Wildman, Monster, Messenger - Museum of the Home

Part of What the Folk? Fest from Saturday 13 – Sunday 21 June 2026.

From wild beast stalking the fringes of the moorland wastes in medieval poetry, to 20th-century versions that invite us to consider our relationship with the natural world in the post-industrial age.

In this talk, writer and cultural historian Mary Wellesley will take you on a whistle-stop tour of the Woodwose in art and literature. Using heraldry, manuscripts, sculpture, pottery, prints, paintings and poetry she will ask what the Woodwose meant for people in different times and places and what relevance this wild man of the woods might have for us today.

Image: Wodewose surrounded by dogs from the Queen Mary Psalter, England, c. 1310–1320. Royal MS 2 B VII, f. 173r

About Dr Mary Wellesley

Dr Mary Wellesley is a Fellow of the Institute of Historical Research and an Associate Member of the English Faculty at the University of Oxford. A writer and historian with wide-ranging interests, her primary research is on medieval and early-modern material histories and untold stories.

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