The Battle in Literature and Folklore
Many people are familiar with William Shakespeare's melodramatic version of events in Henry VI, Part 3, notably the murder of Edmund of Rutland, although Edmund is depicted as a small child, and following his unnecessary slaughter by Clifford, Margaret torments his father, York, before murdering him also. In fact, York was killed during the battle, and Rutland, at seventeen, was more than old enough to be an active participant in the fighting. Margaret was almost certainly still in Scotland at the time.
The battle is said by some to be the source for the mnemonic for remembering the traditional colours of the rainbow, Richard of York Gave Battle In Vain, and also the mocking nursery rhyme, The Grand Old Duke of York although this much more likely refers to the eighteenth century duke, son of George III.
"Dickie's Meadow", a well-known Northern expression, possibly refers to Sandals Meadow where the battle of Wakefield took place and where Richard met his end. The common view held that Richard was ill-advised to fight here. The expression is usually used to warn against risky action. ("If you do that you'll end up in Dickie's Meadow".) It is a moot point how early the expression arose, and whether through folk memory or local history.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Wakefield
Famous quotes containing the words battle, literature and/or folklore:
“That civilisation may not sink,
Its great battle lost,”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“But it is fit that the Past should be dark; though the darkness is not so much a quality of the past as of tradition. It is not a distance of time, but a distance of relation, which makes thus dusky its memorials. What is near to the heart of this generation is fair and bright still. Greece lies outspread fair and sunshiny in floods of light, for there is the sun and daylight in her literature and art. Homer does not allow us to forget that the sun shone,—nor Phidias, nor the Parthenon.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“So, too, if, to our surprise, we should meet one of these morons whose remarks are so conspicuous a part of the folklore of the world of the radio—remarks made without using either the tongue or the brain, spouted much like the spoutings of small whales—we should recognize him as below the level of nature but not as below the level of the imagination.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)