Procession by Lisa

I didn’t see it happen the first time. We had just moved here, and I’d gotten the flu, possibly from spending every day after school exploring the woods behind our house, no matter what my mother told me. It’d been a damp year, but I’d only lived in the city before this. Everything else seemed new.

I don’t usually get sick, but it hit me particularly hard that year. I’ve never felt so deathly ill and weak in my entire life. I could hardly move without wanting to throw up, but then, I could hardly move anyhow.

I didn’t see it that year, but I sure heard it. The most haunting, glorious music I’d ever heard. It was high and clear and beautiful. I wasn’t sure if it was a voice or some sort of instrument—all I knew was that I wanted it. The music seemed to crawl inside me and attach to the innermost parts of me. Despite my weakness, everything inside of me wanted to find the source of that music and bury myself inside it. Instead, all I managed to do was fall out of bed.

Thursday Myths & Legends 101: Brownies

If you were ever a Girl Scout (or even if you weren’t) you probably know that Brownies are small little people-like creatures that show up in the middle of the night and finished off chores and tidied up houses.  As usual, though, there’s a bit more to it than that.

Brownies go by a few names depending on the who and the where, from Scottish to Scottish Gaelic, to Slavic or German, but what is fairly agreed to among all is that brownies are a type of hob (like hobgoblin) or in plainer language, house spirits.  It’s said that once upon a time, every house had its own brownie, living in some unused or unknown part of the house, and while brownies are for the most part fairly reclusive and even sometimes lazy creatures, if a family respects and understands the brownie’s humors (not the joke type of humor, the way-of-being type of humor), brownies will step up and do menial tasks very quickly—and sometimes will even appear to people, though usually you had to have the “second sight” to be able to see them.

Brownies could not accept “payment” or bribery of any sort for the work they did, however.  If payment of any kind was made, then the brownie had to leave forever, never to return.  Where it gets a little bit gray, however, is that traditionally the household was meant to make offerings or sacrifices to the brownies—a show of gratitude, if you will, by way of returning kindness.  So long as it was strictly not considered payment.  If you failed to do this, the brownie would either stop helping, or possibly turn to mischief against you.  Because of this, milk would often be sprinkled in the corners of houses for the brownie’s use, or offerings of food were left out.  Many homes had a  “brownie stane” or stone, which was basically a stone with a hole bored into it, where they would pour offerings of wort, the liquid that ferments into beer.   Also, in many Scottish homes a seat would be left open by the fireplace for the brownie.

Brownies are also associated with water.  It’s said that while they didn’t communicate with people, they were known to enjoy each others’ company quite a lot, and would often have celebrations and revelries near brooks, where their voices would mix and be hidden by the babble of the water, and it’s speculated that perhaps the brownies were originally or related to water sprites, but I guess we’ll never know for sure.

Thursday Myths & Legends 101: Puck

Probably if you had to read A Midsummer Night’s Dream in high school, you know a little bit about who Puck is.  Puck was originally a pagan trickster, and he’s been recycled in legend and fantasy as many times (and in as many forms!) as you can imagine.  Because of this it’s not entirely sure where exactly he originated, be it German or Celtic origins.

Quite often, Puck is a character that will do good deeds and housework in exchange for a bowl of sweet milk—but if you get on his bad side or insult him, then all his work is undone in a moment, possibly leaving you worse off than when you started!

Usually Puck is a sort of sprite or fairy who belongs to the forest, and of course he’s also often seen as a servant and intermediary for Oberon, king of the fairies.  Occasionally, though, he’s shown as a satyr, with the legs of a goat, as a sort of reflection of the god Pan.

Originally it was bad luck to say Puck’s name, as in the saying “speak of the Devil and he shall appear,” which is why he’s also called Robin Goodfellow—when he goes by Robin Goodfellow he seems to be a little more generous to mere humans!  Interestingly, though, he’s also called “hobgoblin”—not exactly what that term brings to your mind nowadays, is it?  And traditionally he laughs with a “ho, ho, ho,” like Santa Claus!  Lots of little crossovers in mythology with our Puck here.

Shakespeare’s Puck is perhaps the one we’re most familiar with today, and his own description of himself (to Titania, who recognizes him) tells you a bit more of his devious ways:

Thou speak’st aright;
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon and make him smile
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob
And on her wither’d dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And ‘tailor’ cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there. (Act ii., Scene i.)

Puck’s mischief is always done under the moonlight.  According to “The Mad Merry Pranks of Robin Goodfellow,” attributed to Ben Jonson, he’d also sometimes douse lights in order to sneak kisses from women, or sometimes steal their sheets!

In 1906, Rudyard Kipling of Jungle Book fame (among other things, of course!) wrote Puck of Pook’s Hill, where Puck was the oldest thing in England, the last of the “hill people,” or fairies, and that’s a fairly fitting thing to call him, as Puck does continually seem to show up in popular culture. We’re not quite done with Puck as a culture figure, even now.

If you want to check out Robin Goodfellow, definitely read A Midsummer’s Night Dream, if you haven’t, or at least watch the movie!  If Shakespeare’s not your thing, though, Puck also makes appearances in Neil Gaiman’s comic, The Sandman.