The story of the Brent Pelham dragon and some old recipes in Hertfordshire archives formed the basis of a family learning event held at Kings Langley Library, North Watford Library and Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies during the Family Learning Festival.
Flying dragons
Children and accompanying adults joined together to make a selection of flying dragons with an assortment of heads and tails. Following on from this year’s Summer Reading Challenge, some of the children managed to recreate dragons and monsters from the Dragon’s Quest books.
Chopped worms and crushed snails
The recipes from the archives include a cough cure which contained chopped worms and crushed snails. Touch and feel boxes containing lavender, cloves, snail shells and (cooked spaghetti) worms produced some horrified gasps.
Quill pens
Some of the children discovered the challenges of writing with a quill pen. Despite a few false starts and blots, they wrote out their own made-up spells, quite a few of which involved turning various members of the family into frogs or snails – or making them disappear altogether!
Ghost trail
At Hertfordshire Archives, participants had the additional challenge of a ‘ghost trail’, where they had to find out about ghostly Hertfordshire happenings by finding clues hidden around the library.
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