#Elizabeth's sprite took the longest

[dire-kumori]

[the-blooming-heather]

Happy Litha, from Ireland! ☘️☘️☘️

 Four years ago, I waited until my favorite day of the year to make this blog. I thought it felt more magical than other days, even before I learned about the wheel of the year. I knew that the summer solstice was a special day unlike any other, and so I honored it that year by changing the course of my life and my state of mind. 

 Over the following years, when the solstice came around I would sneak off with sweets and bottles of honeyed milk. I’d bike until I came upon a small grove of trees at the dead end of a large neighborhood street. Behind those trees was a small path, which lead to a beach no wider than eleven feet across and seven in length. It looked out onto the bustling ports of Elizabeth River, but secluded by trees and rocky shoals, even the evening fog horns couldn’t stir the peaceful air.  

An old log lay up toward the top of the beach, safe from the high and low tides each. While rocks were exposed and covered with moss and algae on the regular, this log with its notches, nooks, and crannies was always dry, and always the same. I would leave offerings here, pouring the milk into a bowl shaped depression in the mangled wood, and laying whatever treat I had brought beside it. I would hum a scottish folk song, “The Blooming Heather,” and sit in solitude awhile and watch the water lap at the shore. Then, I’d turn, retrieve my bike from the ivy covered path, and head home. I did not know who I left it for. At the time, I fancied I was leaving it for the fey. And perhaps I was. T

his pattern continued when I was away. Once, in a park somewhere in the hills of Virginia, my offering was instead a feather and a coin left by a pond. I always dreamed of visiting Ireland for Midsummer, the longest, most mystical day so knew. And now, by complete coincidence I assure you, in Ireland my tradition continues. 

I stepped out onto the porch of my host family’s home some twenty odd minutes before sunset. I sat quietly, and hummed “The Blooming Heather.” I opened a bottle of Jameson, a plastic one I had bought in the Dublin airport just after my arrival, and took a swig before filling the cap in kind. I played Cara Dillon’s rendition of “The Parting Glass” and left my phone on the porch as I precariously crossed a pet-loved backyard in fuzzy socks with rubber words on the bottom, till I reached a spot on the border between green meadow grass and dry straw. Between the yard, and the fields beyond. Here, I poured the capful into a conveniently cupped dry leaf. But as I made my way back to the house, I realized I had forgotten the sweet. 

 I scurried inside, the song now on repeat, and found a jar of tea biscuits. Digestives perhaps, though I can’t be certain. I took one out and split it in half, eating half myself on the journey back to the In-Between, where I broke it into pieces and laid it around the leaf. I then returned to the porch, and took a parting swig. “Goodnight and joy be with you all,” I said in toast, though I don’t know who it was I spoke to. But even by myself in the yard, I didn’t feel alone. 

“I’ve got to go pour one out to the faeries” I had messaged a friend beforehand. I suppose that’s one way to put it. I don’t know who these libations are intended for. Spirits, sprites, gods? I’ve never put a definite name to them, not with certainty. Midsummer libations are at the root of my craft. They are the first act I ever did, and reflect my childhood full of faerie offerings and building tiny homes along the fence line. Faerie lore gave me my closest childhood friend at a time when others had begun growing cynical, and although I myself often try to act beyond nonsense, in my heart I know there are parts of me that will never change, and really never should. 

 I do not know who I give these offerings to. I don’t need to know. But I hope they like my whiskey as much as honeyed milk. And I hope they prefer biscuits to pennies.

[aion-rsa]

Scary Christmas Stories: A History of the Holiday’s Ghostly Tradition

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“It always is Christmas Eve, in a ghost story” – Jerome K. Jerome, 1891

In the English countryside, dinner had ended, and the company retired to the drawing room. They gathered around the fire as the parson, who sat in a high-backed oak chair, proceeded to tell of goblins and ghosts. The squire, not a superstitious man himself, listened intently  as the parson spoke about the crusader who rose from his tomb for a nighttime ride. The old porter’s wife added to the tale with her own of the crusader’s march on Midsummer Eve, when fairies became visible.

Such was Christmas Night at Bracebridge Hall, England, in 1820.

The story set in the fictional manor was written by American author Washington Irving, and published in 1820 in the fifth installment of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. This was less than three months before the world was introduced to the Headless Horseman in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” prior to the start of the Victorian era – and when Charles Dickens was only seven years old.

Twenty-three years before Ebenezer Scrooge changed his ways on the holiday in 1843, and 143 years before Andy Williams first sang about the most wonderful time of the year in 1963, Christmas had already been established as the season for telling scary ghost stories.

Irving’s English countryside story reminded readers of the idea of the paranormal and Christmas connection, but he didn’t invent it by a long shot.

Before it was “Christmas,” it was midwinter, solstice, Saturnalia, Sol Invictus, and Yule. It was the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It represented death, and rebirth, and was a time when the veil between worlds was thin. And it took place around December 21. 

Prior to the emergence of what we know as the seasonal mascot Santa Claus, there was Sinterklass, and Saint Nicholas before him. There was the long-bearded Odin who would lead a band of hunters, or fairies, or armies of the dead across the sky during Yuletide on the Wild Hunt of Old Norse and Germanic Pagan beliefs. And much like Odin, and solstice, were appropriated, or enveloped, into Christmas, so were seasonal pagan songs turned into carols.

As Christianity spread, folklore incorporated the supernatural with the religious holiday. The anti-Claus Krampus is possibly from a pre-Christian era, but the beast of Germanic and Eastern European origins became a counterpart to St. Nick, and appeared as a hairy goat-like demon with horns and cloven hooves. Written in the 9th-11th century, the Sagas of the Icelanders has some pretty heavy duty spectral action during the season, including revenants. And the underworld race of goblins known as kallikantzaroi emerged in Southeastern Europe in (approximately) late 14th Century with a mission to wreak havoc during the 12 Days of Christmas.

The idea of paranormal stories told during the winter had already been documented in fiction by 1589, when Christopher Marlowe wrote of the season’s tales of “spirits and ghosts” in The Jew of Malta. Shakespeare shortly thereafter wrote of a sad story best for winter, “of sprites and goblins” in 1623’s The Winter’s Tale — nearly two decades ahead of Oliver Cromwell banning, or trying to, Christmas celebrations in 1644 during the English Civil War.

Meanwhile, in the colonies, the Puritans rejected the pagan trappings and revelries of Christmas. Stephen Nissenbaum, author of The Battle for Christmas, writes that from 1659 to 1681, Massachusetts made public celebrations of the holiday a criminal offense carrying a fine. Notably, Captain John Smith of Jamestown celebrated the holiday in 1607, but festivities in America weren’t widespread. Christmas wasn’t even a national holiday until 1870.

By the time Irving came to write of English Christmas traditions, which also involved “mumming” and hanging mistletoe, it was a romanticized notion, and not likely being observed with much fanfare outside the countryside. In the industrial areas, December 25 was just another day of work.

But Irving’s story nonetheless connected with Charles Dickens. In his book Dickens, Peter Ackroyd writes the author had lived an idyllic life in the country until that happy existence abruptly ended, and his father was sent to a debtor’s prison when young Charles was just 12. So Irving’s Bracebridge — a setting familiar to Dickens, and based on the real-life Watt Family at Astor Hall — must have stirred up nostalgia for his childhood lost.

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In time, Dickens and Irving became friends, and the former credited the American author with influencing his own Christmas writings. A Christmas Carol, in Prose: Being a Ghost Story of Christmas was published December 19, 1843, but Dickens’ previous work The Pickwick Papers had already included a story about a Christmas Eve with ghost stories, reminiscent of Irving’s “Old Christmas.” He likewise introduced a proto-Scrooge in “The Story of the Goblins Who Stole A Sexton” in 1836 as a chapter of Pickwick.

Interestingly, from a paranormal perspective, Dickens’ “ghosts” in Carol are more inhuman entities than traditional spirits of those who have passed. Christmas Past is described as an “it” with a bright flame atop its head; Present is described as quite large with a wreath of holly and icicles; Christmas Yet to Come is the Grim Reaper-esque figure in a black shroud without a discernible face and body. The ghost of Marley is a familiar sort of ghost, though trapped in chains, returning when the veil is thin much like the old pagan tales suggested.

If Irving’s successful Sketch Book reminded English readers of the ghost story tradition, it was Dickens’ blockbuster hit that made it mainstream. Like any good creator, he gave the audience more, and wrote four additional Christmas books, and several essays on the topic – many of which involved supernatural elements, and promoted Dickens’ “Carol Philosophy” and themes of generosity.

After Jesus and Santa, Dickens gets a lot of well-deserved credit for how we celebrate Christmas. He helped remind the urban English population of the good ol’ days of Christmases of yore, and popularized the holiday as a secular charitable observance (and he coined the phrase “Merry Christmas”).

Though Dickens didn’t create the idea of Christmas ghost stories, he helped make it quintessentially British. Victorian magazines and newspapers took to publishing these themed stories for holiday fireside reading, and readers ate it up. Not surprisingly, other authors wanted in on the trend, even if they didn’t echo the Carol Philosophy.

Elizabeth Gaskell contributed the ghost yarn “The Old Nurse’s Story” to Dickens’ 1852 collection, A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire. The list goes on: John Burwick Harwood’s “Horror: A True Tale” (1861); Ada Buisson’s “The Ghost’s Summons” (1868); Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Markheim” (1885). Even American Edgar Allan Poe set his 1845 poem “The Raven” in “bleak December,” and American ex-pat Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw (1898) begins on Christmas Eve.

By 1891, English humorist Jerome K. Jerome commented on the popular tradition in Told After Supper:

“It always is Christmas Eve, in a ghost story. Christmas Eve is the ghosts’ great gala night. On Christmas Eve they hold their annual fete. On Christmas Eve everybody in Ghostland who IS anybody…comes out to show himself or herself, to see and to be seen, to promenade about and display their winding-sheets and grave-clothes to each other… Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories. Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about spectres. It is a genial, festive season, and we love to muse upon graves, and dead bodies, and murders, and blood.”

This popularity of ghost stories in Christmas was aided by the fascination with the paranormal, and the rise of Spiritualism in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. As seances and the use of spirit boards became more vogue, so did the holiday trend. When the religious movement faded from the spotlight in the 1920s, the ghost story tradition stuck around even if the English slightly cooled on it during the early-to-mid war-torn 20th century.

M.R. James, the medieval scholar, and one of the best ghost story writers ever, took to telling fireside tales of the supernatural while he served as Provost at Eton College from 1918-1936. In North America, Canadian novelist Robertson Davies would do the same at Massey College, according to bibliographers Carl Spadoni, and Judith Skelton Grant. Meanwhile, American horror author (and racist) H.P. Lovecraft set his 1925 Necronomicon story “The Festival” during Christmastime.

Anecdotally, it seems Halloween now dominates when it comes to the season of the ghost, even in the United Kingdom. But the Christmas tradition has not entirely faded. The 1970s BBC special A Ghost Story for Christmas has returned in recent years, and The Guardian published five such stories over the course of as many days in 2013.  

Contrary to the “scary ghost stories” lyric of classic American Christmas carol “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” the U.S. didn’t take to the Christmas ghost story in the same way our British cousins did in the late 19th century  (which makes it especially peculiar the song was written by two New York City kids, Edward Pola and George Wyle, and sung by Iowa’s own Andy Williams).

Rather, Christmas in America became especially defined by the jolly (but also supernatural) Santa Claus character presented in the 1931 Coca-Cola advertisement, painted by Haddon Sundblom, and inspired by Clement Clark Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” aka “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” The folklore of Christmas in America in the early 20th Century was candy cane sweet. Lacking was the ominous spookiness that reminds us to seek the light.

(The indigenous peoples of North America also celebrated solstice, such as with the Iroquois Haudeshaune; the Passamaquoddy tribe’s belief that frost giants returned north during this time; the general idea across different native nations that this time is a celebration of light returning to turtle island (Earth). These traditions were never incorporated into American culture, and were instead purged by colonization.)

Still, America has gradually been making up for its absence of Christmas ghosts and goblins. The angelic 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life, directed by Frank Capra and starring Jimmy Stewart, espouses enough of the Carol Philosophy of goodwill to make Dickens proud. In Dr. Seuss’ 1957 book, and 1966 animated special, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, the creature on Mount Crumpit is a modern-day Krampus. Rod Serling toyed, somewhat literally in one case, with the notion of magic and ghosts in his 1960-62 Christmas episodes of The Twilight Zone (“Night of the Meek,” “Five Characters in Search of an Exit,” and “Changing of the Guard”).

These days the holiday horror subgenre of film has channeled the scary nature of Victorian tales. Santa -as-slasher is well-tread territory thanks in large part to 1974’s Black Christmas, directed by Bob Clark (who also co-wrote and directed A Christmas Story).  More than ghosts, the monsters of Christmas in American cinema has included Gremlins, Krampus, Jack Frost, Gingerdead Man, and the zombies of Anna and the Apocalypse. And the “real” Santa and his creepy elves themselves become the monsters in the Finnish film Rare Exports.

But perhaps with the exception of A Nightmare Before Christmas, and some of the more effective adaptations of A Christmas Carol, such as Scrooged, the sentimentality of Irving and Dickens is mostly absent from modern holiday tales of the supernatural. Yet they certainly bring us right back to the monsters and undead of the pagan tales.

However, with the seemingly nonstop demand for “content” across streaming platforms — and the seasonal English tradition gaining fresh attention on media outlets — we might be on the threshold of a new age of December-set stories populated with spirits and goblins.

Perhaps once more in the near future, every Christmas Eve will be a great gala night for ghosts.

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The post Scary Christmas Stories: A History of the Holiday’s Ghostly Tradition appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[deathmchandsome]

PICK YOUR TOP 10 SHIPS WITHOUT READING THE QUESTIONS

Silanoespiae: Thanks for sending this my way @buddhistmamaduck. I can’t think of a better way to spend my sick day than answering pointless questions about my various fandoms. This was a lot of fun.

PICK YOUR TOP 10 SHIPS WITHOUT READING THE QUESTIONS  

AN: Sorry, I accidentally jotted down 11 without checking my math, and then answered the questions and enjoyed what I wrote; so I had to fudge some of the numbers. There’s 11, okay? Not that it matters, because 11 never gets mentioned, but... just for the record hahaha)

Nick Carraway / Jay Gatsby (The Great Gatsby, F. Scott     Fitzgerald)

Stannis Baratheon / Davos Seaworth (A Song of Ice and Fire / A Game of     Thrones, G.R.R. Martin)

Arthur Dimmesdale / Roger Chillingworth (The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel     Hawthorne)

Solaire of Astora / The Chosen Undead (Dark Souls, Miyazaki-Senpai)

Wanda von Dunjaew / Severin von Kuziemski (Venus in Furs, Masoch)

Main Pawn / Arisen (Dragon’s Dogma, Capcom)

Reginald Karkausen / the Face Demon Varlaam     (original, ‘Wizard Cops: Not a Farce’ RPG)

Sad Necromancy (Frederic Flowers / Pink Skull) (original, ‘The Ne’er-Do-Wells’ RPG)

Francis Simeon Mallord Albread Michelangelo David Elizabeth Morring Mosely / Charles Augustus Mosely (original, ‘Call     of Cthulu’ RPG)

Richard / Hermann (Xenosaga, Bandai/Namco)

Cpt. Thessaly /Farkas (Skyrim, Bethesda)

[QUESTIONS]

DO YOU REMEMBER THE EP/SCENE/CHAPTER THAT YOU FIRST STARTED SHIPPING 6?

MMMMMMMM…. Almost immediately. As soon as I realized the game Dragon’s Dogma was essentially giving me license to HAND-CRAFT my own OTP, I immediately took advantage of it. My Arisen was a visually impaired, scowling mutton-chop boy, and my first Main Pawn was a big ol’ beefy bear. He (the pawn) grew to love and protect my PC, which only solidified his originally paternal leanings. A large, grey bear capable of protecting those he loves. And the ending… the POST-game ending… only drove the closeness of their bond further home.

YOU EVER READ A FIC ABOUT 2?

Hell, I MADE that fandom XD I kid, there were a few before my time on tumblr who shipped this pair, and still do, with much more devotion and talent. The fic I have read for them is beyond beautiful, realistic, true-to-character and emotional. I made it my mission to create and collect the world’s largest body of work containing a Stannis Baratheon and Davos Seaworth, so I set about making a big chunk of the visual fanart for them. The fics, though? I’ve read every one, and I bless the authors who have devoted their time to such a heartwrenching (especially considering the outcome of the TV series!) pair.

HAVE A PICTURE OF 4 EVER BEEN YOUR SCREENSAVER/PROFILE PICTURE?

Sort of? I went through a big ol’ ‘Praise the Sun!’ phase on my Facebook cover photo :p

IF 7 WERE TO SUDDENLY BREAK UP TODAY, WHAT WOULD YOUR REACTION BE?

They are literally incapable of breaking up. I mean, not without a great detriment to each of their health and longevity. They are the same being. They share a body. But I guess, if Varlaam were ever banished to purgatory yet again, I would probably… you know, or Reginald would probably try to destroy the world again to get him back.

WHY IS 1 SO IMPORTANT?

I suppose it was one of the first influential American novels with an obvious male coupling which I embraced long before the mass media (damn you Baaz Luuuurman!) They were also the basis of my friendship with many of my high school besties; we would hang out in the Library every day and doodle in ‘The Great Gatsby Yaoi Book,’ a collection of our collective fantasies surrounding this and other ships from Fitzgerald’s raunchy work.

WHICH ONE HAS THE STRONGEST BOND?  

…… 7.

HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU READ/WATCHED 10’S FANDOM?

I’ve played through the series twice. I also purchased and played the Japanese-exclusive DS game in which you actually were allowed to see the sprites for these characters… just for them. I played that twice too. I was so… SO… into it.

WHICH SHIP HAS LASTED THE LONGEST?.

8. She… she… she waited for him… even after she thought he would never come back, she waited… agh ;-;

HOW MANY TIMES IF EVER HAS 6 BROKEN UP?

Never. They could never.

IF THE WORLD WAS SUDDENLY THRUST INTO A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE WHICH SHIP WOULD MAKE IT OUT ALIVE, 2 OR 8?

I’d bank on 2, considering their world practically IS a zombie apocalypse. Stannis was, at first, most concerned with asserting his right as heir to the throne. But eventually he decided that a TRUE monarch would put the ol’ zombie apocalypse before his petty squabbles. Unlike the other so-called usurpers, he chose to ‘save the kingdom to win the crown,’ not vice versa. And his devoted Knight and Hand would do nothing but follow him down that Noble Path.

… But then again, 8 is a Necromancer Queen and her Zombie-Lich beau, so… they’d probably seize the upper hand, you know, eventually…

DID 9 EVER HAVE TO HIDE THEIR RELATIONSHIP FOR ANY REASON?

MMMMMMMMMMM!!!!! I would say not. Despite living in a pre-enlightened Victorian-era RPG world, they never… well, they never knew they were IN a relationship at all! Had they recognized their more-than-friendly passions for each other prior to the end of the story- every iteration of which ends in their marriage- then they may have had to be a bit furtive about it. But as it was in the canon, they never consummated their love on or off screen; others only assumed XD

IS 4 STILL TOGETHER?

Uhm… ugh… well… if you resolve his side quest one way, and… end the game another way… maybe? Thousands of years have passed since then, so… but then again, Laddersmith Gilligan made it to the third game, so why couldn’t they? Ah, yes… because the true Son of the Sun was USURPED by some out-of-left-field DRAGON LOVER!!!

IS 10 CANON?

Yep. Sure. Why not.

IF ALL 10 SHIPS WERE PUT INTO A COUPLE’S HUNGER GAMES WHICH COUPLE WOULD WIN?

Probably 10; they, after all, have giant robots to keep them warm, and they do not friggin’ quit. “You don’t die until I say you can die!”

HAS ANYBODY EVER TRIED TO SABOTAGE 5’S SHIP?

An incredibly erotic Greek man with a Whip and a Fez.

WHICH SHIP WOULD YOU DEFEND UNTIL DEATH AND BEYOND?

2.

DO YOU SPEND HOURS A DAY GOING THROUGH 3’S TUMBLR PAGES?

There isn’t really a tumblr tag for them. Those who know their source material misunderstand it, even in adapting it to other media and projects. They are the first of their kind, and one-of-a-kind.

IF AN EVIL WITCH DESCENDED FROM THE SKY AND TOLD YOU THAT YOU HAD TO PICK 1 OF THE 10 SHIPS TO BREAK UP FOREVER OR ELSE SHE’D BREAK THEM ALL UP FOREVER WHICH SHIP WOULD YOU SINK?

5 lol they’re really bad for each other and they break up anyway.

Silanoespiae: Alright! Right back at you @handsomeyoungcleric and @sagebrushed cause I think you’d get a kick outta this.