While I'm doing a bit of research (and some philosophical musings) for upcoming posts I wanted to post this old clip of The Museum of Witchcraft in Bostcastle; its quite fascinating when one compares the museum circa the 1960s to the present day museum (many more artifacts, &c.). I'm a bit of a sucker for the atypical horror-suspense soundtrack.
The Glory of Gorey: The Fantrod Pack
I do wish I could have been more extensive in my seasonally-themed posts, however, academia was calling my name (well sending me annoying letters), which had to be tended to. I am glad that I was able to publish what I did and its no time for regrets; the year is winding down and a whole new unforeseeable future is before us, which leads me to what I wanted to share tonight.
While skimming through the blogosphere this afternoon I ran across a little known "fortune" pack illustrated by Edward Gorey, which I was so taken aback by I had to post something about it. For the unaware Edward St. John Gorey is
probably best known for his contribution to the opening credits of the PBS series Mystery! back in the eighties; even now Masterpiece Mystery (PBS) uses excerpts of Gorey's animations in their opening sequence. Gorey was born in Chicago in 1925, however, began to make his mark illustrating works for such literary notables like T.S. Eliot (Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats) and Bram Stroker's Dracula in New York City (1953 to 1960). In his later years Gorey took residence in Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts on Cape Cod in a house known as the "Elephant House," which now functions as the Edward Gorey House Museum. In addition to being a literary illustrator for others he is also a published author and illustrator in his own right. Gorey described his work as literary nonsense, which is a genre of (albeit loose definition) literature that is noted for its nonsensical elements of defying typical use of conventional language as well as logical reasoning. Historically speaking literary nonsense appears to derive from folkloric tales. However, published works such as the series of Mother Goose nursery rhymes, Edward Lear's A Book of Nonsense (1846), and of course the Alice stories by Lewis Caroll.
Gorey is quite a curiosity to me and one of my favorite illustrator (I grew up watching Mystery! as a child). His interests and inspiration draw from an accumulation of highbrow and lowbrow culture; his knowledge of film and literature was unusually extensive citing among his favorite authors and artists Agatha Christie, Francis Bacon, and Lady Murasaki. To juxtapose these Gorey's enthusiasm for popular culture that establishes a lovely balance; and avid follower of soap operas and television comedies. Of course Gorey appreciation for darker dramas such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X-Files.
The Fan trod Pack is a series of twenty cards that forecast a list of possible outcomes for the querent ranging from the merely unpleasant to the downright horrible. Included with the pack is a thirty two page booklet with interpretations provided by Mme. Groede Weyrd, which Gorey tell us,
'[she is] of mixed Finnish and Egyptian extraction, [and] has devoted her life to divination, and is the author, among a shelf of other works, Floating Tambourines, a collection of esoteric verse, and The Future Speaks Through Entrails.' Of course Mme. Groede Weyrd is a pseudonym for Gorey himself and is typical of other anagram-based pen names connected with his other published works. Originally published in the sixties in Esquire these twenty black and white crosshatched ink illustration are a parody on traditional Tarot (major arcana) or other fortune packs; with unusual (or rather usual in Gorey's case) image that are quite macabre. The cards bare such titles like "The Ancestor," "The Limb," and "The Waltzing Mouse."
The examples that I have seen are just stunning and eerily charming. Obviously strong enough to stand on their own as a work of art. I for one am putting Gorey's Fantrop on the top of my list of purchases for the New Year. One reviewer has suggested it more for Groey fans and collectors than for those who read Tarot (or any other oracle pack for that matter), this is due for the fact of the cards more ominous meanings.
Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa)
Of all the trees that grows so fair,
Old England to adorn,
Greater are none beneath the Sun
Than Oak and Ash and Thorn.
- Puck of Pook’s Hill, "A Tree Song" by Rudyard Kipling, 1906
Among the trees associated with wintertime lore the blackthorn or Dranenen ddu in Welsh sometimes called the Mother of the Woods is enigmatic of the season. Blackthorn is a deciduous shrub that can grow to very large proportions thus resembling that of a small tree. Its creamy-white petals amongst the ovular leaves sprout in early spring, which conceals within the playful façade long thorns; the fruit ripens with the first frost and sweetens it, but have been known to be bitter. The autumn’s chill yellows the leaves and upon their departure leaves a contorted black skeleton to contrast the winter-white.
Mythologically speaking blackthorn represents the dark half of the years; her sister the hawthorn completes this duality as they are sisters; blackthorn reigns at Hallowe’en, where as the hawthorn during the eve of May. As the thorn of Glastonbury blooms twice in a year so it has been said that the blackthorn blooms on Christmas Eve as well. Why? Well it is reputed to be on of the tree that composes the thorny crown of Christ. The folkloric uses of the blackthorn are numerous. Wreaths of blackthorn and mistletoe were fashioned to procure luck for the coming year, as well as a garland when wassailing the apple trees; the ashes of the blackthorn crowns were an auspicious curio to insure the fertility of the fields as well.
As for the witches…Christian folklore associates blackthorn with them as a sinister tree with baneful intentions. A rod of this wood could be used as (what the witches call) a blasting rod. Major Thomas Weir was executed by fire in 1970 as a witch for his blackthorn staff carved with a satyr head alleged to posses extraordinary powers. The thorns could be used a pins to puncture the doll wrought in their victim’s image. Also let us not forget the witches of South Devon who were supposed to carry walking sticks of blackthorn used to cause mischief.
Of course modern witches use blackthorn in their protection charms; auspicious times for the collection of such materials are on the eve of February and the night of Hallowe’en. As these are days are in sacred to the blackthorn. As the eve of February ushers in the light of the New Year and Hallowe’en prepares us for the darkness of the waning year.
Frau Holda: Embrace Winter
In the north of Germany Dame Perchta is known as Holda (it is arguable whether she is actually a northern incarnation or a "sister" of sorts). The images left "Holda, die gütige Beschüzerin [Holda, the good protectress]" from Nordisch-germanische Götter und Helden (1882) depicts a beautiful woman emerging from a forest is not uncommon when one takes into consideration of the souther Perchta (a mistress of the Wild Hunt). The patron of domesticated practices (most notably spinning), wild animals, and winter; she is an obscure and ancient character in the Teutonic mythos. She neither fills the role of better known goddess like Hel and Frigg completely, which leads one to question if Holda has pre-indo-European origins predating the Germanic pantheon.
Whatever the case maybe Frau Holda has withstood the annals of time. Hludanae a name that bears a striking resemblance to the latter Holda appears in inscriptions dating from the 197 C.E. An example of this is found in various places among them Frisia, which is a coastal region along the North Sea that lies between Great Britain and Scandinavia. Canonical text lists Holda among the Diana of Italy and Herodias of biblical times to have been venerated in cult form. At times these various entires are assumed to be one and the same just differentiated via region.
Qui credunt quod Diana, quae vulgariter dicitur fraw Percht, cum exercitu suo de nocte solet ambulare per multa sapatia terrarum [Diana who is commonly known as Fraw Percht is in the habit of wandering through the night with a host of women] (Tegernsee MS 434).
Holda becomes a literary archetype of sorts. In the collection of fairy tails as collected by the Grimm brothers. Best know is the story of Frau Holle, known by the same name. These stories follow a specific rubric (therefore making the tales sounds similar) that contain such elements spinning (in the older texts a spindle and the distaff, cf. Sleeping Beauty).
Dame Perchta and das Perchten
Once a goddess of the Teutonic peoples of the Alpine countries; in the tenth century she is known as Frau Berchta a swan-footed maiden that Grimm speculates could possibly allude to her ability of shifting forms. She is known “precisely in those Upper German regions where Holda* leaves off, in Swabia, in Alsace, in Switzerland, in Bavaria and Austria” (Grimm, 1835: 13:6). As with many old gods of pre-Christian Europe Bertcha falls unsusceptible to be demonized, thus we are faced with the pale faced hag of superstitious religious belief, Grimm writes:
Popular belief in the last few centuries, having lost the old and higher meaning of this spiritual being, has retained, as in the case of the alb, of Holla and Berhta, only the hateful side of its [her] nature: a tormenting terrifying spectre, tangling your hair and beard, cutting up your corn, it appears mostly in a female form, as a sorceress and witch (17:7).
Interestingly enough Grimm’s reference to the “cutting up of corn” is reminiscent of the ravenous nature of the Wild Hunt, renowned in the Germanic countries. Not only does one encounter Wotan (or Odin) the Wild Man but in the sixteenth century a “specter” named Berchtold clad in white led the hunt, “[We] have met before: he was the masculine form of the white-robed Berhta” (31:4).
As a maid of the Wild Hunt she is known for her to roam at midwinter, had under her command an arsenal of entities the Perchten (plural of Perchta). The festival of the mountain regions of Austria (since the sixteenth century) men wear masks of horrible repute bearing horns of a goat with grotesque teeth invade the land to force out evil spirits reenacting the Wild Hunts of old. These Schiachperchten (ugly Perchten) are one of two forms the other being the Schönperchten (beautiful Pertchen) who bestow blessings during the Twelfth Night. To ensure blessings Perchta’s followers would be forbidden to spin (an allotted amount to be completed prior); eat traditional foods of dumplings and herring.
*Holda (known by various spellings) is considered Perchta's equivalent in the souther regions of Germany while Holda resides in the north.
Photograph from Masks, Face Coverings and headgear. Van Nostrand Reinhold Co. (1973).
Cold and Planetary
Hallowe'en initiates a time of year that I hold very dear. November has this cold liminal feeling to it that I absolutely adore, which is succeeded by illuminated nature of Yuletide. To properly describe the feeling of this time of year would not do it justice, but it is an aesthetic. Sylvia Plath’s “The Moon and the Yew Tree” best describes it:
The light of the mind, cold and planetary.So to kick off this time of year (which honestly is a misnomer, November ends in approximately one week and five days) I’ll be posting about various subjects that pertain to it. I hope that I can successfully convey my internal reaction in an intelligent and mind-captivating manner to you readers. On the docket (so to speak) I’m pulling together some information that will hopefully result in an informative article about Mother Holle known as Frau Holle. Additionally I hope to post some recipes, lore, and such items that will be of particular interest.
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
Divine Pelican
Being that there is an overtly obvious avian influence in my blog I wanted to talk about one of the more obscure birds whose symbolism has fallen by the wayside. In medieval and renaissance Europe the veneration of the pelican as a religious symbol is little talked about today. Louisiana adopted the pelican as its state bird and the state seal bears the image; however, lore of the pelican predates the formation of America. Prior to the advent of Protestantism in Europe the pelican became a symbol of Christ; yet earlier than this the pelican has its own special place with depiction in Peru and India. An Indian folktale tells of a pelican that killed her young, but was so contrite she sacrificed herself to resurrect her children with blood drawn from her breast. The Physiologus a text from the second century speaks of a similar happening; a pelican devout to their young, however, will kill them if they have been stricken at by their young. In remorse they will peck out their own breast to and sprinkle their young to allow them to live again.
Interestingly enough in Palm one hundred and two David wrote, “I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl in the desert” (Ps. 102:6).
This self sacrifice and act of redemption translated well within the context of European Christianity; the sacrifice of Christ for the salvation of humanities’ sins transforms Christ into a divine pelican. St. Thomas Aquinas in his Eucharistic hymn “Adoro te devote” in the sixth verse identifies Christ as a “pelican of mercy”:
Pie Pelicane, Jesu Domine,
Me immundum munda tuo sanguine:
Cujus una stilla salvum facere
Totum mundum quit ab omni scelere.
The “poetic” English translation:
Pelican of mercy, Jesu, Lord and God,
Cleanse me, wretched sinner, in Thy Precious Blood:
Blood where one drop for human-kind outpoured
Might from all transgression have the world restored.
The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913 makes mention of this specific verse being sung independent of “Adoro te devote” during the Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Here we can see the Roman Catholic absorption of the pelican as a symbolic of Christ as well as of the Eucharist.
The most notable visual reference (artistic depiction) of the pelican is seen in Nicholas Hilliard’s portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, c.1575 known as “The Pelican Portrait” held at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) of Great Britain. Hilliard is equally famous for “The Phoenix Portrait” believed to have been painted a year later. Queen Elizabeth was accustomed to wearing the image during the commission of state portraits as a codified message to the English expressing her selfless love, charity, and redemption.
From Silent Ghost Cinema
Introduction
I’m horrid at introduction, however, this being the inaugural post of Ostrich and Egret I figured I should bit the bullet with some hopefully informative bits-and-bobs about myself, the intentions of this blog, and whatever else.
Anyway, I’m a perpetual student based in Syracuse, New York majoring in Arts in Cultural Context, which is a self-designed degree focusing on the post-structuralist body, abjection in art, and gender through a feminist lens. All academics aside I am a practitioner of folk magic and traditional witchcraft with a particular interest in American witchcraft. I’ve studied various forms of magic throughout the years from ceremonial magic of the Golden Dawn to contemporary witchcraft originating from the British Isles.
Wish I could claim some profound connection to some metaphysical celebrity, but sadly I cannot. My mother taught me to read palms, cards, and tea leaves; which she learned from her mother and she learned from hers (you get the picture). My maternal great grandfather could remove warts and my grandmother was adept at water-witching.
What’s in a name? Ostrich and Egret comes from chamber rock band Rasputina’s “How We Quit the Forest” from their 1998 album of the same name, “The ostrich and the egret, / Had a very fine flat to let.” Both curious and elegant birds I though the best represented the intention that I had for creating this blog.
I want this blog to be a catalog of curiosities that I run across in my studies and in my ever evolving practice.
I’m very happy with a good cup of matcha, baking, and performing other atypical domestic activities; among other things I’m a knitter, crafter, and pop culture commentator (in an unofficial capacity).
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