Alan, Lord of the rings
QUESTION Was there a special significance to the ring worn by actor Alan Ladd in his Western films?
IN the Forties, Alan Ladd was hollywood’s golden boy — a big box-office draw with his dashing good looks.
his big break had come in the 1942 film this Gun For hire, in which he played the hitman Philip Raven — a role he redefined as a cold, dispassionate killer, rather than the stock character of a blundering goon.
Stylish detective films — including 1946 noir classic the Blue Dahlia, co-starring sultry Veronica Lake — followed.
he then became a star of Westerns with his stand-out role as the romantic drifter in 1953’s Shane. he was also famous for playing all-American war heroes.
the story of the ring began in 1942, when the star married his agent, former actress Sue Carol. he swore he would never remove the chain-link wedding band she had placed on his finger.
After the honeymoon, when he turned up at Paramount studios for his next movie, the director told him he would have to remove the ring.
‘Forget it,’ said Ladd. ‘the ring stays on my finger.’
there was an impasse until a prop man came up with the idea of making a clamplike, Indian head ring to fit over Ladd’s wedding band. Ladd had a variety of these clamps made (circled), at the expense of the studios, to hide his wedded status when playing a single man on-screen.
Keen-eyed fans of his movies noticed he wore rings relevant to the roles he was playing in Westerns and war movies.
In his final film, 1964’s the Carpetbaggers, in which he played Nevada Smith, Ladd wore the original Indian head ring.
Bob Jones, Plymouth, Devon.
QUESTION What is the difference between a classical violin and a fiddle?
ONe answer is: when you are buying one, it’s a fiddle; when you are selling one, it’s a violin. Or there’s the definition: it’s a fiddle if you spill beer on it and it improves the sound.
More pertinent is another joke response: a violin sings, but a fiddle dances. this is because there is no intrinsic difference between the two instruments — only in the style of music being played and the instrument’s set-up.
Fiddles are used to play traditional, free-form genres, such as bluegrass, folk, Celtic and klezmer (traditional Jewish wedding music). It is learnt primarily by ear; fiddling involves internalising a melody and allows for freedom in choosing how to present the tune.
Meanwhile, violins are used to perform composition- based genres, such as classical and jazz, where scores tend to be followed closely.
In addition, fiddlers are more likely to use steel strings than a violin’s traditional catgut (a type of cord made from a fibre found in the walls of animal intestines). this is in part due to tone, but also because they are more hard-wearing.
In general, fiddlers tend to have the strings set closer to the fingerboard than classical violinists. though this results in a lower volume and less string tension, it makes it easier to play for long periods.
Fiddlers are also more likely to set up their instrument with alternative or open tunings, to create original sounds.
there is a close link between the etymology of the two words. Violin is a 16th- century word derived from the Italian violino, which means small viola. Fiddle is a 14th-century word from the Old english fithele. Both may be derived from the Latin vitularia, meaning to celebrate a festival or be joyful, and perhaps from Vitula, the name of the Roman goddess of joy and victory.
Jerry Billingham, Hereford.
QUESTION Is Britain crisscrossed with corpse roads? Should these be recognised as public rights of way?
CORPSe roads refer to an ad hoc network of paths that sprang up across Britain in medieval times.
One of the primary means parish churches had of maintaining control over outlying settlements was to insist on burials in consecrated graveyards. When funeral processions had to go crosscountry, these routes took on great folkloric significance.
Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream suggests their spiritual
significance when Puck says: ‘Now it is the time of night, That the graves all gaping wide, Every one lets forth his sprite, In the church-way paths to glide.’
As late as the early 20th century it was still believed that if a coffin passed over private land, the path it took automatically became a public right of way.
this has never been the case and there are no laws or by-laws to suggest this, though a number of the more remote examples did become footpaths.
Routes can be identified on historical maps by names such as bier road, burial road, coffin road, coffin line, lyke or lych way, funeral road and procession way. Fields with names such as Church-way or Kirk-way Field may be another clue as to their whereabouts.
Many of these corpse roads covered long and difficult terrain. In the superstitious medieval era, no one wanted a dead body carried through their settlements, so the roads crossed windswept hills and overgrown pastures.
their remoteness was also the key to their survival. In the Lake District, the Funeral Way runs from Rydal to Ambleside, while the Old Corpse Road connects Swindale head with Mardale, and another links Wasdale and eskdale.
Corpse roads survived because it was considered bad luck to plough them and to deviate from the route, even if you had to wade through running water.
eventually, many disappeared as increasing numbers of churches were built and granted their own burial rights.
Peter Mackintosh, Kendal, Cumbria.
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