We craft and tell stories because we’ve stood on the uncertain edge between the waking world and our imagination, between enchantment and fear. And we remember other stories that help us build our own stories, scraps of lumber and fragments of narrative we gather together to make stories for ourselves.
Almost everyone has heard The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen. In this tale, the duckling looks so ugly that he’s excluded by other animals and even his family. He leaves home and suffers a lot all the way, but finally he becomes a beautiful swan.
We sat down with Kate Wolford for a long-distance discussion about—well, about the weather, and how it shapes the stories we tell.
http://www.sacu.org/pic25.html
It’s another grim and heartbreaking day in the world. We’ve had too many of these lately, and Friday 13 seems particularly bitter and bitterly pointless. Other, better, more eloquent writers can tell you what’s happening, and give some shape to the numb weariness that overtakes us. Today, we want to celebrate life as usual, the ordinary everyday, boring days when nothing remarkable happens and good days when something hilarious happens.
In honour of the season, here for your reading enjoyment is an eerie Scots ballad by George MacDonald.
All Hallows’ Eve has long cultivated folk rituals and folktales of all varieties.
John is taking the week off. But don’t worry you can still get your weekly fix of Folklore goodness.
The Mid-autumn festival in China venerates 嫦娥 (Cháng’é), the moon goddess. Like the rituals in last week’s post, the folktales about her reflect the season’s liminality and uncertainties, as she moves from mortality to immortality, from living on earth to living on the moon.
