Time Leak in the Land of Faerie!

I just finished reading The New Policeman by Irish author Kate Thompson. Though fictional, this book puts forth a very interesting theory about where all of our time (collectively) is going. There is a time leak in Tir na n’Og, the Irish faerie realm. Humans are upset about the leak because they have less and less time to do anything. The faeries are even more distressed, however, because time had always stood still in their land, but it suddenly seems to be moving forward. This means that, unless the time leak is stopped, they will begin to grow old and die. I love fiction that poses the idea that there may actually be something wrong with time itself! I feel like I’m always running around, waving my arms in the air in a frantic effort to get anything done. The last time I remember reading a book with a similar theme was decades ago, when Momo came out in English. It is by German author Michael Ende, whose most famous work is The Neverending Story. In the world of Momo, time is actually being stolen by sinister gray men called the Timesavers. It’s so wonderful -- I have the urge to get if off the shelf right now and start reading it again! Does anyone know of other fantasy books that deal with the issue of where all the time goes?

--Joelle

Medieval Beliefs about Faeries

I recently re-read the section on faeries in The Magical Universe: Everyday Ritual and Magic in Pre-Modern Europe. It is an impressively comprehensive book by Stephen Wilson about the idea that every European before the 18th century believed that magic surrounded and encompassed her daily life. According to Wilson, people once thought that faeries were pre-Christian beings, similar to the nymphs and fauns of ancient Greece. During the medieval and Renaissance eras, there were supposedly two types of faeries -- those associated with the home/farm and those who lived in wild places like the forest. Although wild faeries were generally regarded as dangerous, house and farm faeries were considered benevolent, as long as humans kept their homes tidy and left food and drink out for their faerie “guests”.
People who lived in the Pyrenees mountains had a specific custom about feeding the faeries on New Year’s Eve. Those who set out a good meal for faerie visitors on that night could expect their flocks of sheep and their harvests to flourish in the coming year. Those who neglected the faeries, however, would find that the new year brought them nothing but misery -- including fires, wild animal attacks on their sheep, blights on their crops and unhappy marriages. With such dire consequences hanging over their heads, of course, most everyone remembered the faeries’ meal! At dawn on New Year’s Day, the master of the house would take any bread that the faeries had left over from their supper, dip it in water or wine, and give everyone a piece to eat, including the servants.

--Joelle

The Cottingley Faerie Photographs

This is an important month for faerie enthusiasts, since the first of the Cottingley photographs was taken in July, 1917. From that time until August, 1920, two young girls named Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths took a series of remarkable photographs of themselves in the company of faeries. In 1920, the noted Theosophist Edward Gardner saw the pictures and believed that they were real. He passed them on to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories. The famous writer published the photographs in the November, 1920 issue of Strand Magazine, declaring them genuine. In 1981, the girls (who had then become old ladies) admitted in an interview for The Unexplained magazine that most of the images had been faked. However, Frances maintained until her death that there had actually been faeries in the garden and that the fifth picture, which contained only faeries, was real. Frances’ daughter and granddaughter showed off the original photographs in a January, 2009 episode of the television series Antiques Roadshow. Both of them also professed their belief that the fifth photograph was genuine.

--Joelle

Dobby the House Elf

The movie version of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is now out, so it seems like a good time to share some thoughts about Dobby. J.K. Rowling did not write about any faeries living in the wizarding world, but there are plenty of elves -- house elves to be exact. These magical creatures are the obedient, unpaid servants of wizards and are bound to a house, rather than to any person or family. If a wizard buys or inherits a home with an elf, he gets him or her along with the property. House elves possess their own form of extremely powerful magic, but they generally only use it when commanded to do so by their masters. The Harry Potter books include many house elves, and several are introduced by name. One of them, called Dobby, is decidedly the most involved in Harry’s life and struggles against dark wizards.

Dobby is introduced early in the series -- he first appears at the beginning of the second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Although he initially tries to sabotage Harry’s efforts to return to Hogwarts (out of misguided concern, not malice), the elf later becomes an invaluable ally. In the books, Dobby helps the young wizard by showing him the secret Room of Requirement, which Harry uses to train with his friends for the fight against Voldemort. The elf later spies on dark wizard Draco Malfoy and heroically rescues seven people when they are imprisoned at Malfoy Manner.

Dobby is an interesting character in the Harry Potter universe, and he has many fans ... there’s a good bit of fan fiction on the internet featuring him! There’s something appealing about the combination of incredible magic power combined with such obsequiousness. Of course, he’s also extremely loyal to Harry, to the point of valuing the young wizard’s life above his own. Wouldn’t you like to purchase a home that comes complete with its own house elf? Perhaps adding them to properties for sale would help with the world’s current economic woes ...

--Joelle

Charlotte's Bento Box Lunch!

Hello readers!
I was trying to think of something fun and/or interesting to write about by way of introducing myself to you, but in the end I decided Kim was right (as I usually do), and settled on food. Lunch, to be exact. Charlotte’s lunch.


In my quest to keep lunches interesting and edible for my dear daughter, I stumbled across the art of Bento. Typically this is a Japanese art, as many are probably familiar from trips to the Sushi bar. It is delightfully easy to adapt to any cuisine however, as I (and others before me) have done for the preschool set. How do you make a Bento box for a child's lunch? Keep in mind, a Bento is really just a lunch box, only way cuter. The idea is to make it as appealing to the eyes as it will be to the smell and to the taste. Variety is key; variety in food groups, in colors and textures, and even in shapes and sizes. The picture here is Charlotte’s lunch for tomorrow: half a mini-bagel, a piece of cheese, a boiled egg (rendered as Mr. H. Dumpty, tragic hero of the nursery rhyme), and fruit that was meant to spell out "love", but rather looks like "lovi". The fruit is stuck on with a bit of honey. I was tempted to use peanut butter, but Charlotte has no love for peanut butter, and that is, of course, the most important part of any school lunch -- The child should want to eat it.
Yama

Rackham and Poe, oh my!

Bloomsbury Auctions London are hosting an event on 9 July with several signed-limited Rackham offerings, including a Poe with an original watercolour...

Here is a link to a list of what is being auctioned at Bloomsbury. What a spread!

Listed items of interest.

BloomsburyAuctions