Rosalie Gilbert

I am loving the Portland Frog and friends so much and well, I made a meme medieval-style to celebrate. If you aren't up to date with the story, the short version is that when armed American troops were sent into Portland, USA (yes, against their own fellow Americans!) to quell the supposedly war-torn area (which isn't at all war-y and not the least bit torn) they were greeted by a man in an inflatable frog costume dancing at their troop lines. They pepper sprayed into his breathing vent.

It highlights the absurdity of the entire situation. I love it.

The media has had a field day with it, much great artwork produced of the frog facing the troops, great froggy slogans abound and, much to my delight, more inflatable frogs, unicorns and others have joined in, dancing and peacefully protesting the unwanted and unneeded presence of the armed troops.

I hear frog costumes are sold out everywhere and that we can expect to see them at the No Kings marches on the 18th, and I'm hoping it's true. 

We see these rarely- a daggued hood worn by a lady! The first one shows a women of a certain standard of wealth with her wimple, fashionable plaits, tippets and decorated hood. There are a couple of other images from the same manuscript of women wearing this kind of hood, but since I was talking to a friend about it yesterday, here it is! Bohun Psalter, England. 14th century, held at the British Museum.



There's another from Romance of Alexander, I think, but they aren't the common thing for women to wear. I don't know why, when we see hundreds and hundreds of women in hoods in manuscripts and paintings alongside daggued ones being worn by men. It's very rare.

Honestly, I don't know. Perhaps women felt they were a bit gaudy? (unlikely, based on other fashions like tippets and hanging sleeves and horned headdresses) Perhaps it was a male fashion? Perhaps it was seen as unnecessary vanity, although it's not condemned in sermons like other complaints about women's clothing. For the life of me, I can't think of a reason why women would not have wholeheartedly embraced them, but they are uncommon, even in the same manuscripts which show men wearing them. It's a mystery to me.