BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Pickering Book Tree - ECPv6.18.2//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://www.pickeringbooktree.co.uk
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Pickering Book Tree
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Europe/London
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20250330T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20251026T010000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20260329T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20261025T010000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20270328T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20271031T010000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260622T130000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260622T140000
DTSTAMP:20260512T202655Z
CREATED:20260512T202655Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260512T202655Z
UID:10000051-1782133200-1782136800@www.pickeringbooktree.co.uk
SUMMARY:Midsummer Festival: Amy Jeffs
DESCRIPTION:Saints\nSt.Peter and St. Paul’s Church | Doors from 12.30pm | Tickets £5\nJoin us for an event steeped in mythological history with author\, medieval culture historian and artist\, Amy Jeffs. Hear about the history and legends of Saints featured in Amy’s book of the same name\, in the setting of St. Peter and St. Paul’s Church where we’ll be surrounded by the famous and rarely preserved medieval wall paintings depicting these stories. \nAmy will be in conversation with Alex from Pickering Book Tree\, whose background is also in medieval history. It’s set to be a fascinating discussion about Amy’s retellings of the legends and the histories behind them in her book Saints\, which is thoroughly researched\, thoughtfully compiled and beautifully illustrated with her own black paper cut-outs. On Amy’s website\, she says of her work: “All my books are based on primary research. I care about faithfully and rigorously drawing readers into the sources I work with: historical manuscripts\, literature\, music and art. All my books are invitations to discussion\, close-looking and wonder\, rooted in real places and lives. My illustrations are made at home\, with wood\, Lino\, ink and paper.” \nThe Tablet\, who chose Saints as their Book of the Year\, described it as “a book of remarkable beauty\, mystery and originality“ and that “the legends are beautifully told and illustrated . . . The writer’s approach is both imaginative and scholarly”. \n  \nAbout the Book\nA rewarding and beguiling collection of legends that are little known\, a wide-ranging introduction to medieval saints’ lives — The Literary Review \nFrom the Sunday Times bestselling author of Storyland and Wild\, comes a sweeping new legendary of miracles\, magic\, human frailty and heroic strength. Illustrated with over thirty original paper cutouts by the author. \nSaints’ legends suffused medieval European culture. Their heroes’ suffering and wonder-working shaped landscapes\, rituals and folk beliefs. Their tales spoke of men raised by wolves\, women communing with flocks of birds and severed heads calling from between bristling paws. \nIn Saints\, Amy Jeffs retells legends born of the medieval cult of saints. She draws on ‘official’ lives\, vernacular romances\, artworks and obscene poetry\, all spanning from the fourth to the sixteenth centuries. The legends’ heroes originate from as far east as Turkey and North Africa and as far west as Britain and Ireland. Saints includes such enduring super saints as Brigid\, George\, Patrick and Michael\, as well as some whose legends are less well known (Scoithín\, Euphrosyne and Ia) or else couched in prejudice (William of Norwich). \nThe commentaries following the stories offer a history of each saint and\, together\, trace the rise and fall of the medieval cult of saints from the first martyrs to the Protestant Reformation. And all this maps onto the passing year: from St Mungo in January to St Thomas Becket in December. \nJeffs guides her readers from images high on the walls of medieval churches\, through surviving treasures of the elite and into the shifting silt of the Thames\, where lie the lowly image-bearing badges once treasured by pilgrims. She opens manuscripts that hold wondrous stories of the lives and deaths of wayfaring monks\, oak-felling missionaries and mighty martyrs. With tales of demons and dragons\, with the stubborn skull of a giant\, with stories of sleepers in a concealed Greek cave\, Saints will enchant and transport readers to other worlds. \nWonderful . . . Each lifestory is a gem . . . It’s beautifully written\, evocative\, informative\, compulsive reading — Scottish Field Magazine \n  \nAbout the Author\nAmy Jeffs writes and illustrates her critically acclaimed books from her home in Somerset. Her work engages with Britain’s medieval and early modern storytelling cultures. She has a PhD in Art History from Corpus Christi College\, Cambridge. \nHer work combines a love of nature and natural history with her academic training as a medievalist and art historian. She takes part in podcasts\, Youtube shows and television documentaries and travels widely to speak about medieval and early modern cultures and how they can open our eyes to Britain’s heritage and oldest recorded stories. \nJeffs’ first book\, Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain\, was a Sunday Times bestseller\, shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year and named a Times Historical Fiction Book of the Year. Her second book\, Wild: Tales from Early Medieval Britain\, explores an old idea of the wilderness through medieval stories of outcasts\, monsters and the natural world. The audiobook\, illustrated with song\, was named audiobook of the week by the Times and the Guardian. \nSaints: Legends of Heroes\, Humans and Magic is her third book\, and this was followed by Old Songs: Stories of Love and Death from Traditional Ballads in 2025. \n  \nTickets\n£5 from the shop counter (currently cash only) or online at ticketsource.com\n  \nDirect link to booking page here\nThe event will be held in the beautiful setting of St. Peter and St. Paul’s Church in Pickering\, which is a perfect venue for this event with its incredible Medieval wall paintings. \n£2 from each ticket will be donated towards the Church to help with maintenance and the ongoing restoration project. \nDoors will be open from 12.30pm for a 1pm start.
URL:https://www.pickeringbooktree.co.uk/event/amy-jeffs/
LOCATION:St. Peter and St. Paul’s Church\, Hallgarth\, Pickering\, YO18 7BE\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Folklore & Mythology,In Conversation With,Meet the Author,Meet the Illustrator,Non Fiction,Pickering Midsummer Festival,Social History,Storytelling
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/webp:https://www.pickeringbooktree.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Amy-Jeffs-webp.webp
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260621T190000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260621T210000
DTSTAMP:20260426T183750Z
CREATED:20260422T154016Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260426T183750Z
UID:10000045-1782068400-1782075600@www.pickeringbooktree.co.uk
SUMMARY:Midsummer Festival: Old Songs
DESCRIPTION:Stories Told Through Music\, Words and Art\nPickering Book Tree | Doors from 6.30pm | Tickets £15\n \nAs the Summer Solstice twilight nears\, we welcome you to the Book Tree to travel into a selection of Britain’s folktales through a stunning artistic collaboration.  \nOld Songs is based on the book of the same name\, written by Amy and illustrated by Gwen. Natalie will lead the trio in performing beautiful renditions of the traditional ballads featured in the book\, while animated versions of Gwen’s illustrations will be projected onto a screen to accompany the songs. Giving deeper context to the stories\, Amy will share readings and historical insights throughout the evening. \n  \nOld Songs\nAn astonishing collaboration of words and images that immerses readers in a magical folkloric world . . . These remarkable stories dice with the dangers around us and within us\, and they challenge us to emerge triumphant — Juno Magazine \nOld Songs fuses short stories\, histories\, lyrics and illustrations in an enthralling reimagining of traditional folk ballads. Sunday Times Bestselling historian Amy Jeffs and Illustrator Gwen Burns combine forces to create a rich compendium\, singing of travel\, mystery\, magic and the essential urges of humanity. \nFeaturing iterations of fairy tales and sinister descendants of Greek myths and bible stories\, as well as a cast of lesser-known characters with names like Tam Lim\, Child Wynd and Maisery\, Old Songs threads a tapestry of Britain’s landscape\, history and cultures. At the base of hills we can visit to this day\, elf queens kidnap hapless poets and carry them through rivers of blood; and at the foot of a tree whose offspring still stand in the forests of Northumberland\, a girl mimes combing the hairless head of a dragon who was once her brother. \nIn spellbinding tales of brown-skinned girls who danced on their lovers’ graves\, of golden-masted ships captained by the Devil\, of fiddles that cried “Murder!”\, of men kidnapped by fairies and boys married at fourteen\, we find narrative motifs as ancient as humanity itself. \nIn the histories interconnecting the stories\, we find the fantastical rooted in the everyday\, bringing to light the real experiences of great swathes of people to whom such story-songs were not only familiar\, but a way of escaping into the extraordinary and returning gratefully home. Bringing enchantment to familiar landscapes\, ballads were created anew by each singer and passed down from fireside to fireside\, at the knees of childhood nurses\, in manuscripts and in early printed pamphlets. Now\, ten stories are gathered here\, beautifully recreated for modern readers. \nThe stories absorb you instantly . . . A treat for those captivated by the medieval\, grisly and historic — The Northern Echo \n  \nTickets\n£15 from the shop counter (currently cash only) or online at ticketsource.com\n  \nDirect link to booking page here\n \nDoors will be open from 6.30pm for a 7pm start. The event will be held in our atmospheric upstairs event space.
URL:https://www.pickeringbooktree.co.uk/event/old-songs/
LOCATION:Pickering Book Tree\, 43a Market Place\, Pickering\, YO18 7AE
CATEGORIES:Folk,Live Music,Meet the Author,Meet the Illustrator,Pickering Midsummer Festival,Social History,Storytelling
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/webp:https://www.pickeringbooktree.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Soft-Lap-webp.webp
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260425T190000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260425T220000
DTSTAMP:20260302T205109Z
CREATED:20260302T205109Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260302T205109Z
UID:10000030-1777143600-1777154400@www.pickeringbooktree.co.uk
SUMMARY:Three Acres and a Cow
DESCRIPTION:The history lesson I’ve always wanted. Thank you for a very entertaining/life changing evening. I’ll be looking at the land and listening to folk songs in a very different way — Emily \nA history of land rights and protest in folk song and story\, the show connects the Norman Conquest and Peasants’ Revolt with current issues like the housing crisis\, reparations\, climate breakdown and food sovereignty via the Enclosures\, English Civil War and Industrial Revolution\, drawing a compelling narrative through the radical people’s history of England in folk song\, stories and poems. \nPart TED talk\, part history lecture\, part folk club sing-a-long\, part storytelling session… Come and share in these tales as they have been shared for generations. \nVisit the Three Acres and a Cow website for more information about the group and the show\, and check their Frequently Asked Questions page for answers to any specific enquiries. \nThe event will be held in the Memorial Hall\, Pickering\, which is fully accessible. \nDoors 6.30pm with the show starting promptly at 7.00pm. We will finish around 9.45pm with one interval. \nI think about this show all the time. It has totally changed the way I think about colonialism\, direct action and English nationalism. Thinking about it today\, four years after seeing the show\, it’s clear it was a life changing event for me — Monique \n  \nTickets\nStandard seated tickets are £16.50\n(supported and pay it forward options also available) \nBook online at threeacresandacow.co.uk\n(direct link to the Pickering event here)
URL:https://www.pickeringbooktree.co.uk/event/three-acres-and-a-cow/
LOCATION:Pickering Memorial Hall\, Potter Hill\, Pickering\, YO18 8AA
CATEGORIES:Community Event,Folk,Live Music,Social History,Storytelling
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/webp:https://www.pickeringbooktree.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Three-Acres-and-a-Cow-webp.webp
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR