#guard your name

[laurasimonsdaughter]

Guarding your name from the fae in folklore

The idea of fae stealing names is quite recent (I’m a big fan of new, modern folklore, x, y), but the idea that you have to guard your name so no one could (supernaturally) us it against you, is definitely a widespread folk belief. However, I’ve never encountered an actual folktale that says the fae or fairies in particular could have power over you if they knew your name. I’ve been looking for one for a long time (and if you know one please let me know!) but so far I’ve only come up with one example. So let's take a look:

The power of names

Like I said, the power of names is an old belief that shows up all over the world. Sometimes it’s linked with naming ceremonies like baptism. Sometimes hiding the name from others (witches, djinns, etc.) is what will protect you, sometimes the name itself will protect you (like being named after a saint or in reverence of a deity or spirit). Edward Clodd published a huge essay in 1898 investigating how widespread this name guarding practice is and how it links to folklore. Which, while obvioulsy dated, certainly gives an impression of how deep this belief goes (Tom Tit Tot; an essay on savage philosophy in folk-tale, Clodd, E., 1898).

Not all folk beliefs show up in folktales though and protagonists who refuse to tell their name are not a staple of European folklore, whether it concerns fae or other entities. In “The Soul Cages”, collected by T. Crofton Croker it’s even quite the opposite, as the protagonist and a firendly merrow deliberately call each other by their full names (Jack Dogherty and Coomara). And for ages I wasn't able to find a story that actually incorporated the belief of guarding your name against fae, until I read that huge essay.

Hiding your name from the fairies

In his book, Clodd mentions a single folktale in which it is mentioned that the fae are trying to learn someone’s real name. Sadly he does not tell it in full, but since it is the only real example of this concept I’ve able to find so far, I will give the full quote:

While these sheets are passing through the press, my friend Mr. W. B. Yeats hands me a letter from an Irish correspondent, who tells of a fairyhaunted old woman living in King's County. Her tormentors, whom she calls the "Fairy Band of Shinrone," come from Tipperary. They pelt her with invisible missiles, hurl abuse at her, and rail against her family, both the dead and the living, until she is driven well-nigh mad. And all this spite is manifested because they cannot find out her name, for if they could learn that, she would be in their power. Sometimes sarcasm or chaff is employed, and a nickname is given her to entrap her into telling her real name, — all which she freely talks about, often with fits of laughter. But the fairies trouble her most at night, coming in through the wall over her bed-head, which is no laughing matter; and then, being a good Protestant, she recites chapters and verses from the Bible to charm them away. And although she has been thus plagued for years, she still holds her own against the "band of Shinrone." (Clodd, 1889, p. 83-84).

This story fits the concept of keeping your name away from malicious fairies so you cannot truly fall under their power perfectly. Sadly I haven’t been able to find this story in Yeats’ own folklore collection, but it fulfills my criteria even so.

What I have been able to find many examples of, however, is the reverse trope. Namely that knowing a fairy’s name will give you power over them. I thought this only showed up in Rumplestiltskin-type stories, but it seems a little more widespread than that. Which is very exciting to me, and merits its own post. So stay tuned.

[deerspherestudios]

I hope you dont mind me repeteadly coming back and asking so many question, but would mychael be very sensitive to his surroundings? Personally i like to play hide and seek and jumpscare my friends so would that be possible to do with mychael?

He's pretty sensitive, I'd say! Not to the point of being paranoid but more about being aware of his surroundings mostly.

His ears flick if he hears something that might catch him off guard so the chances of sneaking up on him for a jumpscare is less on being quiet and more about getting him when he's distracted with something else.

[arthursfuckinghat]

"I was gonna say you're like a son to me.. but you're more than that."

"It ain't that complicated!"

How quickly that shoulder pat of comfort turned into a condescending one.

[coruscantguard]

ONLY BY SURVIVING THE WAR WILL YOU PREVAIL

a web weave about the coruscant guard

Aeschylus: The Oresteia, Aeschylus || Darth Vader (2017) 10 || S6 EP7 "Crisis at The Heart" (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) || Maurice Sendak (2011 interview with Terry Gross) || S1 EP1 "Ambush" (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) || S1 EP22 "Hostage Crisis" (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) || S6 EP4 "Orders" (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) || It, Stephen King || S6 EP4 "Orders" (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) || S1 EP1 "Ambush" (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) || Tim Riggins Speaks of Waterfalls, Nico Alvarado || Star Wars: Revenge of The Sith, George Lucas || observer's effect, @bytebun

[mumblesplash]

don’t you hate it when your civilization flees deep underground to escape the wither only to find yourselves trapped down there with something even worse. anyway surprise! i can still draw

[literallyjusttoa]

I love your work so much i can't even describe it, it's giving me a warm and comfy vibe <3 I recently remembered Apollo is the god of mice, so i was wondering... can you please draw him holding a lil mouse and being amazed by its preciousness ? I would be so blessed if you did

Ooh ohh this isn't exactly what you said but this gave me an idea.

When those close to the Lord Apollo pray for his presence, he will often come with a companion. Sometimes, it will be one of his sacred red cattle. Sometimes, the divine wolf, Kitrinomavros. Sometimes, he will fly down with ravens, or his arrival will be punctuated by the trilling song of locusts. But with only his closest circle, Apollo will arrive with ...

His pet mouse.

Apollo insists that this mouse is very important, but no one has quite figured out what he means by that.

[pileofsith]

Nameless Part Twelve - Apostate Page 1/10 Flashback time! Barriss Offee complains about the Jedi Order and gains a secret admirer. Text is taken from the TCW episode, 'The Wrong Jedi'. The comic is also available here on AO3.

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[hijinxinprogress]

Coffee addict Never sleeps Tim drake ❌ 

Solving cases in his sleep off 87 energy drinks Tim Drake ✅

The coffee addict never sleeps perpetually tired Tim Drake thing is a widely accepted headcanon however that was elementary school tim but after he stayed up for a week straight subsisting entirely on coffee to decipher the bat weekly patrol schedule and how it aligns with rogue attacks/Arkham breakouts, he crashed then when he woke up it was fucking wednesday so he missed his chance to commemorate his discovery with pictures of Robin and he decided that shit would never happen again and made himself an ‘efficient’ sleep schedule so he could run around doing fuck shit, add to his robin shrine, and stay on honor roll bc he was even more pissed to see the gotham gazette had pictures of Robin with an on site interview credited to Vicki Vale (listen bowl cut tim had a one sided beef with vicki vale that included tim judging who gets better pics of the bats but she isn’t even aware that she’s competing with a whole ass child 😭 he’s sitting at the table with a mug of orange juice and looks at the newspaper snorts and goes ‘fucking amateur I could do better’) 

Regularly unsupervised tiny businessman in training Tim ‘Ten hours of uninterrupted sleep?? That’s so inefficient not to mention fucking stupid’ Drake is so pissed he missed getting shots of Robin dropkicking a rogue from 6 six stories up (for absolutely no reason dick just thinks it’s fun) that he just takes at least 3 hour naps every eight hours 😭 he refuses to spend almost half a day sleeping ‘for no reason when he could be doing something productive’ 

And he still does this as a bat but it’s just easier to tell if he didn’t take his nap bc he has less than zero impulse control and he’s just fucking done with everything like the gcpd is terrified bc tim’s saying shit like ‘This guys a fucking moron, I could’ve done this in half the time without killing anyone fucking loser doesn’t he know if you keep them alive you can prolong the torture?’ and ‘you’re like all hysterical and for what 🤨 ‘you blew up 83% of Bristol waah’ stfu and fucking rebuild it?? It’s only rich mfs that live there, it’s just a matter of them opening their fucking wallets’ once a new recruit made the mistake of asking if robin had adult supervision regularly and Tim responded with ‘well if you’re gonna snitch to cps like a little bitch then yeah’ and that cop did snitch so tim fucking doxxed him

Yj has just accepted that sometimes they will find tim in an air vent, on the roof, in one of their closets, or something just fucking knocked out then an alarm will go off and he’ll just get up like nothing happened but for the first couple of months they were probably concerned bc ‘I’ve never seen you sleep?? wtf are you on man’ and Tim’s confused bc ‘I slept next to you this morning wdym??’ and that’s how yj discovers tim sleeps with his eyes open

But one of the worst things about Tim’s ‘time efficient sleep schedule’ nonsense is that it fucking works he’s one of the most well rested and coherent bats even after back to back Arkham breakouts however the absolute worst thing about his sleep schedule is the likelihood of going into the cave and seeing tim staring in a daze but wide eyed yet somehow never blinking at the batcomputer with 57 tabs open on top of being unresponsive and thinking he has a fucking concussion or he’s been replaced but he’s just doing case work while muttering nonsense in his fucking sleep for some reason

[beeheevs]

sometimes, I'll be reading an atsv fic and come across one word or way of phrasing or encounter, and all of a sudden just know the author is black. on the flipside, sometimes writers will write in a certain way that makes it obvious they're decidedly not 💀

[laurasimonsdaughter]

A fairy's true name

Earlier I wrote about how much trouble I had finding even one example of a fairy trying to learn a human’s name to use it against them, but folktales where it is the other way round do exist!

Until recently the best example I had for this “use a fairy’s true name against them” plot, was Rumpelstiltskin (and all its variants, for there are many). But technically the Rumpelstiltskin plot itself is not enough to claim that knowing a fairy’s true name gives you power over them. After all, a specific deal was struck between the fairy (or dwarf, or imp, etc.) and the human, with the finding out of the name releasing the human from their debt to the fairy. (Best examples including a fairy: Peerie Fool, Tríopla Trúpla, Titty Tod).

But it turns out that the tale type “The name of the helper ATU 500” contains stories in which I would argue it is made clear that knowing a fairy’s name holds power:

In these stories a the supernatural creature in question is a helpful house spirit or neighbour to the human, but immediately leave them forever as soon as they (sometimes through trickery) find out their name, after they refused to tell them:

Hoppetînken, a mountain dwarf (German, Kuhn, 1859)

Gwarwyn-a-throt, a spirit/elf/bogie (Welsh, Rhys, 1901)

Silly go Dwt, a fairy (Welsh, Rhys, 1901)

And these stories contain what I would call “strong circumstantial evidence”:

In Winterkölbl (German Hungarian, Vernaleken, 1896) a grey dwarf who lives in a tree makes a young king guess his name before he will (somewhat reluctantly) consent to let him marry his human foster daughter (she was abandoned, he did not steal her!).

In The Rival Kempers (Irish, Yeats, 1892) an old fairy woman sets a young woman the task of guessing her name, but then gives it to her freely (with some extra help to win her good fortune), because she was polite and generous to her.

Conversely, in The Lazy Beauty and her Aunts (Irish, Kennedy, 1870) the three fairy women who help the protagonist with her spinning, weaving and sewing, actually introduce themselves by name, but they are clearly nicknames: Colliagh Cushmōr (Old Woman Big Foot), Colliach Cromanmōr (Old Woman Big Hips), Colliach Shron Mor Rua (Old Woman Big Red Nose).

But my two favourite examples are Whuppity Stoorie (Scottish, Chambers, 1858; reprinted by Rhys, 1901) and The heir of Ystrad (Welsh, Rhys, 1888, reprinted in 1901). I'll summarise them below the cut:

Whuppity Stoorie (Scottish, Chambers, 1858; quotes from Rhys, 1901)

A woman is left by her husband. She has a baby boy to feed and her only hope is that her sow will have a big litter of piglets. However the sow gets ill and as the woman weeps with the fear that the pig will die, she sees an old woman coming up the road. “She was dressed in green, all but a short white apron and a black velvet hood, and a steeple-crowned beaver hat on her head. She had a long walking staff, as long as herself, in her hand --” This “green gentlewoman” tells her that she knows the woman’s husband is gone and that the sow is sick and asks what she’ll give her if she cures the pig. The woman heedlessly promises her anything she likes. So the green woman cures the pig with a spell and some oil and then reveals that she wants to have the woman’s baby in return, thereby revealing to the poor woman that she is a fairy. The fairy is unmoved by the woman’s sorrow, but does reveal that: “I cannot, by the law we live under, take your bairn till the third day; and not then, if you can tell me my right name.” Luckily the woman overhears the fairy woman singing her own name and gets to keep her child by addressing her as such, after which: “If a flash of gunpowder had come out of the ground it couldn't have made the fairy leap higher than she did. Then down she came again plump on her shoe-heels; and whirling round, she ran down the brae, screeching for rage, like an owl chased by the witches.”

The heir of Ystrad

A young gentleman hides in the bushes to see “the fair family” dance on the river bank. There he sees the most beautiful girl he has ever seen and wants more than anything to win her for his own. He jumps in the middle of the circle of fairies and grabs her by force, while all the others flee. He is kind to her, but keeps her captive, and eventually she agrees to become his servant. She steadfastly refuses to tell him her name though, no matter how often he asks. One night he once again hides near where the fairies play and he hears one fairy lament to another that last time they were there, their sister Penelope (Pénĕlôp) was stolen by a man. He returns home joyfully, calling is favourite maid by her name, which greatly astonishes her. The young man finds her so beautiful, industrious, skilled and fortunate, that he wishes to marry her. “At first she would in no wise consent, but she rather gave way to grief at his having found her name out. However, his importunity at length brought her to consent, but on the condition that he should not strike her with iron; if that should happen, she would quit him never to return.” They marry and they lived “in happiness and comfort”. She bears him a beautiful son and a daughter and through her skill and fairy fortune they grow richer and richer. But one day while trying to bridle an unruly horse the husband accidentally hits his wife with the iron bridle. As soon as the iron touches her, she vanishes. But one cold night she comes to his bedroom window one more time, telling him that if ever her son should be cold, he should be placed on his father’s coat, and that if her daughter should be cold, she should be placed on her petticoat. Then she disappears forever.

I adore both of these stories. Whuppity Stoorie is probably the clearest example of the power of a fairy's name. But The heir of Ystrad is as good a fairy bride story as The Shepherd of Myddvai and that has been a beloved favourite of mine for as long as I can remember. Either way they're both wonderful takes on the power it grants to know a fairy's name.

[lollytea]

I'm never shutting up about this

[antennatoheaven]

i knew that the ending songs from portal and portal 2 were pretty gay "haha my life is so great without you in it. i totally don't miss you at all :')" breakup songs, but who was gonna tell me that the lego dimensions portal ending song is even gayer AND sadder???? even batman is there

[personal-breeze-2]

WHAT A FUCKING JUMPSCARE FROM THE UNDERTALE NEWSLETTER

[trainingdummyrabbit]

Amngie

The Only Character Ever Source Dude Trust Me My Dad Works At Library Of Ruina

one of the rare characters that makes me lose it in that specific way in which i literally cant watch random people talk about her or else ill give myself heart palpitations <333 i saw a mildly off-base take about her One Time and it made me want to chew through drywall. absolutely fucking fascinating effect that one.

what can i even say about her that i havent already. that other people havent already. shes everything. probably one of th best written characters ican think of in my recent memory. where do you even start. shes a character that showed up and irrevocably altered my entire programming.

shes just a little thang. she could kill with a snap of her fingers. she cares so much that its a core part of her character. shes so jaded that she tries to convince herself she doesnt. shes terrified of being alone. she severs the tie between her and the people she loves with her own hand. she wants to live. she doesnt care what happens to her. she yearns for autonomy and freedom. she wanders in circles because its what shes always had to do, and is convinced thats what there always was and always will be. she doesnt trust anyone. she hired someone who broke into her house on the spot. she designed herself and her [Status Redacted]s cute color coded outfits. shes a horrible liar. she built herself from the ground up. shes bird. shes gender. shes even asexual. imagine.

i cant fucking show her to anybody because every time i try to introduce her it just turns into showing shitty pngs of her and tearfully and incomprehensibly saying "ilove her so much" over and over again.

shes fucking impossible. i would kill for her without hesitation.

amngela.

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

Alright know what here's a little Guild Wars 2 reblog game for everybody; what mounts (if any) do your characters have in their canon, do they have names? Personalities? How'd they meet??

Spill it all below, tell me about all your creatures!!

[cctinsleybaxter]

Keep an eye on who agrees to this; with a cast this size there are going to be a lot of actors we're all going to be very unhappy with real soon