Triggered by another post I didn’t want to hijack:
Excalibur.
In the legends, Excalibur comes out of a lake (although some versions have Excalibur as the sword in the stone, those are later…the sword Arthur pulls from the stone breaks and he goes to get a better one).
From the “Lady of the Lake.”
Here’s the thing.
In northern Europe in the Iron Age all the way through to the early Medieval period, most iron came from bog iron. It was hard to smelt, because it was a rather low grade ore, but you didn’t have to mine it and it was a renewable resource (in about twenty years you could just come back and get more, because it formed constantly).
Meaning that the iron used to make a sword came…out of water.
In most fairy stories, fairies don’t like iron. So the vision of the Lady as some kind of fairy or elf? Not likely.
The idea of her as a druid? Maybe.
But what’s far more likely is this: The Lady of the Lake was a smith.
But….but…
The Celtic deity in charge of smiths and ironworking was Bridget, a goddess. The mystical associations with the Lady would fit with her being a priestess of Bridget…and thus, a smith.
IOW, Arthurian people, maybe we should not be visualizing the Lady of the Lake as a slender, graceful woman in a gown…
This had never, ever occurred to me. But after careful consideration: YES PLEASE.
I can’t believe I got to my forties without thinking of it myself!
i like this, but i think it’s more likely that the lady of the lake is an echo of the primarily female water pilgrimmages that happened across the north from the late stone age up to, quite possibly, the 1400′s or so. still water, particularly the black water of bogs and the unlit water of caves, symbolized both death and birth. these women may have been shamans, or they may simply have been spiritually motivated people, but whether they were magicians or not they were very probably midwives and physicians.
so rather than a muscular smith, i visualize a wise but gentle elder who has brought souls into the world and seen them out for many years. the sword she provides comes out of the water of birth and death; that is to say, it has a soul.
related thought: the lady of the lake was said to be ‘clad in white samite’. samite was a silk cloth from the east; people who would have access to it in england were royalty, and those who had traveled as far as the silk road. like, say, a doctor and holy woman who had taken the water pilgrimmage through the caves of eastern europe.
yeah, the more i think about it the more i like my shaman/midwife headcanon.
He’s a wanderer. He’ll wander. He can’t not. It’s an itch in his feet and a longing in his heart; it runs counter to all he is, to remain in one place for long.
But he always turns back up. And then laughs as you’re doing a rune draw to see “What the hell man did I do something wrong?”
“LULZ NOPE YOUR’RE COOL I HAD SHIT GOING ON.”
“…You could have dropped a message…”
“BUT THIS IS WAY FUNNIER. AND ALSO THIS WAY, YOU LEARN TO STAND ON YOUR OWN.”
Or you ask for knowledge or help with a spell, and he gives it to you. Then you’re dealing with the aftermath and:
Me: Odin, please show me the way out of this mess
Odin: … can u chill tho
Me: come on please
Odin: No
Me: P L E A S E
Odin: I could help, but honestly you did this to yourself and, consider: what if instead we cracked open a cold one and sat together in stoic silence, mourning your life choices.
Me: … ok fine.
Like he’s the epitome of “If you teach a man to fish, he’ll never go hungry. But if you sic a sharknado on a man, he’ll come out of it with a decent handle on fishing AND be able to best anything that comes after him in the future.”
Four unconventional Unicorns from tonight’s Creature Feature stream! Horse+Goat, Tapir+Narwhal, Rhino+Rhino Beetle and Dik Dik+Stag. It’s so much fun to push the boundaries of what could be considered a “Unicorn”!
It’s not very interesting but I’ll endeavour to make it not boring
It’s raining, and a public holiday. I’m in my room reading calmly after doing some errands in the afternoon. It’s nice and quiet. I hear knocking coming from the door.
It’s the door that leads to the balcony.
At first, I thought I was just imagining it. I go back to reading. I hear it again. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. I’m definitely not hallucinating it.
But like.
A couple of weeks ago, my neighbour cut down every single tree in his compound and… that ended up releasing a spirit (who had been living in a very old rain tree) who had been keeping my parents up by constantly knocking at their door (until they got a local religious teacher to pray it away, or it got bored and fucked off to a new home, whichever it is)
Also.
I’m too lazy to get out of bed.
So I ignore it. And then. A FUCKING TREE FALLS ON MY BALCONY.
Now I’m like. JESUS MARY AND JOSEPH. WHAT FUCKING BIRD HAS THE BEAK STRENGTH TO FELL AN ENTIRE FUCKING TROPICAL EVERGREEN ON MY BALCONY???
OBVIOUSLY I have to go out and check now. It turns out my dad hired our regular handyman to do some gardening, which included pruning a fucking tree WITH A HATCHET whose branches are themselves the size of individual trees.
And this particular branch is currently stuck on my balcony.
Hana! Push it over! He cries.
I don’t want a fucking tree in my balcony so I’m like, yeah of course I will.
I gently tip it over so that gravity will do the rest and I swear I was nowhere near the fucking thing but THEN THE ENTIRE LEAFY HEAD CANOPY PORTION FUCKING SWIPES ME BODILY AS IF THEY WERE TRYING TO PILEDRIVE ME INTO THE EARTH
And now I have to launder my newly cleaned shirt and slacks. Fuck you tree. I’m pressing charges.
The tree spirit was not happy about being ignored and then exorcized.
YEAH BUT I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING??? TREE SPIRIT YOU COULD HAVE DECIDED TO SWIPE YOUR LEAFY HANDS ON THE GUY WHO CUT YOU DOWN RIGHT???? WHAT IS MY CRIME????
It was punishing you because of your parents? Is it the same tree spirit or like…..their cousin?
space whales, dismissed by most as tall tales invented by superstitious old spacefarers who spent too long off-planet, a product of the tedium of space travel and inhaling too much recycled air, but still looked for by wide-eyed ensigns on their first expedition into deep space, and conspiracy theorists encouraged by recordings of strange and unidentified sounds, picked up by scientific research ships on their quest for further knowledge of the final frontier
star-people, said to conceal themselves amongst the gas-cloud nebulas, whose enchanting song has succeeded in turning sane men mad, abandoning protocol to steer their ships into deadly asteroid fields, or forsake civilisation in favor of the cold, unforgiving depths of uncharted space
space wyrms; great leviathans of the stars, growing to monstrous sizes in the zero-gravity atmosphere, devouring unsuspecting vessels that make the fatal mistake of crossing their path. some say they eat space whales.
modern greek mythology adaptation where hades and persephone are played by john mulaney and his wife
She’s hades, he’s Persephone
Oh no, no. John Mulaney is 100% Hades.
Loves his wife
Is actually pretty chill except when it comes to stupid people
Can’t stand up for himself when others try to do him wrong
And from what we hear about her, she’s very Persephone.
Easy to underestimate
Knows her own mind
Will cut you
“So, I meet this wonderful lady. Just fantastic, my heart does that thing where it’s skipping beats, and I – all of you think I’m going to talk about how I suavely asked her out, and that is not what happened.
“I ride up in my chariot, and the first – this is literally the first thing I say to her is ‘do you want to meet my dog’?
“And this – I – this is a sign that this woman is my soul mate – she looks at her friends hanging around and says, ‘sure, catch you later, guys’.
“I’m going to skip forward here a couple of dates – no, don’t – this is not the story of how my wife met my dog – and her mom – her mom – finds out she’s seeing me. Now I know everyone jokes about how a girl’s dad is this big, hulking – going to hunt you down if you’re dating his daughter and he doesn’t like you. But if you say that, it’s because you’ve never had some girl’s mom glaring up at you from like – her mom’s like two inches taller than her, so this little furious glare from around my chin area, saying her daughter’s not allowed to come see me anymore.
“And this – okay, this is when I knew I was going to marry this girl, she looks at her mom and, cool as anything, says, ‘Too late, mom. I met his dog, ate dinner over here. I’m staying’.”
Norse mythology fails to convey the sense of terror that must have hung over Asgard every time Loki was gone for longer than eight months and three weeks
DarkestElemental616 