Gertrude Agnew

Biography of socialite Gertrude Vernon, Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, who gained prestige and notoriety from her portrait by artist John Singer Sargent.

The Day Dream

Oil painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, which he considered to among the best of his work.

Mandrake

One of 2500 species of plants belonging to the Solanaceae family. Its psychoactive effects have been known to physicians since ancient times.

Cailleach

Ancient Celtic hag goddess who in her various guises shaped the land, controlled the forces of nature, and was responsible for the harsh nature of winter.

Athenodoros and the ghost

Athenenodorus (c. 74 BCE – 7 AD) was a Stoic philosopher and the subject of the first recorded ghost story.

White poppy

The white poppy was introduced in 1933 by the British Women’s Cooperative Guild as a pacifist alternative to the Royal British Legion’s annual red poppy appeal.

Galehaut

Perhaps the most overlooked of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table, who makes his appearance in the series of anonymous 13th-century French romances known as the Lancelot-Grail, or the Vulgate Cycle, in which he is portrayed as a rival to Queen Guinevere for the love of Sir Lancelot.

Geillis Duncan, witch

Young Scottish maidservant suspected of witchcraft by her employer in November 1590. After being tortured, the initial testimony she gave led to the start of the North Berwick witch trials.

Dorothy Levitt

First British woman racing driver and a women’s world land speed record holder. In 1905 she also established the record for the longest drive by a lady driver when she drove a De Dion-Bouton from London to Liverpool and back over two days.