adopted, it seems, not only by such legendary lower-class "roaring girls" as the notorious Long Meg of Westminster and Moll Cutpurse, but even noblewomen and citizens' wives. King James himself denounced the fad, unleashing a barrage of denunciation from the pulpit, as a contemporary, John Chamberlain, reported to his friend Dudley Carleton on January 25, 1620: "Yesterday the Bishop of London called together all his Clergy about this town, and told them he had express commandment from the King to will them to inveigh vehemently and bitterly in their sermons against the insolency of our women, and their wearing of broad-brimmed hats, pointed doublets, their hair cut short or shorn, and some of them stilletos or poinards. >> note 1 * * * The truth is the world is very far out of order." The anxious reaction of James, the Bishop of London, and Chamberlain testifies that this cross-dressing was seen as a challenge to gender hierarchy, insinuating that clothes and custom (not intrinsic nature) make the man or woman, and that women might assume masculine roles and privileges as easily as doublet and sword.

Hic Mulier participates in this denunciation; the title combines the Latin male personal pronoun with the noun for woman. The answering tract, Haec-Vir, combines the Latin female personal pronoun with the noun for man; it may be by a woman but most likely was not (the publisher may even have commissioned it from the same writer to keep the controversy going). It wittily answers the attack in part by emphasizing the distinctly feminized styles male courtiers were wearing at the time, and with some allusion to the sexual ambivalences introduced by the established practice throughout the Elizabethan period and earlier seventeenth century of male actors playing female roles on the English stage. All the women's parts in the plays of Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Webster (NAEL 1.970, 1026, 1432) were played by men.

http://www.wwnorton.com/nto/17century/topic_1/mulier.htm

I think that's enough to be going on with - Google still offers me another 200 or so hits on Long Meg of Westminster! 8)

 

[55_degrees_north]

Thanks rynner, I think you've given me the definitive history on Long Meg!

I must admit I tend to get a bit Google-blind when doing my own searches. There is such a thing as too many choices.