Joan was forced to enter a nunnery by her parents. In 1318, she faked her own death and ran away to live a life of ‘carnal lust’ in Beverley. We’ve all been there.

Further Reading:
The Northern Way Research Project: https://thenorthernway151149306.wordpress.com/joan-of-leeds-her-own-story/

In c.1340, a professional scribe of Shropshire copied down a fun fireside tale. Three women are off on a pilgrimage. On the road, one of them finds ‘a great huge penis, draped about with just its muzzle peeking out’ from behind a hawthorn bush. This episode considers a variety of stories of wandering genitalia, and the problems with picking up a disembodied penis off the road.

Little is known about the medieval Welsh poet Gwerful Mechain, but she wrote some absolute bangers, including ‘Cywydd y cedor’, or, to non-Welsh speakers, ‘Poem to the vagina’. In the opening, she says that men have written some great praise poetry about women, but they are incomplete, because they don’t include detailed praise of genitalia. She then gives us a further thirty lines dedicated to WAP.

Further Reading:
Katie Gramich, The Works of Gwerful Mechain (Peterborough, ON, 2018)

Grassy Blackheath Park – just north of Greenwich Park – is also the location of a voodoo exorcism in the 2004 cult horror “London Voodoo”.