I <3 kelpies
Oct. 7th, 2003 03:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
egypturnashSo Sunday, to calm down and take me outside of myself, I went to the bookstore. I went to the mythology section and browsed. I was thinking of getting the Norse myth book ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eselgeist has been working through - it was on the shelves, and is, indeed, pretty cool - but I ended up with The Fairies in Tradition and Literature, one of Katharine Briggs' books on fairies, and on total impulse, The Raid, a very enthusiastically un-bowdlerized retelling of The Táin, a major Gaelic epic about, um, cattle-rustling.
I haven't read the latter, aside from the initial skimming in the bookstore that prompted me to buy it; instead I've been inhaling the Briggs. She's a fairly major authority on the creatures, it seems; the book that had pointed me to her noted that most of the text of the Brian Froud/Alan Lee book Faeries, my first real introduction to the weird nastiness of the Good Folk, is lifted directly from one of her books. There's lots of analysis of themes and recurring images in this, with the occasional capsule synopsis or fragmentary quote.
This capsule synopsis is one of the most beautiful things I've read in a long time:
One story commonly told [of Kelpies, evil water-dwelling horses] was of seven little girls who were out walking on a Sunday, and saw a pretty little horse grazing near the lochside. One after another they got on its back, which gradually lengthened itself so that there was room for them all. A little boy who was with them noticed this, and refused to join them. The horse turned its head, and suddenly yelled out, "Come on, little scabby-head, get up too!" The boy ran for his life, and hid among the boulders where the thing could not get at him. When it saw this it turned aside and dashed into the loch, with the seven little girls on its back.
And nothing of them but their entrails ever came to land.
The "scabby-head" line is great, but I laughed out loud at the last line. It's just so perfect. It's a beautifully elliptical way of saying "the Kelpie gobbled them all up". How did anyone know it was their entrails?
I might stop reading the Briggs soon, in favor of The Raid; she's stopped talking about themes in the stories and the various creatures, and moved on to the 'in literature' part, which is much less wonderfully feral.
It's funny: I remember reading something Bruce Sterling said once. That he doesn't read science fiction much any more, that he reads all kinds of weird research, because he needs to to be able to write SF. Reading mythology is kind of like basic research for fantasy; it gives you a head full of the older, unsafe versions of themes that're done to death, and ways to spin off in completely weird directions - I never knew until Sunday afternoon, for instance, that faeries can be interpreted not only as magical Other People, but also as fallen angels too nice to be demons, and as the dead. Yes, the dead. A damn long way from Tinkerbell.
eselgeist has been working through - it was on the shelves, and is, indeed, pretty cool - but I ended up with The Fairies in Tradition and Literature, one of Katharine Briggs' books on fairies, and on total impulse, The Raid, a very enthusiastically un-bowdlerized retelling of The Táin, a major Gaelic epic about, um, cattle-rustling.I haven't read the latter, aside from the initial skimming in the bookstore that prompted me to buy it; instead I've been inhaling the Briggs. She's a fairly major authority on the creatures, it seems; the book that had pointed me to her noted that most of the text of the Brian Froud/Alan Lee book Faeries, my first real introduction to the weird nastiness of the Good Folk, is lifted directly from one of her books. There's lots of analysis of themes and recurring images in this, with the occasional capsule synopsis or fragmentary quote.
This capsule synopsis is one of the most beautiful things I've read in a long time:
One story commonly told [of Kelpies, evil water-dwelling horses] was of seven little girls who were out walking on a Sunday, and saw a pretty little horse grazing near the lochside. One after another they got on its back, which gradually lengthened itself so that there was room for them all. A little boy who was with them noticed this, and refused to join them. The horse turned its head, and suddenly yelled out, "Come on, little scabby-head, get up too!" The boy ran for his life, and hid among the boulders where the thing could not get at him. When it saw this it turned aside and dashed into the loch, with the seven little girls on its back.
And nothing of them but their entrails ever came to land.
The "scabby-head" line is great, but I laughed out loud at the last line. It's just so perfect. It's a beautifully elliptical way of saying "the Kelpie gobbled them all up". How did anyone know it was their entrails?
I might stop reading the Briggs soon, in favor of The Raid; she's stopped talking about themes in the stories and the various creatures, and moved on to the 'in literature' part, which is much less wonderfully feral.
It's funny: I remember reading something Bruce Sterling said once. That he doesn't read science fiction much any more, that he reads all kinds of weird research, because he needs to to be able to write SF. Reading mythology is kind of like basic research for fantasy; it gives you a head full of the older, unsafe versions of themes that're done to death, and ways to spin off in completely weird directions - I never knew until Sunday afternoon, for instance, that faeries can be interpreted not only as magical Other People, but also as fallen angels too nice to be demons, and as the dead. Yes, the dead. A damn long way from Tinkerbell.
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Date: 2003-10-07 03:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-07 05:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-07 06:51 am (UTC)Another variation is that the kelpie kidnaps women to live in his home and cook for him; the warm parts of the lochs in Scotland is his chimney. =)
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Date: 2003-10-07 05:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-07 05:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-07 07:26 am (UTC)That was one of the reasons I hated Changeling, even though overall I loved the game. Here we have the Fey, supposedly the most dangerous and powerful of the abandonded races, the kinda people that make winter go away, bring winter early to stay, steal babies, bestow curses, make bargins that both boon families, and sends them cursed right away....
And they are possibly the most pathetic weaky and really sappy RPG that White Wolf has ever done?
Obviously they didn't do their Fairy Lore. :') Still a fun game, though.
And remember, if you ever inherit a family herloom that they say is blessed by fairies, whatever you do, don't disrespect it. Very, very bad Karma. I'll see if I can refind my research information and post the story... In my journal, of course.
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Date: 2003-10-07 08:13 am (UTC)me want
Yes, the dead under the hills :D
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Date: 2003-10-07 08:21 am (UTC)All good mommies label their children's entrails - it's in the handbook.
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Date: 2003-10-07 09:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-07 09:19 am (UTC)"Unsafe versions" - I suddenly remembered an old Japanese tale I read where a man marries a woman, who makes him swear not to look in some secret box or other. Familiar stuff, yes. And of course, he does look, wherupon she turns back into the spirit that she is, and vanishes. But she returns later with two brimming buckets, which she plunks down in front of him before disappearing again: "Here - you can have this back now!" It's his semen.
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Date: 2003-10-07 11:33 am (UTC)Still as fresh as the moment it was first squirted into her, I would assume. So that he slowly figures out what it is as it congeals in front of him. Wow. That's insane and wonderful.
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Date: 2003-10-07 01:15 pm (UTC)I confess that the first thing I thought of as I read that was an old family legend about one of my Scots ancestors and his method of preparing oatmeal using a kitchen drawer.
Augh. I am going to go and find a bottle brush and clean my head out.
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Date: 2003-10-07 09:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-07 02:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-07 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-08 08:46 am (UTC)