So here, for our third card, the clue related to the fact that the name of Middlesex comes to us by way of its early name, the Province of the Middle Saxons - or Middle Seaxe - which was presumably abbreviated to Middle-Sax. And they lived in the middle of the Saxon territory, in an area which is roughly the area of what our original Middlesex covered, plus a bit of Surrey, and maybe some Kent, though that was more likely occupied by the East Saxons, from where we get East-Sax or Essex. And yes, we do get Sussex from South-Sax.
This fine lady belies the fact that the original Saxons were Pagan and only moved to Christianity quite late. However some of you may indeed connect the first line of the text, about them being expert dyers, with Paganism, for it was heavily into the natural world and would have known all about plants and their medicinal and decorative uses, and it is very likely that the frequent depiction of "witches round a cooking pot" actually referred to the process involved in the dying of cloth.
The World Tobacco Issues Indexes describes this set, quite sparingly, as :
BRITISH COSTUMES.
Size
a) small
b) large
Nd. (25)
As far as I can tell the only difference between the sizes is that there is more background visible, for the large version of our card shows more of the roadway and a hedge. You can see a set of the large cards on the JSCards website .
This set was issued at an interesting time for Carreras, for they were in the process of relocating from the cramped Arcadia Works in City Road and moving north west to a purpose built Egyptian-Art-Deco styled factory in Mornington Crescent, which opened in 1928.
The cards are obviously art drawn, but I do not know who by, and sadly the planned Carreras and Boguslavsky reference book was never actually completed. But if there is a Carreras Connoisseur out there, and you know this, or anything else about the set, just email us at webmaster@card-world.co.uk