St. Clement's Day Many legends surround Saint Clement, some suggest he was the first man to refine iron from ore, and to shoe a horse. Clementine customs may be survivals of earlier pagan rituals, a confusion of Saint Clement with the early Saxon Wayland, or Wayland the smith, a mythical metalworker. He shares this feast day, which marks the beginning of winter, with the saint. In Charles Dickens’s "Great Expectations" Miss Havisham insists Pip sing for her and her ward Estella, and Pip responds with a ditty from Joe’s forge ‘that imitated the measure of beating upon iron’: ‘... hammer boys round -
Dickens in America us that Dickens got a few facts wrong. Most of the factory girls did not have a piano or use the public libraries. Miriam attends a Dickens barbeque, led by Bob Googins, Adjunct Professor at the University of Connecticut. Miriam entertains the picnickers with a bit of Sairey Gamp. Bob teaches a course titled, “Dickens and the Law.” He explains how he tries to teach that Dickens used the novel as an instrument of social change. Bob also informs Miriam about the “Rule of 50,” which explains what happens in the case of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce. Miriam visits the Supreme