@bevanthomas@mstdn.ca
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bevanthomas

@bevanthomas@mstdn.ca

Author, editor, and teacher of creative writing, speculative fiction, and comics. Thinker of strange thoughts. Member of Cloudscape Comics. MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia.

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bevanthomas, to folklore
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Gwydion is the great trickster of Welsh legend, who uses a mixture of deceit and magic to get what he wants. Like many tricksters, Gwydion is a shapeshifter, but he's also a master of animating the inanimate - turning trees into soldiers and flowers into brides.
🎨 Margaret Jones

bevanthomas, to folklore
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In the early stories of Merlin, he would often laugh when his powers of prophecy revealed ironic situations, such as a man expressing love for his "son" without realizing the boy isn't his, or a woman buying a dress even though she'll drown before she wears it.

bevanthomas, to folklore
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The Sluagh (the "Host") of Irish and Scottish folklore are sometimes depicted as ghosts, sometimes as fairies. They fly through the sky like a flock of birds, and carry off anyone they find. Some humans are left on a remote island, others are never seen again.

bevanthomas, to literature
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"Lest the awe should dwell
And turn your frolic to fret,
You shall look on my power at the helping hour,
But then you shall forget!
Lest limbs be reddened and rent,
I spring the trap that is set.
As I loose the snare, you may glimpse me there,
For surely you shall forget!"

  • Kenneth Grahame, "Wind in the Willows"
    🎨 Arthur Rackham

bevanthomas, to poetry
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"Sing no more ditties, sing no more
Of dumps so dull and heavy.
The fraud of men was ever so
Since summer first was leafy.
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey, nonny, nonny."

  • William Shakespeare, "Much Ado About Nothing"

bevanthomas, to folklore
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"What wilt thou have, Hans My Hedgehog?"

"Father,” [Hans] said, “bring me bagpipes, then go to the forge and get the rooster shod, and then I will ride away, and never come back."

The father was delighted that he was going to be rid of [Hans].

  • The Brothers Grimm, "Grimms' Fairy Tales"

bevanthomas,
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Image from Jim Henson's "The Storyteller"

bevanthomas, to literature
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"The snow lay thin and apologetic over the world. That wide grey sweep was the lawn, with the straggling trees of the orchard still dark beyond.... All the broad sky was grey, full of more snow that refused to fall. There was no colour anywhere."

  • Susan Cooper, "The Dark Is Rising"

bevanthomas, to folklore
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Myrddin Wyllt was a 6th-century prophet who inspired the Merlin legend. After being traumatized by war, Myrddin fled into a Scottish forest and became a hermit. He supposedly wrote down his intense visions, which are collectively known as "The Prophecies of Merlin."
🎨 Alan Lee

#FolkyFriday #GothicSpring #31DaysofHaunting #folklore #mythology #WelshMythology #Celtic #Wales #Merlin #KingArthur #Arthuriana #AlanLee

bevanthomas, to folklore
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In the Middle Ages, many Christian Scandinavians believed that the Norse gods had actually been humans from Troy who had fled their burning city and immigrated to Scandinavia, where they had used magic to make the locals believe that they were gods.

bevanthomas, to folklore
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To drink from the Well of Wisdom, the Norse god Odin had to give one of his eyes to Mimir, the Well's guardian. In some versions, this is simply a general sacrifice, but in others it's a trade - the eye gives Mimir Odin's knowledge just as the drink gives Odin Mimir's.
🎨 Emil Doepler

bevanthomas, to folklore
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The huldufólk (hidden folk) of Iceland are human-sized fairies whose communities are hidden in the hills. Sometimes they are depicted with cow tails. It is said that if the huldufólk marry a human, their cow tails fall off, and they become human themselves.
🎨 Brett Manning

bevanthomas, to folklore
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The Welsh hero Lleu was cursed by his mother to never have a human wife, so the wizard Gwydion used flowers from the oak, broom, and meadowsweet to create a wife for Lleu called Blodeuwedd ("Flower-Faced"). However, Blodeuwedd fell in love with another man....
🎨 Jenny Dolfen

bevanthomas,
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Image by Jenny Dolfen
https://goldseven.wordpress.com

bevanthomas, to 13thFloor
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Sometimes C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia feature walking trees and other times feature dryads. As the two never interact with each other, it's unclear what their relationship is or if they're actually the same species. However, the art depicts them as very different. Possibly Narnian walking trees are shapeshifted dryads.
🎨 Pauline Baynes

bevanthomas, (edited ) to 13thFloor
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The cockatrice is a monster of English legend similar to a basilisk. It is born when a rooster lays an egg which is then incubated by a serpent; it resembles a rooster with a snake tail. The cockatrice kills with its gaze and touch, though the weasel is immune.
🎨 Marcus Gheeraerts

bevanthomas, to literature
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"No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity."

"But I know none, and therefore am no beast."

-William Shakespeare, "Richard III" (Act 1, Scene 2)

bevanthomas, (edited ) to folklore
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In Welsh folklore, the youth Culhwch requests that his uncle, King Arthur, help him find the maiden Olwen but first cut Culhwch's hair. A man's first adult haircut was an important rite of passage among the ancient Welsh, often performed by a respected male relative.
🎨 Alfred Frederick

bevanthomas, to comics
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Happy St. Patrick's Day! This holiday is no excuse for non-Irish people to act like offensive Irish caricatures. Remember these pages from "The Boys," written by Irish-American Garth Ennis and drawn by Darick Robertson.

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ComicContext, to random
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bevanthomas,
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@ComicContext Watch your language, ALF. You're in a STAR comic.

bevanthomas, to literature
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"Scientific people," proceeded the Time Traveller, after the pause required for the proper assimilation of this, "know very well that Time is only a kind of Space.... That line, therefore, we must conclude, was along the Time Dimension."

  • H. G. Wells, "The Time Machine"

bevanthomas, to folklore
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Though the Romans equated their war god Mars with the Greek god Ares, they portrayed him as very different. Mars was also a god of agriculture and a father to the Romans, who used war to create lasting peace, while Ares was only interested in slaughter and chaos.

bevanthomas, (edited ) to fantasy
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"We tend to think about non-human intelligences in two distinct categories which we label 'scientific' and 'supernatural.' ... But the very moment we are compelled to recognize a creature in either class as real, the distinction begins to get blurred."

  • C.S. Lewis, "Perelandra"
    🎨 Matthäus Merian

bevanthomas, to 13thFloor
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Many old buildings in Europe, even churches, have carved on their walls a face made of leaves or vomiting vegetation, called a "Green Man." There's a lot of debate about how this design began or what its purpose was, but many assume it was originally a pagan god.

image/jpeg

bevanthomas, to 13thFloor
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In alchemy, the green lion devouring the sun represents how aqua regia (a potent acid) can dissolve and purify base matter - first step of the alchemical Great Work. It also symbolizes how purifying one's shining ego is needed for spiritual enlightenment.

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