handmade paper birds

surrealist owls

owl sketch by Remedios Varo

""Some kinds of animals burrow in the ground; others do not.

Some animals are nocturnal, as the owl and the bat; others use the hours of daylight"

Aristotle

owl by Leonor Fini

"This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow"
Mervyn Peake, from Titus Groan

by Leonora Carrington

"The owl flies by night, a dark shadow passing through the darkness; he hoots his sinister, quivering hoot, as though he delights in the intoxicating black immensity of space" 

Guy de Maupassant

Flat oval sacred stone, black in colour, used to make wearer invunerable.

found on the British Museum archives

donkeyskin

two illustrations for "Donkey Skin” by Nadezhda Illarionova

illustration by Harry Clarke

.:.

Donkey Skin (dir. Jacques Demy, 1970)

.:.

illustration by John D. Batten

Arthur Rackham's illustration for Donkeyskin

Donkeyskin is an original fairytale, first published in 1695 by french author Charles Perrault. It belongs to the same genre of dark and adult themed tales such as Bluebeard, which deal with stark and harsh realities. It combines elements of fairytales that we are all familiar with - mistreated and downtrodden girl who suceeds against the odds, the concealment of beauty with grotesque transformation, the hybrid of the bestial and human - or exploration of the animal side of human nature, a handsome prince, a ring that will only fit the original wearer, fairy godmothers. It has all the familiar tropes, yet the subject matter - of incest and paternal abuse is in sharp contrast to more glittery interpretations of Cinderella for example, that we are acquainted with.

The King is married to a beautiful queen, who on her deathbed makes the King promise that if he re-marries it will be to a woman even more beatutiful than herself (as she does not believe this is possible), unfortunately, the only female who fits the role is the King's own daughter, and so he lusts after her, pressing her to become his wife. This unnatural yearning causes the girl to seek out her fairy godmother, who in an effort to stave off the King's vile attentions persuades the girl to request ever more elaborate dresses from him (believing he will find the task of sourcing them impossible). Sadly the dresses are procured, one a dress as bright as the sun, one a dress the colour of the moon, one a dress all the colours of the sky, and finally, the hide of his marvelous donkey (which crapped gold, and thus was the source of his kingdom's wealth - his kingdom was literally built on donkey shit!). The only option left to the poor girl is to escape, in the guise of the final costume - the donkeyskin.

"Saint Dympna, a seventh century princess and now the patron saint of the insane, was also wanted in marriage by her father, a king of Brittany, Britain or Ireland. When she refused and ran away, having already committed herself to her Christian faith, he found and beheaded her. She even has a "godmother" figure in her elderly confessor who dies with her"
Marina Warner, The Beast and the Blonde, 1994 (quote found here)

The choice of the donkey is important I think. It is often regarded as a lowly farmyard animal, certainly less regal in aspect than the horse. Yet it is famed in literature from early times. Apulieus wrote 'The Golden Ass', and Aesop also included a donkey in his fables. The donkey also of course was the vehicle of choice for the Virgin Mary in the traditional biblical story.

Robed in this hideous apparel she escapes, and assumes the disguise of a servant, eventually a prince spys her trying on her beautiful dresses through a keyhole and marries her. I can't help but see this as eventual escape through degradation, adopting the guise of an lowly animal. Through concealment and transformation of form she is liberated, by transcending her human form she is able to eventually find 'happiness' and a relationship away from the abuse of her father,

"One day she was sitting on the banks of a stream bewailing her wretched lot, when she suddenly caught sight of herself in the water. Her hair and part of her face was quite concealed by the ass’s head, which was drawn right over like a hood, and the filthy matted skin covered her whole body. It was the first time she had seen herself as other people saw her, and she was filled with shame at the spectacle. Then she threw off her disguise and jumped into the water, plunging in again and again, till she shone like ivory. When it was time to go back to the farm, she was forced to put on the skin which disguised her, and now seemed more dirty than ever; but, as she did so, she comforted herself with the thought that to-morrow was a holiday, and that she would be able for a few hours to forget that she was a farm girl, and be a princess once more"
Charles Perrault, Donkeyskin

What is genuinely alarming and disconcerting here is the male gaze - the central character of Donkeyskin is unable to escape, first her own lecherous father lusts after her, and then she is observed through a keyhole whilst dressing (unwanted attentions from the Prince). It is clear that she has no future without the involvement of the male - she must submit to male domination. Her sole merits in the eyes of the court are her beauty (once she disrobes from her bestial cloak) and her skills at cooking (she bakes the lovesick prince a cake) but she does not appear to be valued for herself, she is viewed as currency.

There have been numerous contemporary explorations of this particular name, notably the Jacques Demy film of the same name, where Catherine Deneuve plays the role of Donkeyskin.

Review: Madam Crowl's Ghost

Madam Crowl's Ghost by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Listened to this on LibriVox. Short ghost story. Atmospheric and creepy tale of a young girl who is sent to Applewale House as a servant to work alongside her aunt and a woman called Mrs Wyvern, who are in attendance to Madame Crowl who haunts the rooms at the top of the house.

We don't meet Madame Crowl until halfway through the tale, once the suspense has built up - she is a hideously ancient clownish being with monstrously oversized wig, powdered face and freakishly long nails which have been sharpened to points.

Clambering and muttering around her bedroom in ridiculous garb, like a puppet with severed strings, she's terrifying - yet comical. In what might be one of my favourite all time references to personal adornment it is explained she is wearing false eyebrows fashioned from the skin of dead mice (youtube tutorial forthcoming).

After her death it is discovered that she shut up her stepson in a hidden room, which has been locked all this time. His dusty skeleton is discovered, identified by a green sheathed dagger and handful of jet beads. A highly enjoyable spooky tale.

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Iran, Luristan bronze horse bit, ca 1200-800 BC. 

A lion body with human faced ram ~ a sphinx of protection


Kottobos Element of a Dancing Satyr, 
470-450 BC Italy, Etruscan, 5th century

Review: Boy in Darkness

Boy in Darkness by Mervyn Peake
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Lovely hardback edition. It's a tough task to illustrate Peake's prose, as ultimately he's the best illustrator of his own worlds. The illustrations here (by P.J. Lynch) are wonderful all the same, and maintain the sense of frenzy and claustrophobia present in Peake's own scratchy spider-like scrawls.

This is set in the Gormenghast universe, and centres on the escape of Titus, and subsequent adventures. It is an excellent companion novella to the main trilogy, and would also be a nice introduction to children who might not be a ready to tackle the colossus of the Gormenghast whole. The language is fabulous, Peake relishes bizarre and idiosyncratic adjectives and words, and the resulting text is lavish, rich with the grotesque and clandestine. Peake excels at creating unsettling human/animal hybrids, animistic entities with attributes more commonly seen amongst people. The Hyena for example, shaves his face with a cut throat razor every five to six hours - as he is something of a dandy. The filthy goat stinks of ammonia. These are ominous and threatening presences, a far cry from often twee anthropomorphic animals featuring in children's literature - these are sinister and troubling.

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Yeats and The Golden Dawn

Rose Cross of W.B. Yeats

photo of the elemental Golden Dawn tools of W. B. Yeats

pages from Yeats' own esoteric writings

Golden Dawn associated items belonging to Yeats, including elemental weapons

Earth Pantacle of W.B. Yeats, on display in Dublin.

Elemental "Air" dagger of either W. B. Yeats or his uncle

(National Library of Ireland)

.:.

His writing abounding in the esoteric and mystic, it is no surprise that Yeats himself held a lifelong interest in the occult. But, unlike others he was not content to merely be a bystander, and was actively involved in various occult orders during his lifetime, notably with The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, infamous for links with Crowley (with whom he was to clash). In Ireland he became deeply involved with Theosophy, then in 1890, he joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, taking the magical motto "Demon Est Deus Inversus" - (DEDI).

Yeats was fascinated by the clandestine and otherworldly - much of his work centering on explorations of his native Ireland, mining folkloric and mythical tales from inhabitants, many of which can be read in The Celtic Twilight. His poetry and prose center around mysticism, The Secret Rose, a collection of short stories explore these themes using central characters to comment on mystic themes, and along with his wife he was involved in the spiritualist movement.

"I believe in the practice and philosophy of what we have agreed to call magic, and what I must call the evocation of spirits, though I do not know what they are, in the power of creating magic illusions, in the visions of truth in the depths of the minds when the eyes are closed"

.:.

I know of the leafy paths that the witches take...

"I know of the leafy paths that the witches take,
Who come with their crowns of pearl and their spindles of wool,
And their secret smile, out of the depths of the lake;
And of apple islands where the Danaan kind
Wind and unwind their dances when the light grows cool
On the island lawns, their feet where the pale foam gleams;
No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind,
The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams"

from The Withering of the Boughs // In the Seven Woods by William Butler Yeats

Review: The Book of Hallowe'en

The Book of Hallowe'en by Ruth Edna Kelley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

An absolute minefield of Halloween themed information, from ancient religious practices, to more contemporary table arrangements, Ruth Edna Kelley has dug deep - including ample references to literature and poetry which references her theme.

This was one of the first forays into documenting Halloween through history, written in 1919 - it isn't the most scholarly effort, a bit of a patchwork at times, and admittedly it isn't collated in the best possible way, sometimes the information seems scattered, and some of it is incredibly dated, but it's a fascinating trove nonetheless.

The main section details folkloric practices and beliefs for the different parts of Great Britain and surrounding areas. There is also a notable section on American belief. If you're interested in this kind of thing, suspend your doubts and indulge in the sheer weirdness and scope of this little book, stuffed full of fascinating facts and lore.

Read on archive.org and listened to on LibriVox.

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the mysterious woodwose

Wild men support coats of arms in the side panels of a portrait
Albrecht Dürer, 1499

illustration by 'The Master of the Playing Cards'

Woodwose or wild men (and women!) appear amongst the art and literature of medieval England. Often seen depicted in churches across Britain, they have become a familiar sight with vegetal growths sprouting from eyes, mouths and ears - frequently hidden in foliage themselves. The term is used in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and figures of wildpeople emerge across European literature and art. In fourteenth century France, the guise of a wildman was adopted as folkloric costume in the court of Charles VI -  "in costumes of linen cloth sewn onto their bodies and soaked in resinous wax or pitch to hold a covering of frazzled hemp, so that they appeared shaggy & hairy from head to foot". In later times the woodwose was adopted as a symbol for mining. The condition of hypertrichosis was also linked to the woodwose, due to the similarties of excess growth of hair, and the character was frequently utilised in heraldry designs.


Woodwose, Ripon Cathedral, North Yorkshire. Photo: Mike Harding

It has been suggested that the woodwose represents the opposite of civilzation - a woodwose dwelling on the edges and fringes of society - almost an outcast, " the place inhabited by hunters, criminals, religious hermits, herdsmen, and others who frequent the margins of human activity" according to Dorothy Yamamoto.


A wild man is described in Konungs skuggsjá
(Speculum Regale or "the King's Mirror")
written in Norway around 1250:

"It once happened in that country (and this seems indeed strange) that a living creature was caught in the forest as to which no one could say definitely whether it was a man or some other animal; for no one could get a word from it or be sure that it understood human speech. It had the human shape, however, in every detail, both as to hands and face and feet; but the entire body was covered with hair as the beasts are, and down the back it had a long coarse mane like that of a horse, which fell to both sides and trailed along the ground when the creature stooped in walking"


German Wild Man stove tile, ca. 1480. Earthenware with lead glaze.


illustration from the Speculum Regale

.:.
suggested further reading:
Nina Lyon - Uprooted: On the Trail of the Green Man
Jeremy Harte - The Green Man
Terri Windling - The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest


"Wild Man" oak wood sculpture, circa 1390-1400
from the collection of the Museum Schnütgen, Cologne

October's tempests scowl...

The autumn wind--oh hear it howl:
Without--October's tempests scowl,
As he troops away on the raving wind!
And leaveth dry leaves in his path behind.

"It is the night--the night
Of the graves' delight
And the warlocks are at their play!
Ye think that without
The wild winds shout,
But no, it is they--it is they!"

Arthur Cleveland Coxe, from Hallowe'en

kathryn joseph // the bird

"A Halloween mirror is made by the rays of the moon shining into a looking- glass. If a girl goes secretly in to a room at midnight between October and November, sits down at the mirror, and cuts an apple into nine slices , holding each on the point of a knife before she eats it, she may see in the moonlit glass the image of her lover looking over her left shoulder, and asking for the last piece of apple"

A Scottish Halloween custom, from 'The Book of Halloween', Ruth E. Kelley

painting by Sir Frank Dicksee

"The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit’s tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day"

from William Cullen Bryant, The Death of Flowers

catweazle

“Heksenfluit”, witch flute, with death’s head and rat leg,

ca. 1850, Collectie MAS, Museum aan de Stroom, Antwerpen, foto Louis de Peuter

the dolls of Lotte Pritzel