Mythmaking

The Shichifukujin, or Seven Lucky Gods

2007-09-05T13:03:00.001+01:00

My best friend, with whom I drank and laughed away my teenage years, moved to Japan a few years ago and is currently experiencing a run of rather bad luck in the land of the rising sun. In my quest to find a remedy for his misfortune I discovered the Shichifukujin, seven gods who control different aspects of happiness. These comical characters have been popular since the Edo period when the monk

The Elves and the Shoemaker

2007-08-17T11:09:00.003+01:00

Having just returned from a fantastic family holiday, I thought I'd ease myself back into blogging with a cheerful fairy tale. This is The Elves and the Shoemaker, a story I treasured as a youngster in the form of a Ladybird 'Read It Yourself' edition. The only notable difference between the Ladybird version of the story and that of the Grimm brothers' is that the Ladybird elves weren't naked!"

Holiday

2007-08-07T12:09:00.000+01:00

I'm off on holiday with the family for the next week. Normal service will resume shortly.See you all soon :)

Perseus

2007-08-02T15:26:00.003+01:00

Perseus is a mythological figure I hold especially dear due to my childhood obsession with Clash of the Titans, the film that first sparked my interest in mythology. With the arrival of August, it seems appropriate to devote some time to him as this is the month in which the spectacular Perseid meteor shower can be seen, peaking this year on the twelfth of August if you're lucky enough to live in

Forgotten Gods

2007-07-28T13:35:00.000+01:00

H.L. Mencken's Memorial Service is perhaps not as relevant in the present day as it would have been in 1921, considering the current popularity of Neo-Paganism, but the sentiment of it appeals to me greatly."Where is the grave-yard of dead gods? What lingering mourner waters their mounds? There was a day when Jupiter was the king of the gods, and any man who doubted his puissance was ipso facto a

Ladybirds

2007-07-25T15:44:00.001+01:00

This lady-fly I take from off the grass,Whose spotted back might scarlet red surpass.Fly, lady-bird, north, south, or east, or west,Fly where the man is found that I love best.- John Gay (1685 – 1732)Despite the fact that, when I was younger, spiders could force me out of a room for hours and black beetles made my skin crawl, I never had such a problem with ladybirds. My Mum's house was

The Juniper Tree

2007-07-23T02:18:00.001+01:00

This story was like car-crash TV for me when I was young, in that it absolutely horrified me but I couldn't stop reading it! As fairy tales go, this is certainly one of the most gruesome around, unsurprisingly conjured from the imagination of the Grimm brothers. I don't think it helps that there seems to be no specific moral to the story, other than 'watch out for moody step-mothers', perhaps."It

The Cailleach

2007-07-20T15:16:00.000+01:00

In Wonder Tales from Scottish Myth and Legend, Donald Alexander McKenzie hails the Cailleach as the mother of all the gods and goddesses in Scotland and Scottish folktale collector J.G MacKay refers to her as the most tremendous figure in Gaelic myth today. Despite the fact that her name can be found throughout Scotland in folklore, customs, ancient monuments and the natural landscape, the

Magpies

2007-07-18T18:30:00.001+01:00

It's a rare occurrence for me to look onto my garden and not see at least one magpie. Like other members of the Corvidae family, the magpie appears frequently in folklore and is surrounded by much superstition. Groups of magpies have long been used to foretell the future, albeit rather broadly. One variation of the ubiquitous rhyme states: One for sorrow, two for joy,three for a girl, four for a

Why the Sea is Salt

2007-07-16T22:04:00.001+01:00

Originating from a Norweigan fairy tale, Why the Sea is Salt was one of my most favourite stories when I was young. Unfortunately I no longer own the anthology in which it was featured. I'm hoping to find that book again, one of these days."Once upon a time, long long ago, there were two brothers; one rich and the other poor. When Christmas Eve came the poor brother had not so much as a crumb in

Friday the 13th

2007-07-14T04:48:00.000+01:00

When I began researching the origins of possibly the most reviled day in the modern calendar, I was confident that I would be spending a few hours reading and writing about the Knights Templar, the original Christian Soldiers recently thrown into the limelight by Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. As it turned out, however, it was quite the opposite.Whilst Fridays and the number thirteen have been marked