As I stood in line (vino bottle in hand) at our local booze merchants on Thursday evening, my wandering eyes alighted on the following Evening Herald headline:

ENYA STALKER DISAPPEARS

Now while the real story behind said headline may well be a tragic, violent, sad & lonely one (I didn't actually read it), the first thoughts that popped into my noggin were fantastical/whimsical in nature.

Enya, dark sorceress of the Celtic twilight that she is, had (with a single nano-thought) "vanished" her stalker from our world. Transporting him across the vast reaches of time and space to the "Dimension of Endless Weeping".

Hot stuff. Can't blame the Herald for leading with it on their front page.

For Enya is, of course, not a flesh and guts person like you and I. The kind of miserable simian wretch who shits, shops, scratches his/her hole, watches Home & Away etc. Far from it. She's an ethereal demi-goddess of the ancient world – lifted straight from the bloated appendices of The Lord of the Rings. Her beauty radiant. Her awesome wrath terrible to behold. Like Galadriel, crossed with Irish mist, blessed with a lucrative record deal.

The long-suffering villagers who cower at the base of her castle know only too well the price of her fury. On those dark days when her weekly delivery of mithril biscuits runs even a little late, she floats majestically out the castle gates and onward through the town. Eyes black as deepest obsidian. Lightning shooting wildly from her fingertips.

As she glides by on a cloud of pixie dust (an expression of impossible inscrutableness on her face) windows and doors are hurriedly shut and bolted. Inside their homes families shiver in the half-light, muttering desperate Hosannas. Those unlucky (or foolish) enough to be left standing without have but milliseconds to gaze upon her & ask themselves, "I wonder what she's thinking?", before they're magicked away to the nightmare hell-kingdom of Krotox. There to spend an eternity trapped in cages of living flame. With their faces melted off.

The moral of the story? Be careful who you stalk (or fuck with).

Yesterday afternoon the Christmas market in Clarenbridge (normally a haven of gentle family fun) found itself terrorised by the appearance of a violent, paralytic and terrifyingly intense Santa Claus. He smashed his "sleigh" into a stall selling fruit cake & pudding, urinated on the leg of an elderly man collecting for St. Vincent de Paul, and drunkenly told each & every distraught child who'd listen that all their hopes and dreams would go unfulfilled. All this before passing out in a hideous pool of his own sick.

That's how I imagine it went anyway. I wasn't actually there. But the Santa¹ in question was one of my oldest pals and that's his standard routine come Yuletide.

The bearded, present-giving one has (unsurprisingly) been on my mind of late. This time next year we will (touch wood) be spending our first Christmas with a new family member so decisions need to be made on if/when we should expose her to beings of the imagination like Santa, the tooth fairy, and…er…God.

Like most children I'm sure, my attitude to Mr. Claus was once a pretty ambivalent one – mixing fascination and terror in equal measure. On the plus side he gave you presents and magically transported himself across the entire globe in but 24 hours. On the minus side he forcibly entered your house at night, employed a shambolic international army of department store impersonators, and oversaw a sweatshop powered by midget labour. A confusing and contrary figure to be sure.

He also seemed, like any cult-leader or quasi-deity, to be capable of producing zealots. My cousin was one such hard-core believer – telling me (on more than one occasion) that disbelief in Santa was no less a mortal sin than disbelief in Jesus. This, in fairness, would probably be seen as something of an extreme view by mainstream Santa worshippers, but it's still enough to make me question the wisdom of inflicting such a belief system on a child.

An unrelated part of the Claus enigma that's been recently bouncing around my fore-brain concerns his voice. Now while I'm by no means an expert on the languages, dialects and accents of Lapland, I'd be reasonably happy to wager that most of its inhabitants sound nothing like Irish Radio Advertising Santa (or IRAS).

In the vast majority of cases IRAS sounds like a cross between "George from Glenroe" and the fella who used to do the Mr. Kipling's (exceedingly good) pies ad.² Think posh but chuckly, chumbly,³crumbly, doddery old darling. Like a jolly, ruddy-faced step-uncle whose jovially upturned mouth is stuffed so full of delicious Werther's Originals that he can hardly talk (but still manages to chuckle out charming sentences to delight one and all). It's not just Father X-Claus who sounds like this either. I heard Rudolph advertising mince pies the other day and it was the same deal. George from Glenroe. Mouth full of sucky sweets.

Why this has become the default (radio) Christmas voice is unclear. I suppose it's supposed to sound warm and cosy, with a whiff of nostalgia for a time you never experienced and jolly people you never knew (but still loved anyway). One might as well ask why faux-American accents are always used to advertise nightclubs in Ennis, or why breathy 'n' "seductive" female D4 tones draw our attentions to exclusive Spa Hotels.⁴

*Pops off to suck contemplatively on a Werther's Original while rubbing Jess's belly*

1. Or "Santy" as we say around these parts. [back]
2. In most cases, of course, this is due to the fact that it inevitably is George from Glenroe – a.k.a. Alan Stanford. [back]
3. If this isn't a word it should be [back]
4. There's a weighty thesis on Irish insecurities RE: a sense of self (and self worth) in there somewhere. [back]

Though this thing we call the internet generally caters effectively to the colourful needs of the planet's fetishists, paranoids, perverts and obsessives, there are areas of enthusiasm that remain curiously (and sadly) neglected. Take fans of live blogging, horror, and critical/performative crisp-eating for example. Who, out there, is really working to synthesise their diverse interests and put smiles on their jaded faces?

Answer: No-one…and so the job falls on my shoulders.

Saturday, 11th October – 6.18 pm.
Have just returned from an afternoon spent lunching & wandering with our Americo-Kerry friends Niall and Liz. They it was who recently alerted me to a small, dimly-lit, but significant corner of Irish salty snack culture – i.e., the horror-themed crisp. As they are soon (alas) leaving these shores I dedicate this live snack-munching extravaganza to them.

6.29 pm.
Today's crisps of choice were purchased during a "waiting for a bus" interlude in Tralee, Co. Kerry. While Limerick's newsagents seem content to limit themselves to boring mainstream snacks, the Kingdom is (it seems) home to more imaginative outlets. Who could resist the siren call of Perri's Banshee Bones? Not I.

6.36 pm.
Though most people with even a passing knowledge of Irish folklore (or Darby O'Gill) would readily recognise the Banshee as a traditional death messenger, few (I'd imagine) would be familiar with Perri's rather self-centred take on the legend.

A radical re-orientating and re-focusing of established lore. According to Perri's re-imagining, the function of Banshee wailing is not, as has always been thought, to herald imminent death, but rather just to give someone a "big fright". Not only that, but this anti-social behaviour seems motivated by a simple salt imbalance in her diet. One corrective packet of Banshee Bones later and she's laughin' it up and turning cartwheels through the fields and meadows.

6.58 pm.

Preparing to open the packet.

6.59 pm.

Packet open. A faintly Chipstick-y odour fills the air. I'd anticipated a more intense and pickled stench, a la Monster Munch. This is an unexpected development, and one that demonstrates Perri's dedication to the art of surprise.

7.03 pm.

I dip my hand inside and withdraw a solitary "bone". Amusingly, the word "bone" seems to operate on (at least) two levels. While the crisp does vaguely resemble a maize & potato piece of the human skeleton, it also doubles up as a risqué snack phallus. Hang on till I take a picture.

7.15 pm.

Sorry for the delay. I'm something of an amateur when it comes to photographing salt & vinegar flavoured cocks. Excuse the poor-quality.

7.18 pm.
Right. Time to put one of these babies in my mouth and see if they make me (as, sort of, promised) "forget [my] moans".

7.21 pm.
First taste is salt, though this lasts but a nano-second before it is overwhelmed by lashings of synthetic vinegar. The initial crunchiness is pleasing (and suggests lastability) but this almost instantly gives way to upsetting sogginess. It's like eating a penis-shaped Chipstick that falls apart before you've a chance to swallow. Hmm…

7.32 pm.
Popped downstairs to offer Jess a bone. She chewed meditatively before confirming the taste as "very Chipstick-y". She also claims the experience was a bit like eating "puffed vinegary air". It should be noted that she's pregnant, and thus not entirely reliable as a scientific test subject.

7.36 pm.
About half-way through the pack now and Banshee Bones are proving, despite low expectations, to be very "moreish". I notice the rear of the packet instructs interested consumers to "visit our website on www.perri.ie". I'm a particularly interested consumer this evening so visit it I shall (as I suck down another bone).

7.42 pm.

Error occurred: 404 – not found.

Gah! It appears that the current global financial meltdown has lowered its trousers and taken a big bankrupting dump all over Perri. Damn you, global financial meltdown. Damn you to hell.

7.52 pm.

The final bone has disappeared and I'm left feeling both unsatisfied and slightly giddy. Also, I notice that for the last 2 minutes I've been (like the pre-Banshee Bones Banshee) "wringing [my] hands". The combined effect is not a pleasant one.

7.59 p.m.
Time to bring proceedings to a close. We've a "posh" dinner lined up with some old friends and I need to a) spruce myself up, and, b) rid myself of this queasiness and anxiety.

Conclusion: Amusing shape. Poor-man's Chipstick. Dissolves too readily. Tenuous links to the Otherworld. Company appears to have collapsed. I feel strange.

By way of buildup to next Monday's (miss it and you'll die crying) John Polidori Vampyre-fest, I hereby present a post on a strangely neglected topic. Namely, "Mathematics and the Undead".

Like many parents of glamorous (i.e. brown & damp) 70s Ireland my folks were doorstepped by one of the then ubiquitous (and aggressively persuasive) roving World Book salesmen. The end result of this exchange was a shelf full of sober volumes that told us more than we ever wanted to know about American state capitals and the intricacies of the US political system. Thrilling. The modest spoonful of sugar that helped this medicine go down came in the form of "Childcraft" – World Book's attempt to edutain and entercate the youth of planet earth.

Volume 13 in the series was Mathemagic, a typically sneaky example of the lengths adult educators often go to in their quest to groovify the ungroovy. Though most of its pages left me searching for "magic" that palpably wasn't there, a section called "Multiplying Vampires" kept me gripped and appalled.

"To stay alive", Mathemagic told us "a vampire has to bite about one person a week". After this (it continued) "the person bitten becomes a vampire too!". Note the exclamation mark used to punctuate that sinister piece of lore. In the original text it's a big round jolly one. The kind Enid Blyton might have used to cap a sentence like "Noddy had never tasted such smashing jam!". I'm looking at it right now. It's fantastically inappropriate.

Perhaps realising the unsettling oddness of its tone, "Multiplying Vampires" then shifts toward reassurance:

Many people believe there really are such creatures as vampires. But there aren't, of course. And you can use multiplication to prove to your friends that there's no such thing as a vampire.

Good ol' multiplication. There then follows a tedious passage that describes how vamps would create other vamps who would, in turn, create yet more vamps (and so on), before we're abruptly asked:

Do you see what is happening?

My response to this question, back in 1979, was something along the lines of "Yes I do see what is happening. The world is becoming progressively more well stocked with vampires. I'm scared. Make it stop."

But it doesn't stop:

At the end of the fifth week there would be two times sixteen, or thirty-two vampires, and so on. And, as this keeps on, the number of bloodthirsty vampires grows by leaps and bounds.

Waaah! And on we go. Tenth week? 1,024 vampires. Fifteenth week? 32,768 vampires. Twentieth week?

…there would be 1,048,536 vampires. That's right – more than a million vampires!

The gleeful italics and exclamation mark once again rubbed the stinky turd of fear firmly in our small anxious faces. By week 32 we're up to 4,294,967,286 vampires and we've sobbed ourselves into a hysterical puddle.

But wait a minute!

Go on…

There are only about four billion people in the whole world!¹

So that means…

…if there ever had been just one vampire, every person in the world would have been turned into a vampire in just thirty-two weeks! And because you know very well that you and your friends aren't vampires, you know there never was such a thing as a vampire. See?

The inevitable result of reading the words "because you know very well that you and your friends aren't vampires" was, of course, to start me suspecting the complete opposite – that all my friends were vampires. Far from offering crumbs of rational comfort, "Multiplying Vampires" ends up reading like juvenile propaganda slipped into the education system by actual vampires keen to keep pesky kids from sticking their grubby noses into their various global plots and schemes.

As if to practically admit to this suspicion the final double-page spread shows hordes of the undead lining up to enter an extravagant Gothic manor. Their HQ, no doubt, for "Operation Suck Childrens' Faces Off".

Look at the evil bastards. Laughing and leering it up thanks to the "Mathemagic" that proved they couldn't exist.

There's a lesson in there somewhere.

1. Betraying its age here. [back]

There's something vaguely touching and poignant about mysteries that have (due to the whims of fashion) passed out of mainstream popular consciousness. Where once they might have been given high billing on Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World, or been deemed worthy of sizeable entries in Usbourne's books of the unexplained (etc), they're now consigned to prowl around the internet's outer perimeters – scrabbling at the main gate and (feebly) demanding re-entry.

Such thoughts are on my mind thanks to the memory-jogging effects of my newly purchased TV Cream Toys. There, on page 31, I recently stumbled across words that once (when I was but a wide-eyed youth) caused thrilling ripples of delicious fear to zip up and down my spine -

Bermuda Triangle.

If ever there was a mystery that had (from a position of some significance) seen its stock rapidly plummet and crash then it was this same triangle. Popularised by Charles Berlitz, and rendered instantly kitschy by Barry Manilow, the triangle was (during the 1970s) one of the most potent phenomena on the Fortean radar.

It didn't (like more conventional mysteries) just frighten, bewilder and discombobulate people – it actually made them disappear. The thought of thus disappearing, instantly and eternally, struck my childish sensibilities as one of those "fates worse than death" you occasionally heard mentioned. One minute you were there – reading an in-flight magazine & contemplating a week in the Caribbean sun – and the next minute you were (horribly and inexplicably) gone. Doomed, as I supposed, to an eternity of useless shrieking and floating in some swirling, trans-dimensional no-space.

Realising that children would respond to this gnawing dread by consuming products based on the very thing they feared, Milton Bradley hopped on the zeitgeisty gravy train and gave us Bermuda Triangle: The Board Game.

Until I saw the pictures in TV Cream Toys I'd forgotten that any such object ever existed – and with good reason. Unlike those board games of yore that managed to adapt to changing times and remain relevant (cf. Cluedo), Bermuda Triangle's time in the pop-cultural sun was but a brief one. Like the triangle itself it remains firmly (and fittingly) rooted (and trapped) in the 1970s.

As far as actual game mechanics are concerned, I remember little, having probably played it but twice or thrice. The description on BoardGameGeek doesn't immediately set pulses racing…

"In this game, you try to run a successful ship-transport operation…"

Yikes. Words that would make any observant child suspect that a dreary and dreadful "educational" board game was being foisted upon them by joyless parents. Happily the sentence ends with a bang that boots such suspicions into touch:

In this game, you try to run a successful ship-transport operation in the mysterious Bermuda Triangle.

Hoorah! That's better.

On a side note, I'm disappointed to discover that Mr. Manilow's ditty is not the musical investigation of the paranormal I'd always imagined it to be. Instead of dealing with time vortexes, alien kidnapping etc., it turns out to be little more than a warning about the dangers of your woman "disappearing" into another fella's arms while on a sun holiday. As if the song's lame partner-swapping "humour" isn't tedious enough, the only version of it I could easily find online comes pre-packaged with a shit video based on shitty Lost. Apologies:

A final question then. Do chiddlers these days still have sleepless nights pondering the (contemporary) likes of the Bermuda Triangle, or have pedophilic/terrorist bogeymen moved in to dominate their nightmares instead? Answers to the usual address.

P.S: I'm getting so much fecking spam in my "moderated comments" queue that I can no longer be bothered sifting through it for the genuine articles. If anyone's comment gets accidentally nuked then please email me (fustar@fustar.info) and I'll sort it out.

Doubtless "Groot", in a moment of vivid self-awareness, thought to himself, "I'm a root (well, sort of) and I'm giant…I SHALL BE GROOT!". He then imposed this self-appointed moniker on those he set out to terrify and obliterate. It's a bit rich really – like those tedious "characters" who tell you what they want their nickname to be.

Unlike the plucky little feller in the bottom left I'd have defied/antagonised Groot by continually getting his name wrong. Tree-Man-dous! Oak-God-Almighty! Plant Chap! He'd go mental.

The tactic adopted by many of the most memorable monsters, however, is simply to turn up, start opening cans of whupass, and let the fleeing hordes slap a label on you. For example:

This is standard practice in Godzilla movies, where exchanges like the following are par for the course -

A: Look there!

B: It's a horse!

A: It's enormous!

B: It's Enormohorse!²

Not sure that the etymology behind "Droom" is as easy to pick apart as all that though.

Dinosaur + Doom?

Death + Room(y)?

Droom retains his secrets (rather than broadcasting them).

And then there are those behemoths that are actively sought out rather than enthusiastically avoided. Instead of dashing far away, or staying to stick out one's jaw and defy, these are the monsters we just want to "know" (phnarr). We raise money, we organise, we form expeditions to track 'em down. And then…

A classic "Oh shit…we've succeeded!" moment. The fury on the face of the Yeti (I use the less offensive term) can perhaps be understood when one considers the "abominable" tag that's long attached itself to its good name:

Like the legend itself, the origin of the term "Abominable Snowman" is rather colourful. It began when Mr Henry Newman, a longtime contributor to The Statesman in Calcutta (using the pen name "Kim"), interviewed the porters of the "Everest Reconnaissance expedition" upon their return to Darjeeling. Newman mistranslated the word "metoh" as "filthy" or "dirty", substituting the term "abominable", perhaps out of artistic license.

If Tales to Astonish is anything to go by we'll soon be blaming Newman's "artistic licence" as the starting point for the 1000 year Yeti/Human war.

Fucking eejit (I call him).

1. Pun actually unintentional. [back]
2. Hat-Tip to my brother-in-law. [back]

As well as dipping in and out of the large pile of ufological books that currently sit beside my bed, I'm also (when time permits) ploughing through Eddie Lenihan's In Search of Biddy Early (Mericer Press: Dublin, 1987).

I've long been fascinated by Clare's most famous bean feasa¹ – and Eddie's book is positively stuffed to the gills with colourful (otherworldly) tales about her. I'll probably post one or two of these after I finish reading, but a surprising detail regarding one of Biddy's pets² (told to Eddie by a Mrs. Sheehan) warrants a quick mention:

"That fellow Castro, that's in charge of Cuba, Biddy's dog had the same name as him".³

While Galway has happily claimed Che Guevara (or at least his Great-Great-something-or-other), Clare, it seems, has yet to fully embrace its own four-legged, 19th Century, revolutionary mongrel.

[tags]Biddy Early, Castro, Eddie Lenihan, Che[/tags]

1. "Wise Woman". [back]
2. Certain clergy members might prefer the term "familiars"… [back]
3. Lenihan, p. 42. [back]

The current issue of the Fortean Times, however, has not been so lax – with a spiffy "60 Years of UFOs" special edition to mark the occasion. I particularly enjoyed the segment on depictions of UFOs/aliens on stamps…a phenomenon that's more common than you might believe (Tanzania seems to be something of a leader in this particular field). "An Post", sadly, don't appear to have embraced ufology to the same extent as the postal services of Vietnam and Grenada (etc) – limiting themselves instead to landscapes, flowers, badgers etc. Yawn.

But back to Arnold. Despite the fact that his sighting led to the term "flying saucer" becoming common currency,¹ the objects he claimed to have seen may not (according to his various descriptions) have been saucer-shaped at all. The "saucer" image appears to have been used by Arnold to suggest the movement of the objects rather than their shape – with their motion described as akin to "saucers skipping over water" (or words to that effect).

That always struck me as a rather odd description – evocative yet vague (and confusing). Had Mr. Arnold ever seen saucers being skimmed across water? It seems unlikely. I mean, I'm a big fan of stone skimming (and can never leave a beach without spending at least half an hour engaged in the activity) but I've never, to the best of my knowledge, skimmed a saucer. Maybe I should…

It appears that at least one of the objects he saw (possibly the most visible one) was, in fact, roughly crescent-shaped. Here's the bould Mr. Arnold pointing to an artist's impression (his own?) of the object in question:

It's rather underwhelming – a bit like an interstellar croissant. While circles are, of course, artistically, psychologically and "spiritually" significant and resonant shapes – crescents (despite Mr. Arnold's insistent pointing above) just don't float our boats to the same extent. No great surprise then that "flying crescents" never really (forgive the pun) took off.

Anyway, a (belated) Happy Birthday to the "saucers". Long may they confound us.

[tags]Kenneth Arnold, UFOs, Flying Saucers, Fortean Times[/tags]

1. Though it remains debatable who exactly coined the term [back]

While we didn't engage in any concerted exploration of the peninsula's many monuments, we did catch sight of some natty beehive huts out on Slea Head. Almost on a par with the nattiness of the huts themselves was this nearby sign (snapped by our friend "Devo"),

There's something quite wonderful about it…though I'm not entirely sure what.

Anyway, as thoughts of things stoney and ancient are fizzing about my lobes I may as well dig out a few (year-old) standing stone images and fling them in your directions. The stone in question is to be found in a field in Aughacasla, Co. Kerry (a mere hop and a jump from where I've spent many of my last 20-something summers).

When we were kids it used to be known as "The Ogham Stone" (even though it appears to be totally devoid of Ogham) and it filled us (or at least me) with dark and uneasy thoughts. I can well recall nights spent lying in my bunk staring at the ceiling and trying not to imagine the moonlit, malevolent fairy revels I suspected were routinely taking place around it.

Sometime during the last 15 (?) years, however, an act of either 'vandalism' or 'artistic amendment' (take your pick) has turned what was once an eerie stone phallus into a grinning, slapdash bit of folk sculpture. I've no "Before" pics (alas), but here's a detailed "After":

The only significant mention I've found of this curious alteration is over at irishmegaliths.org:

Behind a cottage just S. of a caravan park is a fine standing-stone which has been altered in recent times to produce an anthropomorphic figure some 3 metres high. The cement-alterations are now starting to flake away, making the stone a remarkable piece of anonymous sculpture (modern 'folk-art') almost on a par with Celtic carved stones.

The (probably apocryphal) story I remember hearing was that a devout American Catholic had crept into the field one night with a bucket of cement and proceeded to create a crude likeness of the Virgin Mary. The reason for this, the tale went, was that the stone reminded him of a praying Virgin in profile. Hmmm…

The fusing of Mary and a "Pagan" monument lends the story terrific clout and colour, but I doubt that it really unfolded as told. Whatever the truth is it remains an undeniably fascinating object, particularly given the traditional "folk'" reticence to interfere with such things (for fear of a whupping from the 'gentry').

The full set of images can be seen here.

The images were captured on video by one Gordon Holmes (an "amateur scientist") who…

…was carrying out experiments at the famous Loch when, by chance, he happened to spot a strange creature in the waters.

Look upon Gordon's work ye doubters and prepare to eat fistfuls of the humblest pie:

Not convinced? Bah! It's sceptics like you that rob the world of its enchantment…with your test tubes, your Bunsen burners, your pipes, your periodic tables of elements etc. What consolation does your "science" offer you when (in the dead of the night) you lie like a scared, sweating child trying to work out what that dim shuffling, snuffling shape is in the corner of the room? 'Tis times like that when the test tubes are flung into the far corner in favour of a set of rosary beads (and a duvet pulled up over the head).

Ok, I admit it. Much as I "Want to Believe" Mr. Holmes's footage is, in my scientific opinion, a big pile of shaky, low-res shit. It's probably just an otter. Or two otters. Or an otter strapped to a log.

One in the eye for enchantment. Douze pois for "Science". Boo…

As much as I respect and admire the honest and imaginative endeavour of many scientists (seriously), it's hard not to chortle at the way "Science" is invoked (often by "believers" themselves) as a way of legitimising research into "Fortean" phenomena. Such invocation risks dampening that delicious (discombobulating) frisson of strangeness that may well be the whole point/purpose (and pleasure) of such phenomena in the first place.¹

"Science", of course, can (and often does) boggle the mind and stretch the elastic of imagined possibility in a similar manner. Like a lot of people I've dipped into the literature of "Popular Science" (though I freely admit that I've probably only finished a mere 15% of the books I've started). How much I've retained or understood is yet another matter, but the accumulated effect of reading such stuff (and its distant Fortean cousins) is still significant. If nothing else I've happily embraced the view that a "common-sensical, "Vote Fianna Fáil", "Buy an SUV", "Accept the inevitability of liberal capitalism" outlook is but a tiny, grubby part of the totality of human experience.

But enough of that. Back to Gordon Holmes and his monster. Loren Coleman (over at Cryptomundo) was very briefly on CNN, cautiously defending the possibility of a monster in the loch. A few days later however, after doing a bit of background-checking on Mr. Holmes, Loren doesn't seem so sure of his reliability as a witness. It seems that Gordon (a Media and IT Technician at the University of Bradford) has previously offered for sale video footage of "Fairy like images in the heather on Ilkley Moor & Cottingley Beck".

This, in fairness, does not immediately discredit him, for his images of prancing fairies on Ilkey Moor may indeed be both compelling and convincing. What sets off clearer alarm bells (for me) is his list of "Famous people whom I have shaken by the hand". These include: Ted Heath, Prince Charles and Jilly Cooper.² You don't need me to tell you that they're all blood-drinking, reptilian humanoid members of the illuminati.

It's easily proven by science!

And that, I think, was where we came in…

[tags]Loch Ness, Gordon Holmes, Video, Charles Fort, Science[/tags]

1. After all, I don't necessarily want to understand, but I do want to (even vicariously) experience. [back]
2. Jilly having had her hand shaken as recently as July 2005. [back]

He was known as"Mad Carew" by the subs at Khatmandu,
He was hotter than they felt inclined to tell;
But for all his foolish pranks, he was worshipped in the ranks,
And the Colonel’s daughter smiled on him as well.

If you recognise the Kipling-esque lines above you may be one of the following: a) Over 100 years old, b) A fan of Codemasters' excellent Dizzy series of games (The poem featured heavily in the original Dizzy), or, c) A friend/acquaintance of my late grandmother (see 'a').

For those unfamiliar with the fevered poesy allow me to introduce J. Milton Hayes's "The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God" (1911, full version here). Like many women of her vintage my granny had (according to the style of the 1920s) been given a flower-based nickname (Violet) and she carried it with her to the end of her days. She also had, as was customary in dem days, a party-piece, and "The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God" was it.

I only heard it in her later years, when frustrated memory lapses made the delivery halting, but its breathless melodrama, exotic setting, and pulsating narrative of ill-advised derring-do certainly affected my youthful sensibilities. Later, during my Amstrad CPC 464 playing days, I was taken aback to find the exploits of Mad Carew given pride of place in the aforementioned Dizzy (a game with a boxing glove-wearing, egg protagonist). I tried explaining this exciting find to my grandmother but, while she expressed delighted amazement, I'm sure half of what I said sounded like so much gobbledygook.

While no-one would seriously claim that "The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God" is great poetry, it is an above average and entertaining example of a kind of popular verse that has (perhaps) no direct equivalent today. When vaudeville, music hall and elocution were all the rage, stirring, "ripping yarn" type stuff like this put bums on seats. In fairness to J. Milton Hayes, he was realistic about the function and appeal of such works:

I wrote The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God in five hours, but I had it all planned out. It isn't poetry and it does not pretend to be, but it does what it sets out to do. It appeals to the imagination from the start: those colours, green and yellow, create an atmosphere. Then India, everyone has his own idea of India. Don't tell the public too much. Strike chords. It is no use describing a house; the reader will fix the scene in some spot he knows himself. All you've got to say is 'India' and a man sees something. Then play on his susceptibilities.

My grandmother was a voracious reader (I never remember her without a library book on the bedside cabinet) and quite a fan of just the kind of hopelessly exotic (and doomed) romanticism that Hayes managed to capture. Not only that, but she was a prolific maker-upper of games and odd songs/verse. One of her most peculiar, but most popular, compositions was a two verse song that may have been (as I think about it now) loosely based on Puss in Boots. It was frequently sung when walking the floor with bawling grandchildren and always (perhaps surprisingly) had a soothing effect. Here it is in its entirety (or as entirely as I can remember it).

Poor little pussy cat,
Had no home at all-ee-tall,
He had no home,
He had no friends,
He had no one at all-ee-tall.

Poor little pussy cat,
Went to see the big bold giant,
The big, bold, old giant,
Wanted to eat him up-ee-up.

As you'll no doubt have noticed, the whole thing is drenched in melancholy. The accompanying (dirge-like) air took this melancholy, and cranked it up (or down) to the level of outright tragedy. What became of the pussy cat after his visit to the big and bold giant was left unsaid. Perhaps he was eaten. Perhaps they reconciled their differences and became friends. Perhaps he managed (a la Puss in Boots) to convince the giant to turn into a mouse before devouring him. The abrupt ending tended to make you suspect that the first outcome was the most likely…

Like most children though, my siblings and I were pretty comfortable with this dark and sad undercurrent. In many ways, we actually liked it. Whether through the misadventures of Mad Carew, or the dangerous, lonely, unresolved exploits of a poor pussy cat, we were, I suppose, confronting/exploring our feelings about (and fears of) death, abandonment, cruelty etc. All of this took place in a secure bubble, however, as the voice telling the tales and singing the songs was one we loved and trusted.

There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
There's a little marble cross below the town;
There's a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.

The End.

While the ol' grey matter would normally be fizzing (modestly) away generating thoughts of life, the universe, and potential blog content – this week already sees me reduced to sub-zombie levels of cognition. I've tried guzzling Lucozade, but it just makes me gassy ("Brain & Body Energy" my arse).

Anyway, to distract, amuse, bedazzle and awe you (while I regain my mental equilibrium) I present the following wonder from the world of faery (courtesy of Patrick Harpur's marvellous Daimonc Reality – which I'm still reading):

Yes folks, it's a "fairy shoe". As Miley Byrne might ask (and he back in the public consciousness after his recent "appearance" on Gift Grub): "Did you ever see the like of that…at all, at all, at all?"

Its provenance is hard to establish definitively, as Harpur's only footnoted source is that 'respected' authority on matters otherworldly…Country Life (Irish edition, 24 May, 1973). It might seem remiss of me, but said publication is not to be found on my bookshelves. Not being alive at the time rather limited my ability to pick a copy up.

Anyway, here's the story as related in Harpur's book:

It was found by a farm labourer on the Beara Peninsula, south-west Ireland, in 1835. It is black, worn at the heel and styled like that of an eighteenth-century gentleman. But it is also only two and seven-eights inches long and seven-eights of an inch at its widest – too long and narrow even for a doll's shoe. If it were an apprentice piece, say, how did it come to be found on a remote sheep track? Why was it made in the style of the previous century? Why is it such an odd shape? How did it come to be worn? (Harpur, 134)

An obvious connection to Leprechauns and their noted aptitude for cobbling suggests itself. Are we (perhaps) looking at a shoddy piece of Leprechaun craftsmanship, cast aside by a disgruntled fairy customer? The story continues:

The man who found the shoe assumed it belonged to the "little people" and gave it to the local doctor, from whom it passed to the Sommerville family of Castletownshend, County Cork. On a lecture tour of America, the author Dr. Edith Sommerville [she of "Sommerville & Ross" fame - ed.] gave the shoe to Harvard University scientists, who examined it minutely. The shoe had tiny hand-stitches and well-crafted eyelets (but no laces), and "was thought to be" of mouse skin (Harpur, 135).

I can't imagine that the scientists of Harvard would devote themselves quite so whole-heartedly to the study of such an artefact today. Sure isn't there a fella down in Mobile, Alabama who has a several thousand year old Leprechaun flute (used for warding off spells…or possibly smells) in his possession? Do you think the boffins from the Ivy League colleges have been beating a path to his door to study this priceless curiosity? Not at all, at all.

Actually, when you've got limited time and energy, writing about fairy accoutrements is quite helpful, for (as Patrick Harpur tells us) "There is nothing that can be usefully said about these artifacts". He goes on:

They are like red herrings, deliberately planted to puzzle, provoke, amuse, baffle us. They polarize opinion, inviting ridicule and cries of "hoax!" from one party and, from the other, implicit belief in an actual race of little people who dress like us but always in a slightly older fashion. Further, more concrete, evidence of such a race is never forthcoming. Daimons not only leave red herrings – they are red herrings, leading us up blind alleys where we come face to face with mystery (Harpur, 135).

An eloquent description of the joys of such things. They discombobulate, albeit briefly, and take us out of our quotidian head-space. They simply are what they are…but also (perhaps) what they aren't. The other message seems to be: Don't take fashion advice from fairies. They are terminally behind the times.

I wonder where the shoe is now… E-bay?

P.S. Edith Sommerville was, it seems, no stranger to the otherworld. After the death of Violet Martin (a.k.a. "Martin Ross") in 1915, Edith "continued to write as Somerville and Ross, claiming that they were still in contact through spiritualist séances". Be the hokey.

[tags]Edith Sommerville, Fairies, Leprechauns, Fairy Shoe, Cork, Harvard, Lucozade[/tags]

Though I've a long-standing interest in matters esoteric and otherworldly (fairies, mysterious beasts, aliens and the like) I rarely buy or read books on the area. The simple reason being that (other than the fine work of folklorists such as Eddie Lenihan) the vast majority of material published on such subjects is excessively credulous, bargain-basement fare. That's not to say that what I'm looking for are scientific, materialist denunciations of weird and "unexplained" phenomena, however, for such works are often (at least to my mind) fairly uninspiring (empirical) analyses of things that are incompatible with such scrutiny.

Three cheers then for books like Patrick Harpur's Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld, which I’m currently about ½ way through. It's a rare pleasure to read something that both articulates & makes concrete one's own vague feelings & intuitions on a "subject", while simultaneously going beyond the trite, the obvious and the "common-sensical" (dreadful word that) in its analysis.

He covers so much ground it'd be hard to give even a representative flavour of the book here, but it beautifully (and wittily) sets out to demolish the idea that the world (as we apprehend it) can be reduced to 2 categories: "The literally real" and "The wholly imagined/imaginary". I've made brief attempts to articulate my own vague (agnostic) feelings about all this on the blog before [see here & here] but I've never seen such a sustained (and confident) attack on prosaic, literal-mindedness before. Great stuff.

In the introduction he has this to say:

I do not want to convince or convert, but merely to persuade people to recall odd experiences of their own which, lacking official sanction, have been forgotten, as dreams are. I would like to stick up for people who, having seen funny things, have set them apart from their otherwise ordinary lives because such things have been outlawed by the orthodox, respectable world of science or literature, of the Churches or even their own families. (Harpur, xvi)

I've decided, then, to take Mr. Harpur's advice and do a bit of (public) recalling of my own, right here on this blog. Settle yourselves down then, with a nice cup of tea or a soothing glass of wine, and I shall relate a tale both rum and uncanny. Every word of it is true (memory lapses aside) and it remains the oddest, most "otherworldly" experience I've had to date.

One Friday evening, many years ago (when I was but a youngish lad of 17), I was sitting in the bedroom I shared with my brother, listening to music with a friend and chatting about the impending trip to "Termight's" (Limerick's famous, and much-travelled, alternative nightclub).

The music in question was a cassette copy of Joy Division's Closer and it had reached perhaps the second last track when my pal announced that he was off home to get changed into his "going out clothes" (an important ritual back then). I walked him to top of the landing, told him I'd see him later, and returned to the bedroom, closing the door behind me. As I wandered round the room, busying myself with this and that, the final track "Decades" reached its climax and the end of tape 'hiss' kicked in.

Now I'd listened to this cassette on numerous occasions – usually allowing it to run its course before flipping it over to side 2 (rather incongruously, Paul Simon's first solo album) – so it was by no means the first time I'd heard these last 2 minutes or so of tape (and I'd certainly never noticed anything unusual before). As I settled down on the bed to read whatever book was at hand something very odd indeed began to happen.

With about 40 seconds left on the cassette the hiss was interrupted by a clear voice – a rural, middle-aged, female Irish voice.

"Seán", it said, "Are you there Seán?"

A brief pause followed as I sat up on the bed.

"Seán", it started again, "It’s me Seán. Can you hear me?" [In case you're wondering, my name is not "Seán", but I was called that in my all-Irish primary school]

By the end of the last sentence I had slowly climbed off the bed and was squatting on the floor beside the stereo. Pause.

"Seán, I just wanted to tell you not to worry about things and what people think. I’m looking out for you."

Another pause.

"I don’t have much time."

Click. The tape ended.

I sat there in silence, frozen, breathing heavily. In the next 20 (or so) seconds various thoughts zipped through my mind: I was somehow tuning in to one half of a telephone conversation; It was a recording of one of those "phone gag" things that were doing the rounds at the time etc., etc. Of course just below/behind such sense-making thoughts lurked the creeping feeling that something more otherworldly was playing itself out.

Snapping out of this reverie I quickly rewound the tape a bit and started to play it again. Cue hiss and the voice once more. This time, however, the "message" was different.

After a few other brief words of comfort and reassurance (words I can't precisely recall, as I was beginning to become freaked out) the voice announced that it "had to go now, Seán" and that it would try and contact me again soon. There then followed five or ten seconds of garbled, gibberish (what religious types might classify as "speaking in tongues") before the tape stopped again, leaving yours truly flabbergasted and slightly terrified.

After a brief interlude (during which my heart thudded rapidly in my throat) I got to my feet, ran to the bedroom next door, grabbed my older sister and told her, "You’ve got to listen to this".

Readers familiar with the conventions of supernatural tales will probably see where this is heading. I rewound the tape, pressed play, and (of course) there was nothing to be heard but the gentle hiss that should have been there all along. I repeated the exercise. Same result. Fortunately, she had heard – though the wall separating the two rooms – the murmur of what she took to be conversation, and had wondered who I might be talking to (as my friend had left some minutes before). This, at least, proved that the experience wasn't – as glib, pipe-chewing, pragmatist scientist-types might put it – "all in the mind".

Later that night, as I recounted the story to a group of friends who’d gathered to "bush drink" in a local alley (hey, we were 17 and broke), I suddenly, unexpectedly, burst into tears, feeling deeply shaken and disturbed.

Yet like most people who have "such experiences" (I'd imagine) I soon filed the whole thing away in the mind's storehouse and thought about it only infrequently – and then merely to use it as material for an interesting and creepy anecdote. In other words, it changed my life not a whit.

Coda:

One night, a year or so later, as I sat in my room in University College Galway's "Corrib Village", I came across the tape in a drawer while searching for something or other. I hadn't realised that I'd brought it with me to Galway and hadn't actually listened to it since a week or so after the incident. Though curious, I found myself reluctant to play it again…not because the initial experience had been a particularly unpleasant or sinister one, of course, but…well..when you're alone in your room on a dark (windy) night then why take any chances?

After sitting and staring at it for a few moments however, I took the plunge. I inserted it, pressed play and…[pauses for dramatic effect]…at that exact moment there was a power cut, plunging the entire student village into darkness.

As my heart exited my mouth and rebounded off the far wall, I leapt off the bed and ran into the corridor, there to find a house-mate emerging from his room with a torch. "Just a power cut", says he. "You don’t know the half of it" thinks I.

So there you have it. Make of it what you will. All I'll add is that after wading through a few Readers Digest: Mysteries of the Unknown-type volumes (this was in pre-internet days remember), and chatting to a friend's family, I first heard of Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP). For those unfamiliar with the term it refers to "speech or speech-like sounds of paranormal origin occurring on previously unused recording media". After rooting around in second-hand bookshops for a while I came across Peter Bander's Voices from the Tapes (1973), and a natty scan of that volume's natty cover sits at the head of this post. Alas it was pretty dull, earnest and uninspiring stuff – largely describing recordings of indistinct "voices" that required some imagination to decipher. "My voice", however, was as clear as day (apart from the garbled bit at the end) and for some reason never struck me as that of as deceased individual (as crazy as that sounds).

I don't really feel the need to understand the experience anymore (if, indeed, there is anything significant to understand) but it's something that has stayed with me as (by and large) a pleasant, stimulating memory. Perhaps there's a rational explanation for it all, perhaps not. All I can say for sure is that it happened…and it makes for a pretty cool story.

The End.

[tags]EVP, Termights, Voices on tape, Galway, Joy Division, Patrick Harpur[/tags]

I’m not remotely alone in this of course. From Percival Lowell’s speculation about Martian 'canals', to H. G. Wells' tripod war machines, and on to the famous Cydonian ‘face’ (supposedly ‘discovered’ by Viking 1 in 1976) – Mars has long excited human imaginations as a likely site of extraterrestrial life and advanced (possibly doomed and ancient) civilization.

Thus – in idle and aimless moments – I occasionally pop along to NASA’s excellent Jet Propulsion Laboratory pages to keep tabs on the latest updates from the Mars Global Surveyor and (its successor) the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Though the former went missing in action late last year (and its fate remains unknown) one of its last acts was to apparently prove that water still flows on the Martian surface (or has done in the last number of years).

Incidentally, it was the Global Surveyor that (in 2001) seemed to pour cold water on speculation that the ‘face’ on Mars was a piece of extraterrestrial architecture by publishing higher-res pics of the area [Below: Viking image (Left), MGS (Right)]:

Despite this (and despite other beautiful images captured by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express) many advocates of Martian civilization refuse to be too down-heartened – continuing to sift images for evidence of ‘pyramids’, giant ‘glass tunnels’ etc. Though I remain unconvinced of the implications of such speculations, I still heartily approve of the imaginative exercises involved – for only the most sour-faced of scienticians would (surely) want to rob the universe of all its magic and mystery. After all, picking out meaningful shapes amid the visual noise of the world(s) about us is – as the wife’s "Kind I Like" continues to demonstrate – a most enjoyable human hobby.

Anyway…there I was marvelling at the detail of some Global Surveyor images last night when I stumbled upon what – to my (short-sighted) eyes at least – looked like another Martian face. Not a human-like face this time, but a fairly convincing impression of a goat-like creature…in profile. So here – without much further ado – is a fustar.info exclusive: the goat-headed ancient king of Mars – An Gabhar Marsach (as I hereby dub it in Irish)¹:

The details are striking: the distinctive ‘hooded eye’ look of our caprine friends, the bearded chin, the protruding snout etc.² For anyone who doubts the provenance of the image, it’s merely a blow-up and cropped version of this Surveyor photo (taken 12 Oct, 2006) – see bottom-right corner.

What have I stumbled upon? Proof of goat-headed deities once worshipped by ambitious Martian Satanists? A celestial representation of the demonic Baphomet of Aleister Crowley et al? A barely-identifiable piece of natural simulacra? Whatever the explanation – I expect to become a darling of the crypto-archaeology set before too long.

If readers have spotted any other Martian, Lunar, Jovian (etc) likenesses, please let me know. We’re through the looking glass here people…

Update: Well it must just be me… My beloved can't see the face in question, and she with a site devoted to such things. Anyone? Bear it mind it is just the outline of a head, looking to the left. The fairy folk in the room with me can see it fine (or so they've communicated telepathically).

Further Update: Nice (and very detailed) site on Mars and its anomalies here.

Even Further Update (23/01/07): Via Roger Sizemore's Enormous Blog I've found another intriguing (and much clearer) profile. Not on Mars this time, but near Medicine Hat, Alberta. See here for details.

[Tags]Mars, Cydonia, Face on Mars[/Tags]

1. With the help of the very kind Mairéad Conneely. [back]
2. Admittedly it's a tad 'cartoony'. Perhaps Bob Byrne could render a version for us in his own inimitable style? [back]

Answer: Repost his Halloween observations from last year. Hoorah!

#1 – Halloween Games:

Though "bobbing for apples" is a pursuit commonly associated with the festival, in our house the usual activity was (as I recall) "Hanging Apple" or "Snap Apple", which went pretty much as follows:

Crab apples are suspended at the end of a long string from the ceiling and with hands ties behind their backs, youngsters chase the swinging apple with their open mouths and the first one to get a grip of it with their teeth is the winner.¹

In fact, according to the above source, the game is so prevalent hereabouts that, "in parts of counties Cork and Limerick , [Halloween] is known as snap apple night." I don't ever remember using that expression to describe the night, but the game is certainly indelibly impressed on my memory. After all, a large, hard, swinging apple can leave lumps, bruises, and black eyes that are hard to forget…

An interesting side-note on the importance of the apple in such games is suggested by the (not-especially-reliable) History Channel website:

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.²

An alternative theory is offered by the good people of celticspirit.org:

At the heart of the Celtic Otherworld grows an apple tree whose fruit has magical properties. Old sagas tell of heroes crossing the western sea to find this wondrous country, known in Ireland as Emhain Abhlach, (Evan Avlach) and in Britain, Avalon. At Samhain, the apple harvest is in, and old hearthside games, such as apple-bobbing, called apple-dookin’ in Scotland, reflect the journey across water to obtain the magic apple.³

A more rewarding activity (at least in financial terms) was the somewhat disgusting practice of "diving for pennies". This basically followed the "bobbing apple" model, with 'pennies' replacing fruit as the objects one attempted to seize between one's teeth. Unlike apples, however, pennies are not particularly prone to 'bobbing', preferring (instead) to adopt a static position on the bottom of the basin.

Thus, capturing the pennies involved immersing one's head completely in water and hoping one could hold one's breath long enough to either emerge with a coin or two, or (at the very least) resurface alive and undrowned. An additional danger, of course, was the risk of hepatitis (or something similar) from the fetid and filthy water itself…but this was a risk we were happy to take in our pursuit of riches.

Now I think of it, perhaps this rather hazardous exercise was meant to be a sobering reminder of the dangers involved in over-zealously pursuing money, or simply a means of forcing young children to face up to their own mortality (appropriate enough for the night in question)!

#2 – Jack O'Lanterns:

My childhood impression of a North American Halloween was largely formed by seeing E.T. in the cinema, in 1982. The costumes were lavish, the 'Trick or Treating' was extensive, and (most importantly) there were pumpkin Jack O'Lanterns by the bucketload. This occasioned great envy in our house, for not only were we lacking 'pumpkins' (plural), we didn't even have 'pumpkin' (singular).

If one were to compile a list of "Top Ten Most Modest Vegetables" (and why not in these list-obsessed times?), one would struggle to look beyond the turnip when awarding the number one spot. Yet, it was this particularly un-sexy root that took pride of place in our family home when the 31st of October rolled round: a modest lantern, overshadowed (somewhat) by its North American cousin….

Little did we realise then that by honouring the much-maligned turnip, we were actually engaging in a 'purer' form of Halloween celebration than that practiced by those cute Spielbergian kids. To clarify, we must go back to the legend of "Stingy Jack":

People have been making jack o'lanterns at Halloween for centuries. The practice originated from an Irish myth about a man nicknamed "Stingy Jack." According to the story, Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn't want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul. The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree's bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years.

Soon after, Jack died. As the legend goes, God would not allow such an unsavory figure into heaven. The Devil, upset by the trick Jack had played on him and keeping his word not to claim his soul, would not allow Jack into hell. He sent Jack off into the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and has been roaming the Earth with ever since. The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as 'Jack of the Lantern,' and then, simply 'Jack O'Lantern.'⁴

Intriguing, no? If the turnip was good enough for the Devil, then it certainly should have been good enough for my siblings and I. It proved perfectly adequate to generations of Halloween 'celebrators' from these islands, until they were confronted with a more impressive fruit on the other side of the Atlantic…

In Ireland and Scotland, people began to make their own versions of Jack's lanterns by carving scary faces into turnips or potatoes and placing them into windows or near doors to frighten away Stingy Jack and other wandering evil spirits. In England, large beets are used. Immigrants from these countries brought the jack o'lantern tradition with them when they came to the United States. They soon found that pumpkins, a fruit native to America, make perfect jack o'lanterns.⁵

So, in the spirit of a traditional Oíche Shamhna, I have returned once again to the bosom of the honest turnip. It (rather than the more ostentatious pumpkin) shall take its place in my window this very night, warding off malign spirits, and casting a cheery / eerie glow to boot.

#3 – Samhain:

Well Oíche Shamhna (the eve of Samhain) is now behind us, and, apart from the strange 'Jack O' Lantern incident' (see yesterday's comments), the night passed off without too much intrusion from ghosts, divils, and demons.

Thoughts now turn to the long, dreary, winter ahead…a time to light the fire and curl up around the Playstation. But anyway, on to Samhain itself…take it away, Wikipedia:

Samhain is the word for November in Irish; the Scottish Gaelic name Samhuinn is closely related. The same word was used for the first month of the ancient Celtic calendar, and in particular the first three nights of this month, the festival marking the beginning of the winter season. Elements of the festival are continued in the traditions of All Souls Day and Halloween.⁶

Those not ready to let go of Halloween just yet need not despair, for there are still opportunities for supernatural shenanigans: "Samhain was a significant time for divination, perhaps even more so than May or Midsummer’s Eve, because this was the chief of the three Spirit Nights."⁷

My personal favourite act of Samhain-related divination has to be the following, as it simply screams of something deeply ill-advised (at least according to conventional 'Horror Film' logic):

The Apple and the Mirror - Before the stroke of midnight, sit in front of a mirror in a room lit only by one candle or the moon. Go into the silence and ask a question. Cut the apple into nine pieces. With your back to the mirror, eat eight of the pieces, then throw the ninth over your left shoulder. Turn your head to look over the same shoulder, and you will see and in image or symbol in the mirror that will tell you your answer.

(When you look in the mirror, let your focus go "soft," and allow the patterns made by the moon or candlelight and shadows to suggest forms, symbols and other dreamlike images that speak to your intuition.)⁸

Talk about asking for trouble…if this doesn't suggest itself as the perfect opening for Samhain – The Movie I don't know what does. A group of teens, an apple, an act of divination gone horribly wrong…the thing practically writes itself!

If anyone's willing to have a crack at this foolhardy exercise then please post your findings here…assuming you haven't succumbed to a terror-induced coma…

Newsflash 31/10/06: The man from eircom is due to call at chez Fústar next week so (with the help of the pagan gods of Samhain) I'll be back in the warm embrace of internetia then.

1. Irish Halloween Folklore [back]
2. The History of Halloween [back]
3. Samhain [back]
4. History Of The Jack-O'Lantern [back]
5. Ibid. [back]
6. Samhain – Wikipedia [back]
7. Samhain – Celtic Spirit [back]
8. Ibid. [back]