Creative History

 In pubs and in farmer’s fields throughout the south of England in the late Summer and throughout the Fall of 1678 parchment broadsides, hastily folded paper pamphlets, were passed furtively from hand to hand.  These pamphlets were read in secret by everyone who could read at all during hastily snatched moments of respite from back-breaking labor, or they were read aloud from town squares for all to hear and for the benefit of the multitudes, many of whom were all but illiterate. During this unique moment in the late 17th century--at the birth of what would become the forerunner to print media--the story of the so-called “Mowing Devil” was going viral across all of England. The pamphlet which caused such a stir was entitled The Mowing Devil: Or,  Strange News Out of Hart-fordshire.  It was only five pages long in total and, even today, no one is certain whether any part of The Mowing Devil was true, or even intended to be true at all, but this small pamphlet certai...