@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 13thFloor
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Welsh folk saying: "Guinevere, daughter of Ogrfan the Giant / Bad when little, worse when great."

Was her father simply a tall man and Guinevere got worse-tempered as she got older, or did King Arthur's wife have giant blood and grew in size when angry?

🎨 Howard Pyle

bevanthomas, to folklore
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When Gawain, King Arthur's nephew, chopped the head off the Green Knight at New Year's as part of a "game," the Green Knight picked up his head and told Gawain to meet him next New Year's to get his own head chopped off. Many scholars have debated this symbolism.

bevanthomas, to folklore
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The Irish hero Cú Chulainn suffered from the ríastrad, a battle frenzy in which his body transformed, such as one eye getting sucked into his head while the other dangled down his cheek, his feet facing backwards, or the skin pulled back from his lips and cheeks.
🎨 Massimo Belardinelli

bevanthomas,
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Image of the ríastrad (warp-spasm) from the British comic "Sláine" by Pat Mills (story) and Massimo Belardinelli (art). The comic was inspired by Cú Chulainn.

bevanthomas, to folklore
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In Irish myth, the Fomorians were a supernatural race said to come from under the sea or the earth who battled Ireland's early settlers, especially the equally supernatural Tuatha Dé Danann. Many Fomorians were hideous, though some were beautiful.
🎨 John Duncan

bevanthomas, to literature
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Though in Shakespeare, Cordelia dies before her father King Lear, in the original British legend she outlives him and becomes Britain's ruler. Cordelia is a warrior queen, leading armies. Sadly, she is overthrown by her two nephews, who resent being ruled by a woman.

bevanthomas,
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Bust of Queen Cordelia by Pierce Francis Connelly

bevanthomas, to 13thFloor
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The al-mi'raj from medieval Arabic literature resembles a yellow hare with a black horn. It's so fierce that most other animals flee from it. The inhabitants of an island in the Indian Ocean gave Alexander the Great an al-mi'raj to repay him for slaying a dragon.

bevanthomas,
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Image is from an old Arabian manuscript

bevanthomas, (edited ) to folklore
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Rabbit is a prominent trickster in many African legends. He can be surprisingly predatory, like when Leopard discovers Rabbit is eating Leopard's babies. This appears in African-American legends too, where Br'er Rabbit is a predator like his nemesis Br'er Fox.
🎨 Joseph Smit

bevanthomas, (edited ) to literature
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"He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him."

  • William Shakespeare, "Much Ado about Nothing" (Act 2, Scene 1)

bevanthomas, to 13thFloor
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"When they got home, the Rat made a bright fire in the parlour, and planted the Mole in an armchair in front of it, having fetched down a dressing gown and slippers for him, and told him river stories till suppertime."

  • Kenneth Grahame, "The Wind in the Willows"
    🎨 E. H. Shepard

bevanthomas, (edited ) to 13thFloor
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"I felt myself mysteriously drawn towards him.... I'll try a pagan friend since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy.... [He asked] whether we were again to be bedfellows. I told him yes, whereat I thought he looked pleased."

  • Herman Melville, "Moby Dick"
    🎨 Rockwell Kent

bevanthomas, to 13thFloor
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In Sinbad's fifth voyage in the "Arabian Nights," he discovers the City of the Apes, whose inhabitants spend each night in boats off-shore while their town is abandoned to man-eating apes. Sinbad convinces these apes to pluck fruit for him, which he then sells, recouping his fortune.

bevanthomas, (edited ) to 13thFloor
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Ja'far ibn Yahya was historically vizier of the caliph Harun al-Rashid, famous as a patron of science. He's a cunning hero in several Arabian Nights tales, though modern media ironically often uses his name for evil sorcerers, such as the one in Disney's "Aladdin."
🎨 Abul Hasan Ghaffari

bevanthomas, to literature
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"My birthday began with the water birds
And the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses.
And I rose in rainy autumn,
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days."

  • Dylan Thomas, "A Poem in October"

bevanthomas, (edited ) to cymru
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"Though thou get this, there is yet that which thou wilt not get. It is not possible to hunt the boar Trwyth without Gwyn, the son of Nudd, whom God has placed over all the devils in Annwn, lest they should destroy the present race."

  • "Culhwch & Olwen" (Welsh legend)

bevanthomas, (edited ) to writing
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Do you yearn to create tales of magic, weird science, and strange worlds? Then join my online class on writing fantasy & science fiction at the Alexandra Writers' Centre!
(starting April 17 at 7-9 PM Mountain Standard Time / 6-8 PM Pacific Standard Time)

https://www.alexandrawriters.org/store/p501/writing-fantasy-and-science-fiction.html

bevanthomas, (edited ) to 13thFloor
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In the Goetia, Astaroth is a duke of Hell who encourages slothfulness and laziness. His breath stinks, and he loves to claim that he didn't really fall from Heaven; it was all a misunderstanding. Astaroth knows much about the past and future, and the liberal arts.
🎨 Louis le Breton

bevanthomas, to 13thFloor
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For centuries, university students dabbled in sorcery to rebel against their parents. Thus, many demons in the Goetia specialize in finding treasure and/or teaching academic disciplines such as science or literature. Quick money and acing tests appeal to students.
🎨 Louis le Breton

bevanthomas, to folklore
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In one Welsh legend, King Arthur discovered an altar floating in the ocean, and unsuccessfully tried to use it as a table. When Arthur realized the altar belonged to St. Carannog, he returned it in exchange for the saint ridding the land of a troublesome dragon.

bevanthomas,
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Image is a statue of St. Carannog in Llangrannog, Wales

bevanthomas, to 13thFloor
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In British legend, when Merlin saw a comet that resembled a dragon in the sky, he knew it meant his king, Ambrosius, had died, and Ambrosius' brother Uther was now king. In honor of this comet, Merlin dubbed the new king Uther Pendragon (Uther "Dragon's Head").

bevanthomas, (edited ) to folklore
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Though the Norse term "Jotun" often gets translated as "giant," the Jotnar could be many different sizes, and many of them (Loki, Skadi, etc.) were no taller than the Aesir. They often seemed less like giants and more like simply a competing faction of gods.

bevanthomas, to 13thFloor
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In Welsh folklore, pigs originally came from the Otherworld, a gift from the fairy king Arawn. The Welsh point to all the many different kinds of marvelous food one can turn pigs into - bacon, sausages, pork chops, etc. - as proof that pigs are magical creatures.
🎨 T. Horsley

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