Spinning Straw Into Gold: Fairy Tale Contest

My submission..

She’d been warned against the sky

eating her like dust
in summer - but when the ladder fell,
offering her up to where
devils wait: sooty black, round-bodied,
chuckling to hide the sun.
Magdalene’s seven and more;
singing the mist, she climbed.

They promise too much, dancing
‘round her. Dry-lipped smiles
shifting in half-light.
She can shake her head,
but cannot fly;
just wander the mist,
frighten the babes with half
sobs and devil’s songs; ‘til finding-
hidden, the holy leaf, she takes
three in her teeth - to blow
the devils back up and fall
into daylight.

Mythos: The Discussion

Mr Pond is right in calling me out for a tendency to absorb a variety of myths, blending them to create my own, personal mythos. I do this on a regular basis, we all do. Part of the nature of living myth is a certain fluidity, an ability to stretch and absorb similar surrounding myths. Does this mean we can make belief into a sample-platter of accepted and rejected beliefs? Not at all, mythology is still, as Mr. Pond so nicely put it, something which "grabs us round the throat and tells us the way the world is." Mythology's ability to alter, absorb, grow, and change is precisely why it can survive in a world that has, for the most part, turned it's back on the mysteries of daily life. Modern mythology may not feel as exciting, as fascinatingly other to us as the mythologies of old, but it does live and grow strong in our modern imaginations, woven in with the myths of old that have lasting power. All this blending is not the result of conscious picking and choosing on the part of the individual, but the of the individual being grabbed again and again by myths which meet each other, blend, and create a complete, living mythos.

This week, Jenna continues our slow, spiraling discussion, bringing our definitions gradually into sharper focus. Mythos is like mythology, only more so. She refers to it primarily as "the overarching story or stories that define and shape a culture." I like this definition - it defines, but with breathing room.  Here and now we are not a unified culture, and the stories that define and shape us vary wildly. What stories define and shape our cultures? What stories unify? I know that when I meet someone who knows my stories: the dangers lurking in the dark, the mysteries we play with, the reasons we bless our home, leave some vegetables in the garden, and keep at least one apple on the tree, I greet him as a long-lost friend - we share the same stories, dream the same dreams.

Jenna is right, our mythoi give us depth, they give meaning even to the lattes and long workdays, they give hope for the future and a sense of belonging in the present, without which we would all drown in the shallow things.

Collecting Dreams

"God said to Abraham 'kill me a son.'
Abe said 'man you must be puttin me on.'
God said 'no.' Abe said 'what?'
God said 'you can do what you want Abe but
next time you see me coming you better run.'"
   ~Bob Dylan

                     Continuing the discussion with Jenna St. Hilaire and Mr. Pond

Myths can be difficult to collect and to study. But to understand them we must collect, we must study, and we must immerse ourselves in the ever changing relationship between myth and culture. Because when a myth is living, it is in constant flux, and even within a culture, the relationship to the mythology is varied - Jenna rightly describes our own culture as "an enormous sampler platter both for use and study, not only of belief systems but of exaggerated tales" in which we search for things to believe in, and for fresh ways to experience what we do believe in.

Jenna writes that she loves fantasy fiction because it allows her to "take a night off" from the polarizing aspect of living mythology, from religious, social, and political conflicts and immerse herself in a comforting  mythology, one that lives, but that may not be so polarizing. Right now, as the discussions around me because increasingly full of conflict, it is refreshing to take refuge in soothing mythologies, both real and fictitious. I'm fortunate that my home is full of both - it's easy to feel healed in the mythology of living when surrounded by candle-light, reading about Long Meg and Her Daughters, standing stones which no man man can count, while coyotes howl in the night. My own collection of myths is full of tales of Christ coming hidden in the night, of saints who hide among the birches to keep the evil out, of feasts, and fasts, and reasons to avoid mirrors at night. Like Jenna's retreat into fiction, my mythology strengthens me, allowing me to resurface calmer, stronger, and kinder than I could be alone.

Understanding mythology is like collecting dreams, something is always left out, forgotten or misplaced. The essence of myth is not something that can be studied, it can only be experienced. The stories and characters can be written down, studied, and known, but the essence is elusive, like a half-remembered dream.

Imaginative Reality

Jenna and Mr. Pond are very patient with me. Yesterday I really should have gotten into town and written my post, but Matka is still up, the sun was out for a few hours, and Yarrow has been driving more than she'd like. Life is altogether a little more social than I'm used to and it takes it's toll on my writing, my mood, and apparently, my health - today I'm down with a wretched cold, and feel a bit guilty sitting in a corner of my least favorite cafe in town. Sorry for the delay!

“Scattering a thousand graces,

He passed through these groves in haste,
and looking upon them as He went,
left them, by His grace alone,
clothed in beauty.”
   ~St. John of the Cross

I highly recommend Jenna's post from Monday, which gives not only my favorite definition of myth, but a few of her thoughts about it, which are interesting and insightful. This week we're writing on myth in general, and since I can't add anything really to Jenna's defintion, I'll just add my own thoughts. Myth is too often assumed to be just classical mythology, primitive stories, and pagan beliefs. But the definition: "a traditional story, ..typically involving supernatural beings or events" is broad and includes many stories that we take for granted today. Christ is a mythological figure, as is St. Francis, and my daughter's patron, Paraskeva, who comes to stick the negectful mother with knitting needles, or spin the wool of the overburndened housewife. They are traditional stories, and the events fall within the realm of the supernatural, but the people themselves are real and living, and the stories continue to have meaning to those who know them, as do the smaller myths: the apple-tree man who keeps the last of the season's harvest for himself, the fern-flower that blooms among the faires once a year, and the belief that the surprise guest on Christmas Eve is Christ in disguise. Little myths, big Myth, weave in with reality as we know it to make the rich tapestry of reality, full of half-hidden truths and beautiful mistakes.

Magic Beauty

This week's discussion, on Beauty in fairy stories, is to kick of a new direction of discussion, from beauty to myth. I'm excited for the change. I suggested today's topic, as Jenna reminded me in her post, and the topic is an important one to me, but I'm having trouble writing on it. I'm interested in reading Mr. Pond's response, because this is apparently his passion. Write away Mr. Pond!

Fairy stories, folk tales, myths, and superstitions all meld together in my mind. The all belong essentially to a life that is more connected to the land and to the people around us; a life that sees the spiritual aspect of living things. The beauty in fairy tales is this worldview, the realization that anything is possible. It is a beauty that is thrilling, frightening, and joyful. Tales of changelings, of dark creatures that make nights in the woods dangerous, of river haunts who drown the unwary and unbaptized make the forests come alive in imagination, as do the joyful tales, of Eden returning at midnight Christmas Eve - when animals speak, flowers bloom, and lights fill the trees, of the apple-tree-man guarding the orchard, the domovoi guarding the home and sweeping up at night.

Fairy stories demand beauty from us as well - the domovoi will guard the house against it's owners if they offend his aesthetic. He will beat the lazy homeowner, pinch the inhospitable housewife, even dry up the cows if an ill-favored animal is brought it.  The fairy world loathes the unbeautiful - the brutal, frightening, and dangerous they have in abundance, but the unbeautiful they reject; which is one reason I love them, they remind us that failing in beauty has it's consequences.