#just wait for it to be over

[queen-susans-revenge]

Hi there, if you have time, could you please point me to the folktales where the elves are revolted by the English language?

So @hashkivenu , good question. In truth I was told that, by an Irish storyteller, and I also have a vague memory of reading something that backed it up...but I've been looking through my reference books and I can't seem to find the story I remember. (It was like a variant of "The Legend of Knockgrafton," except instead of being offended that the second singer sang the wrong days of the week, the fairies were offended that the second singer sang in English.)

I'm still going through my written sources trying to find this...I swear I remember it! But the more I comb through my reference material, the more I have to admit that my original claim was overstated, and incorrect in a few particulars.

Firstly, they aren't really elves, or fairies either. They're the people of the mounds, the Aes Sídhe, and to believers it's not actually considered safe to talk much about them at all: naming them may draw their attention, which is dangerous. So they are generally referred to with euphemisms, like the "good neighbors," the "other crowd," or simply them.

Belief in the other crowd continues in some parts of Ireland to this day, although it is dying out, but as recently as 2003 Eddie Lenihan—a folklorist and a believer who has launched successful campaigns to preserve places sacred to Them from highways and other urban expansion—was able to collect (with Carolyn Eve Green) a book's worth of material titled Meeting the Other Crowd: The Fairy Stories of Hidden Ireland. Some of these are stories handed down through the oral tradition, and some are first-hand accounts. It's the most modern work I know on what's sometimes called "the fairy faith".

And in Lenihan's work, the Good People are not automatically hostile to English speakers. He still notes in multiple places that their native language is Irish, for instance on pages 64 and 299 ("In the second story above, note that the changeling speaks Irish. This was commonly believed of the fairies, that Irish was—and is—their native language.") For an older attestation to the idea that fairies only speak Irish, see Lady Augusta Gregory (1920) in the second series of her Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland:

As to the book she told me of that had come from the unseen and was written in Irish, I think of Mrs. Sheridan's answer when I asked in what language the strange unearthly people she had been among had talked: "Irish of course—what else would they talk?"

But it would seem that there has been a softening in the fairy tradition, and they are no longer believed to react to English speech with hostility or outright violence.

But you have to understand that language was a real battleground in Ireland. The Irish language was brutally repressed by the English. During the Penal Laws it was completely outlawed. Irish manuscripts were burned. Children in school had to wear a stick on a piece of string around their necks: each time they used Irish during the day, a notch would be cut into the stick. And at the end of the day they would be beaten as many times as there were notches on the stick.

So the language itself was a locus of resistance, and the legends of the Fair Folk, being deeply tied to the language and the land, were part of that resistance.

Because like I said in the earlier post, Irish is a magic language. The satirists of legend were known to place terrible curses on their enemies. There were seven grades of poets (the bards, so familiar to us now from D&D, were actually a lower order of entertainer) and the filí at the top outranked even druids in social hierarchy and magical power according to some sources (e.g. the Uraichech Becc). These elite poet-storyteller-magicians were believed to be able to prophesy the future or even speak a new reality into being.

There is a sense in which mythic Irish history begins with an act of magical speech: The Song of Amergin. There are figures that come before Amergin in various histories (and about them more in just a second), but he is the one who named Ériu/Ireland and invoked its spirit with a powerful incantation that quelled storms and established his right to sovereignty over the land:

Am gaeth i m-muir, Am tond trethan, Am fuaim mara, Am dam secht ndirend Am séig i n-aill Am dér gréne, Am cain lubai, Am torc ar gail, Am he i l-lind, Am loch i m-maig, Am brí a ndai, Am bri danae, Am bri i fodb fras feochtu, Am dé delbas do chind codnu, Coiche nod gleith clochur slébe Cia on co tagair aesa éscai Cia du i l-laig fuiniud gréne

I am the wind on the sea; I am the wave of the sea; I am the bull of seven battles; I am the eagle on the rock I am a flash from the sun; I am the most beautiful of plants; I am a strong wild boar; I am a salmon in the water; I am a lake in the plain; I am the word of knowledge; I am the head of the spear in battle; I am the god that puts fire in the head; Who spreads light in the gathering on the hills Who can tell the ages of the moon Who can tell the place where the sun rests

So. With "the word of knowledge," with the blessing of "the god that puts fire in the head"—with speech, with poetry, with language—Amergin and his people took possession of Ireland. (When exactly this was supposed to have happened is hard to say. There's different versions of the Song of Amergin in different medieval texts, but it's obviously from an older, possibly much older, oral tradition.)

And who, according to the stories, did Amergin and his people claim the land from? From the Tuatha Dé Danann, the folk of the goddess Danu. And partly with their consent: three kings of the Tuatha Dé Danann had to be defeated in single combat, but three queens gave Amergin their permission.

And it is possible to draw a direct line from the Tuatha Dé Danann to the Aes Sídhe. Because after they lost the right to rule Ireland, they were said to retreat under the hills and to the Otherworld. So from the beginning the Fair Folk represented a kind of dispossessed grandeur, a lost heritage...an undying legacy. And a dual nature, some of them hostile and some benevolent.

I think it makes sense that They have softened toward English speakers as the English have stepped back from their oppression of the Irish. Children obviously no longer need to wear the bata scoir, the tally stick, in school. (In fact now they tend to complain about being forced to study Irish, rather than being disallowed from speaking it!)

I personally am not a believer in the fairy faith, but I try to be respectful. To the best of my understanding, should you ever meet one of the Aes Sidhe, it is not really respectful to speak to them in English. And to be perfectly clear, it is not safe to speak to Them, or even of them, under any circumstances, whatever language you choose. We are testing our luck right now, dear Reader, you and I together.

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF Springtrap's first night in Dead by daylight..

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[egophiliac]

last chance to guess what the new round of birthday outfits will be!

[beneathsilverstars]

loop plushie real...?

[fraternum-momentum]

babe, wake up, new white guy just dropped

[mroddmod]

villain and violent; infant and innocent

[hollytree33]

Hi so I might’ve made a painting of my Inquisitor while trying to mimic Solas’s style so I can pretend he made it

[ohbother2]

do you know what?

I miss long seasons.

I miss seasons that had 20 episodes and half of them could be cut and nothing would be lost to the story.

I miss the episodes where nothing fucking happens but you get to see the main cast goofing around with one another. You get to see their interactions, their relationships develop, their day-to-day lives and how they all fit together in them.

You get the Christmas/halloween/valentine's special -is it needed? certainly not. but is it good? is it entertaining? does it give the show and characters life? do we, the viewers, enjoy it? YES!

give me long stories!! give me little quarrelling spats between characters that can be resolved in one episode with no need to have an impact on the greater story! make these stories real!

let me enjoy them before they end!!!

I absolutely love Hazbin Hotel and the little world that's been created, but I can't help but feel disappointed we're only getting two seasons of 8 episodes.

back in the early 2000's 16 episodes would have been ONE season, never mind the entire thing.

show my angel dust and husk and nifty and sir penthouse living their daily lives in the hotel! show me Charlie brainstorming ways to redeem sinners! give me Charlie forcing the hotel staff to do cringe-y exercises! give me an entire episode of Vox trying to follow alastor through security cameras! Give me husks typical day! Give me a special through the eyes of nifty on a mission to irradiate the hotel of bugs! Give me sir penthouse and the egg boys up to no good!

give me something other than the bare necessities to make the story flow

6 months have nearly gone by in the hotel, and it feels like 1 month.

[girlboyburger]

had an identity crisis, prime time for a slight sona redesign!

it's cow! (again!)

+ a closeup because i'm really proud of the eyes

[an-established-butt-dent]

"What have they done to you,

Old friend."

Trapped in the fade, Solas comes face to face with the remnant of his spirit.

The Dread Wolf was his wisdom, mirror to his pride. In the wake of the wrathful Evanuris, it too, has succumbed to their taint.

Or, where I'm making wild plot speculations surrounding Solas trapped in the fade. while turning my brainrot into art pieces and gifs. I'M PACING MY ENCLOSURE. Looking for crumbs and scrabs of Veilguard. Please Bioware I'm begging, feed me. 😭

[keekry]

mizu sketches :)

[chloesimaginationthings]

This could be a kart if FLAF wasn't fucking around..

[bananas-mode]

I know this scene has been redrawn a million times over but I had to

[egophiliac]

was this anyone else's first thought, or

[leslieseveride]

TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!