Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons? by Ursula Le Guin

Many of us know the famous fantasy/ sci-fi author Ursula Le Guin. Not only has she written several books, both for adults and for children, but her most widely known work, A Wizard of Earthsea, has become a staple on many high school reading lists. Her fantasy and science fiction books are wonderful, but rather than these I would like to discuss one of her non-fiction pieces. She is not as well-known for her non-fiction work, but it is just as good, if not better than her fiction. Language of the Night is a collection of her essays and one in particular, Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?, sums up what every lover of anything fantastical or imaginative has had to deal with in others because of that love.

The essay basically states that people are hesitant to accept fantasy or science fiction or anything that cannot be found in real life because, among other things, they are afraid to confront a reality other than the one they have forced themselves to endure. I won't spoil it for you because I really think you should read the essay for yourself... and I trust that Le Guin can say it much better than I can. A part of the fun of reading something is discovering it as you go through it, to attempt to have the spark of the idea as organically as the author might have had it. I also find that when I do this I'm more honest about my opinion of the piece afterwards, so I generally don't like going into too much detail when I'm telling people to read something.

But on the topic of adults scorning fantasy, I work in a book store at the moment and I often have to give recommendations to people who are looking for a new book to read. It is very seldom that when your average Joe, or more often Jane, is looking for a new book or a light read, they will have fantasy in mind. If I bring up the subject they'll often scrunch their nose and say, no I'd just like a regular book. When I was going through my awkward teenage years, sometimes I would feel embarrassed to be seen in the fantasy section, like I was in the children's section or the romance/ erotica section (also genres adults get scorned for enjoying and also worth discussion). And sometimes when family members ask to borrow one of my books to read they'll ask me to give them 'a real book. None of that weird science fiction stuff'. Living this made me love this essay. And by all means, if you have thoughts or stories on the subject do share them. We fantasy fanatics must every now and again come together in celebration of the genre.

Below is a link to an excerpt of the essay.

http://www.theatredirect.ca/season/Resources/Why%20Are%20Americans%20Afraid%20of%20Dragons.pdf

This is a cover of the book

Maxine Gadd

This is an artist that I do not really like that much. She has skill and there are people who like her work, but I'm not one of them. To me her work looks kind of creepy or evil... the unseelie court maybe. But here it is anyway for your pleasure!

Here's the website http://www.fataraworld.com/

Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins: An Encyclopedia by Carol Rose

This book is a great faerie reference book. It has over 400 pages full of faeries from all over the world. This is an encyclopedia, so true to encyclopedia style there is only a small blurb about each entry, but there are a lot of entries and what is there is very informative. Also, the appendix separates the faeries into categories, like nymphs or goblins, etc. and then tells under those categories the faeries are separated by country, which is really useful.

Something I didn't like so much was in the actual listings there would be a term that would only say refer to another entry. This is fine as a way to both save space and to save on reiterations, but I would have preferred that the author at least give the country of origin or some reason why that term exists. There must be some difference, even if the difference is only geographical and the being is more or less the same, if there wasn't there wouldn't be two words for it. So that disappointed me.

Overall it's a good resource though.

Jesse Wilcox Smith

Smith (1863-1935) was the artist who illustrated the somewhat well-known book by Rev. Charles Kingsley, 'The Water Babies: A fairy Tale For A Land Baby', which is about a boy named Tom who falls in a river and dies, and then goes on to learn moral truths. That is not her only work, but it is what I know her from.



I got the images from this site http://www.podgallery.com/index.cfm/hurl/msgId=360/action=artwork

Tithe by Holly Black

Like many tales that take place in the realm of the fae, Tithe (as the name would suggest) is a story about a girl in the human world who finds out that she has been chosen as a sort of sacrifice for the faeries. This is a pretty common story, a good one is Hunter’s Moon by Melling if you’re unfamiliar with the genre (and I've already done a post on it which you can see here), but Black takes this story and gives it a nice little twist.

Here’s a quick intro. The story begins with a teenage girl named Kaye who travels around with her rock star mother. She should be in high school but because of all of the moving around her mother has to do, what with being a starving artist, Kaye finds her time better spent working. She has no father to speak of, as she is the product of a one night stand her mother had with a popular Japanese rock star and her mother h been jumping from boyfriend to boyfriend since. After an inexplicable attack on Kaye’s mother by her current boyfriend, she and Kaye return to Kaye’s grandmother’s house, where Kaye lived when she was young. Kaye used to have what people around her would call imaginary friends whom she would talk about all the time, but no one else have ever or could ever see. She also had a school friend when she was a child, Janet, and goes out with her and her friends after she and her mother have settled in. After an odd incident involving an old carnival horse, Kaye runs away from the gathering into the woods, and to add to her current state, she stumbles upon a knight bleeding to death because of an arrow in his side. The knight takes a leaf and smears it with his blood and asks Kaye to put it in the water nearby. She does this in exchange for the night’s name. When she puts the leaf in the water it summons a kelpie who takes the knight away. After some soul-searching and some conversations with some old friends, Kaye discovers that she is not as human as she seems. That she is in fact a changeling, and there are those who would like to put that information to use.

I enjoyed this novel. I’ve seen it around for some time but avoided picking it up because I thought it would be like the new syrupy, poorly written, weak-willed heroine in love with two guys at once, who can’t stand up for herself or think for herself trend that seems to be popular with teen books right now in regards to the paranormal genre. I am however happy to report that it is more like The Blue Girl by De Lint than Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. It’s an urban faerie tale with echoes of stories past, but changed enough to make it new again. I don’t know that I agree with all of the changes or slants given to how the faerie world works… in fact I would have preferred that she make the faerie realm more dangerous. This is a teen novel. It doesn’t have to be full of gore or indecency or anything (I mean it is still a teen novel), but I personally would have enjoyed it if there was a little more of the danger I usually associate with the fae. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty suggested evil doings in the unseelie court, but the faerie food, for example, wasn’t as bad as older tales describe it. There is none of the pining away until you die or other bad side effects the food may have on mortals, it just knocks you out or gets you drunk for a while. Kind of softening the blow of the danger of faerie. Overall though it’s a pretty good book.

Here's the author's website http://www.blackholly.com/index.html

Glamour

Faerie glamour is the magic faeries use to superficially change the appearance of an object, like a magical plaster. Faeries use it to make either themselves, others, or objects look differently than they do normally. The effectiveness of the glamour will depend on the strength of the faerie's magic, but it typically serves as just an illusion or a trick of the eye to make something seem different in appearance. More powerful faeries can make glamour suppress magical ability, but this is more rare and most often glamour is just used as a form of disguise.

image from http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3214/2746389145_652abe6215.jpg

Faeries (1981)

Faeries is a very short movie, not even half an hour, and is based on Brian Froud’s book Faeries.

The story is about a youth named Oisin who is out on a hunt with the men to bring in some game for his birthday feast, but they have been unlucky are just about to give up and go home empty-handed. Just as the men are lamenting at even bringing the boy, a deer runs by Oisin and his horse chases it off into the forest. The deer stops to graze in a ring of mushrooms and just as Oisin is about to shoot it, it turns into a lovely young woman who states that she is Princess Niamh of the faeries. The princess takes Oisin with her to fairyland because they are in trouble. The king was showing off his magical ability and made his shadow come alive, but over time the shadow grew more powerful and began sucking power out of the king. The shadow took over most of the faerie realm with it’s darkness (which weakens the powers of the seelie court) and was going to go after the princess next. It is of course up to Oisin and his assigned companion Puck to go after the monster in it’s castle and defeat it, bringing peace to faerie realm once again.

The movie was decently done. Even though it was a short film it felt like a feature-length film. The animation of the faeries was very Froud like, which was interesting to see applied in a cartoon and was pretty accurate in regards to some creatures. Certain poses of some of the faeries looked like they came right out of the book. There were some cheesy lines and a few easy way outs that will have you rolling your eyes, but hey, it’s the 80′s. Overall worth while.

Someone actually posted it on youtube, so for the time being you can watch it there

David Delamare

Amazing artist Delamare creates beautiful fairy art. They're absolutely stunning. Check out the rest of them on his website. http://www.daviddelamare.com/fairies.html

The Peatbog Faeries

This is a contemporary Celtic fusion band from Scotland with some pretty cool sounds.

Here's their website where you can check them out http://www.peatbogfaeries.com/

Edward Robert Hughes

Lived 1851- 1917, was an english pre-Raphaelite painter

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Edward_Robert_Hughes_-_Midsummer_Eve_%281908c%29.jpg

http://www.illusionsgallery.com/Night%20w%20Stars.html

http://www.artmagick.com/pictures/picture.aspx?id=5442&name=night#

Fairy Tale by Katherine Mansfield

Now this is the story of Olaf
Who ages and ages ago
Lived right on the top of a mountain,
A mountain all covered with snow.

And he was quite pretty and tiny
With beautiful curling fair hair
And small hands like delicate flowers--
Cheeks kissed by the cold mountain air.

He lived in a hut made of pinewood
Just one little room and a door
A table, a chair, and a bedstead
And animal skins on the floor.

Now Olaf was partly fairy
And so never wanted to eat;
He thought dewdrops and raindrops were plenty
And snowflakes and all perfumes sweet.

In the daytime when sweeping and dusting
And cleaning were quite at an end,
He would sit very still on the doorstep
And dream--O, that he had a friend!

Somebody to come when he called them,
Somebody to catch by the hand,
Somebody to sleep with at night time,
Somebody who'd quite understand.

One night in the middle of Winter
He lay wide awake on his bed,
Outside there was fury of tempest
And calling of wolves to be fed--

Thin wolves, grey and silent as shadows;
And Olaf was frightened to death.
He had peeped through a crack in the doorpost,
He had seen the white smoke of their breath.

But suddenly over the storm wind
He heard a small voice pleadingly
Cry, "I am a snow fairy, Olaf,
Unfasten the window for me."

So he did, and there flew through the opening
The daintiest, prettiest sprite
Her face and her dress and her stockings,
Her hands and her curls were all white.

And she said, "O you poor little stranger
Before I am melted, you know,
I have brought you a valuable present,
A little brown fiddle and bow.

So now you can never be lonely,
With a fiddle, you see, for a friend,
But all through the Summer and Winter
Play beautiful songs without end."

And then,--O she melted like water,
But Olaf was happy at last;
The fiddle he tucked in his shoulder,
He held his small bow very fast.

So perhaps on the quietest of evenings
If you listen, you may hear him soon,
The child who is playing the fiddle
Away up in the cold, lonely moon.

Faerie Food

Food is important in the faerie realm. Court faeries are always feasting during their revels and hold sumptuous feasts of food. This food, though fine for faerie consumption, is not so good for mortals. If a human were to eat this food he or she may never be able to eat mortal food again. Even if he or she manages to make it home once again (which may not even happen. Getting drunk on the food or drink may make the person forget their home and stay in faerie forever more), their taste for faerie food will have spoiled for them the food they need to sustain themselves and will wither away inexplicably to friends and family.

image from http://www.herecomestheguide.com/images/articles/TrulyYoursCateringWFoodDon.jpg

There is also the belief that faerie food is just glamoured mushrooms or rotten apples.

Food is not only faerie to human, but human to faerie as well. To make peace with faeries, or to make friends, some people leave out a saucer of milk or some sugar at night for the faerie to take, almost like a peace treaty.

A Little Snow Fairy: Sugar

I have seen this anime around but my impression of it was that it would be one of those vacuous ‘cute for the sake of cute’ animes about nothing in particular and the most the creator wanted me to take away from it was that ‘OMG THAT WAS THE CUTEST EVER WASN’T THAT SO CUTE’. So naturally I stayed away. Despite what I thought initially however, this was actually a good story and yes, it is cute, but not cute for the sake of cuteness.



The story begins with an industrious young girl named Saga. Saga lives with her grandmother and has her life planned down to the minute. She doesn’t like disorganization and even makes plans and decisions for her friends. This all starts to unravel, however, when Saga comes across a tiny fairy who almost passes out from hunger. Saga gives her a waffle to eat and the fairy follows her home. At first Saga dislikes the attention and is constantly trying to ignore or get away from Sugar, the fairy. Eventually though, the two become good friends and Saga becomes important to Sugar’s mission.



Sugar is a snow fairy. Fairies control to weather, there are fairies who control wind, rain, sun, the clouds, etc. and Sugar controls snow, or will after her training period. Sugar is an apprentice fairy and she, along with other apprentice fairies, must spend time on earth to find ‘twinkles’. Each fairy must find a ‘twinkle’ to make their own magic flower bloom, and only then can they become a full-fledged season fairy. Many of the episodes focus on the fairies trying to find these twinkles.



This show is not only for fairy lovers, there is also a very strong musical theme. The fairies control their weather specialization with a musical instrument, and Saga herself loves the piano and plays often throughout the series. Music itself doesn’t play as big a role as the love of instruments and the hold they may have on our memories.

The characters grow immensely in this series. Saga is not the up-tight girl who clung to a schedule. After she meets Sugar, Saga slowly is forced to loosen up a bit. Normally, people can’t see season fairies so they fly out in the open and are invisible to people, but Saga is an exception and can see them. This poses a problem for her because not only do her schedules come under attack, but she is talking to and interacting with things no one but her can see. Over time though, Saga makes room for life to happen and doesn’t cling so tightly to her schedule. Both Saga and Sugar experience trials, both individually and together and both grow a little bit from each hardship they face. It’s kind of like fruits basket in that it’s a sweet story on the surface, but it has a hidden depth to it, it’s not as deep or intricate as fruits basket but it does have that double layer of surprising substance even though the characters are so cute.



Here's a website, translated by google of course http://translate.google.ca/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://www.tbs.co.jp/snow-sugar/main.html&ei=dF89TJ_VEsL98Aa7sajtBQ&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dtbs.co.jp/%2Bsnow-sugar%26hl%3Den

Unexpected fairy!

So I went to a cottage with some of my friends and we went exploring. We boated over to an island and look at what we found hidden away in a spider web!

Photo courtesy of Modivus

Mary Baxter St. Claire

Mary Baxter St. Claire is a wonderful Fairy artist and is actually featured in my header (in case you were wondering).

This is her website http://www.enchantedislandstudio.com/index.html

Fairies Cookbook by Barbara Beery

The Fairies Cookbook is a fun little book for kids aged maybe 4 - 12 for the targeted ages, but I'm sure all young at heart will not be hindered by the bright colours and 'recommended ages'.

While this book might not have the best recipes or the more ingenious food ideas, it is a fun book for little kids who like baking and fairies. All of the recipes are fairy themed and will range from just having some sort of sparkle or pink colour on the food to being shaped like fariy-esque items, like wands or masks. The recipes are pretty standard and they use easy to find and work to with foods, so in other words are kid friendly. Again, not the most amazing book out there, but it does put a little twist on regular desserts that would delight anyone obsessed in girly fairy things and would be a nice addition to any fairy themed children's party. If you find that you do like this and want more of the same, this author has other books out that are similar to this, pink princess cookbook, mermaid cookbook, etc.

A Faery Song by William Butler Yeats

Sung by the people of Faery over Diarmuid and Grania,

in their bridal sleep under a Cromlech.

We who are old, old and gay,
O so old!
Thousands of years, thousands of years,
If all were told:
Give to these children, new from the world,
Silence and love;
And the long dew-dropping hours of the night,
And the stars above:
Give to these children, new from the world,
Rest far from men.
Is anything better, anything better?
Tell us it then:
Us who are old, old and gay,
O so old!
Thousands of years, thousands of years,
If all were told.

Here's a youtube redition!

Sheila Wolk

Another great fairy Artist, here's her website http://www.sheilawolk.com/index.html

Kristen's Fairy House

This is a children's movie, filmed in a documentary style, about fairy houses. One of the characters features, Tracy Kane, actually wrote the Fair Houses book. She played herself in the movie and it was her book that inspired the concept.

Fairyhouses.com has a nice behind the scenes bit on their website http://www.fairyhouses.com/background/behind_scenes.htm

http://www.fairyhouses.com/kfh_dvd.html

This movie won many awards, which you can see by clicking the second link to the product page, the parent's choice award being one of them. It's a different kind of movie for children, a bit slower than your average film. There is no good guy or bad guy, no fighting or angst, but it isn't exactly boring either. worth checking out.

The Coming of the Fairies by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Yes, this is the famous author who created Sherlock Holmes and yes he wrote a book about fairies. As it says in the introduction in the link provided, Sir Arthur came to appreciate spiritualism and the occult and around this time the Cottingley hoax came into being. He obviously believed it, as the writing of the book would imply, but I think that things like this aren't so much a show of gullibility as it is a display of one's desire to believe. It might not be as exciting or ground-breaking as Sherlock Holmes was, but it is good for historical purposes and it also makes for some interesting cocktail party trivia.

Here's a link to an online text of the book

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/cof/index.htm

Menehune

Menehune are a dwarf like race that live in the forests of Hawaii. The are about 2 feet tall, mischievous, and crafty and are said to be able to complete large and almost impossible projects in a single night.



According to some archaeologists the menehune were actually a group of real people and not faeries at all. These people liked to work by the light of the moon and must have been defeated by the current inhabitants.



http://www.janesoceania.com/hawaii_kauai_mythology/index.htm

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/m/menehune.html

http://library.thinkquest.org/03oct/00056/mene.html

Journey to the Faeries- Llewellyn

This CD is a tinkling, spa-like collection of songs that could be used as meditation music or just a calming collection of songs.

Here's a website that has http://www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/36554617-journey-to-the-faeries