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Scarecrows

Scarecrows have returned to the fields and gardens of Britain where they are resuming their traditional task of keeping wild birds away from newly-sown seeds and crops.

Farmers, smallholders and gardeners are ever ingenious in their creation of these 'tattiebogles' and 'hodmadods'. Gregory Holyoake has encountered and recorded a whole host of colourful and sometimes macabre 'characters' on his travels with camera and notebook throughout the land.

This absorbing account of the origin and history of these strange but beguiling 'figures in the landscape', traces their part in art and literature from works by Shakespeare, Dickens and Agatha Christie to the adventures of Rupert Bear, Peter Rabbit and James Bond. We are reminded of Worzel Gummidge and the Wizard of Oz whose fame spread round the world through film and television.

Today, scarecrow festivals are gaining in popularity and scarecrow-making has become a folk art practised by amateur and professional alike to the delight of both visitors and local inhabitants.

 

 

 

 

 

Scarecrows, Gregory Holyoake

ISBN/Cat.No: 978 090629 0835
Publisher: Unicorn Press
Published: 30/11/2006
Pages:
255

Price: £14.95

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