tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/folklore-6563/articles
Folklore – The Conversation
2024-01-17T13:06:07Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219122
2024-01-17T13:06:07Z
2024-01-17T13:06:07Z
3D scanning: we recreated a sacred South African site in a way that captures its spirit
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563302/original/file-20231204-19-z5jfbg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A 3D rendering of Ga-Mohana Hill in South Africa, a sacred and important heritage site.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen Wessels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>These days, if you want to visit remarkable archaeological sites such as <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/364/">Great Zimbabwe</a> or <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/326/">Petra</a> in Jordan you don’t even need to leave your house. </p>
<p>3D scanning technology has improved in leaps and bounds in the last two decades and become much more affordable. This has led to numerous archaeological and heritage sites appearing on online interactive 3D platforms such as <a href="https://sketchfab.com">Sketchfab</a>. Unlike still images and videos, 3D models offer enhanced interaction, enabling users to navigate and perceive a place from various perspectives. </p>
<p>But while technology has raced ahead, there is a noticeable lag in the establishment of best practice guidelines within the field.</p>
<p>We are a multidisciplinary team made up of a geomatician, an architect, and two archaeologists. In <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11759-022-09460-3">a recent article</a> we examined the implications of current scanning technology and sought to answer the question: can people avoid repeating the mistakes of the past when digitising cultural locations? </p>
<p>One criticism of current 3D models of archaeological sites is that they are devoid of human traces and history. The pursuit of objectivity in scientific endeavours is the norm. But, in using 3D technology – making decisions about site boundaries, what is cleaned from the model, and the chosen level of detail – a subjective filter is introduced. The omission of human usage and cultural traces renders these representations static and sterile. This inadvertently strips sites of the very culture they aim to preserve.</p>
<p>In our research we sought to offer an alternative approach: one which aligns with indigenous archaeology, where indigenous knowledge and scientific methods are blended. To do so, we undertook a case study by <a href="https://rockartportal.org/Ga-Mohana.html">digitising a site</a> in South Africa that is of profound cultural and spiritual importance to many who live in that area. The results highlighted that, with considered approaches, researchers can help keep the vibrant culture of meaningful places alive even when they’re brought into the digital world. </p>
<h2>A place with potency</h2>
<p>Ga-Mohana Hill is situated close to a small town called Kuruman in a semi-arid region in the north of South Africa. We chose the site as our case study because of its rich cultural and archaeological significance. It has two significant rock shelters, Ga-Mohana Hill North Rockshelter, facing north-west, and Ga-Mohana Hill South Rockshelter, facing south-east, which are located at opposite sides of the hill. </p>
<p>The south rockshelter preserves rock art and archaeological traces from the Later Stone Age. In the north shelter, archaeologists have <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-eggshells-and-a-hoard-of-crystals-reveal-early-human-innovation-and-ritual-in-the-kalahari-154191">recovered material</a> dating to 105,000 years ago, including ostrich eggshell fragments, stone tools, and a cache of calcite crystals. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-eggshells-and-a-hoard-of-crystals-reveal-early-human-innovation-and-ritual-in-the-kalahari-154191">Ancient eggshells and a hoard of crystals reveal early human innovation and ritual in the Kalahari</a>
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<p>Today Ga-Mohana Hill holds profound cultural significance for the local community. While this cultural heritage endures, its prominence has been diminishing due to various socio-political factors. One of us, Sechaba Maape, grew up in the area, and has actively worked to restore Ga-Mohana as a meaningful place from a cultural perspective. <a href="https://www.thesitemagazine.com/read/drawing-creepy-places">Reflecting on his youth</a>, he recounts tales of Noga ya Metsi, the Great Snake, residing in the rockshelters and engaging in abductions and supernatural activities that unsettled the community. </p>
<p>These narratives contributed to the places acquiring a frightening reputation. Interestingly, the secrecy surrounding the locations dissuades many in the community from visiting them, though the sites have been used for various initiation rituals. And, today, the landscapes at Ga-Mohana Hill are used by church groups and other community members for spiritual communion and prayer sessions. Traditional healers and <a href="https://theworkshopkokasi.co.za/">tourists</a> also visit Ga-Mohana.</p>
<p>These multiple uses and its rich archaeological heritage mean that Ga-Mohana is a place of deep meaning and can be considered a living heritage site. We therefore wanted to create an online, interactive 3D digital replica that represented its multiple uses. Ultimately, our aim was to manifest the potency that this place holds within the 3D model, rather than merely representing its archaeological and scientific value.</p>
<h2>A new approach to 3D models</h2>
<p>Our approach was to focus on three elements. First, the agency – the ability to act upon people to give and receive meaning – that this place holds. Second, the proximity the 3D model gives to the physical site and to past and present people and their cultures and, third, the multivocal nature of the site – that is, telling the different stories of this place so all relevant voices can be heard.</p>
<p>To achieve this, we conducted a 3D scan of Ga-Mohana Hill and its shelters by acquiring photogrammetric images by drone and hand-held cameras. The images were processed to produce an optimised 3D model suitable for web-based applications. The <a href="https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/ga-mohana-hill-and-rock-shelters-f260e92d749045a1b4896a30f96a09a5">3D model</a> was then augmented with a number of visual devices, along with customised text in the form of rotating signboards. </p>
<p>The Great Snake is represented as a moving shadow on the shelter wall. Candles were placed in the 3D version of the shelter to symbolise the site’s ongoing religious aspects. </p>
<p>To represent the archaeology, a number of artefacts that were excavated were 3D scanned and then digitally placed into the 3D model to show where they were found, thus in a sense returning them to their original context. Other visual devices include a hearth, flowing tufas (ancient waterfalls), enhanced rock art and animated engravings. All the visual devices were designed to be moving to animate the place and show its vitality.</p>
<p>We also created <a href="https://rockartportal.org/Ga-Mohana.html">a website</a> to contextualise and introduce the 3D model and warn people who may not want to visit the model for cultural reasons and because of its ritual potency.</p>
<h2>What we’ve learned</h2>
<p>Based on what we’ve learned from this project, we proposed an approach that prioritises the digitisation of place – with all its meanings and vitality, over space – simply inert geometry – emphasising agency, proximity and multivocality.</p>
<p>A shift is needed from a purely objective approach to 3D documentation, towards representing the space as a meaningful place to a public audience. This involves acknowledging and portraying cultural, social and political contexts. By avoiding the privileging of one voice over others, our aim is to subvert dominant viewpoints and promote inclusivity. </p>
<p>The study also underscores the significance of archaeological visualisation in reshaping perceptions of the past and contributing to the formation of present identities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219122/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benjamin Schoville receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jayne Wilkins receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Griffith University. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sechaba Maape and Stephen Wessels do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
One criticism of current 3D models of archaeological sites is that they are presented devoid of human traces and history.
Stephen Wessels, PhD candidate, University of Cape Town
Benjamin Schoville, Senior Research Fellow, The University of Queensland
Jayne Wilkins, ARC DECRA Research Fellow, Griffith University
Sechaba Maape, Senior Lecturer, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218833
2024-01-04T10:27:36Z
2024-01-04T10:27:36Z
Africans discovered dinosaur fossils long before the term ‘palaeontology’ existed
<p>Credit for discovering the first dinosaur bones usually goes to British gentlemen for their finds between the 17th and 19th centuries in England. <a href="http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/learning/htmls/plot.htm">Robert Plot</a>, an English natural history scholar, was the first of these to <a href="https://www.amnh.org/explore/videos/dinosaurs-and-fossils/who-discovered-the-first-dinosaur-fossils?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share-from-amnh-org">describe</a> a dinosaur bone, in his 1676 book The Natural History of Oxfordshire. Over the next two centuries dinosaur palaeontology would be dominated by numerous British natural scientists. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.lyellcollection.org/doi/10.1144/SP543-2022-236">our study</a> shows that the history of palaeontology can be traced back much further into the past. We present evidence that the first dinosaur bone may have been discovered in Africa as early as 500 years before Plot’s.</p>
<p>We’re a team of scientists who study fossils in South Africa. Peering through the published and unpublished archaeological, historical and palaeontological literature, we discovered that there has been interest in fossils in Africa for as long as there have been people on the continent. </p>
<p>This is not a surprise. Humankind originated in Africa: <em>Homo sapiens</em> has existed for at least <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature22336">300,000 years</a>. And the continent has a great diversity of rock outcrops, such as the Kem Kem beds in Morocco, the Fayum depression in Egypt, the Rift Valley in <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-maasai-legend-behind-ancient-hominin-footprints-in-tanzania-119373">east Africa</a> and the Karoo in southern Africa, containing fossils that have always been accessible to our ancestors. </p>
<p>So it wasn’t just likely that African people discovered fossils first. It was inevitable.</p>
<p>More often than not, the first dinosaur fossils supposedly discovered by scientists were actually brought to their attention by local guides. Examples are the discovery of the gigantic dinosaurs <a href="https://kids.britannica.com/students/article/Jobaria/390687"><em>Jobaria</em></a> by the Tuaregs in Niger and <a href="https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/542624-Giraffatitan"><em>Giraffatitan</em></a> by the Mwera in Tanzania.</p>
<p>Our paper reviews what’s known about African indigenous knowledge of fossils. We list fossils that appear to have long been known at various African sites, and discuss how they might have been used and interpreted by African communities before the science of palaeontology came to be.</p>
<h2>Bolahla rock shelter in Lesotho</h2>
<p>One of the highlights of our paper is the archaeological site of Bolahla, a Later Stone Age rock shelter in Lesotho. Various dating techniques indicate that the site was occupied by the Khoesan and Basotho people from the 12th to 18th centuries (1100 to 1700 AD). The shelter itself is surrounded by hills made of consolidated sediments that were deposited under a harsh Sahara-like desert some 180 million to 200 million years ago, when the first dinosaurs roamed the Earth. </p>
<p>This part of Lesotho is particularly well known for delivering the species <em>Massospondylus carinatus</em>, a 4 to 6 metre, long-necked and small-headed dinosaur. Fossilised bones of <em>Massospondylus</em> are abundant in the area and were already so when the site was occupied by people in the Middle Ages. </p>
<p>In 1990, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3889171">archaeologists</a> working at Bolahla discovered that a finger bone of <em>Massospondylus</em>, a fossil phalanx, had been transported to the cave. There are no fossil skeletons sticking out the walls of the cave, so the only chance that this phalanx ended up there was that someone in the distant past picked it up and carried it to the cave. Perhaps this person did so out of simple curiosity, or to turn it into a pendant or toy, or to use it for traditional healing rituals. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dinosaur-tracksite-in-lesotho-how-a-wrong-turn-led-to-an-exciting-find-208963">Dinosaur tracksite in Lesotho: how a wrong turn led to an exciting find</a>
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<p>After heavy rains, it is not unusual that the people in the area discover the bones of extinct species that have been washed out of their mother-rock. They usually identify them as belonging to a dragon-like monster that devours people or even whole houses. In Lesotho, the Basotho call the monster “Kholumolumo”, while in South Africa’s bordering Eastern Cape province, the Xhosa refer to it as “<a href="https://chosindabazomhlaba.com/2022/03/29/ukufika-kwamacikilishe-angamagongqongqo/">Amagongqongqo</a>”.</p>
<p>The exact date when the phalanx was collected and transported is unfortunately lost to time. Given the current knowledge, it could have been at any time of occupation of the shelter from the 12th to 18th centuries. This leaves open the possibility that this dinosaur bone could have been collected up to 500 years prior to Robert Plot’s find.</p>
<h2>Early knowledge of extinct creatures</h2>
<p>Most people knew about fossils well before the scientific era, for as far back as collective societal memories can go. In Algeria, for example, people referred to some dinosaur footprints as belonging to the legendary “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10420940109380182">Roc bird</a>”. In North America, cave paintings depicting dinosaur footprints were painted by the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10420940109380182">Anasazi people</a> between AD 1000 and 1200. Indigenous Australians identified dinosaur footprints as belonging to a legendary “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10420940109380182">Emu-man</a>”. To the south, the notorious conquistador Hernan Cortes was given the fossil femur of a Mastodon by the <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Fossil_Legends_of_the_First_Americans.html?id=CMsgQQkmFqQC&redir_esc=y">Aztecs</a> in 1519. In Asia, Hindu people refer to ammonites (coiled fossil-sea-shells) as “<a href="https://theconversation.com/shaligrams-the-sacred-fossils-that-have-been-worshipped-by-hindus-and-buddhists-for-over-2-000-years-are-becoming-rarer-because-of-climate-change-209311">Shaligrams</a>” and have been worshipping them for more than 2,000 years. </p>
<h2>Claiming credit</h2>
<p>The fact that people in Africa have long known about fossils is evident from folklore and the archaeological record, but we still have much to learn about it. For instance, unlike the people in Europe, the Americas and Asia, indigenous African palaeontologists seem to have seldom used fossils for traditional medicine. We are still unsure whether this is a genuinely unique cultural trait shared by most African cultures or if it is due to our admittedly still incomplete knowledge. </p>
<p>Also, some rather prominent fossil sites, such as the Moroccan Kem Kem beds and South African Unesco <a href="https://www.maropeng.co.za/content/page/introduction-to-your-visit-to-the-cradle-of-humankind-world-heritage-site">Cradle of Humankind</a> caves, have still not provided robust evidence for indigenous knowledge. This is unfortunate, as fossil-related traditions could help bridge the gap between local communities and palaeontologists, which in turn could contribute <a href="https://theconversation.com/graffiti-threatens-precious-evidence-of-ancient-life-on-south-africas-coast-157777">preserving</a> important heritage sites.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rock-stars-how-a-group-of-scientists-in-south-africa-rescued-a-rare-500kg-chunk-of-human-history-192508">Rock stars: how a group of scientists in South Africa rescued a rare 500kg chunk of human history</a>
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<p>By exploring indigenous palaeontology in Africa, our team is putting together pieces of a forgotten past that gives credit back to local communities. We hope it will inspire a new generation of local palaeoscientists to walk in the footsteps of these first African fossil hunters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218833/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julien Benoit receives funding from the DSI-NRF African Origins Platform program and GENUS (DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences) </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cameron Penn-Clarke receives funding from GENUS (DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Helm does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Some time between 1100 and 1700 AD, a Massospondylus bone was discovered and carried to a rock shelter in Lesotho.
Julien Benoit, Senior Researcher in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the Witwatersrand
Cameron Penn-Clarke, Senior Researcher, University of the Witwatersrand
Charles Helm, Research Associate, African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/217475
2023-11-10T17:27:16Z
2023-11-10T17:27:16Z
Why the search for the Loch Ness monster (and other beasts) continues 90 years after that first blurry photograph
<p>Hugh Gray was taking his usual post-church walk around Loch Ness in Scotland on a November Sunday in 1933. His amble was disrupted when he saw something bobbing above the water two or three feet from him. </p>
<p>He quickly snapped several pictures of what he described to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/08/21/loch-ness-monster-photos-scotland-hugh-gray/">Scottish Daily Record</a> as “an object of considerable dimensions”.</p>
<p>A few months earlier, in April 1933, local hoteliers Aldie Mackay and her husband had described a whale-like beast to the Inverness Courier. Then, in the summer of 1933, a man called George Spicer stated: “I saw the nearest approach to a dragon or prehistoric animal that I have ever seen in my life.” </p>
<p>He described a creature between two and three metres long carrying “a lamb or animal of some kind” for its supper.</p>
<p>Since the first sightings, recorded in the latter half of the <a href="https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/The-Loch-Ness-Monster/">sixth century</a>, the beast was considered a folk tale. However, when Gray captured the bobbing mass with an animal-like tail it was considered the first photographic proof of “Nessy” and inspired a sort of monster mania. </p>
<p>It’s 90 years since this picture and the beginning of the obsession with finding the Loch Ness monster. As a paleobiologist, I want to explore whether the type of monster we believe Nessy to be could exist and if we should continue looking.</p>
<h2>An elaborate hoax?</h2>
<p>There are a lot of fish in the loch, so there is enough food. There is also lots of space. Loch Ness is huge, with a volume of <a href="https://www.wildernessscotland.com/blog/loch-ness-moster/">7.4 billion cubic metres and a depth of 227m</a>. There is a lot of water to hide in, which accounts for more than all the fresh water in all of the lakes of England and Wales.</p>
<p>Our idea of what the Loch Ness monster looks like is founded on an iconic picture taken a year after Gray’s. This image showed a long neck stretching from the black waters. </p>
<p>It is the source of the idea that the Loch Ness monster is a living relic from the time of the dinosaurs, eeking out a lonely existence in the depths. However, this image was not what it claimed to be and was found, decades later, to have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/20/weekinreview/loch-ness-fiction-is-stranger-than-truth.html">an elaborate hoax</a>.</p>
<p>But there is evidence to support the existence of three-metre long beasties that looked a bit like the Loch Ness monster. These reptiles are known as plesiosaurs and they were wiped out in the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195667122001744">Discoveries of plesiosaur fossils</a> suggest they may have lived in freshwater. The fossils included bones and teeth from three-metre long adults and an arm bone from a 1.5 metre-long baby. However, it’s unlikely that the Loch Ness monster is a plesiosaur.</p>
<p>Unfortunately the truth comes down to biology. There might be enough food and enough space in the loch but what there is not enough of is other living Loch Ness-like monsters to make a viable population of animals to support Nessy’s existence.</p>
<h2>So why look for Nessy or other monsters?</h2>
<p>In August this year, Inverness played host to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/21/loch-ness-monster-enthusiasts-gear-up-for-biggest-search-in-50-years">monster hunters</a> scouring the loch with drones equipped with hydrophones and boats pinging sonar, all in the hope of proving the existence of Nessy. They didn’t find anything, which strongly suggests that Loch Ness remains monster-free. </p>
<p>Monster hunting mania is not reserved to the Loch Ness monster alone. The Mokele-mbembe is another a mythical water-dwelling beast that supposedly lives in the Congo River Basin and looks like a dinosaur. Like Nessy, I doubt it exists. </p>
<p>But I’m not a total party-pooper and I think people should continue their searches for seemingly extinct creatures. Take the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/07/science/tasmanian-tiger-sightings.html">thylacine</a>, or Tasmanian wolf, for example. The last Tasmanian wolf was believed to have died in captivity in the 1930s. </p>
<p>However, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969723014948">recent research</a> found that it’s possible the Tasmanian wolf went extinct much later than first thought and maybe hung on until the 2000s. In fact, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/07/science/tasmanian-tiger-sightings.html">researchers</a> report that small groups of thylacines may have survived.</p>
<p>And sometimes animals we thought were extinct did come back to the modern world. The <a href="https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/fish/coelacanth">coelacanth</a> is perhaps the most famous example.</p>
<p>This fish has a very long fossil record, from the Devonian period through to the end of the Cretaceous period. Then they were gone, thought lost in the same event that destroyed the dinosaurs and plesiosaurs. Not one fossil coelacanth has been described from Paleogene period sediments to today.</p>
<p>But in 1938 a single specimen, caught by fishermen, was found in a South African market by ichthyologist (a marine biologist who studies different fish species) <a href="https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/science/leading-figures/marjorie-courtenay-latimer-fossil-fish-coelacanth/">Marjorie Courtney Latimer</a>.</p>
<p>There followed a hunt for the next 20 years to find the population (do read the excellent <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/a-fish-caught-in-time-samantha-weinberg?variant=32117649997858">A Fish Caught in Time</a>) and we now know of two Latimeriid coelacanths in populations <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC23015/">around Indonesia and southern Africa</a>.</p>
<p>The take home message of this is: don’t let anything put you off looking for excitement, or even monsters. You might just find something amazing.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neil J. Gostling does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Is the beastie lurking in the watery depths of Loch Ness?
Neil J. Gostling, Associate Professor in Evolution and Palaeobiology, University of Southampton
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/213103
2023-09-28T14:16:10Z
2023-09-28T14:16:10Z
Akan folklore contains ancient wisdom that could benefit Ghana’s western-style education system
<p>Philosophies of education serve as frameworks for producing lifelong learners and a knowledgeable and skilled human workforce who develop their societies. Ghana’s education system currently favours a western educational philosophy, relegating its indigenous philosophies to the back burner.</p>
<p>I am an <a href="https://www.ug.edu.gh/distance/staff/dr-samuel-amponsah">academic</a> in the field of curriculum studies. In a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11159-023-09993-x">recent paper</a>, I argue that education in Ghana needs to incorporate more elements based on an authentic Ghanaian framework. Based on the view that education, culture and development should be connected, I highlight the educational strengths of African folklore.</p>
<p>I conclude that aspects of Akan folklore, including its stories and proverbs, its kinship rights and rules, its moral codes, its corporate and humanistic perspective, complement the country’s current westernised education.</p>
<p>It is in this spirit that education lecturer <a href="https://www.unisa.ac.za/sites/corporate/default/Colleges/Education/Schools,-departments,-centres-&-instututes/School-of-Educational-Studies/Department-of-Adult-Basic-Education/Staff-members/Prof-KP-Quan%E2%80%93Baffour">Kofi Poku Quan-Baffour</a> has <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/10500/14348">referred to</a> the Akan proverb <em>Tete wobi ka, tete wobi kyere</em>. It means “heritage has lots to say, heritage has lots to teach”. Folklore holds benefits. </p>
<h2>The case for Akan folklore</h2>
<p>Ghana has about <a href="https://cdn.unrisd.org/assets/library/papers/pdf-files/asante-ssmall.pdf">92 ethnic groups</a>. The largest of these is the Akan. They can be found in eight of the <a href="https://mfa.gov.gh/index.php/about-ghana/regions/">16 regions</a> of the country and in parts of <a href="https://resources.saylor.org/wwwresources/archived/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Akan-People.pdf">Côte d'Ivoire</a> and <a href="https://resources.saylor.org/wwwresources/archived/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Akan-People.pdf">Togo</a>. The influence of the Akan in Ghana and west Africa is not just by virtue of their numerical strength but also due to their strong culture and the spirit that binds them. They have been able to maintain their culture throughout the blows of colonial history.</p>
<p>I argue that Akan folklore can be integrated into the school curricula to teach social skills and emotional intelligence. After all, education seeks to provide learners with the knowledge, skills and attitudes that will make them functional and responsible members of their communities. </p>
<p>This tool may also benefit learners in colleges of education and universities offering Ghanaian languages and related courses. The crucial question here is: where is the place of indigenous pedagogy as a tool in nursing and agricultural training colleges, technical universities and the like? </p>
<p>Without indigenous components in their course curricula, students may graduate from such institutions as professionals who have lost their culture. They will not pass on indigenous values in their own teaching practice. </p>
<h2>Not just proverbs and stories</h2>
<p>Researchers such as <a href="https://www.ug.edu.gh/linguistics/staff/diabah">Grace Diabah</a> and <a href="https://www.ug.edu.gh/vc/about">Nana Appiah Amfo</a> have established the power of folklore types like proverbs to <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/gjl/article/view/181293">deal with</a> important topics like gender. Unfortunately, the focus of education has leaned heavily towards <a href="https://theconversation.com/ghanas-colonial-past-and-assessment-use-means-education-prioritises-passing-exams-over-what-students-actually-learn-this-must-change-211957">examination performance</a> and readying learners for the job market. There is no recourse to the rich culture of the people. The absence of indigenous components in course curricula results in a graduate population without any appreciation for cultural identity. </p>
<p>In their study on <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09751122.2015.11890253">integrating indigenous knowledge in the teaching of intermediate mathematics</a>, for example, James Owusu-Mensah and Kofi Poku Quan-Baffour argue that Akan indigenous knowledge systems such as storytelling and games could make subjects easier for learners to relate to and comprehend.</p>
<p>Furthermore, short Akan sayings add spice to the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369549251_Akan_folklore_as_a_philosophical_framework_for_education_in_Ghana">debate</a> that African philosophies can contribute to sustainable quality education for development. Examples such as <em>Kwan nkyɛn ade yɛfɛ, wᴐde sika na ɛyɛ</em>, which roughly translates to “money is needed for everything” and <em>wᴐnsom ԑne nipa</em> (success accrues from collective efforts) undoubtedly take most Ghanaians back to their roots to learn hard, work diligently and live cooperatively.</p>
<p>The urgent need to preserve the environment and its biodiversity also resonates in traditional taboos. These establish rules on days not to farm, hunt or go fishing. This is also done to keep certain flora and fauna sacred and protected. </p>
<h2>Looking ahead</h2>
<p>My research revealed that there is a need to develop and use an alternative indigenous philosophical framework, drawing on Akan folklore. There is a need to display a sense of commonalities, affirm culture, tradition and value systems, and foster comprehension of the local consciousness in a bid to resolve the challenges people are facing. </p>
<p>In a nutshell, while western philosophies open students up to global understandings and perspectives, Akan folklore grounds them in their own culture. Quality education of the kind proposed in this article will produce students and graduates who are beneficial to their societies while understanding, appreciating, cooperating and contributing to global issues and development.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213103/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel Amponsah does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Incorporating Akan folklore in the curriculum will promote quality and lifelong education in Ghana.
Samuel Amponsah, Associate Professor, Open Distance Learning, University of Ghana
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/212028
2023-09-18T14:54:17Z
2023-09-18T14:54:17Z
The secret world of rhododendrons: a plant more ancient than the Himalayas that inspired fables and stories around the world
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544750/original/file-20230825-21-plqoce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C22%2C2987%2C2014&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rhododendrons look pretty but there is so much more to them. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard Milne</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you have a rhododendron in your garden or pass one by on an afternoon walk perhaps you think of it as just a colourful and pretty shrub. You may have heard that they come from the Himalayas, and that they are invasive plants that destroy ecosystems. </p>
<p>Neither of these is quite accurate. Rhododendrons have an ancient legacy older than the Himalayas and a history intertwined with poison, medicine and folklore. </p>
<p>Rhododendrons may be deciduous or evergreen, anything from a tree to a creeping dwarf shrub, with leaves a centimetre to a foot long, and flowers any shade of white, yellow, orange, pink, red or purple. There are around 1000 species in total, and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36087101/">modern DNA-based work </a> confirms that all “azaleas” are in fact species of rhododendron.</p>
<p>Rhododendron fossil pollen is easy to identify, as are rhododendron seeds, and some of these fossils are <a href="https://academic.oup.com/botlinnean/article-abstract/76/3/195/2680538?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false">60 million years old</a>. By contrast, the Himalayas as we know them only began forming 50 million years ago, <a href="https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/staff/najman/Najman%20et%20al%20JGR%202010%20published.pdf">when India collided with Asia</a>. So while around half of all rhododendron species are endemic to the Himalayas (meaning they grow nowhere else), the genus cannot have originated there.</p>
<p>Over 60 million years rhododendrons spread around the northern hemisphere, from boreal woods and high mountains, to tropical rainforests, where many species perch on high branches as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/plant/epiphyte">epiphytes</a> (a plant or plant-like organism that grows on the surface of another plant). They reached North America, Japan, parts of Europe, most of Asia and even Australia. It was native in the British Isles for a while, until the later ice ages drove it out. </p>
<p>But the mountain ranges and plunging valleys of the Himalayas created a <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/16745917.pdf">dizzying diversity of rhododendrons</a> as neighbouring populations were isolated from each other. Tourists flock to see the colourful blooms found there, especially in Yunnan and the Baili areas of China. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RJHxX-ZYzZQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Rhododendron pollen has microscopic tentacles that make it sticky. Pollen shoots out from the stamens like strings from a party popper when triggered by the buzzing of an insect, and drapes itself across the body of the pollinator. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546901/original/file-20230907-4057-gvj0ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Yellow flower with long sticky tendrils of pollen." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546901/original/file-20230907-4057-gvj0ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546901/original/file-20230907-4057-gvj0ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546901/original/file-20230907-4057-gvj0ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546901/original/file-20230907-4057-gvj0ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546901/original/file-20230907-4057-gvj0ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546901/original/file-20230907-4057-gvj0ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546901/original/file-20230907-4057-gvj0ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rhododendron pollen shoots out in strings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard Milne</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Detractors might say rhododendrons are invasive. But that only applies to one species out of over a thousand – the nefarious <em>Rhododendrom ponticum</em>. If left uncontrolled, this particular rhododendron will eventually dominate the habitat to the virtual <a href="https://www.nts.org.uk/stories/problem-rhododendron-ponticum-garden-guide">exclusion of all other plant life</a>. Other species do not have this problem. </p>
<h2>Folklore remedies with risks</h2>
<p>There is also far more to humanity’s relationship with rhododendrons than horticultural beauty, and the never-ending battle against <em>Rhodendrom ponticums</em> in the wetter parts of Britain. Rhododendrons have <a href="https://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/rhododendron">been used to</a> treat everything from colds and diarrhoea through leprosy and STDs, to flagging sex drive and diseases of pigs. Few of these have been tested scientifically. </p>
<p>In Labrador, north-east Canada, infusions of the local rhododendron are commonly drunk. People claim it has many health benefits, but the evidence <a href="https://www.rxlist.com/labrador_tea/supplements.htm">is limited</a>.</p>
<p>But like so many medicinal plants, some rhododendrons are poisonous, and not to be consumed by the unwary. Some species, including the common yellow azalea, <a href="https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/hidden-poison-rhododendron-nectar">contain toxins in their nectar</a>, which can cause sickness and bad “trips” in humans. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513999/original/file-20230307-18-3frmra.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513999/original/file-20230307-18-3frmra.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513999/original/file-20230307-18-3frmra.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513999/original/file-20230307-18-3frmra.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513999/original/file-20230307-18-3frmra.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513999/original/file-20230307-18-3frmra.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513999/original/file-20230307-18-3frmra.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Many people think of plants as nice-looking greens. Essential for clean air, yes, but simple organisms. A step change in research is shaking up the way scientists think about plants: they are far more complex and more like us than you might imagine. This blossoming field of science is too delightful to do it justice in one or two stories.</em>
<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/plant-curious-137238?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=PlantCurious2023&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of a series, Plant Curious</a>, exploring scientific studies that challenge the way you view plantlife.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Cause of ‘mad honey disease’</h2>
<p>Eating raw honey in some places in the world including Turkey can cause <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3404272/">“mad honey disease”</a>. This can happen when bees gather nectar from rhododendron flowers in certain places and times of year. </p>
<p>The symptoms of mad honey disease were first recorded around 400BC by the Greek historian Xenophon. According to legend, during a war in 67BC, an army of 1000 Roman soldiers in Turkey were rendered insensible after consuming the pots of honey locals had left out for them, and consequently were slaughtered by the followers of <a href="https://www.cureus.com/articles/153695-mad-honey-and-the-poisoner-king-a-case-of-mass-grayanotoxin-poisoning-in-the-roman-military#!/">King Mithradates</a>. Much more recently, in some time around 2010, there was a case in Scotland, when a photographer licked two tiny drips of nectar from his <a href="https://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/rhododendron">hand in a botanic garden</a>. Like most victims, he recovered within a few hours.</p>
<p>Rhododendrons are also poisonous to farm animals which will suffer paralysis and slowly die if they eat the leaves, unless given the antidote, <a href="https://botsocscot.wordpress.com/2022/05/22/plant-of-the-week-23rd-may-2022-rhododendron-ponticum/">black tea</a>. </p>
<p>A Chinese story tells of how a herd of cattle became drunk after witnessing the beauty of glorious red rhododendron flowers in the <a href="https://eng.belta.by/fotoreportage/view/baili-dujuan-scenic-area-in-guizhou-province-138404-2021/">Baili scenic area</a>. But the story probably was based on the effect the plants had on cows eating the unfamiliar shrub. Fortunately, animals including sheep can learn not to eat it, as has <a href="https://botsocscot.wordpress.com/2022/05/22/plant-of-the-week-23rd-may-2022-rhododendron-ponticum/">happened in Scotland</a>. </p>
<h2>Botanical fables</h2>
<p>The numbers of rhododendrons in western China is probably why they feature in so many myths and legends. The stories are often tragic. In one story doomed
lovers are transformed into Dujuan birds who fly around crying tears of blood, that <a href="https://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/rhododendron">turn into the plants</a>. Dujuan are cuckoo-like birds which pollinate red rhododendrons, and are strongly linked to them in folklore. </p>
<p>In the Dongba religion of the Naxi people, who live in the Himalayan foothills of the Yunnan province, is dramatic. They believe three huge rhododendrons guard the entrance to the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44167532">world of the dead</a>. They also believe swords and armour made from the plants played key roles in the epic battles that shaped their world. </p>
<p>In the west, rhododendrons have also featured in stories. “Massed red rhododendrons” are repeatedly used to evoke the spirit of the title character in Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 <a href="https://www.bl.uk/works/rebecca">Gothic thriller Rebecca</a>.</p>
<p>So next time you walk past a rhododendron, perhaps you’ll think of them differently.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212028/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Milne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Some rhododendron fossils are 60 million years old, showing they were around before the Himalayas were formed.
Richard Milne, Senior Lecturer in Plant Evolutionary Biology, The University of Edinburgh
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/204751
2023-07-04T20:07:54Z
2023-07-04T20:07:54Z
‘I gave birth but did not bring a child to life’: for millenia, women expressed their pain through a belief in demonic, female monsters
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534238/original/file-20230627-15-7mwt03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C32%2C2643%2C2680&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An incantation bowl with an Aramaic inscription around a demon from Nippur, Mesopotamia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sarah Clegg’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/75367019-woman-s-lore">Woman’s Lore: 4,000 Years of Sirens, Serpents and Succubi</a> is about ancient demonic figures, expressly the infamous child-killing monsters of the Near East and Mediterranean. Intimately tied to childbirth and infant and child mortality, such monsters were female in form. </p>
<p>Often, they were negatively connected to female sexuality. Chronicled over centuries, monsters such as the Mesopotamian <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lamashtu">Lamashtu</a>, the Greek <a href="https://www.theoi.com/Ther/Lamia.html">Lamia</a>, and the Hebrew (and Mesopotamian) <a href="https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lilith">Lilith</a> are, in Clegg’s thesis, a significant part of women’s lore, “a tradition kept alive by women, that tells the story of women’s lives, from 2000 BC to the present day”.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Woman’s Lore: 4,000 Years of Sirens, Serpents and Succubi – Sarah Clegg (Bloomsbury)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Clegg begins with Lamashtu. Born of divine parents but quickly disowned because of her inherently evil nature, Lamashtu was the subject of curses written on clay tablets designed to drive her away from vulnerable mothers and children.</p>
<p>Included in the spells are some spectacularly graphic descriptions of her, such as the excerpt below, which comes from one of the oldest extant incantations (c. 1800 BCE):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>She has hardly any palms but very long fingers <br> </p>
<p>And very long claws.<br></p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529026/original/file-20230530-21-d332p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529026/original/file-20230530-21-d332p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529026/original/file-20230530-21-d332p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529026/original/file-20230530-21-d332p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529026/original/file-20230530-21-d332p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529026/original/file-20230530-21-d332p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529026/original/file-20230530-21-d332p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529026/original/file-20230530-21-d332p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Amulet with a Lamashtu demon ca. early 1st millennium BCE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Met, Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The spell describes her as having the face of a dog, and as slithering along “like a snake”. This physiognomy made Lamashtu perfectly designed to wreak havoc on her intended victims; her long fingers and claws were used to tear at babies’ stomachs to generate infection and to reach into mothers’ wombs and cause premature birth and miscarriage. </p>
<p>Belief in this figure of abjection and fear extended beyond Mesopotamia and there was a robust trade in amulets made of diverse materials, reflecting a belief in Lamashtu across different socio-economic groups. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530004/original/file-20230605-230495-f1rer4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530004/original/file-20230605-230495-f1rer4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530004/original/file-20230605-230495-f1rer4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530004/original/file-20230605-230495-f1rer4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530004/original/file-20230605-230495-f1rer4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530004/original/file-20230605-230495-f1rer4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530004/original/file-20230605-230495-f1rer4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530004/original/file-20230605-230495-f1rer4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A plaque used for protection against Lamashtu. Neo-Assyrian, 10th-7th century BCE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">World History Encyclopedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lamashtu’s body was subject to change, depending on the source. <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/32627001">Clegg includes an amulet</a>, from 800–500 BCE, which depicts her with the head of a lion (a traditionally male symbol in Mesopotamian culture), clutching snakes and suckling animals. </p>
<p>She has bird talons for feet and stands atop a donkey (this donkey, it was hoped, would carry Lamashtu to the Netherworld and away from her victims). </p>
<p>Her embodiment as the antithesis of the archetypal mother is evident in her suckling animals, a dog and a pig, in a parody of the maternal figure who nurtures human babies.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-enheduanna-princess-priestess-and-the-worlds-first-known-author-109185">Hidden women of history: Enheduanna, princess, priestess and the world's first known author</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Beauties and demons</h2>
<p>The ancient Greeks and Romans had their own equivalent to Lamashtu: Lamia, “a direct descendent of the Mesopotamian child-and mother-killing demon” (Clegg notes the etymological connection between the names Lamashtu and Lamia).</p>
<p>Lamia was also a seducer of young men – a skill she managed by concealing her monstrously snaky lower body parts. She also ate babies and children and, like other Mediterranean monsters, such as <a href="https://www.ancientgreecereloaded.com/files/ancient_greece_reloaded_website/legendary_monsters/mormo.php">Mormo</a> and <a href="https://www.theoi.com/Phasma/Empousai.html">Empousa</a>, was a shapeshifter. </p>
<p>Mythologies surrounding the origins of Lamia are redolent with themes of female loss and pain. In one version of how Lamia came into being, Durius of Samos, writing in the third century BCE, explains:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Lamia was a beautiful woman in Libya. Zeus had sex with her. Because of Hera’s envy towards her she destroyed the children she bore. Consequently she became misshapen through grief, snatched other people’s children and killed them.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530003/original/file-20230605-229680-8wjczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530003/original/file-20230605-229680-8wjczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530003/original/file-20230605-229680-8wjczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530003/original/file-20230605-229680-8wjczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530003/original/file-20230605-229680-8wjczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530003/original/file-20230605-229680-8wjczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530003/original/file-20230605-229680-8wjczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530003/original/file-20230605-229680-8wjczk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lamia, oil on canvas by John William Waterhouse, 1909, based on the Keats poem Lamia from 1820.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While other accounts have Lamia as a fearsome and destructive monster from the start, Durius’ story highlights the vulnerability of women as subject to rape and subsequent punishment. Such plot lines are common in Greek and Roman myths, pointing to the casualisation of rape in certain socio-political circumstances. </p>
<p>Clegg’s first two chapters on these creatures examine women’s lore through the monstrous feminine. And, along the way, her book provides a host of related cultural history on magic, ritual, and ghost traditions, offering a series of poignant insights into women’s lives in these ancient societies. An excerpt from an incantation against Lamashtu composed for a woman to recite, reads: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was pregnant, but unable to bring my child to term; I gave birth but did not bring a child to life. May a woman who can grant success release me […] may I have a straightforward pregnancy […]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Herein is the pain of a woman who did not carry her baby to term, the grief of still birth, and the desperation to bear a healthy child. </p>
<p>Such insights into women’s lived experiences are also evident in the category of demons called the Lilitus, whom, Mespotamians believed were “the spirits of young girls who had died still virgins, before marriage and before children”. </p>
<p>Robbed of a future, the Lilitus were forever seeking to fulfil sexual initiation or male contact, driving them to visit sleeping men. These visits were the Mesopotamian aetiology for wet dreams and night discharge. Clegg regards Lilitus as more to be pitied than hated, citing an incantation:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>She [a Lilitu] is a woman who has never seen a city feast, nor ever raises her eyes, who never rejoiced with the other girls, who was snatched away from her spouse, who had no spouse, nor bore a son.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-ovids-metamorphoses-and-reading-rape-65316">Guide to the classics: Ovid's Metamorphoses and reading rape</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Feisty Lilith</h2>
<p>Clegg’s book is divided into nine chapters, each covering a specific culture and demon or selection of demons (with some, such as Lilith, the first wife of Adam in Jewish folklore, occupying several chapters). There is also a useful timeline for readers without detailed knowledge of the chronology and a fascinating epilogue on contemporary remnants of these beliefs. </p>
<p>Judaic Lilith, like her sister-demons, has an aetiology that helps us understand her, albeit with a sense of fear or anxiety. As Clegg discusses, Lilith – as a prototypical feminist of sorts – flees the Garden of Eden when her husband denies her equality (in short: he refuses to let her “on top” during sex). </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529025/original/file-20230530-21-a8jbqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529025/original/file-20230530-21-a8jbqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529025/original/file-20230530-21-a8jbqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529025/original/file-20230530-21-a8jbqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529025/original/file-20230530-21-a8jbqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529025/original/file-20230530-21-a8jbqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529025/original/file-20230530-21-a8jbqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529025/original/file-20230530-21-a8jbqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lady Lilith, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1886.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She wreaks her revenge by hanging outside the walls of Eden, attacking pregnant women and children, and – no surprise – seducing men. </p>
<p>This manifestation of Lilith, its first extant documentation appearing in the <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/alphabet-of-ben-sira">Alphabet of Ben Sira</a> (c. ninth or 10th century CE), intricately associates her with Eve as a kind of oppositional paradigm. While the feisty Lilith refuses to submit to patriarchy, a submissive Eve accepts the order of things. </p>
<p>In the <a href="https://reformjudaism.org/beliefs-practices/spirituality/what-kabbalah">Kabbalistic</a> tradition as it developed in the early modern era (c. 13th century) as illustrated in <a href="http://jewishchristianlit.com/Topics/Lilith/jacob_ha_kohen.html">The Treatise on the Left Emanation</a>, Lilith is permitted to justify her protest:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I cannot return because of what is said in the Torah – ‘Her former husband who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled,’ that is, when he was not the last to sleep with her. And the Great Demon has already slept with me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Herein, Lilith is given a voice and tells us that she did not, in fact, flee but was sent away by Adam. Additionally, once banished, a woman can never return. But, then again, who can trust the words of a demon?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534239/original/file-20230627-17-e69g5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534239/original/file-20230627-17-e69g5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534239/original/file-20230627-17-e69g5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534239/original/file-20230627-17-e69g5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534239/original/file-20230627-17-e69g5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534239/original/file-20230627-17-e69g5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534239/original/file-20230627-17-e69g5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534239/original/file-20230627-17-e69g5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Adam clutches a child in the presence of the child-snatcher Lilith. Fresco by Filippino Lippi, basilica of Santa Maria Novella, Florence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Enduring spells</h2>
<p>Clegg also discusses the ancient Greek demon, <a href="https://www.hellenicaworld.com/Greece/Mythology/en/Gello.html">Gello</a> who is, like the Lilitus, “a jealous ghost who murdered children and young women”. Traditionally associated with old wives’ tales – nursery stories to frighten and thereby control naughty children – Gello was the ghost of a young virgin who had died before fulfilling her social role of wife and mother. As a cultural signifier, Clegg explains:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Gello, then, was a prematurely dead girl causing the premature deaths of other girls; a hideous, warped form of reproduction, whereby instead of having the children she so wanted, Gello turned other hopeful young girls into thwarted, jealous monsters like herself.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530013/original/file-20230605-23-441g2k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530013/original/file-20230605-23-441g2k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530013/original/file-20230605-23-441g2k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530013/original/file-20230605-23-441g2k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530013/original/file-20230605-23-441g2k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530013/original/file-20230605-23-441g2k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530013/original/file-20230605-23-441g2k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530013/original/file-20230605-23-441g2k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1155&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-middle-east/byzantine-empire">Byzantine era</a>, however, scepticism grew as to the existence of such beings. Church law, writes Clegg, insisted that these monsters were “a deception of the devil, and not to be believed”. Nevertheless, Clegg notes, these traditions continued, often among women, who continued to believe in the effectiveness of magic for protection against such forces. </p>
<p>Like the curse tablets designed to drive away Lamashtu and the amulets made to protect individuals from her, there were also <a href="https://thegemara.com/article/naming-demons-the-aramaic-incantation-bowls-and-gittin/">demon (or incantation) bowls</a>, used in Upper Mesopotamia and Syria from the sixth to the eighth centuries CE. These earthenware bowls were inscribed with spells (mostly in Jewish-Aramaic) and magical images, such as crudely drawn pictures of the target of the spell, including Lilith. </p>
<p>They were designed to entice and then trap evil forces, and thus rid the bowl’s owner of danger, especially disease. </p>
<p>While magic was largely practised by men throughout the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean, Clegg includes several examples of women inscribing their own demon bowls.</p>
<p>For example, there is a cache of bowls written by the same woman, Giyonay (otherwise unknown). Giyonay writes one bowl spell to drive Lilith away from her husband and herself and others to protect members of her family. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527754/original/file-20230523-15-7o5vwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527754/original/file-20230523-15-7o5vwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527754/original/file-20230523-15-7o5vwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527754/original/file-20230523-15-7o5vwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527754/original/file-20230523-15-7o5vwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527754/original/file-20230523-15-7o5vwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527754/original/file-20230523-15-7o5vwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demon bowl.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Museum no. BM 135563</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Melusine and contemporary incarnations</h2>
<p>Clegg also examines mermaids, particularly in Medieval traditions, tracking their connections to earlier demons, such as the Lamia who, as Clegg notes, were believed to swim the waters of the Greek islands until the 1980s. </p>
<p>We also meet Melusine, a beautiful, serpentine female from Europe (particularly France, Luxembourg, and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/summary/Low-Countries">Low Countries</a>). Clegg suggests that she is also a successor to Mediterranean and Eastern demons, including Byzantine fantasies of Gello possessing a snake-tail. She is, however, more akin to the fairy or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy">fae</a> creatures of Europe and Britain (which Clegg does concede).</p>
<p>Melusine’s backstory reads like a classic fairy tale, complete with feminine deception and a narrative taboo. Told by <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/miniature-of-an-aristocratic-marriage-from-jean-darrass-roman-de-melusine">Jean d’Arras</a> in <em>Roman de Mélusine</em> (The Story of Melusine) in the 14th century, it chronicles Melusine’s marriage to the mortal, Raymond. Like most marriages between mortals and non-mortals, Melusine and Raymond’s union ends in tears. While the couple are initially happy, their marital bliss ends when Raymond breaks the one taboo that Melusine insists on: not to enter her chambers on a Saturday.</p>
<p>The act, which reveals Melusine in her true form as she enjoys a bath, sets in chain a series of disasters, culminating in Raymond cursing her – at which point she transforms into a dragon and flies away forever. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530006/original/file-20230605-188678-2owrp4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530006/original/file-20230605-188678-2owrp4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530006/original/file-20230605-188678-2owrp4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530006/original/file-20230605-188678-2owrp4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530006/original/file-20230605-188678-2owrp4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530006/original/file-20230605-188678-2owrp4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530006/original/file-20230605-188678-2owrp4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530006/original/file-20230605-188678-2owrp4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Melusine’s secret discovered, illustration from folio 19 of the illuminated manuscript of The Romance of Melusine by Jean d'Arras, 15th century.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While Melusine may be a monster, Clegg points out the positive aspects of her, including the cultural capital she brings to the mortal family tied to her. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A child or a descendent of these fairy marriages was viewed as something to be proud of: a sign of greatness much like being a child or descendent of a god in ancient Greece or Rome. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Additionally, Melusine builds, albeit by magic, some pretty impressive infrastructure for her husband, including – or so the story goes – the very real, <a href="https://www.frenchchateau.net/chateaux-of-poitou-charentes/chateau-de-lusignan.html">Château de Lusignan</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530010/original/file-20230605-27-kpv71o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530010/original/file-20230605-27-kpv71o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530010/original/file-20230605-27-kpv71o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530010/original/file-20230605-27-kpv71o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530010/original/file-20230605-27-kpv71o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530010/original/file-20230605-27-kpv71o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530010/original/file-20230605-27-kpv71o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530010/original/file-20230605-27-kpv71o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Clegg’s final chapters deal with later receptions of these terrifying, seductive, bewitching, destructive and ultimately intriguing female monsters. </p>
<p>In chapter nine the reader meets some of these creatures in contemporary guises. Herein, Lilith dominates. We meet her as a symbol of second wave feminism through to the latest manifestations of the same and also an icon of modern spiritual worship. We read of the origins of the Australian feminist research journal, <a href="http://www.auswhn.org.au/lilith/">Lilith</a>, and the appropriation of the demon by <a href="https://www.octaviabutler.com/">Octavia E. Butler</a> in her <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/LilithsBrood">Lilith’s Brood</a> trilogy.</p>
<p>Clegg also includes a revisioning of the tricksy Melusine, transformed in Serge Ecker’s 2013 statue, erected in Luxembourg for the city’s 1050th anniversary.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530008/original/file-20230605-236601-g6p816.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530008/original/file-20230605-236601-g6p816.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530008/original/file-20230605-236601-g6p816.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530008/original/file-20230605-236601-g6p816.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530008/original/file-20230605-236601-g6p816.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530008/original/file-20230605-236601-g6p816.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530008/original/file-20230605-236601-g6p816.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530008/original/file-20230605-236601-g6p816.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A modern statue of Melusine by Serge Ecker in Luxembourg.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">World History Encyclopedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As Clegg rightly observes, these ancient figures: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>have proven enormously adaptable to women’s causes – symbolizing everything from the need to leave home and husband to find equality to sexual freedom and LGBTQ rights.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204751/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marguerite Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
From snake-like creatures with claws to jealous virgin ghosts, female monsters have long been a part of women’s lore. Such figures were Intimately tied to childbirth, sexuality and child mortality.
Marguerite Johnson, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/206255
2023-06-13T15:20:19Z
2023-06-13T15:20:19Z
Why medieval manuscripts are full of doodles of snail fights
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527819/original/file-20230523-12079-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=326%2C106%2C2504%2C1362&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Battle in the margins from the Gorleston Psalter (1310-1324).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_49622">British Library </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The doodles found in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-so-many-medieval-manuscripts-feature-doodles-and-what-they-reveal-190114">margins of very old manuscripts</a> are often just as interesting as the content of the manuscripts themselves. One such example is the frequently recurring – and extremely odd – image of knights warring against snails. </p>
<p>From the late 13th century through to the 15th century, images of knights fighting snails pop up in all sorts of unlikely places within the medieval literary world. And they reveal fascinating insights into what medieval people thought about the world around them.</p>
<p><a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/09/knight-v-snail.html">Images of knights fighting snails</a> first started to emerge in North French illuminated manuscripts (which are decorated with richly coloured illustrations) towards the end of the 13th century (around 1290). A few years on – although slightly less consistently – these same images started appearing in Flemish and English manuscripts.</p>
<p>Interestingly, in most cases these snail doodles appear to be unrelated to the adjoining illustrations of textual passages.</p>
<p>Often, the doodles depicted an armed knight confronting a snail whose horns were extended and pointing like arrows. In the manuscripts of the French folktale, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Roman-de-Renart">Le Roman de Renart</a>, the weapons that the knights were depicted with varied between sticks, maces, flails, axes, swords and even forks. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A knight on horseback jousting with a snail." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Extreme jousting from Brunetto Latini’s Li Livres dou Tresor, (c. 1315-1325).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=8128&CollID=58&NStart=19">Courtesy of the British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Snail assailants are almost always male knights. However, there is <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2852357">one known instance of a woman opposing a snail</a> wielding a spear and shield. </p>
<p>As these snail combat doodles increased in popularity within manuscripts, they became an accepted element of medieval imagery. From here, they spread to other areas of medieval life.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A page from a manuscript showing a snail facing a monk in the footer. The monk is disarmed and on his knees." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A disarmed monk faces a snail opponent, from The Book of Hours (c. 1320-1330).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=8836&CollID=8&NStart=6563">Courtesy of the British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Decorative panels <a href="https://www.mbs-brasses.co.uk/public/files/2006-transactions-volume-xvii-part-4-194995852.pdf">carved around 1310</a> on the main entrance of <a href="https://www.historyhit.com/locations/lyon-cathedral/">Lyon Cathedral</a> in France, for example, showcase a knight confronting a snail and another man threatening a dog-headed giant snail with an axe.</p>
<p>Despite travelling across the continent, the knights versus snails motif varied little from country to country, which suggests that it may have had a deeper meaning.</p>
<h2>Medieval satire</h2>
<p>Nobody knows exactly why battles between snails and knights were so popular throughout the middle ages. One theory is that these doodles <a href="https://www.gotmedieval.com/2009/07/whats-so-funny-about-knights-and-snails.html">added humour</a> to texts which were otherwise quite dry and serious. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A knight praying for mercy from a large hovering snail." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The gastropod conqueror from the Gorleston Psalter, 1310-1324.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_49622&index=0">Courtesy of the British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A reader could rest their eyes by taking a moment to laugh at the scene of snail combat before continuing with their reading.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A rabbit and a snail sit on top of a pair of monkey's shoulders, jousting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A rabbit, monkeys and snail jousting, from the Harley Froissart (c. 1470-1472).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_4379">Courtesy of the British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many of the doodles show a knight dropping their sword or kneeling submissively before their diminutive shelled foe, which accentuates its satirical implications. There are also several representations of women pleading with knights not to attack the formidable beasts. </p>
<p>Other similarly lighthearted imagery includes a cat stalking a snail with the head of a mouse, as well as dogs, monkeys, dragons and even rabbits in fierce opposition with the molluscs.</p>
<h2>The meaning of the snail motif</h2>
<p>Snails were recognised in medieval times for their unusual strength, given that they were able to carry their home on their back. Confrontation with a snail, therefore, could represent a test of personal strength as well as mental fortitude. </p>
<p>Once <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2852357">a symbol of deceptive courage</a>, the snail became a creature to be hunted down and destroyed in a display of strength and bravery.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A knight approaches a large red snail, wielding a club." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A knight versus snail fight from the Smithfield Decretals ( c.1300-1340).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Royal_MS_10_e_iv&index=0">Courtesy of the British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like many other subjects popularised in marginal illuminations of the 1300s, the snail and knight duo gradually disappeared as time wore on. They experienced a brief revival, however, in medieval manuscripts towards the end of the 15th century. </p>
<p>And they haven’t completely disappeared from the common imagination. Today the pairing can still be enjoyed in the nursery rhyme, <a href="https://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=1509">Four-and-Twenty Tailors Went To Kill a Snail</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Four-and-twenty tailors went to kill a snail,</p>
<p>The best man amongst them durst not touch her tail;</p>
<p>She put out her horns like a little Kyloe cow;</p>
<p>Run, tailors, run, or she’ll kill you all e’en now.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206255/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeleine S. Killacky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Snails were recognised in medieval times for their unusual strength, given that they were able to carry their home on their back.
Madeleine S. Killacky, PhD Candidate, Medieval Literature, Bangor University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/204632
2023-05-05T16:51:32Z
2023-05-05T16:51:32Z
The Wicker Man at 50: how the strange 1970s British film became a cult classic
<p>It tops the poll of the 50 greatest British horror films, according to readers of <a href="https://www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk/film/top-50-british-horror-films/">Horrified Magazine</a>, while the Guardian pitches it at number four in its <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/series/the-horror-25">list of the 25 greatest horror films</a>.</p>
<p>David Bartholomew of Cinefantastique magazine described The Wicker Man as “<a href="http://www.artcornwall.org/features/Wicker_Man/Cinefantastique%20Vol%2006%20No%203%20(1977)%20Wicker%20Man.pdf">the Citizen Kane of horror films</a>”. Bizarrely, it even has its own <a href="https://www.altontowers.com/explore/theme-park/rides-attractions/wicker-man/">rollercoaster ride</a> in the British theme park Alton Towers. Made of wood, naturally.</p>
<p>But when the film was released on December 6 1973, the studio behind it – British Lion – <a href="https://filmint.nu/chance-chaos-confusion-and-the-marketing-of-the-wicker-man-2/">tried to bury it with a limited release</a>. It was briefly tacked on as the supporting feature in a double bill with Nicolas Roeg’s atmospheric psychological thriller <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jul/05/dont-look-now-review-roeg-horror-julie-christie-donald-sutherland">Don’t Look Now</a>.</p>
<p>However, The Wicker Man has grown in stature over the years and is now considered a cult classic. A remarkable change in fortunes for a film described by its own music designer, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/sep/24/how-we-made-wicker-man">Gary Carpenter</a>, as being about “semi-mystical occult shit”. </p>
<p>The film was directed by novice <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jul/04/robin-hardy-obituary">Robin Hardy</a> and written by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/nov/08/guardianobituaries.nigelfountain">Anthony Shaffer</a>, a credible dramatist who had just finished working with Alfred Hitchcock on <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220704-frenzy-at-50-the-most-violent-film-hitchcock-ever-made">Frenzy</a> (1972). But the production gained traction with the support of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/11/christopher-lee">Christopher Lee</a> who would take on the role of charismatic cult leader Lord Summerisle. </p>
<p>Lee, by that point a huge star and cemented in the public imagination as Count Dracula (of Hammer Horror fame), gave much of his time to ensure the production got off the ground. </p>
<h2>Reversal of horror tropes</h2>
<p>It’s an unsettling story that commences with the arrival of devout Christian police officer (Sergeant Howie, played convincingly by Edward Woodward) on the remote island community of Summerisle, in search of a missing girl.</p>
<p>Hardy has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/sep/24/how-we-made-wicker-man">explained that</a> they key to understanding the appeal of the film is that it’s a satisfying puzzle that rewards repeat viewing:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Essentially, one must think of The Wicker Man as a game, with clues gradually suggesting Summerisle is not run in accordance with the Christian values of Sergeant Howie. Setting it in Scotland was crucial: in the early 1970s, Christianity was still widely practised, and it had a very puritan aspect.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The audience share Howie’s narrative viewpoint, experiencing the island for the first time and noticing, as he does, the peculiarities and practices of a community at odds with conventional society. From the sweet shop window with its phallic confectionary to the couples openly copulating after a night at the <a href="https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/The-Green-Man/">Green Man</a> pub, the sense of weirdness is palpable.</p>
<p>As Howie’s investigation progresses, it becomes clear that the community have embraced a way of life that rejects Christian values in favour of pagan rites and rituals. From the hapless beetle tethered to a nail in the schoolroom to the placing of a frog in the mouth of a child suffering from a sore throat, this is an isolated community committed to an alternative belief system. The film succeeds in tapping into a rich repertoire of folk imagery to build incrementally to its harrowing conclusion. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/a-tDnavDCwI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>It transpires the investigation is a trap carefully orchestrated by the islanders to secure a suitable human sacrifice for their May Day celebrations to rectify the drought that has blighted their apple harvest. Howie’s fate is sealed in a giant wicker effigy set alight in front of the islanders.</p>
<p>The story derives much of its power from its thrilling reversal of the commonplace horror trope that sees young women victimised. Rather, it offers a “male in peril” story made all the more terrifying because the man in question is an upstanding authority figure, a man utterly convinced of the rightness of his convictions. </p>
<p>The film used around 25 different locations in Scotland. These served the production well despite notorious filming conditions. The early summer setting was in fact shot from October through to November.</p>
<p>It remains a rich slice of cultural geography with a vivid sense of place that is entirely in keeping with the folk horror of the subject matter. It feels authentic. Diehard fans can follow <a href="https://www.findingthewickerman.co.uk/locations">The Wicker Man trail</a>, a tour of the most famous filming locations such as Anwoth Kirk, Culzean Castle, Plockton and Kircudbright, amongst others.</p>
<h2>Shocking ending</h2>
<p>The film also features impressive production design despite its relatively modest budget. There are some film sequences that live long in the imagination because of the sheer scale of the production and the evident commitment to the craft of special effects.</p>
<p>Great films are remarkable for pushing the envelope in terms of what can be accomplished with their production design: think of the burning of Atlanta sequences in Gone with the Wind (1939) or Skull Island in King Kong (1933). The Wicker Man has such a sequence to rival anything seen in film history.</p>
<p>As the May Day celebrations snake down to the beach it is revealed that the missing girl is alive and well after all: Howie has been duped. Lord Summerisle patiently explains to Howie his fate has been predetermined from the outset and he is then forcibly hoisted into a giant wicker colossus (alongside a number animals) where he is to be burned alive.</p>
<p>Drawing on tales of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Druid">druid sacrificial rituals</a>, the sequence provides one of the most haunting spectacles in film history. The ending is horrifying because it is a “reveal”: this is what the islanders had in mind all along. Howie’s entrapment is our entrapment: we too have been fooled.</p>
<p>The very drab ordinariness of Summerisle with its sweet shop and post office, cosy village pub and modest schoolhouse, conceals a community enthusiastically committed to human sacrifice. The shocking ending would be instrumental in elevating the film and securing The Wicker Man’s place in the horror film canon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204632/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gill Jamieson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
It may have got off to a shaky start, but The Wicker Man is now one of British film’s best-loved horror stories, thanks to its deeply disturbing plot.
Gill Jamieson, Senior Lecturer in Film, Television & Cultural Studies, University of the West of Scotland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197338
2023-02-27T13:23:43Z
2023-02-27T13:23:43Z
Is the Loch Ness monster real?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505952/original/file-20230123-10548-gxlc1u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C10%2C6862%2C5131&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This is the famous – and fake – photograph of the Loch Ness monster, taken near Inverness, Scotland, on April 19, 1934. The photograph was later revealed to be a hoax. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-the-loch-ness-monster-near-inverness-scotland-april-news-photo/3422579?phrase=Loch%20Ness%20Monster&adppopup=true">Keystone/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">curiouskidsus@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Is the Loch Ness monster real? – Landon, age 10</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>An amazing and wonderful thing about people is our imagination. Indeed, it’s one of the qualities that makes us human.</p>
<p>Every invention that led to our advanced civilization – cars, planes, TV, computers and millions of other things – came from someone’s imagination.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505965/original/file-20230123-5198-yykqto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The photograph shows a blue sky, white clouds, highlands and the murky waters of Loch Ness." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505965/original/file-20230123-5198-yykqto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505965/original/file-20230123-5198-yykqto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505965/original/file-20230123-5198-yykqto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505965/original/file-20230123-5198-yykqto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505965/original/file-20230123-5198-yykqto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505965/original/file-20230123-5198-yykqto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505965/original/file-20230123-5198-yykqto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This is Loch Ness, a body of fresh water in Scotland; no monster in sight.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/loch-ness-with-dramatic-sky-and-secret-frog-royalty-free-image/680669548?phrase=Loch%20Ness%20Monster&adppopup=true">Ivan/Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>At the same time, the human mind imagines all sorts of things that are not real: gremlins, leprechauns, fairies, trolls, <a href="https://theconversation.com/mermaids-arent-real-but-theyve-fascinated-people-around-the-world-for-ages-150518">mermaids</a>, zombies and vampires. This also includes imaginary animals, like dragons, unicorns, werewolves, sea serpents and centaurs. </p>
<p>Through stories passed down from generation to generation for hundreds or even thousands of years, these <a href="https://theconversation.com/dinosaur-bones-became-griffins-volcanic-eruptions-were-gods-fighting-geomythology-looks-to-ancient-stories-for-hints-of-scientific-truth-162071">mythological creatures have become legends</a>. In modern times, movies, television and books have spread these stories to millions or even billions of people.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/anthropology/faculty/profile.html?id=mlittle">As an anthropology professor</a>, I have spent my life studying human behavior, biology and cultures. And I have studied the evolution of animals and humans. I work in reality, not fantasy. </p>
<p>Yet I understand why these creatures fascinate us; they are intriguing, magical and sometimes frightening. Yet they all have one thing in common. They appeal to the imagination. People wish for them to exist. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505975/original/file-20230123-17-oypzha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Under a sky of blue and gold, the Loch Ness monster surfaces the dark blue water to show its small head and elongated neck." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505975/original/file-20230123-17-oypzha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505975/original/file-20230123-17-oypzha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505975/original/file-20230123-17-oypzha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505975/original/file-20230123-17-oypzha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505975/original/file-20230123-17-oypzha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505975/original/file-20230123-17-oypzha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505975/original/file-20230123-17-oypzha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An artist’s concept of the Loch Ness monster at sunset.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/loch-ness-monster-in-the-lake-at-sunset-royalty-free-image/817420168?phrase=loch%20ness%20monster%20illustration&adppopup=true">Khadi Ganiev/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The Loch Ness legend</h2>
<p>One legend is from northern Scotland in the United Kingdom, where a cold, murky and mysterious freshwater lake called Loch Ness is located. “Loch” is pronounced as “lock.” The word means “lake” in the Scottish language. </p>
<p>Loch Ness is quite large – roughly 23 miles long (37 kilometers), a mile wide (1,600 meters) and very deep (788 feet, or 240 meters, at its deepest). Legends about the lake <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lochness/legend.html">date back nearly 1,500 years</a>, when an Irish monk, St. Columba, encountered a beast in the river that flows into Loch Ness. Supposedly, he drove the creature away when he made the sign of the Christian cross.</p>
<p>In modern times, more than 1,000 people claim they’ve seen “Nessie,” the name locals gave to the creature decades ago. Descriptions vary. Some say the creature resembles a salamander; others say a whale, or a seal. </p>
<p>Typically, visibility during these sightings was not good. In most of these cases, the witnesses were familiar with the Loch Ness legend. </p>
<p>So far, no one has ever found any physical evidence of an unusual or prehistoric creature living in the loch. Good physical evidence might be capturing the creature, or a clear photograph, or an encounter where a biologist has an opportunity to examine the creature. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505973/original/file-20230123-7861-vzbh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An illustration of a long-necked marine dinosaur, chasing prey in the turquoise water." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505973/original/file-20230123-7861-vzbh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505973/original/file-20230123-7861-vzbh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505973/original/file-20230123-7861-vzbh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505973/original/file-20230123-7861-vzbh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505973/original/file-20230123-7861-vzbh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505973/original/file-20230123-7861-vzbh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505973/original/file-20230123-7861-vzbh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An artistic illustration of a plesiosaur, an ancient marine reptile that resembled the fake 1934 photograph of the Loch Ness monster. But the plesiosaur went extinct more than 65 million years ago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/plesiosaur-marine-reptile-hunting-royalty-free-illustration/932732444?phrase=plesiosaur&adppopup=true">Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Nessie is not a plesiosaur</h2>
<p>Over the years, some people have conjured up fake evidence – such as footprints, photographs or phony floating objects – to trick others and “prove” the existence of the monster. </p>
<p>The best known of these is a 1934 photograph of what appears to be a creature with a long neck and small head. </p>
<p>The image in the photo looks like a plesiosaur, a long-necked and long-extinct marine dinosaur that resembles descriptions of Nessie. </p>
<p>The phony photograph was really a crude molded figure of <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/4/21/8459353/loch-ness-monster">a plesiosaur floating on top of a toy submarine</a>. </p>
<p>Yet many people believed – and still believe – the photo is real. </p>
<h2>Why Nessie isn’t real</h2>
<p>Here are four reasons the Loch Ness monster, like a walking mummy or howling werewolf, is an imaginary creature.
First, a large air-breathing animal would have to surface frequently. That means many more people would have seen it. </p>
<p>Second, many people have searched for Nessie, with scuba divers and sonar, all without success. A 2019 study of DNA samples collected from the lake <a href="https://www.cnet.com/science/scientist-reveals-loch-ness-monster-hunt-results/">did not suggest the presence of a dinosaur or large reptile</a>. </p>
<p>Third, the Loch Ness body of water has existed for only 10,000 years, since the end of the last glacial period on Earth. But the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. So a prehistoric dinosaur could not have ever lived in the lake. </p>
<p>Finally, and perhaps most critical: For the Loch Ness monster to exist and persist through time, a population of these animals must reproduce themselves. Single animals live only for their lifetimes, and not for hundreds of years, as the legend suggests. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6MiiwSuhk8k?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Scientists investigate the Loch Ness mystery.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Science finds answers</h2>
<p>Scientists can usually show that something exists, whether it be a plant or a planet. It’s often very difficult to demonstrate that something – like a monster in a lake – does not exist.</p>
<p>And it’s understandable that many people are intrigued with the Loch Ness monster. Fantastical beliefs and mythmaking seem to be a part of the way human beings like to think. </p>
<p>But by using logic, experimentation and research, scientists can explore the mysteries of the world and find answers. </p>
<p>And there’s more than enough scientific evidence to show that the Loch Ness monster lives only as a creature of our imagination.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
<p><em>And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197338/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael A. Little does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The idea of a creature like the Loch Ness monster fascinates people. But does the scientific evidence say it’s a prehistoric beast or total fake?
Michael A. Little, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/196836
2022-12-20T14:34:29Z
2022-12-20T14:34:29Z
Merry or scary? Santa’s ‘Ho ho ho’ mirrors our own ambiguous relationship to laughter
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502137/original/file-20221220-6052-t088sf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5821%2C3883&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is Santa's laughter good-natured or manic? You be the judge. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/fr/image-photo/happy-excited-old-bearded-santa-claus-1831476538">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Here it is again: the merry, festive Christmas season with its glitter balls, tinsel and the typical “Ho Ho Ho!” Holding onto his red belly, Santa grins and laughs at us from everywhere. Like Halloween pumpkins and clowns, Santa is one of our most popular cultural symbols associated with laughter. In fact, Father Christmas, clowns and demonic veggie visages have more in common than you might think! And our pop culture depictions of Santa’s laughter tell us a lot about the pitfalls and promises of humour, and the not obvious links between humour and laughter.</p>
<p>Santa’s laughter is often benign. In the 1970 fantasy musical <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haKESbXK28g"><em>Santa Claus Is Coming to Town</em></a>, almost every one of the jolly gent’s good deeds is accompanied with laughter, be it distributing the toys to children in the unwelcoming Sombertown or melting the heart of the Winter Warlock. The laughter thus underscores the niceness of Santa’s activities and adds a cheerful element to the gloomy urban and forest landscapes. Santa’s laughter can also be used to <a href="https://reporter.anu.edu.au/all-stories/from-killer-robot-to-sweatshop-boss-santa-on-screen">improve the educational system on Mars</a> in the 1964 film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4SZyeUGSM4"><em>Santa Claus Conquers the Martians</em></a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A vintage card shows a painted Santa speaking to a little girl over the phone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502149/original/file-20221220-16-5idb4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502149/original/file-20221220-16-5idb4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502149/original/file-20221220-16-5idb4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502149/original/file-20221220-16-5idb4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502149/original/file-20221220-16-5idb4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502149/original/file-20221220-16-5idb4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502149/original/file-20221220-16-5idb4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Merry Christmas card from the early 1900s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.rawpixel.com/image/556799">NYPL/Creative Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The surreal 1959 Mexican fantasy film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYStOBykqZk"><em>Santa Claus vs. the Devil</em></a> is another great example. The film, which is hilariously outrageous from today’s perspective, shows Father Christmas as a good-natured, chubby bloke who lives in space and hardly says a word. Whether he peeks into children’s rooms on Earth through his cosmic telescope or gives them knockout drugs so that he can hand out his presents undisturbed, his sole comment and universal reaction to everything is a juicy “Ho ho ho!”</p>
<p>This full-bellied “jolly old gentleman” might be a slacker 364 days a year, but he’s generally perceived as a harmless creature. His laughter seems to be inseparable from the festive Christmas atmosphere and is one of the most important audio stimuli in any holiday film. However, even the most good-natured cinematic Santa can’t help playing tricks on the devil and laughing heartily as they succeed. Thus he signals happiness, but also reveals that he and his laughter are not as harmless as they seem to be at the first sight.</p>
<h2>The gloomier side of Santa</h2>
<p>In stories where Santa is a laughing killer robot (e.g., in the <em>Futurama</em> episode <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJGUhVrS-Gs">“Xmas”</a>) or acrobatically, and in large numbers, attacks a simple family man played by Arnold Schwarzenegger (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWyeugspkUA"><em>Jingle all the Way</em></a>), the not always benign nature of Santa’s laughter becomes even more obvious. Unlike in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267035612004">many other cases</a>, humour and laughter here are not meant to foster social cohesion and community spirit. They rather signal the power one has over enemies, the malicious enjoyment of their failures or even an intention to kill them.</p>
<p>In these cases, Santa’s laughter echoes the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/21504857.2021.1989005">deadly laughter of Joker and other comic villains</a>; it is a psychological weapon, yet another way to attack and defeat. Laughter is often accompanied with a grin, and barring the teeth can easily become threatening (“smiling” Halloween pumpkins do give us shivers!). In fact, these maliciously laughing monsters can surface before Christmas, adding a frightening layer to this holiday. Tim Burton’s <em>Nightmare Before Christmas</em> illustrates how evil creatures might try to hijack Christmas – including hijacking Santa’s laughter, which is clearly recognisable but sounds all the more scary when we hear it from a Pumpkin King Skellington. Such laughter has no connection to humour and comes rather closer to the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2013.11.014">risus sardonicus</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Grinning santa with sinisterly coloured cheeks" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502140/original/file-20221220-23-5oehez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502140/original/file-20221220-23-5oehez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502140/original/file-20221220-23-5oehez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502140/original/file-20221220-23-5oehez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502140/original/file-20221220-23-5oehez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502140/original/file-20221220-23-5oehez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502140/original/file-20221220-23-5oehez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A still from the 1959 film <em>Santa Claus</em>.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053241/mediaviewer/rm4031742721/">IMDb</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The different shades of Santa’s laughter mirror the various roles that <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232489851_Laughter_A_Scientific_Investigation">laughter plays in human societies</a>. It can represent and provide enjoyment but it can also have a darker side: when laughing <em>at</em> someone (as opposed to <em>with</em> them), we exclude them from the group, humiliate and denigrate them. Laughter can signal agreement, embarrassment, superiority, aggression – and paradoxically, these feelings can be mixed all together in the single utterance of laughter. Thus there is no clear line between merry and scary in our laughter.</p>
<p>Just like Santas and monsters, we enjoy the ambiguity of our laughter and know that sometimes it can tell much more than a thousand words. Laughter is often tightly connected to humour, but it is even stronger connected to human relationships. The time and context of our laughter – or, on the contrary, our <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/20487675">unlaughter</a> when we want to show explicitly that we are not amused – are also of crucial importance.</p>
<p>So keep an eye on your Santa this weekend and watch out if he is a benign “Ho Ho Ho!” dude or a side-splitting Joker Santa. And as you laugh at or with him, think of how much your laughter can mean to you and the people around you.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196836/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>
Could Santa’s grin be closer to the evil clown’s than you think?
Anastasiya Fiadotava, Assistant professor, Institute of English studies, Jagiellonian University
Anna-Sophie Jürgens, Assistant Professor in Science Communication / Popular Entertainment Studies, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/196135
2022-12-13T23:37:41Z
2022-12-13T23:37:41Z
What is a goblin?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500550/original/file-20221212-1235-576dx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C5%2C1187%2C1304&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">By John Dickson Batten/Wikimedia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 2022 word of the year from the folks at the Oxford English Dictionary is “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-06/what-is-goblin-mode-oxford-dictionary-word-of-the-year-2022/101738866">goblin mode</a>”. Voted by the public and coming in at 93%, “goblin mode” – a phrase, rather than a word, to be precise – expresses a state of being or mindset. </p>
<p>The official <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/goblin-mode-selected-as-oxfords-2022-word-of-the-year-180981245/">definition</a> is: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>“Goblin mode” expresses a response to the anxieties of the pandemic and the challenges of the return to so-called “normality”. It is also about challenging the essentially unattainable ideals expressed on social media. Think: grocery shopping in your pyjamas; talking on your phone while on the toilet; bingeing an entire television series while eating takeaway. </p>
<p>But what about the goblin whose name has been taken in vain? What have goblins ever done to deserve being linked to such anti-social, self-indulgent human behaviour?</p>
<p>And what is a goblin, anyway?</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1599695123209719812"}"></div></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-why-grown-ups-still-need-fairy-tales-87078">Friday essay: why grown-ups still need fairy tales</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Hostile creatures known to travel in little gangs</h2>
<p>According to the famous English folklorist, <a href="https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL684537A/Katharine_Mary_Briggs">Katharine Mary Briggs</a> (1898-1980), goblins are evil and ill-intentioned spirits. Small and ugly in appearance, they are embedded in the rich folklore of the United Kingdom, in particular.</p>
<p>Like all members of the very broad category of “fey”, or the beings of the preternatural world, including fairies, elves, and pixies, goblins are renowned for being tricksy. In other words, they are best avoided. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500622/original/file-20221213-6597-agowbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500622/original/file-20221213-6597-agowbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500622/original/file-20221213-6597-agowbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500622/original/file-20221213-6597-agowbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500622/original/file-20221213-6597-agowbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500622/original/file-20221213-6597-agowbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500622/original/file-20221213-6597-agowbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500622/original/file-20221213-6597-agowbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Goblin market, 1911, England, by Frank Craig. Purchased 1912 by Public Subscription.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Te Papa</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Different regions in Britain have different goblin types. In Cornwall, for example, the Spriggan tends to inhabit <a href="https://www.ancientpenwith.org/cairns.html">cairns and barrows</a>. </p>
<p>Hostile creatures known to travel in little gangs, Spriggans love guarding special objects as befitting a locale rich in stories of pirates, smugglers and buried treasure. </p>
<p>Also in Cornwall are the <a href="https://www.miningweekly.com/article/-1970-01-01-65">Knockers</a> or Buccas. This type of goblin works in the tin mines and lives in nearby caverns, springs, or wells. Cornish folklore presents differing accounts of the Knockers, including stories ranging from their indifference towards their human counterparts to their instigation of mining accidents, rockslides and cave-ins.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500551/original/file-20221212-24-uptvhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500551/original/file-20221212-24-uptvhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500551/original/file-20221212-24-uptvhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500551/original/file-20221212-24-uptvhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500551/original/file-20221212-24-uptvhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500551/original/file-20221212-24-uptvhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500551/original/file-20221212-24-uptvhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500551/original/file-20221212-24-uptvhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald, illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith, 1920.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What about hobgoblins, then?</h2>
<p>Under the category of “hobgoblin” we have nicer goblins that are helpful rather than harmful to humans. Known to be more domesticated than other goblins, hobgoblins tend to find a house, move in, and stay put.</p>
<p>Their presence is often made known in mysterious, unsettling sounds and physical pranks, similar to the actions of <a href="https://theconversation.com/eight-things-you-need-to-know-about-poltergeists-just-in-time-for-halloween-85690">poltergeists</a>. Like all fey folk, hobgoblins are most troublesome when they are irritated or provoked. </p>
<p>Perhaps the most famous hobgoblin is Puck from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He is introduced by a fairy who addresses him in Act 2, Scene 1:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Either I mistake your shape and making quite,<br>
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite<br>
Call’d Robin Goodfellow: are you not he<br>
That frights the maidens of the villagery;<br>
Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern, <br>
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;<br>
And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;<br>
Mislead night wanderers, laughing at their harm?<br>
Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,<br>
You do their work, and they shall have good luck:<br>
Are you not he?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here Shakespeare captures the folkloric essence of the British hobgoblin. Puck is described as a prankster and trickster, as a spirit fond of frightening innocent maidens, turning milk sour, and misleading humans walking at night. Yet he is also depicted as helping humans at work and sometimes bringing them good luck.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500552/original/file-20221212-18-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500552/original/file-20221212-18-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500552/original/file-20221212-18-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=778&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500552/original/file-20221212-18-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=778&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500552/original/file-20221212-18-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=778&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500552/original/file-20221212-18-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500552/original/file-20221212-18-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500552/original/file-20221212-18-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Puck (1789) by Joshua Reynolds.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/eight-things-you-need-to-know-about-poltergeists-just-in-time-for-halloween-85690">Eight things you need to know about poltergeists – just in time for Halloween</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A complex figure</h2>
<p>These varied representations of the British folkloric goblin speak to their embodiment of pure ambivalence. Some are inherently hostile and malevolent, others are unpredictable – both harmful and helpful, and some have good intentions unless antagonised. </p>
<p>In this sense, the goblin is a complex figure, both frightening and yet also intriguing. As such, they may be considered to symbolise the human “<a href="https://www.thesap.org.uk/articles-on-jungian-psychology-2/about-analysis-and-therapy/the-shadow/">shadow</a> self”.</p>
<p>According to Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carl-Jung">Carl Jung</a> (1875-1961), the shadow is that part of every human psyche that we strive to keep hidden and repressed.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500624/original/file-20221213-1960-ib856g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man sleeps; monsters proliferate behind him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500624/original/file-20221213-1960-ib856g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500624/original/file-20221213-1960-ib856g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500624/original/file-20221213-1960-ib856g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500624/original/file-20221213-1960-ib856g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500624/original/file-20221213-1960-ib856g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500624/original/file-20221213-1960-ib856g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500624/original/file-20221213-1960-ib856g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Francisco de Goya Y Lucientes, Spain, The sleep of reason produces monsters 1797-1798.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Art Gallery of New South Wales</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It may be interpreted as our anti-social self, our lazy, unfriendly, indulgent, hostile, and hurtful self. In this particular manifestation of our shadow self, we may embrace the goblin in its worst form, including its grotesque appearance (remember the dark pandemic days when hair remained unwashed, uncombed, and generally unkempt; and clothes were recycled over days if not weeks?).</p>
<p>But Jung also saw hope in the shadow. It represents our wildness and our enjoyment of intense, wilful self-expression, and our creativity. It is the part of us that stands up to injustice and offence. It can lead us to joyful mischief and laughter. It reminds us that non-conformity is sometimes liberating.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/harking-back-the-ancient-pagan-festivities-in-our-christmas-rituals-34309">Harking back: the ancient pagan festivities in our Christmas rituals</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196135/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marguerite Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Like all members of the category of ‘fey’, or the beings of the preternatural world, including fairies, elves, and pixies, goblins are renowned for being tricksy. In other words, best avoided.
Marguerite Johnson, Professor of Classics, University of Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/191300
2022-10-24T12:27:11Z
2022-10-24T12:27:11Z
Halloween’s celebration of mingling with the dead has roots in ancient Celtic celebrations of Samhain
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489639/original/file-20221013-22-tnrhsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C25%2C2095%2C1384&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How did Halloween get associated with the spooky?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/group-of-friends-dancing-together-royalty-free-image/1144985881?phrase=halloween%20party&adppopup=true">SolStock/Collection E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Halloween approaches, people get ready to celebrate the spooky, the scary and the haunted. Ghosts, zombies, skeletons and witches are prominently displayed in yards, windows, stores and community spaces. Festivities center around the realm of the dead, and some believe that the dead might actually mingle with the living on the night of Halloween. </p>
<p>Scholars have often noted how these modern-day celebrations of Halloween have origins in Samhain, a festival <a href="https://theconversation.com/tricking-and-treating-has-a-history-85720">celebrated by ancient Celtic cultures</a>. In contemporary Irish Gaelic, <a href="https://www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/O%C3%ADche+Shamhna">Halloween is still known as Oíche Shamhna, or Eve of Samhain</a></p>
<hr>
<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/halloweens-celebration-of-mingling-with-the-dead-has-roots-in-ancient-celtic-celebrations-of-samhain-191300&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p><em>You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/audio-narrated-99682">here</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>As a <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/cf/faculty-and-staff/faculty.cfm?pid=1012737">folklorist with a special interest in Celtic culture</a>, I find it interesting to note the longevity of this holiday: The celebration of the dead on Halloween is not a recent innovation, but rather one of the oldest surviving traditions that continues today as a vibrant part of many peoples’ lives.</p>
<h2>Early evidence from archaeology</h2>
<p>In ninth century Irish literature, Samhain is mentioned many times as an integral part of the Celtic culture. It was <a href="https://sites.uwm.edu/barnold/2001/10/31/halloween-customs-in-the-celtic-world/">one of four seasonal turning points</a> in the Celtic calendar, and perhaps the most important one. It signaled the end of the light half of the year, associated with life, and the beginning of the dark half, associated with the dead. </p>
<p>Archaeological records suggest that commemorations of Samhain can be traced back to the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/inside-irelands-gate-to-hell-that-birthed-halloween">Neolithic period, some from 6,000 years ago</a>. Neolithic Ireland had no towns or cities, but did craft huge architectural monuments, which acted as seasonal gathering spots, and housed the remains of the societies’ elites. </p>
<p>These megalithic sites, from the Greek “mega” and “lithos,” meaning big stone, would at times host vast numbers of people, gathered together for brief periods around specific calendar dates. Archaeological records reveal evidence of massive feasts, yet little to no evidence of domestic use. If people did live year-round at these sites, they would have been a select few.</p>
<p>Data from animal bones can reveal approximate time periods of the feasts, and further data comes from the monuments themselves. Not only are the monuments situated in key places in the landscape, but they are also carefully celestially aligned to allow the sun or moon to shine directly into the center of the monument on a particular day.</p>
<p>These sites connect the landscape to the cosmos, creating a lived calendar, scripted in stone. The UNESCO World Heritage monument of Newgrange, for example, is built so that a <a href="https://www.worldheritageireland.ie/bru-na-boinne/built-heritage/newgrange/">shaft of sunlight illuminates the innermost chamber</a> precisely on the day of winter solstice. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489642/original/file-20221013-13-phcvnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A front view of the Newgrange monument in Ireland taken from outside the grounds." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489642/original/file-20221013-13-phcvnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489642/original/file-20221013-13-phcvnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489642/original/file-20221013-13-phcvnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489642/original/file-20221013-13-phcvnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489642/original/file-20221013-13-phcvnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489642/original/file-20221013-13-phcvnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489642/original/file-20221013-13-phcvnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ancient monuments such as the Newgrange have been carefully celestially aligned.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Irelands_history.jpg">Tjp finn via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Less than 30 miles away lies the hill of Tara, another massive megalithic site. The Mound of Hostages, the oldest extant megalithic structure at Tara, <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Samhain/">is aligned to Samhain</a>. Tara is known as the traditional spiritual and political capital of Ireland, and here, too, archaeologists have found evidence of <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/archirel.34.1">mass seasonal gatherings of people, with the remains of feasts and great bonfires</a>.</p>
<h2>The spirits of the dead</h2>
<p>According to early Irish literature, as well as traditional folklore collected in the 19th century, Samhain of long ago was a time for people to come together, under a command of peace, to feast, tell stories, make social and political claims, engage in important sacred rituals and, perhaps most importantly, <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Samhain/">to commune with the dead</a>. </p>
<p>The traditional, pre-Christian realm of the dead was referred to as the Otherworld. The Otherworld was not somewhere far away, but rather overlapping with the world of the living. The Irish beliefs about the Otherworld were detailed and complex. It is full of magic, of witchcraft, of speaking with the dead as well as <a href="https://sites.uwm.edu/barnold/2001/10/31/halloween-customs-in-the-celtic-world/">seeing into the future</a>. The dead were traditionally believed to continue to see the living, although the living could only occasionally see them. The most prominent occasion would be on Samhain itself, when lines between the Otherworld of the dead and the realm of the living were weakened.</p>
<p>Not only were there particular days that one might encounter the dead, but particular places as well, these being the same megalithic sites. These sites are known in Irish Gaelic as “sí” sites, but there is another meaning of the word sí in Irish, <a href="https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/s%c3%ad">that being the spirits of the mounds</a>. This is often translated into English as “fairies”, which loses a great deal of meaning. “Fairies” in Ireland are spirits deeply connected with the realm of the dead, the mounds, and, perhaps most especially, Samhain. </p>
<p>The connection can be witnessed in the figure of the banshee – or bean sí, in Irish – an important mythological figure in Irish folklore, believed to be heard wailing with grief directly before the death of a family member. With Irish “bean” meaning simply “woman”, the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20177501">banshee is thus a female spirit of the mounds</a>, and a ruler of the realm of the dead. </p>
<p>The sí spirits are not only spirits of the dead, but they are also a particular aristocracy of the dead, who host the dead with feasting, merriment and eternal youth, often at the age-old megalithic sites. In Irish lore, they are powerful and dangerous, able to give great gifts or exact great damage. They once ruled Ireland, according to folklore, and now they rule the world of the dead.</p>
<p>The Otherworld is always there, but it is on the beginning of the dark half of the year, the evening of Samhain, now Halloween, when the dead are at their most powerful and when the lines between this world and the next are erased.</p>
<p>As the light of summer fades and the season of darkness begins, the ancient holiday of Halloween continues to celebrate the dead mingling with the world of the living once again, as it has for thousands of years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191300/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tok Thompson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A folklorist explains how Halloween continues an ancient Celtic tradition of the celebration of the dead.
Tok Thompson, Professor of Anthropology, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/183263
2022-05-17T15:28:28Z
2022-05-17T15:28:28Z
The Essex Serpent: the real myths, folklore and heroines inspired by the county
<p>Enticed by rumours of a mythical creature haunting the Blackwater marshes in Essex, England, recently widowed Cora Seaborne (Claire Danes) leaves London for the village of Aldwinter. Cora is chasing her dream of becoming an amateur palaeontologist and believes that science can explain the creature while also allaying the fears of the superstitious locals. </p>
<p>Set at the tail end of the Victorian age, the novel draws on the history of a period when many scientific discoveries were being made, which were often in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zhshrj6/revision/2">conflict with the prevailing religious beliefs</a> and folklore of the time.</p>
<p>The Essex Serpent might seem at first like a classic Victorian gothic tale, but the show’s themes and characters are firmly rooted in the dark myths and history of Essex.</p>
<h2>Serpent myths</h2>
<p>Essex has had a long history of water-serpent myths. The number of these stories may be because it boasts the <a href="https://www.coastalessex.org/the-essex-coast/#:%7E:text=Over%20350%20miles%20of%20Essex,place%20to%20live%20and%20visit.">longest coastline</a> in England (350 miles), indented with hundreds of water inlets and estuaries. </p>
<p>The region, on the east coast of England, is tidal, meaning that the acres of salt marsh, swampy and unstable ground, fill with water twice a day and shift constantly. It is easy to get lost, caught by the tide and mishear and see things in the low mist. </p>
<p>The local industry in the Victorian era was fishing, including serpent-like eels, and it is possible that fishermen and local pirates, of which there were many smuggling rum across the land from Mersea Island, met unknown objects in the water.</p>
<p>One <a href="http://www.bures-online.co.uk/dragon/dragon.htm">legend</a> from the period has it that a dragon emerged from an ancient lake near the village of Bures in Essex, terrorising villagers and eating the sheep. The nearby village of Wormingford is named after “<a href="http://www.bures-online.co.uk/dragon/worm.htm">Wyrm</a>”
the medieval word for <a href="https://www.suffolknews.co.uk/sudbury/news/how-the-legend-of-a-fearsome-dragon-inspired-a-new-novel-9201196/">serpent or dragon</a>.</p>
<p>A 1950’s <a href="https://www.suffolknews.co.uk/sudbury/news/how-the-legend-of-a-fearsome-dragon-inspired-a-new-novel-9201196/">stained-glass window</a> in Wormingford’s church shows a version of the myth where a crocodile given to King Richard I escapes the Tower of London. The crocodile brought evil to the community, killing sheep and demanding to be fed virgins. </p>
<p>In Wissington village church, a medieval mural of a <a href="https://www.suffolknews.co.uk/sudbury/news/how-the-legend-of-a-fearsome-dragon-inspired-a-new-novel-9201196">water dragon</a> remains today and was probably an inspiration for the serpent wood carving in Aldwinter church.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A5GqOeELRFU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>In The Essex Serpent, villagers believe that the “Blackwater Beast” was released by an earthquake. This probably references to a <a href="https://historyhouse.co.uk/articles/earthquake.html">destructive earthquake</a> that happened in Essex around that time in 1884. It remains the most powerful earthquake in England’s history, damaging hundreds of homes and churches. The earthquake was felt strongly in Peldon, a village in the area in which the novel is set. </p>
<h2>Unruly women</h2>
<p>Women are central to the plot and many historical references are made to connect Cora and others to defiant women of the past, from queens to witches. </p>
<p>Cora is an intelligent, independent and physically strong woman. With these traits and her auburn hair, she is told that she looks like <a href="https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Boudica-and-the-Slaughter-at-Colchester/">Boudicca</a>, queen of the British East Anglian Iceni tribe. </p>
<p>Boudicca led an uprising against the Roman Empire in AD60 after she and her daughters suffered physical and sexual abuse at their hands. Boudicca is a significant figure in Essex and there is a statue dedicated to her in Colchester, a major city in Essex and once the capital of Roman Britain. </p>
<p>At the time, the local tribes had been subjected to repression and humiliation by their Roman occupiers. Boudicca gathered all the tribes in East Anglia and the south east of England and successfully retook Colchester, the first city of England. </p>
<p>The links between Cora and Boudicca are clear – neither women become victims of the abuse of men and both head out into Essex with a strong will – a will that is feared by men.</p>
<p>The story is also set in locations relevant to Boudicca, like Colchester castle, where Cora conducts some of her research. This castle was once a major Roman temple, which Boudicca burned so violently that she turned the whole city to clay.</p>
<p>Colchester castle was also where the prisoners, mostly unmarried women like Cora, were held during the <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/essex-witch-hunt-victims-memorial">16th and 17th century Essex witchhunt trials</a>. During this time, women who didn’t fit in with social norms were often accused of making deals with the devil and causing crops to fail or people to die in their communities. </p>
<p>When a child is found dead near Aldwinter, the villagers quickly turn to superstition and become hysterical. They believe that her death is the work of the devil and the sea monster. Much of this is stoked by the vicar’s assistant, Matthew. His name may be a reference to <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/essex/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8342000/8342970.stm">Matthew Hopkins</a>, the witchfinder-general, who brutally executed hundreds of people in Essex, who were held in Colchester Castle prison. </p>
<p>We see that the locals still hold such superstitions in The Essex Serpent as Cora is accused of witchcraft by the locals for her beliefs in science. She’s not helped when a group of children she is trying to explain her scientific theory of what the serpent might be fall into a mass fit, which she is blamed for.</p>
<p>By subtly interweaving layer upon layer of myth and history from this deeply misunderstood and historical county into a popular and compelling tale, writer Sarah Perry (from Essex herself) is challenging the national stereotype of Essex. In this tale, the country isn’t a banal, flat and urban land with little historical and cultural richness. Perhaps making Sarah Perry the most contemporary unruly Essex girl of them all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183263/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elelia Ferro does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
With the longest coastline in England, serpent myths abound in Essex.
Elelia Ferro, Assistant researcher in Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies, University of Essex
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/180282
2022-04-01T10:34:31Z
2022-04-01T10:34:31Z
Goblin mode: a gothic expert explains the trend’s mythical origins, and why we should all go ‘vampire mode’ instead
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455529/original/file-20220331-13-ue3s19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=63%2C379%2C1263%2C1069&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Arthur Rackham's illustration of the Victorian poem Goblin Market.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/goblin-market-illustrated-by-arthur-rackham">British Library</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Goblin mode” is taking the current pandemic-ridden world by storm. This <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/mar/14/slobbing-out-and-giving-up-why-are-so-many-people-going-goblin-mode">state of being</a> is defined by behaviours that feel reminiscent of deep lockdown days – never getting out of bed, never changing into real clothes, grazing from tins or packets instead of cooking, binge watching television and doom-scrolling.</p>
<hr>
<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/goblin-mode-a-gothic-expert-explains-the-trends-mythical-origins-and-why-we-should-all-go-vampire-mode-instead-180282&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p><em>You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/audio-narrated-99682">here</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Goblin mode appears to be a reaction to the early pandemic emphasis on home and personal improvement – a “devil may care” attitude in the face of hyper-curated social media content. But this behaviour does not quite align with the goblins of folklore, who take a more playful and mischievous approach to life.</p>
<p>British writer and folklorist Katharine Briggs’s <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/A_Dictionary_of_Fairies.html?id=TeqJPwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Dictionary of Fairies</a> informs us that goblin is a “general name for evil and malicious spirits, usually small and grotesque in appearance”. Interestingly, the word goblin evolved to refer to a subterranean species – not far off from those who languish indoors during lockdown. But that’s where the similarities end.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Quarter life, a series by The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quarter-life-117947?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of Quarter Life</a></strong>, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions, and bring answers, as we navigate this turbulent period of life.</em></p>
<p><em>More articles:</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/caught-covid-heres-what-you-should-and-shouldnt-do-when-self-isolation-isnt-mandatory-179441?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Caught COVID? Here’s what you should and shouldn’t do when self-isolation isn’t mandatory</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/student-loans-would-a-graduate-tax-be-a-better-option-179253?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Student loans: would a graduate tax be a better option?</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/ivf-add-ons-why-you-should-be-cautious-of-these-expensive-procedures-if-youre-trying-to-conceive-180198?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">IVF add-ons: why you should be cautious of these expensive procedures if you’re trying to conceive</a></em></p>
<hr>
<p>There are many variants of goblin, with different characteristics, from the Highland fuath to the English goblin and the French gobelin. Today, the term goblin encompasses any fairy with an injurious intent, such as Knockers, Phookas, Spriggans, Trolls or Trows. </p>
<p>Goblin behaviour can range from mild pranks to acts of outright terror. A goblin is seldom welcomed, even by its own kind. Goblins are certainly a menace in the home. According to mythology expert <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Encyclopedia_of_Fairies_in_World_Folklor.html?id=nSuXAAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">Theresa Bane</a>, “a house goblin, will work against the family living there, making their life more difficult by banging on pots and pans, knocking on doors and walls and rearranging items in the house”. </p>
<p>In British and German lore, they can shapeshift, and will typically take the form of whatever animal best reflects their beastlike nature. This aspect of goblin lore is represented in Christina Rossetti’s 1862 poem <a href="https://poets.org/poem/goblin-market">Goblin Market</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>One had a cat’s face, one whisked a tail, one tramped at a rat’s pace, one crawled like a snail. One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry, one like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This Victorian poem is an early example of goblins behaving badly. They stand in for predatory corrupting males, using forbidden faerie fruits to lure female victims to their doom. Most goblins depicted in literature and folklore are active, playing pranks and generally causing trouble for the humans around them. They do not sit passively at home, surrounded by creature comforts, lazing the day away.</p>
<p>The “goblin mode” trend might even be seen to malign certain goblins. Hobgoblins, for example, are helpful and well-disposed towards humankind, if sometimes mischievous and tricksy. Puck in Shakespeare’s <a href="https://www.bl.uk/works/a-midsummer-nights-dream">A Midsummer Night’s Dream</a> is one such character. Like all hobgoblins, he’s a shapeshifter, and also performs labours for humans, much like the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/brownie-English-folklore">brownie</a>, a house spirit known for its helpfulness.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A young woman sitting in bed eating cake and drinking juice with a bored expression on her face." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455521/original/file-20220331-11-g82lg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455521/original/file-20220331-11-g82lg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455521/original/file-20220331-11-g82lg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455521/original/file-20220331-11-g82lg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455521/original/file-20220331-11-g82lg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455521/original/file-20220331-11-g82lg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455521/original/file-20220331-11-g82lg9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Going goblin mode.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/teen-girl-drinking-soda-eating-cake-485354317">Albina Tiplyashina / Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Vampire mode</h2>
<p>A closer look at the goblins of folklore tells us that goblin mode might be somewhat of a misnomer. There is, however, another mythical creature whose characteristics are more fitting for this time period – the vampire.</p>
<p>Vampires have long been associated with disease and contagion. This characterisation draws in part from Dracula, but it also feeds on wider fears and collective obsessions around networks of contagion and contamination. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/resources-events-teachers/resources-teachers/gothic-classroom/film-2-nosferatu-1922">1922</a> film Nosferatu came out shortly after the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918-19, which killed more people worldwide than the first world war. The word Nosferatu is similar to the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6x0-DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=nosforos+greek+meaning&source=bl&ots=hYjo9r3KOF&sig=ACfU3U23Gaj_sR6Q4gIntlrSL_tv6ctBmg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwicmcbXmPD2AhXVPsAKHZJpCfkQ6AF6BAg9EAM#v=onepage&q=nosforos%20greek%20meaning&f=false">Greek word nosforos, meaning “plague bearer”</a>. He even looks like a plague rat, with fangs set at the front of his mouth like the vermin he brings in his wake.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nosferatu-at-100-how-the-seminal-vampire-film-shaped-the-horror-genre-179439">Nosferatu at 100: how the seminal vampire film shaped the horror genre</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But over the last 200 years, Vampires in popular culture have evolved from plague-ridden creatures like Nosferatu to sparkling, <a href="http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781784993627">aspirational sex symbols</a>. Instead of holing up and resigning to a fate forever in goblin mode, we should follow the example set by vampires and aim to emerge from the pandemic as better versions of ourselves.</p>
<p>The Cullen family from the book and movie franchise Twilight is the best representation of this dramatic shift. They are attractive, cool, youthful and partake in normal human social behaviour like going to school and dating – a far cry from plague-bearing, sickly Nosferatu. Repulsion cedes to attraction as horror gives way to romance. Goblins by comparison, are unlikely romantic leads, they’re not sexy – or aspirational.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6mCKnsP33Lg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>Modern vampires also have an association with youthful culture that could be refreshing after two years of pandemic-induced hibernation. The film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093437/">Lost Boys</a>, in which Kiefer Sutherland’s undead crew inhabits a fashionably grungy underground domain, was released with the strapline “Sleep all day, party all night. Never grow old. Never die”. This would be an appropriate post-lockdown motto. It’s time we stopped languishing like goblins and started flourishing as newly born vampires.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180282/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sam George has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. She is the convener of the Open Graves, Open Minds research group who organised the Nosferatu at 100 The Vampire as Contagion and Monstrous Outsider centenary symposium in 2022 <a href="https://www.opengravesopenminds.com/nosferatu-at-100-2022/">https://www.opengravesopenminds.com/nosferatu-at-100-2022/</a>
And an international 3-day conference on gothic fairies in 2021 ‘Ill met by moonlight’: Gothic encounters with enchantment and the Faerie realm in literature and culture, University of Hertfordshire, 8‒11 April 2021 <a href="https://www.opengravesopenminds.com/ill-met-by-moonlight-2021/">https://www.opengravesopenminds.com/ill-met-by-moonlight-2021/</a></span></em></p>
Everyone is going ‘goblin mode’, but does the trend unfairly malign goblins of folklore?
Sam George, Associate Professor of Research, University of Hertfordshire
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/179630
2022-03-23T18:58:34Z
2022-03-23T18:58:34Z
How fairy tales shape fighting spirit: Ukraine’s children hear bedtime stories of underdog heroes, while Russian children hear tales of magical success
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453675/original/file-20220322-23-pzkjgc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C5973%2C3988&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Ukrainian soldier wanders down a railway past the bodies of dead Russian soldiers on the outskirts of Irpin, Ukraine, March 1, 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/ukrainian-soldier-wanders-down-the-railway-to-inspect-news-photo/1238854980?adppopup=true">Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At the outset of Russia’s invasion, almost no one in the West expected that <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/04/russias-invasion-of-ukraine-is-baffling-military-analysts.html">Ukraine would be able to offer Russia any kind of serious opposition</a> to its unprovoked aggression. </p>
<p>Much has been written about how leaders, including allies, underestimated the leadership ability of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. But beyond miscalculating how a comedian could transform into a <a href="https://theweek.com/russo-ukrainian-war/1011073/we-will-fight-to-the-end-zelensky-quotes-churchill-in-speech-to-uk">Winston Churchill-like figure</a>, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-zelenskyy-nato-europe-fc52fa8b510fef79cb5505ebe8a841a8">military assessments of the Ukrainian army</a> were also <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-invasion-scenarios/31614428.html">way off</a>. </p>
<p>A year into the war, it’s clear many overestimated the Russian army’s will and <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/moscows-continuing-ukrainian-buildup">capability to fight</a> and the Ukrainian army’s <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/595799-us-intelligence-officials-concerned-kyiv-could-fall-to-russia-within">will to resist an opponent superior in number, equipment and positioning</a>. </p>
<p>What can explain the way the Ukraine war has played out, in contradiction to experts’ predictions?</p>
<p>We believe that one factor underlying the unexpected performance of each country’s military can be traced to the cultural differences between Russians and Ukrainians. Those differences were cultivated in part through the fairy tales of their childhoods.</p>
<p>One of us, Sophia Moskalenko, is an expert on the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190689322.001.0001">psychology of fairy tales</a>. The other, Mia Bloom, studies <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801453885/small-arms/">children’s mobilization into violent extremism</a> – why and how children turn to violence. We know the power of folklore in shaping the worldview of children and, ultimately, of the adults they grow up to be.</p>
<h2>Underdog hero vs. magical thinking</h2>
<p>Folklore is important for understanding people’s cultural narratives – story lines that describe something unique to the culture’s history and its people. They help to define a cultural identity and, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12667">in subtle ways, shape future choices</a>. The master narratives that Ukrainian children grow up with – which serve as the dominant cultural script – are radically different from the ones Russian children absorb. </p>
<p>Traditional Ukrainian bedtime stories, such as “<a href="https://%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%BA%D0%B0.%D1%83%D0%BA%D1%80/kotigoroshko2.html">Kotygoroshko</a>,” “<a href="https://kazky.org.ua/zbirky/ukrajinsjki-narodni-kazky/kyrylo-kozhumjaka">Kyrylo Kozhumyaka</a>” and “<a href="https://%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%BA%D0%B0.%D1%83%D0%BA%D1%80/ivasik_telesik.html">Ivasyk Telesyk</a>,” all portray unassuming characters persevering against insurmountable odds. The character arc takes them through challenges, testing their will and transforming them from vulnerable to triumphant. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453685/original/file-20220322-13-19mop9w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Bronze statue of a girl slaying a large dragon with a club." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453685/original/file-20220322-13-19mop9w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453685/original/file-20220322-13-19mop9w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453685/original/file-20220322-13-19mop9w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453685/original/file-20220322-13-19mop9w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453685/original/file-20220322-13-19mop9w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453685/original/file-20220322-13-19mop9w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453685/original/file-20220322-13-19mop9w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sculpture in Kyiv of Ukrainian fairy tale character Kotygoroshko defeating the evil dragon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thisisbossi/3905251485/in/photolist-4DJewv-DqjJH-6X6rda">thisisbossie/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These fairy tales follow a well-known narrative arc of the underdog hero – a formula used for decades in bestselling books like “<a href="https://clarionherald.org/news/harry-potter-chronicles-battle-between-good-evil">Harry Potter</a>” and Hollywood blockbusters like “<a href="https://epicheroism.wordpress.com/home/david-vs-goliath/">Star Wars</a>.” </p>
<p>In Ukrainian children’s bedtime stories, the main characters often start out as unlikely heroes, but their courage, cleverness and grit help them succeed against the odds.</p>
<p>In contrast, <a href="https://ls.pushkininstitute.ru/lsslovar/index.php?title=%D0%98%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%83%D1%88%D0%BA%D0%B0-%D0%B4%D1%83%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%87%D0%BE%D0%BA/C1-C2">Russian children’s stories often</a> revolve around <a href="http://ec-dejavu.ru/i/Ivan_durak.html">a central character named Ivan Durak</a> – <a href="https://nukadeti.ru/skazki/skazki-pro-ivana-duraka">Ivan the Stupid</a>. He’s the third brother, inferior to his older brothers, one of whom is typically smart, the other average. When the main character is not explicitly called “stupid” he is portrayed as lazy, <a href="https://nukadeti.ru/skazki/po-shhuchemu-veleniyu">lounging in bed all day</a> <a href="https://openlibrary.org/works/OL7968651W/Ivan_the_Fool">while his older brothers work hard</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453695/original/file-20220322-20-1l6mtul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young boy rides a clay stove down a snowy hill, following a fancy sled and what looks like a soldier on a horse." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453695/original/file-20220322-20-1l6mtul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453695/original/file-20220322-20-1l6mtul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453695/original/file-20220322-20-1l6mtul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453695/original/file-20220322-20-1l6mtul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453695/original/file-20220322-20-1l6mtul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453695/original/file-20220322-20-1l6mtul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453695/original/file-20220322-20-1l6mtul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=951&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1913 illustration from Russian folk tale ‘At the Pike’s Behest,’ also known as ‘Emelyan the Fool.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77435520">В. Курдюмов</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Russian fairy tales such as “<a href="https://stpetersburg-guide.com/folk/pike.shtml">By the Pike’s Wish</a>,” “<a href="https://www.russianamericancompany.com/the-frog-princess/">Princess Frog</a>” and “<a href="https://www.russianamericancompany.com/sivka-burka-1/">Sivka Burka</a>,” the main character eventually prevails. He doesn’t win through his own virtues, though, but through the intervention of a magical being – a fish, a frog, a horse – that does all the hard work while the main character claims credit. </p>
<p>These Russian folk tales seem to suggest that the recipe for success is not to be too smart or work too hard, like the two older brothers, but to sit tight in hope that magic will take care of everything. </p>
<h2>Facing the greatest challenge</h2>
<p>Most adults don’t walk around thinking about the fairy tales they heard as children. However, these early stories, experienced through the magnifying glass of childhood emotions, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/203434/the-uses-of-enchantment-by-bruno-bettelheim/">shape our understanding about the world</a>. They determine the repertoire of our actions, especially in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/036215370403400305">times of crisis</a>. </p>
<p>Fairy tales prepare us to recognize real-life heroes and villains, love and betrayal, good and evil. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190689322.003.0013">They guide our actions as we navigate these dichotomies</a>.</p>
<p>The difference in traditional Russian and Ukrainian folklore might in part explain the difference between the Russian and Ukrainian armies’ performances. </p>
<p>When facing the greatest challenge of their lifetimes, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/03/03/russia-struggle-ukraine-soldiers-morale-00013397">those in the Russian army failed to perform well and demonstrated poor morale</a>. By contrast, <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putin-has-fatally-underestimated-ukrainians/">Ukrainians rose to the challenge in a spectacular way</a>, transforming themselves through grit and determination from the underdog to the hero who just might succeed against all odds.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140K">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179630/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mia Bloom receives funding from the Minerva Research Initiative and the Office of Naval Research, any opinions, findings, or recommendations expressed are those of the author alone and do not reflect the views of the Office of Naval Research, the Department of the Navy or the Department of Defense. Bloom is also the International Security Fellow at New America.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sophia Moskalenko receives funding from the Minerva Research Initiative and the Office of Naval Research. Any opinions, findings, or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the views of the Office of Naval Research, the Department of the Navy or the Department of Defense.</span></em></p>
The Russian army has fared poorly and the Ukrainian military has fared well, defying experts’ predictions about the war in Ukraine. Can children’s fairy tales help explain the difference?
Mia M. Bloom, Professor of Communication and Middle East Studies, Georgia State University
Sophia Moskalenko, Research Fellow in Social Psychology, Georgia State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/179251
2022-03-17T11:54:38Z
2022-03-17T11:54:38Z
Mermaids in Japan – from hideous harbingers of violence to beautiful enchantresses
<p>A report that scientists have begun <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/east-asia/mermaid-mummy-japan-scientists-tests-b2028677.html">tests on a 300-year-old “mermaid mummy” to identify its origins</a>, has stimulated an interest in the existence of mermaids in Japanese folklore.</p>
<p>Tales of mermaids and their more dangerously seductive siren sisters, are firmly <a href="https://womennart.com/2020/06/17/sirens-and-mermaids/">entrenched in cultural mythologies of many regions</a> and can be found in medieval art and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/11/the-mermaid-of-black-conch-by-monique-roffey-review-a-fishy-tale-of-doomed-womanhood">contemporary popular literature</a> the world over. </p>
<p>In Japan, elements of belief and myth linked to the natural world have endured from prehistoric times as an important part of culture and tradition. But the mermaid, as imagined in the western psyche, does not appear in these accounts. </p>
<h2>A human fish creature</h2>
<p>In Japanese folklore, there is a human fish creature with the mouth of a monkey that lives in the sea called a <em>ningyo</em> (the word in Japanese is composed of the characters for “person” and “fish”). An old Japanese belief was that eating the flesh of a <em>ningyo</em> could grant immortality.</p>
<p>It is believed that one such creature appeared to <a href="https://theconversation.com/japans-constitutional-dilemma-only-men-allowed-on-the-chrysanthemum-throne-165573">Prince Shōtoku</a> (574–622) at Lake Biwa, north-east of Kyoto. A semi-legendary figure, Prince Shōtoku was revered for his many political and cultural innovations, most notably for <a href="https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/g01049/">encouraging the spread of Buddhism in Japan</a>. The creature was once a fisherman who had trespassed to fish in protected waters, as punishment he had been transformed into a <em>ningyo</em> and with his dying breaths called upon the prince to absolve him of his crimes. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A mummified mermaid relic." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452028/original/file-20220314-19-oh942e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452028/original/file-20220314-19-oh942e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452028/original/file-20220314-19-oh942e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452028/original/file-20220314-19-oh942e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452028/original/file-20220314-19-oh942e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452028/original/file-20220314-19-oh942e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452028/original/file-20220314-19-oh942e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A mummified mermaid relic featuring the upper part of a monkey’s body and a fishtail from The British Museum similar to the one currently being researched.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/578106001">The Trustees of the British Museum</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The mermaid asked the prince to found a temple to display his horrible, mummified body to remind people about the sanctity of life. Remains matching the description of a <em>ningyo</em> can be found in the <a href="https://www.kcpinternational.com/2017/04/the-folklore-of-japanese-mermaids/#:%7E:text=In%20Japan%2C%20mermaids%20are%20often,a%20skylark%20or%20a%20flute.">Tenshou-Kyousha Shrine in Fujinomiya where it is cared for by Shinto priests</a>. </p>
<p>Accounts of mermaid appearances, though, are rare in folktales, and the creatures, rather than being objects of mesmerising beauty are described as <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330072802_Japan_The_mermaidisation_of_the_Ningyo_and_related_folkloric_figures">“hideous” portents of war or calamity</a>. </p>
<p>The “dried mermaid” currently undergoing tests was allegedly caught in the Pacific Ocean, off the Japanese island of Shikoku, between 1736 and 1741, and is now kept in a temple in the city of Asakuchi. Examination of the mermaid has led researchers to believe it is <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.13110/marvelstales.27.2.0181.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A4eabef249323a1709b74350ca460dc7f&ab_segments=&origin=">a relic from the Edo period (1603-1868)</a>. It was common for <em>Yōkai</em> (spirits and entities) and “living” scary creatures to be displayed for audiences as entertainment in travelling shows, similar to the “freak shows” in the US.</p>
<h2>When did the mermaid become Japanese?</h2>
<p>Mermaids in Japan today are no longer tiny clawed creatures with the torso of a monkey and the tail of fish. It would seem that the mermaid, as known in the west, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330072802_Japan_The_mermaidisation_of_the_Ningyo_and_related_folkloric_figures">infiltrated Japan at the start of the early 20th century</a>. This coincided with an influx of American culture from army bases at the start of the first world war, as well as the publication of the first Japanese translation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. </p>
<p>Writers and illustrators, such as Tanizaki Jun’ichirō in <em>Ningyo no nageki</em>, The Mermaid’s Lament, 1917, began to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13110/marvelstales.27.2.0181">feature this creature in their work</a>. This led to the grotesque image of the <em>ningyo</em> being superseded or merged with an alluring, clearly feminine mermaid known as <em>Māmeido</em>, in popular culture.</p>
<p>Literary and visual representations (particularly anime and manga) of the newly westernised mermaid have explored the dilemma of enchantment. These have included perspectives of the mermaid herself and, in some cases, the person, generally male, who has discovered her existence, bonded with her, then is forced to let her go. </p>
<p>This new mermaid now appears to have a place <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13110/marvelstales.27.2.0181">in popular culture</a>, with new tales that attract tourists to the southernmost islands of Japan. The bronze statue of a mermaid, sitting forlornly on a rock on Okinawa’s Moon Beach, is supposed to represent <a href="https://mermaidsofearth.com/mermaid-statues-mermaid-sculptures/public/okinawa-moon-beach-mermaid/">local legends of beautiful mermaids rescuing people </a> from the depths of a menacing sea. This is a far cry from the ghoulish image of the <em>ningyo</em>, the half-human fish with a monkey’s mouth.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179251/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ella Tennant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A mermaid with face of a monkey and body of fish has reignited interest in the Japanese ningyo
Ella Tennant, Lecturer, Language and Culture, Keele University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/170305
2021-10-29T15:19:24Z
2021-10-29T15:19:24Z
Fairies weren’t always cute – they used to drink human blood and kidnap children
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429326/original/file-20211029-13-14mglsr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C11%2C988%2C693&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A painting by John Anster Fitzgerald who was well known for his work featuring fairies. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Fitzgerald%2C_The_stuff_that_dreams_are_made_of.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When most people think about fairies, they perhaps picture the sparkling Tinker Bell from Peter Pan or the other heartwarming and cute fairies and fairy god mothers that populate many Disney movies and children’s cartoons. But these creatures have much darker origins - and were once thought to be more like undead blood-sucking vampires.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/sce/index.htm">The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies</a> (1682), folklorist <a href="https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2016/12/the-supernatural-worlds-of-robert-kirk-fairies-beasts-landscapes-and-lychnobious-liminalities/">Robert Kirk</a> argued that fairies are “the dead”, or of “a middle nature betwixt man and angels”. This association is particularly prominent in Celtic lore. Writing in <a href="https://www.libraryireland.com/AncientLegendsSuperstitions/Contents.php">1887</a>, <a href="https://www.dib.ie/biography/wilde-jane-francesca-agnes-speranza-a9035">Lady Jane Wilde</a> popularised the Irish belief that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>fairies are the fallen angels who were cast down by the Lord God out of heaven for their sinful pride…and the devil gives to these knowledge and power and sends them on earth where they work much evil.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At first sight the current innocent idea of fairyland seems as far away from the shadowy realms of the dead, and yet there are many resemblances between them. Despite their wands and glitter, fairies have a dark history and surprisingly gothic credentials. So why did we lose our fear of fairies and how did they come to be associated with childhood? </p>
<h2>How fairies lost their bite</h2>
<p>When <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/J-M-Barrie#ref82890">JM Barrie</a>’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Peter-Pan-play-by-Barrie">Peter Pan</a> debuted in the early 1900s, it was widely believed in society at that time that fairies were inhabited a shadowy spirit world. Fascinated by angels, ghosts and vampires Victorians (subsequently Edwardians) increasingly saw fairies as the souls of the dead. Rather than dispelling fairies, the first world war and the loss of many loved ones heightened a belief in airy spirits and occult methods of communicating with them. </p>
<p>However, due to Peter Pan’s great success and the prominent “pixie” character of Tinker Bell the creatures would eventually lose their malevolence as they became confined to the nursery. </p>
<p>Barrie famously equated the origin of fairies with children:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When the first baby laughed…its laugh broke into a thousand pieces…that was the beginning of fairies.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A baby being carried off by fairies." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429105/original/file-20211028-13-1m1ucud.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429105/original/file-20211028-13-1m1ucud.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429105/original/file-20211028-13-1m1ucud.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429105/original/file-20211028-13-1m1ucud.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429105/original/file-20211028-13-1m1ucud.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429105/original/file-20211028-13-1m1ucud.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429105/original/file-20211028-13-1m1ucud.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An illustration for Barrie’s Peter Pan book by Arthur Rackham.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is far from the malevolent fairies and their shadowy history in folklore. In these stories they steal children, drive people insane, blight cattle and crops – and drink human blood. Barrie, of course, was aware of their dark side. Despite the fairy dust and glamour, Tinker Bell is dangerous and vengeful like a deadly fairy temptress. At one point in the story, she even threatens to kill Wendy. </p>
<p>Peter Pan, or <a href="https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300081h.html">the Boy Who Would Not Grow Up</a>, debuted on stage at Christmas in 1904. It was inspired by performing fairies in popular shows such as Seymour Hicks’s <a href="https://gsarchive.net/british/bluebell/index.html">Bluebell in Fairyland</a>. Peter Pan was canonised by Disney in 1953 and the sentimental celluloid fairy was born. The cutesy and youthful <a href="https://www.romper.com/entertainment/shows-about-fairies">fairies of contemporary children’s TV</a> are a result of this Disneyfication. </p>
<h2>Blood hungry demons</h2>
<p>But in folklore, fairies are often a demonic or undead force; one which humans need to seek protection against. As folklorist <a href="https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/biography/katharine-mary-briggs/">Katharine Briggs</a> has noted. In her <a href="https://archive.org/details/BriggsKatharineMaryAnEncyclopediaOfFairies">Dictionary of Fairies</a>, she wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>People walking alone by night, especially through fairy-haunted places, had many ways of protecting themselves. The first might be sacred symbols, by making the sign of a cross, or by carrying a cross, particularly one made of iron; by prayers, or the chanting of hymns, by holy water, sprinkled or carried, and by carrying and strewing Churchyard mould in their path. Bread and salt were also effective, and both were regarded as sacred symbols, one of life and the other of eternity. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>What is more, fairyland has a hunger for human blood. This links fairies to the vengeful dead and to vampires. In early accounts, vampires are defined as the bodies of the dead, animated by evil spirits, which come out of their graves in the night, suck the blood the living and thereby destroy them – as an entry in the <a href="https://www.oed.com/oed2/00274736">Oxford English Dictionary</a> from 1734 noted .</p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Troublesome_Things.html?id=_r2LQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Diane Purkiss’s history of fairies</a>, includes a Scottish Highland legend which warns that you must bring water into the house at night, so the fairies don’t quench their thirst with your blood. Very old fairies, like vampires, were said to wrinkle and dry up without fresh blood.</p>
<p>The <em>Baobhan Sith</em> are vampiric Scottish fairies. These beautiful green banshees have hooves instead of feet, they dance with and exhaust their male victims then tear them to pieces. Like many fairies, they can be killed with iron. </p>
<p><em>Dearg-Due</em> are Irish vampiric fairies or “Red Blood Suckers”. They were thought to be influential on Sheridan Le Fanu’s female vampire tale <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10007">Carmilla</a> (1871).</p>
<p>Halloween is supposedly a time when the veil between our world and the shadow world is extremely thin. A time when you are more likely to hear stories of encounters between humans and fairies. So if this Halloween you go seeking winged friends, a warning to the curious, they might not be as sweet as you think. </p>
<p>Tread carefully and never enter a fairy ring. Circles of mushrooms, they are believed to have been created by fairies dancing in rounds. According to <a href="https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2019/08/what-is-a-fairy-ring/">folklore</a>, if you do happen to step into such a circle of mushrooms, you may become invisible and be made to dance around until you die of exhaustion. So a healthy fear of fairies is always wise.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170305/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sam George receives funding from the AHRC. </span></em></p>
The ‘Disneyfication’ of fairies has helped us forget their darker origins.
Sam George, Associate Professor of Research, University of Hertfordshire
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/167482
2021-10-14T12:08:35Z
2021-10-14T12:08:35Z
More ‘disease’ than ‘Dracula’ – how the vampire myth was born
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426277/original/file-20211013-17-1oj68zn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=984%2C1205%2C3394%2C2464&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Modern vampires like Dracula may be dashing, but they certainly weren't in the original vampire myths.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/helen-chandler-is-carried-by-bela-lugosi-in-a-scene-from-news-photo/159821076">Archive Photos/ Moviepix via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The vampire is a common image in today’s pop culture, and one that takes many forms: from Alucard, the dashing spawn of Dracula in the PlayStation game “Castlevania: Symphony of the Night”; to Edward, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/vampires-rebirth-from-monstrous-undead-creature-to-sexy-and-romantic-byronic-seducer-in-one-ghost-story-114382">romantic, idealistic lover</a> in the “Twilight” series.</p>
<p>In many respects, the vampire of today is far removed from its roots in Eastern European folklore. As <a href="https://slavic.as.virginia.edu/people/profile/sjs2z">a professor of Slavic studies</a> who has taught a course on vampires <a href="https://news.virginia.edu/content/dissecting-dracula-chat-vampire-expert-stanley-stepanic">called “Dracula”</a> for more than a decade, I’m always fascinated by the vampire’s popularity, considering its origins – as a demonic creature strongly associated with disease.</p>
<h2>Explaining the unknown</h2>
<p>The first known reference to vampires appeared in written form in Old Russian <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Slavic_Scriptures/-P_huGq9mV4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=upir+etymology+slav&pg=PA218&printsec=frontcover">in A.D. 1047</a>, soon after Orthodox Christianity moved into Eastern Europe. The term for vampire was “<a href="https://starlingdb.org/cgi-bin/response.cgi?basename=dataievasmer&text_word=%D1%83%D0%BF%D1%8B%D1%80%D1%8C&method_word=beginning&ww_word=on">upir</a>,” which has uncertain origins, but its possible literal meaning was “the thing at the feast or sacrifice,” referring to a potentially dangerous spiritual entity that people believed could appear at rituals for the dead. It was a euphemism used to avoid speaking the creature’s name – and unfortunately, historians may never learn its real name, or even when beliefs about it surfaced.</p>
<p>The vampire served a function similar to that of <a href="https://simmonslis.libguides.com/c.php?g=1107583&p=8076095">many other demonic creatures</a> in folklore around the world: They were blamed for a variety of problems, but particularly disease, at a time when knowledge of bacteria and viruses did not exist.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A 19th-century engraving depicts men in coats and hats shooting at a vampire in a cemetery in Romania." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425551/original/file-20211008-18-19q5vyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425551/original/file-20211008-18-19q5vyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425551/original/file-20211008-18-19q5vyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425551/original/file-20211008-18-19q5vyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425551/original/file-20211008-18-19q5vyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425551/original/file-20211008-18-19q5vyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425551/original/file-20211008-18-19q5vyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Soldiers witnessing vampire hysteria in Eastern Europe – such as people desecrating the graves of suspected vampires – carried tales back home.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/men-shoot-at-a-vampire-lying-staked-through-the-heart-in-a-news-photo/593280150?adppopup=true">Leemage/ Corbis Historical via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scholars have put forth <a href="https://theconversation.com/vampire-myths-originated-with-a-real-blood-disorder-140830">several theories</a> about various diseases’ connections to vampires. It is likely that no one disease provides a simple, “pure” origin for vampire myths, since beliefs about vampires changed over time.</p>
<p>But two in particular show solid links. One is rabies, whose name comes from a Latin term for “madness.” It’s <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/308182/rabid-by-bill-wasik-and-monica-murphy/">one of the oldest recognized diseases on the planet</a>, transmissible from animals to humans, and primarily spread through biting – an obvious reference to a classic vampire trait.</p>
<p>There are other curious connections. One central symptom of the disease is hydrophobia, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ccr3.1846">a fear of water</a>. Painful muscle contractions in the esophagus lead rabies victims to avoid eating and drinking, or even swallowing their own saliva, which eventually causes “foaming at the mouth.” In some folklore, vampires cannot cross running water without being carried or assisted in some way, as an extension of this symptom. Furthermore, rabies can lead to a fear of light, altered sleep patterns and increased aggression, elements of how vampires are described in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.51.3.856">a variety of folktales</a>.</p>
<p>The second disease <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/014107689709001114">is pellagra</a>, caused by a dietary deficiency of niacin (vitamin B3) or the amino acid tryptophan. Often, pellagra is brought on by diets high in corn products and alcohol. After Europeans landed in the Americas, they transported corn back to Europe. But they ignored <a href="https://doi-org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/10.1525/nua.1998.22.1.1">a key step in preparing corn</a>: washing it, often using lime – a process called “nixtamalization” that can reduce the risk of pellagra.</p>
<p>Pellagra causes the classic “<a href="https://doi.org/10.11604/pamj.2020.36.219.24806">4 D’s</a>”: dermatitis, diarrhea, dementia and death. Some sufferers also experience high sensitivity to sunlight – described in some depictions of vampires – which leads to corpselike skin.</p>
<h2>Social scare</h2>
<p>Multiple diseases show connections to folklore about vampires, but they can’t necessarily explain how the myths actually began. Pellagra, for example, did not exist in Eastern Europe <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2018/4597">until the 18th century</a>, centuries after vampire beliefs had originally emerged. </p>
<p>Both pellagra and rabies are important, however, because they were epidemic during a key period in vampire history. During the so-called <a href="https://news.virginia.edu/content/how-spread-disease-juiced-lore-vampires-pandemic-proportions">Great Vampire Epidemic</a>, from roughly 1725 to 1755, vampire myths “went viral” across the continent. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 110,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>As disease spread in Eastern Europe, supernatural causes were often blamed, and vampire hysteria spread throughout the region. Many people believed that vampires were the “undead” – people who lived on in some way after death – and that the vampire could be stopped by attacking its corpse. They carried out “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774314000754">vampire burials</a>,” which could involve putting a stake through the corpse, covering the body in garlic and a variety of other traditions that had been present in Slavic folklore for centuries.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Austrian and German soldiers fighting the Ottomans in the region witnessed this mass <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Twilight_Symbols/aMnDXCq9hRkC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=upir+etymology+slav&pg=PA398&printsec=frontcover">desecration of graves</a> and returned home to Western Europe with stories of the vampire.</p>
<p>But why did so much vampire hysteria spring up in the first place? Disease was a primary culprit, but a sort of “perfect storm” existed in Eastern Europe at the time. The era of the Great Vampire Epidemic was not just a period of disease, but one of political and religious upheaval as well.</p>
<p>During the 18th century, Eastern Europe faced pressure from within and without as domestic and foreign powers exercised their control over the region, with local cultures often suppressed. Serbia, for example, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Serbia/The-disintegration-of-Ottoman-rule">was struggling between the Hapsburg Monarchy in Central Europe and the Ottomans</a>. Poland was increasingly under foreign powers, Bulgaria was under Ottoman rule, and Russia was undergoing <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1pncq7q?turn_away=true">dramatic cultural change</a> due to the policies of Czar Peter the Great.</p>
<p>This is somewhat analogous to today, as the world contends with the COVID-19 pandemic amid political change and uncertainty. Perceived societal breakdown, whether real or imagined, can lead to dramatic responses in society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167482/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stanley Stepanic does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The past century’s vampires have often been a bit dashing, even romantic. That’s not how the myth started out.
Stanley Stepanic, Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Virginia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/150518
2020-12-14T13:19:59Z
2020-12-14T13:19:59Z
Mermaids aren’t real – but they’ve fascinated people around the world for ages
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373403/original/file-20201207-21-12cp4yd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C2690%2C1775&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Superstition or wishful thinking could trick you into thinking you saw one of these mythical creatures.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/MermaidParade/0154fe6abe4e4c2cae3ccf829c03c60d/">AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Are mermaids real? – Verona, age 9, Owensboro, Kentucky</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>Mermaids – underwater creatures that are half fish and half human – do not exist except in people’s imaginations. Scientists who study the ocean for the United States have investigated their possible existence and <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/mermaids.html">say no evidence of mermaids has ever been found</a>. </p>
<p>You might wonder why government scientists looked into this question. There are many stories about mermaids on TV, the internet and in magazines that pretend to be real science news. They try to fool people into believing mermaids are real, without any true evidence. This is called “cryptoscience” or “cryptozoology,” but it’s not real science. Don’t let intriguing stories deceive you about mermaids and other fun but made-up creatures, like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. </p>
<p>But just because mermaids are not real does not mean they are not meaningful. Mermaids, or merfolk as they are sometimes called because not all of them are female, have a long history and are known all over the world – the same way dragons, fairies and unicorns are.</p>
<h2>More than one kind of mermaid</h2>
<p>Some of the earliest <a href="http://mermaidsofearth.com/on-the-origin-of-mermaids/">mermaid stories are part of ancient Greek mythology</a> from over 3,000 years ago. The Greeks imagined lots of creatures that were part human and part animal, like harpies (bird and human) and centaurs (horse and human). </p>
<p>Sometimes their mermaids were good, like the Greek goddess Atargatis, who protected humans, but others were dangerous, like the Sirens, who sang beautiful songs that made sailors crash their ships into rocks and sink. <a href="https://darkemeraldtales.wordpress.com/2018/04/03/merrow-seducers-of-the-irish-seas/">Irish mermaids, called “merrows</a>,” which date back 1,000 years, were also considered a sign of bad luck. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373414/original/file-20201207-17-13pdqdf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A bronze statue of a mermaid with two tails. She is holding a tail in each hand." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373414/original/file-20201207-17-13pdqdf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373414/original/file-20201207-17-13pdqdf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373414/original/file-20201207-17-13pdqdf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373414/original/file-20201207-17-13pdqdf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=697&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373414/original/file-20201207-17-13pdqdf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373414/original/file-20201207-17-13pdqdf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373414/original/file-20201207-17-13pdqdf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A two-tailed mermaid from Padua, Italy, made in the first half of the 16th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/mermaid-italian-padua-first-half-16th-century-italian-padua-news-photo/1277896003">Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mermaid bodies have been imagined differently in different places. There’s a legendary <a href="http://yokai.com/ningyo/">Japanese mermaid called a “ningyo</a>,” which is mostly a fish, but has a human face. Maybe you’ve seen the <a href="https://movies.disney.com/ponyo">animated film “Ponyo</a>,” about a goldfish with a little girl’s face? In Europe, there were mermaids called <a href="http://symboldictionary.net/?p=1153">“melusines” who had two fish tails</a>. </p>
<p>Stories about mermaids also varied depending on where and when they were told. Only some are about mermaids falling in love and wanting to be human, like Ariel and Ponyo. In the storybook “<a href="https://bookshop.org/books/mermaids-on-mars/9781614486701">Mermaids From Mars</a>,” for instance, mermaids have used up all the water on Mars and come to Earth to help people learn the lesson of water conservation. </p>
<p>In a lot of places, mermaids were used as symbols of power and wealth. For example, the city of Warsaw in Poland has a legend of a <a href="https://doi.org/10.21463/shima.12.2.13">mermaid who is considered to be the protector of the city</a>. There’s a huge statue of her there, and she is even featured on the city’s coat of arms. Many castles in Europe also have mermaid symbols to demonstrate royal power and wealth – <a href="https://www.dieriegersburg.at/geschichte/">even in countries with no oceans, like Austria</a>. </p>
<h2>Why mermaids?</h2>
<p>You may wonder how mermaids came to be. Why did so many people around the world imagine them throughout history? It’s an interesting question that probably has more than one answer.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373421/original/file-20201207-17-x1yjye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Period drawing of a Viking wooden ship surrounded by evil looking mermaids." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373421/original/file-20201207-17-x1yjye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373421/original/file-20201207-17-x1yjye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373421/original/file-20201207-17-x1yjye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373421/original/file-20201207-17-x1yjye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373421/original/file-20201207-17-x1yjye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373421/original/file-20201207-17-x1yjye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373421/original/file-20201207-17-x1yjye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Danish Viking ship under attack by mermaids, circa 1200.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/circa-1200-a-danish-viking-ship-beset-by-mermaids-news-photo/51241447">Photo by Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Superstitious sailors, <a href="https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/10/12/mermaids/">including Christopher Columbus</a> and others, reported seeing mermaids on their travels, but scientists and historians think they probably saw real animals, like manatees or seals.</p>
<p>Throughout time, people have often created stories to help explain all kinds of things they couldn’t understand at the time. Stories also <a href="https://lithub.com/how-mermaid-stories-illustrate-complex-truths-about-being-human/">help people understand their own dreams, desires and fears</a>. </p>
<p>Whatever the reasons, people still clearly love mermaids. You can buy mermaid dolls, coloring books and costumes. You can find them on flags, coins and Starbucks coffee. At some aquariums and water parks, real people perform as mermaids and have to practice holding their breath and keeping their eyes open underwater for a long time. There’s even a brand of <a href="https://www.funslurp.com/mermaid-farts-cotton-candy">cotton candy called “Mermaid Farts,”</a> which is described as “sweet and fluffy!” </p>
<p>Even though mermaids are not really real, they can feed your imagination and creativity. Mermaids are also important because they are a shared idea that has linked people together around the world for a very long time.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
<p><em>And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150518/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Goggin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Mermaids are not real, but are meaningful to people around the world.
Peter Goggin, Associate Professor of English, Arizona State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/146130
2020-09-30T15:38:59Z
2020-09-30T15:38:59Z
Five COVID customs which emerged during lockdown
<p>For many people, the word “folklore” is synonymous with the past: beliefs at odds with contemporary society; myth and legend, even magic.</p>
<p>It is true that folklore helps us learn about our ancestors and their lives. As we continue to mark Armistice Day with a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41952990">two-minute silence</a>, we understand the momentousness of the end of the first world war. In some parts of England, the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 is still celebrated as <a href="https://www.countrylife.co.uk/out-and-about/theatre-film-music/bring-back-oak-apple-day-72535">Oak Apple Day</a>.</p>
<p>But it’s not all about the past. In response to Taylor Swift’s new album (<a href="https://www.taylorswift.com/">also entitled “folklore”</a>), the American Folklore Society <a href="https://americanfolkloresociety.org/">created a resource</a> to demonstrate just how contemporary folklore is. It says that, despite its dusty connotations, folklore is the knowledge of the people <a href="https://americanfolkloresociety.org/">“displayed through expressive culture”.</a></p>
<p>I have been tracking how people are expressing beliefs and values using folkloric practices today. It seems that during these dark times they are being used to visibly brighten our communities. Many of us will have perpetuated these customs simply for something to do – particularly families desperate for ideas to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-51988671">occupy children</a>.</p>
<p>So here are five folkloric customs that could come to define this age in the future.</p>
<h2>1. Window displays</h2>
<p>Writing in the latest newsletter from The Folklore Society, lecturer in history and folklore, <a href="https://researchprofiles.herts.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/ceri-houlbrook(e83a01eb-ebbc-4b0c-ad24-247ea3c76a10).html">Ceri Houlbrook</a> observed that “ritual deposits are placed in private spaces but for public consumption, and symbols are adopted, such as the rainbow, to express hope and support”. For many of us, spotting window displays during our limited exercise became a rite in itself.</p>
<p>The rainbow has long been used as <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200409-rainbows-as-signs-of-thank-you-hope-and-solidarity">a symbol of hope and unity</a>. The child-created window displays are thought to have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/12/everything-will-be-alright-italians-share-slogan-of-hope-in-face-of-coronavirus-crisis">originated in Italy</a> – the first European country to experience tough lockdown measures. Accompanied by messages of gratitude towards the NHS, these displays demonstrated children’s ability to contribute to the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01490400.2020.1773978">wider pandemic conversation</a>.</p>
<h2>2. Scarecrows</h2>
<p>Community scarecrow festivals are <a href="https://calendarcustoms.com/articles/kettlewell-scarecrow-festival/">common in the UK</a> and the idea was borrowed for domestic lockdown displays. Photographer of British folklore, Sara Hannant, says scarecrows are <a href="https://www.sarahannant.com/book/">“guardians of the harvest”</a>. </p>
<p>In lockdown, the scarecrow was often seen dressed up as a key worker in tribute. But their position is not always positive and they can sometimes frighten humans as well as birds. Some of the scarier scarecrows seen during lockdown were, in fact, effigies created to <a href="https://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids/gallery/16-pictures-donald-trump-boris-4470510">pillory politicians</a>.</p>
<h2>3. Painted pebbles, stone snakes</h2>
<p>Another pre-COVID custom, the hiding and seeking of painted pebbles to amuse children and to forge <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2018/may/06/rocking-all-over-the-world-the-painted-pebble-trend-crossing-continents">connections in the community</a>, also became an integral part of community folklore. Passing on knowledge – anonymously and creatively – was made possible through messages of reassurance painted on pebbles and displayed outside homes, at community focal points or hidden for others to find.</p>
<p>Stones have long had pandemic connotations. The “Boundary Stone” for example was where isolated villagers in Eyam, Derbyshire, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/eyam-derbyshire-coronavirus-self-isolate-1665-plague">left money and received food</a> during the 1665 plague. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0HzT87XT9N0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>During lockdown, pebble painters also created stone snakes. Some were created organically by leaving pebbles in a line to encourage others to add theirs. But others were more organised, such as the long “COVID snake” created at Pavilion Gardens in Buxton, Derbyshire. </p>
<h2>4. Kerbside gifts</h2>
<p>Painted pebbles were not the only lockdown gifts. With more time at home and in the neighbourhood, residents took the opportunity to weed out unwanted belongings and, with charity shops and recycling centres closed, left freebies for passers-by. Some made the clear-out more appealing and fun. In one street in Nottingham (pictured above) a resident wrapped up the books, CDs and DVDs she was giving away to treat her neighbours to a lucky dip. </p>
<p>Small tokens or notes of inspiration were also left as inspiring gifts for passers-by in some parts of the UK. For example, in Mapperley, Nottingham, quotes were pinned to trees in an attempt to spread positivity. These displays supplied crowd-sourced distractions while providing reassurance and solidarity for both purveyor and reader.</p>
<h2>5. Doorstep noise</h2>
<p>The Guardian deemed Clap for Carers the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/28/clap-for-our-carers-the-very-unbritish-ritual-that-united-the-nation">“unBritish ritual”</a> due to its loud, proud demonstration being uncharacteristic for famously reserved Brits. But for 10 weeks, 8pm on Thursdays was a raucous affair with people applauding keyworkers on their doorsteps. In some neighbourhoods, this was augmented by fireworks, car horns, pots and pans and – in some cases – a prompt for socially distanced community celebration.</p>
<p>Residents of Belper, Derbyshire, took the noise-making further, turning out at 6.30pm each lockdown evening <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-derbyshire-52401521">to moo for two minutes</a>. Begun by Jasper Ward to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thebelpermoo/">“fight lockdown loneliness and boredom”</a>, the moo has been replicated across the world. Like Clap for Carers, there are plans for an annual commemoration beginning in 2021. Weekly doorstep racket-making, it seemed, became a cathartic method to remind ourselves of the people beyond our four walls. </p>
<p>As lockdown curtailed social interactions, these COVID customs enabled people to make connections and demonstrate meaning. A rainbow in a window can be both a child’s delightful creation and a signal of hope. Participation in Clap for Carers a statement of solidarity and a simple acknowledgement of thanks.</p>
<p>Folklore researcher at the Elphinstone Institute, <a href="https://www.abdn.ac.uk/people/n.lebigre">Nicolas Le Bigre</a>, who is documenting COVID customs as part of <a href="https://www.abdn.ac.uk/elphinstone/public-engagement/LockdownLore">“Lockdown Lore”</a> says it is too early to say whether these communal acts will re-emerge in other periods of global crisis, or whether they will retire, becoming symbols of the time. But he added: “I can at least smile at the wealth of creativity that has come my way.” And that has been a comfort to us all.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/news/help-us-build-a-collection-of-homemade-signs-and-rainbow-drawings-created-during-lockdown">The V&A</a>, <a href="https://www.museums-sheffield.org.uk/about/collecting-experiences-of-coronavirus">Museums Sheffield</a> and the <a href="https://contemporarylegend.co.uk/2020/09/22/covid-customs-callout-tell-us-your-stories/">Centre for Contemporary Legend</a> at Sheffield Hallam University are collecting COVID customs for future analysis of what they say about this turbulent period.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146130/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sophie Parkes-Nield is a member of the Folklore Society. </span></em></p>
Folklore isn’t a whimsical fancy - it’s happening all around us all the time.
Sophie Parkes-Nield, PhD Candidate, Creative Writing and Folklore, Sheffield Hallam University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/140830
2020-06-23T14:40:28Z
2020-06-23T14:40:28Z
Vampire myths originated with a real blood disorder
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342281/original/file-20200616-23255-h4uj5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=52%2C46%2C3750%2C2683&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A street painting in Bucharest, Romania, depicts Bram Stoker, right, the author of Dracula, sharing a drink with Vlad the Impaler, left, the medieval Romanian ruler who inspired the book.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photos/Vadim Ghirda)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The concept of a vampire predates Bram Stoker’s tales of Count Dracula — probably by several centuries. But did vampires ever really exist?</p>
<p>In 1819, 80 years before the publication of <em>Dracula</em>, John Polidori, an Anglo-Italian physician, published a novel called <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6087/6087-h/6087-h.htm"><em>The Vampire</em></a>. Stoker’s novel, however, became the benchmark for our descriptions of vampires. But how and where did this concept develop? It appears that the folklore surrounding the vampire phenomenon originated in that Balkan area where Stoker located his tale of Count Dracula.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342292/original/file-20200616-23247-1wf5585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342292/original/file-20200616-23247-1wf5585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342292/original/file-20200616-23247-1wf5585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342292/original/file-20200616-23247-1wf5585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342292/original/file-20200616-23247-1wf5585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342292/original/file-20200616-23247-1wf5585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342292/original/file-20200616-23247-1wf5585.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bram Stoker’s <em>Dracula</em> has become the benchmark vampire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Penguin Random House)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Stoker <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/bram-stoker-a-hero-for-struggling-corner-of-romania-1.1850499">never travelled to Transylvania</a> or any other part of Eastern Europe. (The lands held by the fictional count would be in modern-day Romania and Hungary.) </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bramstokerestate.com">The writer was born and brought up in Dublin</a>. He was a friend to Oscar Wilde and William Gladstone. He was both a Liberal and a home-ruler — in favour of home rule for Ireland. He turned to theatre, and became business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London. It was his friendship with Armin Vambery, a Hungarian writer, that led to his fascination with vampire folklore. He consulted Vambery in the writing of <em>Dracula</em>, whose main character was loosely fashioned on <a href="http://www.english.upenn.edu/%7Emgamer/Etexts/prince.dracula.html">Vlad the Impaler</a>, a bloodthirsty prince born in Transylvania in 1431.</p>
<h2>Medical source of the myth</h2>
<p>But where did the myth of vampires come from? Like many myths, it is based partly in fact. A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(09)61925-5">blood disorder called porphyria</a>, which has has been with us for millennia, became prevalent among the nobility and royalty of Eastern Europe. Porphyria is an inherited blood disorder that causes the body to produce less heme — a critical component of hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the body tissues. It seems likely that this disorder is the origin of the vampire myth. In fact, porphyria is sometimes referred to as the “vampyre disease.”</p>
<p>Consider the symptoms of patients with porphyria:</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342284/original/file-20200616-23213-1btom74.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342284/original/file-20200616-23213-1btom74.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1200&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342284/original/file-20200616-23213-1btom74.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1200&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342284/original/file-20200616-23213-1btom74.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1200&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342284/original/file-20200616-23213-1btom74.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342284/original/file-20200616-23213-1btom74.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342284/original/file-20200616-23213-1btom74.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Elements of vampire folklore correspond to symptoms of porphyria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Pixabay)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Sensitivity to sunlight</strong>: Extreme <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamadermatol.2015.6066">sensitivity to sunlight</a>, leading to facial disfigurement, blackened skin and hair growth.</p>
<p><strong>Fangs</strong>: In addition to facial disfigurement, repeated attacks of the disease causes the gums to recede, exposing the teeth, which then look like fangs.</p>
<p><strong>Blood drinking</strong>: Because the urine of persons with porphyria is dark red, folklore surmised that they were drinking blood. In fact, some physicians had recommended that these patients drink blood to compensate for the defect in their red blood cells — but this recommendation was for animal blood. It is more likely that these patients, who only went out after dark, were judged to be looking for blood, and their fangs led to folk tales about vampires.</p>
<p><strong>Aversion to garlic</strong>: The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/pbm.1990.0051">sulfur content of garlic</a> could lead to an attack of porphyria, leading to very acute pain. Thus, the aversion to garlic.</p>
<p><strong>Reflections not seen in mirrors</strong>: In the mythology, a vampire is not able to look in a mirror, or cannot see its reflection. The facial disfigurement caused by porphyria becomes worse with time. Poor oxygenation leads to destruction of facial tissues, and collapse of the facial structure. Patients understandably avoided mirrors.</p>
<p><strong>Fear of the crucifix</strong>: During the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834), 600 “vampires” were reportedly burned at the stake. Some of these accused vampires were innocent sufferers of porphyria. Porphyria patients had good reason to fear the Christian faith and Christian symbols.</p>
<p>Acute attacks of the disease are associated with considerable pain, and both mental and physical disturbance. This condition has been ascribed to the English King George III, although subsequent analysis has <a href="https://doi.org/10.7861/clinmedicine.15-2-168">shed some doubt on porphyria</a> as the cause of his “madness.”</p>
<h2>Porphyria</h2>
<p>Nowadays, with our scientific knowledge of porphyria, instead of fearing these folks, <a href="http://canadianassociationforporphyria.ca/Porphyria-Treatments">we can love and care for them</a>. Porphyria remains incurable, and treatment is mainly supportive: pain control, fluids and avoidance of drugs and chemicals that provoke acute attacks. Some success has been achieved with stem cell transplants.</p>
<p>Could Stoker have known of the existence of porphyria, and/or its link to vampire folklore? It was only in 1911, eight years before Stoker’s book appeared, that the diseases of porphyria (there are several types) <a href="https://porphyriafoundation.org/for-patients/about-porphyria/history-of-porphyria/">were classified by H. Gunther</a>. However, physician, researcher and author George Harley had described a patient with porphyria a few years earlier.</p>
<p>Through his gothic novel, Stoker surely wins the prize for the best example of myth entangled with medicine!</p>
<p><em>This story is an edited excerpt from the book</em> Of Plagues and Vampires: Believable Myths and Unbelievable Facts from Medical Practice <em>by Michael Hefferon</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140830/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Hefferon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Did vampires ever really exist? The myth is likely related to a medical condition with symptoms that may explain many elements of centuries-old vampire folklore.
Michael Hefferon, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Queen's University, Ontario
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/132646
2020-05-11T11:49:52Z
2020-05-11T11:49:52Z
The tooth fairy as an essential worker in a child’s world of wonder
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332784/original/file-20200505-83745-19qrqez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=62%2C669%2C5028%2C2522&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Smiling schoolboys reveal their missing teeth.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/news-photo/534934306?adppopup=true">Anthony Asael/Art in All of Us /Contributor via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the midst of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/covid-19">COVID-19 pandemic</a>, adults and children alike have called on political leaders and health experts to address a concern: Is now a bad time to lose a tooth? </p>
<p>In April, the <a href="https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/get-your-teeth-ready-kids-legault-adds-tooth-fairy-to-list-of-essential-services-in-quebec-1.4886542">premier of Quebec, François Legault,</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/07/828839205/the-easter-bunny-is-an-essential-worker-new-zealands-ardern-says">New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern</a> assured worried children that the tooth fairy is, indeed, an essential worker. </p>
<p>Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, followed those assurances with a guarantee of his own. The tooth fairy, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/04/23/dr-fauci-will-smith-snapchat-show-tooth-fairy-mxp-vpx.hln/video/playlists/atv-trending-videos/">he said</a>, is not at risk of infection.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://folklore.indiana.edu/about/faculty/barker-k.html">professor of folklore</a> who has <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=NrSXDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=folk+illusions&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&ppis=_e&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjckbTM9IvoAhVLlKwKHTEyDN8Q6AEwAHoECAUQAg#v=onepage&q=folk%20illusions&f=false">researched the blurry lines between reality and fantasy in children’s worldviews</a>, I am delighted that our leaders have not mistaken childishness for triviality. Few folkloric traditions embody the <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/ana-veciana-suarez/article238440968.html">wonder of childhood</a> more clearly than the tooth fairy. The shedding of teeth, after all, marks important developmental milestones. And children have long capitalized on the occasion as an opportunity to participate in magical rituals. </p>
<p>For centuries, in traditions much older than the tooth fairy customs we know today, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/kidscbc2/the-feed/tooth-fairy-or-tooth-mouse-4-legends-from-around-the-world">children in Europe</a>, Asia, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/ever-wonder-where-the-tooth-fairy-comes-from/2012/04/26/gIQAz5urjT_story.html">Africa</a> and Oceania have practiced myriad rituals related to losing teeth. They include <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/HZbfAAAAMAAJ?hl=en">reported traditions</a> in Mongolia of wrapping a shed tooth in meat and feeding it to a dog, and crushing lost teeth in Tibet between stones and tossing the dusty remains into the wind. Greek children, meanwhile, throw teeth on roofs, while in Xinjiang teeth are sewn into the shoulders of winter coats.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331586/original/file-20200429-51508-132qr56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=54%2C58%2C2052%2C1232&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331586/original/file-20200429-51508-132qr56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331586/original/file-20200429-51508-132qr56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331586/original/file-20200429-51508-132qr56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331586/original/file-20200429-51508-132qr56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331586/original/file-20200429-51508-132qr56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/331586/original/file-20200429-51508-132qr56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Losing baby teeth is an important rite of passage in many cultures.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/losing-baby-teeth-is-an-important-rite-of-passage-in-many-news-photo/1153507510?adppopup=true">Joey McLeister/Star Tribune via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Usually taught to children by their parents, these magical acts are often accompanied by traditional sayings calling on the powers that be to bring new, stronger teeth as replacements. In one widespread European tradition closely related to the 18th-century French fairy tale “<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2016/09/14/where-did-the-tooth-fairy-come-from/#75ff3a0159d4">La Bonne Petite Souris</a>,” children leave their shed teeth under a pillow for a mouse who exchanges it for money. </p>
<h2>A magical rise in popularity</h2>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Good_People.html?id=DLmoKKkxAX0C&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&ppis=_e#v=onepage&q&f=false">Folklorists generally agree</a> that Americans’ tooth-for-money fairy rituals, possibly derived from European variants, arose around the turn of the 20th century. Like candy on Halloween, however, the tooth fairy was not a nationwide custom until the 1950s. </p>
<p>We can only hypothesize about the economic and cultural forces that propelled the tooth fairy’s rise to stardom, but possible causes include changing cultural attitudes toward parenting, postwar affluence and a rising number of literary and film portrayals of fairies. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332500/original/file-20200504-83725-v6v4ne.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332500/original/file-20200504-83725-v6v4ne.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332500/original/file-20200504-83725-v6v4ne.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332500/original/file-20200504-83725-v6v4ne.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332500/original/file-20200504-83725-v6v4ne.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332500/original/file-20200504-83725-v6v4ne.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332500/original/file-20200504-83725-v6v4ne.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Image by Natalia Ovcharenko.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pixabay.com/illustrations/tooth-fairy-tooth-teeth-fairy-2356398/">Pixabay</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the 21st century, the tooth fairy is clearly a mainstay of popular and folk culture, but tooth fairy practices differ greatly. For example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00221325.1987.9914544">one study suggests</a> that Jewish children are less likely to believe in the tooth fairy than Christian children. Some children write letters to the tooth fairy, while other families have the tooth fairy leave letters encouraging dental hygiene. </p>
<p>Many children, of course, place their teeth under their pillows hoping the fairy will replace it with money while they sleep. But just last semester, an insightful undergraduate student at Indiana University shared an interesting variation with me. The student reported that she placed her lost teeth in a cup of water and left it on the kitchen counter. Over the span of a few days, the tooth fairy would fill the cup with a few coins each night until the tooth finally disappeared. Only then could she retrieve her money. </p>
<p>Placing the shed tooth in water is a custom in other parts of the world, most famously in Norway, but the origins of my student’s familial custom remain murky. After interviewing her relatives, she learned that her grandfather may have simply created their tooth-in-water tradition when he became bored with searching around under a pillow in the dark. Such is the nature of the search for folkloric origins. </p>
<p>Some have suggested that the tooth fairy introduces children to the <a href="https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/cfr/article/view/25280">capitalist ethos of American culture</a>. I’m not so sure. Considering adults’ central role in tooth fairy customs, it seems just as likely that the tooth fairy grants grownups, for a just little while, reemergence into a child’s magical world. If I’m right about that, it’s no wonder that our leaders have deemed the tooth fairy’s work to be essential during this unsettling time.</p>
<p>[<em>You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-help">Read The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132646/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brandon Barker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
During this unsettling time, global leaders have assured children and adults alike that the tooth fairy, free from the risk of infection, is indeed an essential worker.
Brandon Barker, Assistant Professor of Folklore, Indiana University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/134986
2020-04-01T12:13:04Z
2020-04-01T12:13:04Z
Obituary: South Africa’s towering healer, prophet and artist Credo Mutwa
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323972/original/file-20200330-146683-3u49ga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vusamazulu. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Artwork © Sindiso Nyoni</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mkhulu <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/vusamazulu-credo-mutwa">VusamaZulu Credo Mutwa</a>’s name foretold the role that this towering South African healer, prophet and artist was to play. VusamaZulu can be translated as either ‘awaken the Zulu nation’ or ‘awaken the heavens’, aptly describing his life’s work: asserting the humanity of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/defining-term-bantu">aBantu</a> – people of African descent – globally.</p>
<p>‘Mkhulu’ means ‘grandfather’ and in this I acknowledge Mkhulu VusamaZulu as well as the ancestors that walk with him as my elders. </p>
<p>uMkhulu passed away at the age of 98. He was born on 21 July 1921 in KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa. After falling ill in his teenage years, he was initiated to become a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/sangoma">sangoma</a> or traditional healer. </p>
<p>The sangoma is a diviner and seer, using gifts of spiritual sight, mediation with the ancestors and knowledge of herbal medicine and ritual to diagnose and heal disease. Traditional healers are often ‘called’ to this path by their ancestors ‘<a href="http://scholar.ufs.ac.za:8080/bitstream/handle/11660/2171/MlisaL-RN.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">through dreams and other significant experiences</a>’ including illnesses and misfortune. </p>
<p>Following this intensive initiation process, uMkhulu embarked on <a href="http://credomutwa.com/credo-mutwa-biography/biography-01/">many journeys</a> through African countries, including Swaziland, Lesotho and Kenya. He wrote </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was not travelling for enjoyment, however, I was travelling for knowledge … I came into contact with men and women of countries that I had not known before … I found myself amongst men and women possessing knowledge that was already ancient when the man Jesus Christ was born. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1172&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1172&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1172&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Credo Mutwa in Soweto, 1997.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The pan-African nature of his training provided him with a vast <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4aXrxYWfxHbwbJCBThdMa07TQrQ8anOr">knowledge</a> of African folklore, mythology and culture which, he lamented, was dying. He became adamant that he needed not only to preserve it, but to educate South Africans about this heritage, which is not taught in schools. </p>
<h2>Prolific artist</h2>
<p>uMkhulu was astonishingly prolific despite his many years, working across mediums and forms as a teacher and healer. He was a storyteller of mythologies, the author of five books, the best-known being <em><a href="https://canongate.co.uk/books/236-indaba-my-children-african-tribal-history-legends-customs-and-religious-beliefs/">Indaba, My Children (1964)</a></em>. He wrote a play called <em>uNosilimela</em>, worked on a <a href="http://vusamazulu.com">graphic novel</a>, and created a <a href="http://credomutwa.com">website</a> and two living museums – <a href="https://www.sa-venues.com/things-to-do/gauteng/credo-mutwa-cultural-village/">KwaKhaya LeNdaba</a> in Soweto and <a href="http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=7&aid=1&dir=2010/January/Friday15/">Lotlamoreng</a> in Mahikeng. Here visitors can see some of his countless sculptures and artworks. </p>
<p>In many, there is a recurring figure of a woman, whom he called Ma in <em>Indaba, My Children</em>. This is the depiction of the goddess of creation, known to the Zulu people as <a href="http://paton.ukzn.ac.za/Collections/Nomkhubulwane.aspx">Nomkhubulwane</a>. He frequently exalted the spirit of women as life givers and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK13Yw9cXQQ">spoke</a> against the abuse of women. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penguin Random House</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With no formal training, his art became an expression of his wish to share the oral tales and symbols of traditional African spirituality. </p>
<p>Through these various works, he allowed us to trace our roots, philosophy and <em>ubuntu bethu</em>; the humanity of aBantu. Ubuntu here refers to a specific humanity accessible only to aBantu; an assertion that foregrounds the African worldview. </p>
<p>At the time of his passing uMkhulu had received little financial gain from his writings as his royalties were owned by others, according to the <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/credo-mutwa-trust-opened/">Credo Mutwa Trust</a>.</p>
<p>This was not his only challenge. uMkhulu acknowledged that in his writing about African spirituality, he was risking being called a traitor by his people for sharing its secrets. </p>
<p>In 1976, students burnt down parts of his Soweto cultural village after he was misquoted on an Afrikaans radio station. It was burnt down again in 1980, his son murdered and wife raped, after being unjustly accused of working with white men under apartheid. </p>
<p>With his work easily exploited by conspiracy theorists, he was at times ridiculed as a false prophet. He was largely neglected as a cultural figure by the South African state. To maintain his safety, he retired to the small town of Kuruman in the North West province.</p>
<h2>Revered sanusi</h2>
<p>uMkhulu was a revered sanusi, loosely translated as ‘one who lifts us up’. Isanusi, according uMkhulu VVO Mkhize of <a href="https://umsamo.org.za/south-african-healers-association-soaha/">Umsamo Institute</a>, is a healer who reveals that which is hidden, such as mysteries erased by history, and who tells us about the future. </p>
<p>As he filled in some of the blanks in Bantu history, his predictions of significant global events garnered international interest.</p>
<p>Many were expressed through his <a href="https://www.artranked.com/topic/credo+mutwa">art</a>. His 1979 sculpture of King Khandakhulu discussing his sexually transmitted diseases with the gods is seen to pre-empt HIV and Aids. A 1979 painting is said to predict the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/September-11-attacks">September 11</a> attacks in the USA. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mutwa’s sculptures of King Khandakulu and the gods.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of his many <a href="https://www.power987.co.za/news/documentary-celebrating-human-rights-day-with-credo-vusamazulu-mutwa/">predictive utterances</a> – among them those related to the 1976 Soweto youth <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">uprisings</a> and the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana</a> massacre – were told to visitors or made in video recordings posted on the Credo Mutwa Foundation Facebook <a href="https://www.facebook.com/LifeandTimesofCredoMutwa/">page</a>. His prophecy was embedded in South Africa’s popular culture, especially through the <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/news-and-analysis/credo-warns-evil-is-upon-us--daily-sun">mass print media</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76h62Z8OqMI">YouTube</a>.</p>
<p>Taken together, his life’s work proposed that knowledge was not finite and that the soul was able to traverse different times and dimensions to bring knowledge of the past and of the future into the present.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JtRpdpeJJDc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A short documentary on Mutwa’s cultural village in Soweto.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>New ways of knowing</h2>
<p>uMkhulu broadened the view of Africans. In his work, we were exposed to a type of knowledge that had been <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227583160_Developmental_Psychology_as_Political_Psychology_in_Sub-Saharan_Africa_The_Challenge_of_Africanisation">oppressed</a>. He taught us that South Africans’ history did not begin in 1652, when <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/arrival-jan-van-riebeeck-cape-6-april-1652">Jan Van Riebeeck</a> hit our shores and the colonisation project <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-slavery-and-early-colonisation-south-africa">began</a>, but that we have a long legacy of philosophy and medicine, interrupted by this colonisation. </p>
<p>Through his work, he gave us the voice, the agency and the tools with which to fight against a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01459740.2015.1100612">single story</a>. One that placed the white man as the ideal and any other category of human as ‘other’ and <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/1516556/69a8a25c597f33bf66af6cdf411d58c2.pdf">lesser</a>. We are now able to assert that the story is of multiple interpretations, dimensions and times.</p>
<p><em>Lala ngoxolo Khehla lethu</em> (rest in peace our old man); your prophecies are well heeded, and teachings continuously awaken <em>uBuntu bethu</em> (our humanity), <em>thina aBantu beThonga laseAfrika</em> (us children of the ancestor of Africa).</p>
<p><em>The portrait ‘Vusumazulu’ is by Sindiso Nyoni. See his work <a href="https://studioriot.com">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/134986/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sinethemba Makanya receives funding from the Mellon Foundation and the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human and Community Development. I have previously received funding from Fulbright </span></em></p>
His life’s work was asserting the humanity and history of the Bantu people, while proposing that the soul was able to bring knowledge of the past and of the future into the present.
Sinethemba Makanya, Doctoral Fellow, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/129420
2020-02-11T14:46:54Z
2020-02-11T14:46:54Z
How China does Valentine’s Day
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312669/original/file-20200129-93007-1y3yij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C21%2C4875%2C3364&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Couples get romantic on Qixi, a lovers' festival similar to Valentine's Day.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/men-confess-love-to-their-girlfriends-with-bouquets-of-news-photo/1020543070?adppopup=truehttps://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/men-confess-love-to-their-girlfriends-with-bouquets-of-news-photo/1020543070?adppopup=true">Visual China Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many countries <a href="https://www.npr.org/2011/02/14/133693152/the-dark-origins-of-valentines-day">celebrate love on Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day</a> — a holiday named for Saint Valentine, a third-century Roman clergyman who secretly performed weddings for soldiers forbidden to marry under Emperor Claudius II. </p>
<p>But there are those that honor romance on different days with their own legends. </p>
<p>China’s Qixi, which occurs on the seventh day of the seventh month on the Chinese calendar – early August on the Western calendar – is a couples’ holiday based on the <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/asia/china/articles/the-legend-behind-the-qixi-festival/">Chinese folktale</a> about two star-crossed lovers: “Niulang,” or Cattleman, and “Zhinü,” the Weaver Lady. </p>
<h2>Bridge to love</h2>
<p>In Chinese myth, Cattleman was a handsome young mortal who once healed a dying ox. In return for saving his life, the ox helped Cattleman find a wife. </p>
<p>“At dusk seven goddesses will come down from heaven to bathe in the nearby lake,” he told Cattleman, according to <a href="https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%89%9B%E9%83%8E%E7%B9%94%E5%A5%B3">legend</a>, adding that the youngest, Zhinü, was the prettiest. The two met, fell in love and decided to get married. </p>
<p>The goddess was a weaver fairy and the youngest daughter of the almighty goddess of heaven. Her mother, furious that her daughter had married a mere man, sent her celestial soldiers to return Weaver Lady to heaven.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312672/original/file-20200129-92969-1u1swh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312672/original/file-20200129-92969-1u1swh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312672/original/file-20200129-92969-1u1swh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312672/original/file-20200129-92969-1u1swh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312672/original/file-20200129-92969-1u1swh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312672/original/file-20200129-92969-1u1swh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312672/original/file-20200129-92969-1u1swh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312672/original/file-20200129-92969-1u1swh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Model and actress Lin Chi-ling as the Weaver Lady at a 2019 Qixi Festival gala broadcast on national TV.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/model-actress-lin-chi-ling-attends-a-taping-of-a-china-news-photo/1166936362?adppopup=true">Visual China Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The grateful old ox, now on death’s door, told Cattleman to put on his skin after he died. Upon doing so, Cattleman discovered he could fly to heaven to retrieve his wife. </p>
<p>However, just before he reached Weaver Lady, the goddess of heaven threw her silver hairpin toward Cattleman, creating a swirling river that separated the young couple. This river became the Milky Way, or yinhe – the “Silver River” – in Chinese. </p>
<p>Cattleman and Weaver Lady’s story moved all the magpies on Earth, according to the Qixi legend. They flew up to heaven to bridge the Silver River. Relenting, the goddess of heaven allowed the young lovers to meet on the Magpie Bridge – but only once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month. Qixi means “seventh day.” </p>
<p>Eventually, Cattleman and the Weaver Lady turned into stars, which in English are called Altair and Vega. They twinkle in the night sky as eternal symbols of romantic love. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312674/original/file-20200129-92954-17d5neu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312674/original/file-20200129-92954-17d5neu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312674/original/file-20200129-92954-17d5neu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312674/original/file-20200129-92954-17d5neu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312674/original/file-20200129-92954-17d5neu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312674/original/file-20200129-92954-17d5neu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312674/original/file-20200129-92954-17d5neu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312674/original/file-20200129-92954-17d5neu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Milky Way, or ‘Silver River’ in Chinese, divides Vega, on the right, from Altair, on the lower left.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-summer-milky-way-overhead-and-through-the-summer-news-photo/1134062152?adppopup=true">Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Qixi traditions</h2>
<p>In olden times Chinese women celebrated Qixi with weaving, embroidering and paper-cutting. In one popular dexterity contest, ladies competed to thread a bronze needle with seven holes on it <a href="https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%83%E5%A4%95">under moonlight</a>. Young women would also pray to Vega for a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qixi_Festival">good husband</a>. </p>
<p>Today China’s Qixi festival is more of a commercial affair, like American Valentine’s Day. Couples go on dates, declare their love and exchange gifts like flowers, perfume or jewelry. </p>
<p>While researching <a href="https://theconversation.com/matching-vietnamese-brides-with-chinese-men-marriage-brokers-find-good-business-and-sometimes-love-127977">international marriages in China</a>, I’ve learned the legend of Qixi also lives on in curious ways.</p>
<p>China, with its surplus of young bachelors, has a major <a href="https://theconversation.com/matching-vietnamese-brides-with-chinese-men-marriage-brokers-find-good-business-and-sometimes-love-127977">industry of online marriage brokers</a>. Some of these businesses are called “magpie bridges,” because they bring lovers together – alas, not gods, but mere mortals. </p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129420/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wei Li does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
China’s Qixi Festival is a celebration of love based on the legend of a mortal who married a goddess, causing his furious mother-in-law to create a Milky Way to divide these two twinkling stars.
Wei Li, Associate Professor of Sociology, Frostburg State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/129864
2020-01-30T19:09:18Z
2020-01-30T19:09:18Z
Why we knock on wood for luck
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312668/original/file-20200129-92959-s1eqbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C3%2C2628%2C1821&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Knocking on wood may be a holdover from the pagan days of Europe, when tree spirits were believed to bring luck. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/hand-knock-knocking-on-door-room-390896041">saiful bahri 46/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ever said something like, “I’ve never gotten a speeding ticket” – and then quickly, for luck, rapped your knuckles on a wooden table or doorframe?</p>
<p>Americans accompany this action by saying, “Knock on wood.” In Great Britain, it’s “Touch wood.” They knock on wood <a href="https://www.history.com/news/why-do-people-knock-on-wood-for-luck">in Turkey</a>, too. </p>
<p>As a teacher of <a href="https://rosemaryhathaway.faculty.wvu.edu">folklore</a> – the study of “the expressive culture of everyday life,” as my <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/45437506">favorite short definition puts it</a> – I’m often asked why people knock on wood.</p>
<h2>The answer is complicated</h2>
<p>The common explanation for knocking on wood claims the ritual is a holdover from Europe’s pagan days, an appeal to tree-dwelling spirits to ward off bad luck or an expression of <a href="https://www.history.com/news/why-do-people-knock-on-wood-for-luck">gratitude for good fortune</a>.</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199990009.001.0001/acref-9780199990009">Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable</a>, “traditionally, certain trees, such as the oak, ash, hazel, hawthorn and willow, had a sacred significance and thus protective powers.”</p>
<p>Furthermore, the theory goes, Christian reformers in Europe may have deliberately transformed this heathenish belief into a more acceptable Christian one by introducing the idea that the “wood” in “knock on wood” referred to the wood of the cross of Jesus’ crucifixion. </p>
<p>However, no tangible evidence supports these origin stories. </p>
<p>The Oxford English Dictionary <a href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/203877">traces the phrase</a> “touch wood” only back to the early 19th century, locating its origins in a British children’s tag game called Tiggy-touch-wood, in which children could make themselves “exempt…from capture [by] touching wood.”</p>
<p>Of course, much folklore is learned informally, by word of mouth or customary behavior. So it’s possible – even likely – that the phrase and the ritual predate its first appearance in print. </p>
<h2>So why do we still knock on wood?</h2>
<p>I’d wager few, if any, people today think – after saying something that might bring bad luck – “I’d better ask the tree spirits for help!” </p>
<p>Still they knock, to avoid negative consequences. </p>
<p>That puts knocking on wood in a category with other “conversion rituals” like <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/541285">throwing salt over one’s shoulder</a>: actions people perform, almost automatically, to “undo” any bad luck just created.</p>
<p>The anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski has a theory about such actions, called the “<a href="https://www.abc-clio.com/ABC-CLIOCorporate/product.aspx?pc=A1870C">anxiety-ritual theory</a>.” It states that the anxiety created by uncertainty leads people to turn to magic and ritual to gain a sense of control. </p>
<p>Knocking on wood may seem trivial, but it is one small way people quell their fears in a life full of anxieties.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129864/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosemary V. Hathaway does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The curious history of a ritual meant to ward off bad luck.
Rosemary V. Hathaway, Associate Professor of English, West Virginia University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.