Friday, January 04, 2008

Families who grow in trees!

Over the last few months my Mum has been doing some family tree building. For the last month, she has been concentrating on my Dad's Dad's side of the family.

This picture is of (L-R) Johnny, Annie and Rosie. Johnny (or John Tolmie) is my great, great grandfather. The resemblance between him and my bro, Gaz, is remarkable. His father was John Nicholas Tresidder, and he was a surgeon in the esteemed Indian Medical Services in the 1840's-70's.

My Mum found the picture in a collection on this website that holds the 'Tressider Album'. It makes me wonder if the website has spelled the name wrong, or is the name changed from Tressider to Tresidder at some other point.

The family history is interesting. My Granddad's mother was involved in a suicide pact, only she survived and her husband (her 2nd husband that is) died. If it hadn't have been for a newspaper report about it, she would not have seen my Granddad (who she nicknamed 'Squibs') after a ten year gap. I don't know what the reason for the separation was.

Well, enough family history for now. Principessa had a strange turn last night just before she went to sleep. She started talking about 'a man' and then she became really freaked out. This is what she was saying.

"The man is coming. The man is sleeping. He dreams lots of dreams. The man is coming. I don't want the man to come, I don't wan the man to come. He is a nasty man."

So, to help her calm down and go to sleep, I had to make a protection spell for her. By this time she was very worried and crying, hugging right up next to me and holding on as tight as she could. Here is the poem (or spell! * denotes the change from her name).


*Principessa's protection spell.


Nasty man,
Prepare thyself!
My spell is harmful
To your health.
In children's sleep
You cause them harm,
You haunt their dreams,
You steal their calm.
It's time for you
To sleep the sleep.
You shall not make
My baby weep.
My love for *her
Is pure and true.
Be gone! Cruel man,
Away with you!

© A. Tresidder 2008


At least it helped her to sleep. Poor babes!

1 comment:

Skippy said...

awww bless thats so sweet.
I love family tree things. My dads family have three different spellings of one of their surnames (on a female side) so he's not sure which it should be hehehe!