English Folklore III "Scary Fairies: Pooka"

The Pooka is an Irish trickster fairy, and can appear as a beautiful horse or disheveled little pony. They are known for taking unwary travelers on wild rides that most likely end up with the rider muddied and befuddled and lost in the wild places. The origins of the pooka are to some extent speculative. The name may come from the Scandinavian pook or puke, meaning 'nature spirit'. Such beings were very capricious and had to be continually placated or they would create havoc in the countryside, destroying crops and causing illness among livestock. Alternatively, the horse cults prevalent throughout the early Celtic world may have provided the underlying motif for the nightmare steed.No fairy is more feared in Ireland than the pooka. This may be because it is always out and about after nightfall, creating harm and mischief, and because it can assume a variety of terrifying forms.
The guise in which it most often appears, however, is that of a sleek, dark horse with sulphurous yellow eyes and a long wild mane. In this form, it roams large areas of countryside at night, tearing down fences and gates, scattering livestock in terror, trampling crops and generally doing damage around remote farms.
In remote areas of County Down, the pooka becomes a small, deformed goblin who demands a share of the crop at the end of the harvest: for this reason several strands, known as the 'pooka's share', are left behind by the reapers. In parts of County Laois, the pooka becomes a huge, hairy bogeyman who terrifies those abroad at night; in Waterford and Wexford, it appears as an eagle with a massive wingspan; and in Roscommon, as a black goat with curling horns.
The mere sight of it may prevent hens laying their eggs or cows giving milk, and it is the curse of all late night travellers as it is known to swoop them up on to its back and then throw them into muddy ditches or bogholes. The pooka has the power of human speech, and it has been known to stop in front of certain houses and call out the names of those it wants to take upon its midnight dashes. If that person refuses, the pooka will vandalise their property because it is a very vindictive fairy.

"The Pooka and The Will-O'-The-Wisps"

Yet for all its black deeds, the pooka now is a tame creature compared to what it was before Brian Boru curbed it. In ancient days the pooka was lord over all that went forth after dark, except those on missions of mercy. All roads belonged to it; and few who traveled them lived to tell. For the pooka kicked hard enough to crush human bones and could lift a man like an empty sack onto its back and jump with him into the sea, so deep that he drowned. Other times it sprang over a cliff and let the man tumble to the bottom.
But Brian Boru tamed it with a charm made from three hairs from a pooka's tail and thrown round its neck like a bridle. At the first pull, the hairs were transformed into threads of steel. Crossing himself and mounting, he fiercely reined the beast and rode it until it heaved with exhaustion and promised never to kill another man.
Since then it takes only drunkards on its madcap ridings and always returns them to the ditch where it found them, no worse for some bruises and a drunken tale.
When it rains with the sun shining that means that it will be out that night. When berries are killed by frost it is the pooka's spit which is upon them and they shouldn't be eaten.

The Will-O'-The-Wisps, or fairy lights, are quiet and helpful. They appear in the misty Irish mountains to help searchers to locate someone lost in a ravine or drowned in a rocky pool. It's said that those who can see the lights have the gift of knowing when their closet of kin are in danger.

"Mac-na-Michomhairle"

In the MS. story, called 'Mac-na-Michomhairle', of uncertain authorship," writes me Mr. Douglas Hyde, "we read that 'out of a certain hill in Leinster, there used to emerge as far as his middle, a plump, sleek, terrible steed, and speak in human voice to each person about November-day, and he was accustomed to give intelligent and proper answers to such as consulted him concerning all that would befall them until the November of next year. And the people used to leave gifts and presents at the hill until the coming of Patrick and the holy clergy.'

"The Piper and the Puca"

In the old times, there was a half fool living in Dunmore, in the county Galway, and although he was excessively fond of music, he was unable to learn more than one tune, and that was the "Black Rogue." He used to get a good deal of money from the gentlemen, for they used to get sport out of him. One night the piper was coming home from a house where there had been a dance, and he half drunk. When he came to a little bridge that was up by his mother's house, he squeezed the pipes on, and began playing the "Black Rogue" (an rógaire dubh). The Púca came behind him, and flung him up on his own back. There were long horns on the Púca, and the piper got a good grip of them, and then he said--
"Destruction on you, you nasty beast, let me home. I have a ten-penny piece in my pocket for my mother, and she wants snuff."
"Never mind your mother," said the Púca, "but keep your hold. If you fall, you will break your neck and your pipes." Then the Púca said to him, "Play up for me the 'Shan Van Vocht' (an t-seann-bhean bhocht)."
"I don't know it," said the piper.
"Never mind whether you do or you don't," said the Púca. "Play up, and I'll make you know."
The piper put wind in his bag, and he played such music as made himself wonder.
"Upon my word, you're a fine music-master," says the piper then; "but tell me where you're for bringing me."
"There's a great feast in the house of the Banshee, on the top of Croagh Patric tonight," says the Púca, "and I'm for bringing you there to play music, and, take my word, you'll get the price of your trouble."
"By my word, you'll save me a journey, then," says the
piper, "for Father William put a journey to Croagh Patric on me, because I stole the white gander from him last Martinmas."
The Púca rushed him across hills and bogs and rough places, till he brought him to the top of Croagh Patric. Then the Púca struck three blows with his foot, and a great door opened, and they passed in together, into a fine room.
The piper saw a golden table in the middle of the room, and hundreds of old women (cailleacha) sitting round about it. The old woman rose up, and said, "A hundred thousand welcomes to you, you Púca of November (na Samhna). Who is this you have brought with you?"
"The best piper in Ireland," says the Púca.
One of the old women struck a blow on the ground, and a door opened in the side of the wall, and what should the piper see coming out but the white gander which he had stolen from Father William.
"By my conscience, then," says the piper, "myself and my mother ate every taste of that gander, only one wing, and I gave that to Moy-rua (Red Mary), and it's she told the priest I stole his gander."
The gander cleaned the table, and carried it away, and the Púca said, "Play up music for these ladies."
The piper played up, and the old women began dancing, and they were dancing till they were tired. Then the Púca said to pay the piper, and every old woman drew out a gold piece, and gave it to him.
"By the tooth of Patric," said he, "I'm as rich as the son of a lord."
"Come with me," says the Púca, "and I'll bring you home."
They went out then, and just as he was going to ride on the Púca, the gander came up to him, and gave him a new set of pipes. The Púca was not long until he brought him to Dunmore, and he threw the piper off at the little bridge, and then he told him to go home, and says to him, "You have two things now that you never had before--you have sense and music (ciall agus ceól).
The piper went home, and he knocked at his mother's door, saying, "Let me in, I'm as rich as a lord, and I'm the best piper in Ireland."
"You're drunk," said the mother.
"No, indeed," says the piper, "I haven't drunk a drop."
The mother let him in, and he gave her the gold pieces, and, "Wait now," says he, "till you hear the music, I'll play."
He buckled on the pipes, but instead of music, there came a sound as if all the geese and ganders in Ireland were screeching together. He awakened the neighbours and they all were mocking him, until he put on the old pipes, and then he played melodious music for them; and after that he told them all he had gone through that night.
The next morning, when his mother went to look at the gold pieces, there was nothing there but the leaves of a plant.
The piper went to the priest, and told him his story, but the priest would not believe a word from him, until he put the pipes on him, and then the screeching of the ganders and geese began.
"Leave my sight, you thief," said the priest.
But nothing would do the piper till he would put the old pipes on him to show the priest that his story was true.
He buckled on the old pipes, and he played melodious music, and from that day till the day of his death, there was never a piper in the county Galway was as good as he was.

English Folklore II "Kelpie"

The Kelpie is a water horse from Scotland. Fierce and frightening, seeing a Kelpie is always a bad omen, and they are known to devour both humans and fairies. The Kelpie is a water spirit inhabiting deep pools in Scottish streams and rivers. It normally takes the form of a small horse - sometimes said to be black, but also "green as glass" with a jet black mane and tail. The Kelpie can also take the form of a human, but it always has something of the water which gives it away - like waterweed in its hair.There was one way in which a Kelpie could be defeated and tamed; the Kelpie's power of shape shifting was said to reside in its bridle, and anybody who could possess such a bridle could force the Kelpie to submit to their will. A Kelpie in subjugation was highly prized, it had the strength of at least 10 horses and the endurance of many more, but the fairy races were always dangerous captives especially those as malignant as the Kelpie. It was said that the MacGregor clan were in possession of a Kelpies bridle, passed down through the generations from when one of their clan managed to save himself from a Kelpie near Loch Slochd.

"Kelpie as Useful"

A man in carting home his peats for winter fuel was in the habit of seeing a big black horse grazing on the banks of the Ugie, at Inverugie Castle, near Peterhead, each morning as he passed to the "moss". He told some of his neighbours. They suspected what the horse was, and advised the man to get a "waith-horse" bridle, approach the animal with all care and caution, and cast the bridle over his head. The man now knew the nature of the creature, and followed the advice. Kelpie was secured, and did good work in carrying stones to build the bridge over the Ugie at Inverugie. When his services wereno longer needed he was set at liberty. As he left he said:--

"Sehr back and sehr behns

Cairryt a´the Brig o´Innerugie´s stehns."

The old man, who handed down this story to his childre, from one whom I have now got it, used to say any of them that complained for geing tired after a hard day´s work: "Oh, aye, you´re like the kelpie that carryit the stehns to big the Brig o´Innerygie, `sehr back and sehr behns´.

(Darker Superstition of Scotland, "Folk-lore of the northen counties)

"The Kelpie´s wife"

Kelpies were also well known for stealing human girls to take as wives, never to see their families again. There is a story of a Kelpie's wife who managed to escape to dry land again, leaving the Kelpie and their baby son. Although she wept to leave her child, she longed for human company, and she knew the Kelpie loved his son and would care for him. She returned to her family who were overjoyed to see her again, thinking that she had been drowned years ago. But as they celebrated, a dreadful storm blew up, with howling winds and lashing rain. Above the noise of the storm they could hear the furious screams of the Kelpie. In the middle of the night, when they storm was at its worst, they heard a loud thump against the door of the house. They did not dare look, in case it was the Kelpie come for his wife. But in the morning the storm abated, and they opened the door to see what had crashed into it in the night... It was the severed head of the baby son.

English Folklore I "Scary Fairies"

Most of us have been taught that fairies are cute and gossamer. With beautiful butterfly wings, flitting daintily from flower to flower, they are as darling as they are delicate.But if you were to hear something go “bump” in the night, would you ever imagine that it could be one of these whimsical little creatures? Of course not. But legend has it that the fairy folk can be as dark and dangerous as they can be beautiful and mild.

The Boogart

The Boggart, a hairy little being with long yellow teeth from English folkore, is such a nuisance of a spirit that it has actually been mistaken for a poltergeist. If you annoy one, you may find that valuable items (like your car keys) seem to disappear from right under your nose.

IN the house of an honest farmer in Yorkshire, named George Gilbertson, a Boggart had taken up his abode. He here caused a good deal of annoyance, especially by tormenting the children in various ways. Sometimes their bread and butter would be snatched away, or their pot-ringers of bread and milk be capsized by an invisible hand; for the Boggart never let himself be seen; at other times the curtains of their beds would be shaken backwards and forwards, or a heavy weight would press on and nearly suffocate them. The parents had often, on hearing their cries, to fly to their aid. There was a kind of closet, formed by a wooden partition on the kitchen stairs, and a large knot having been driven out of one of the deal-boards of which it was made, there remained a hole. Into this one day the farmer's youngest boy stuck the shoe-horn with which he was amusing himself, when immediately it was thrown out again, and struck the boy on the head. The agent was of course the Boggart, and it soon became their sport (which they called laking with Boggart) to put the shoe-born into the hole and have it shot back at them.
The Boggart at length proved such a torment that the farmer and his wife resolved to quit the house and let him have it all to himself. This was put into execution, and the farmer and his family were following the last loads of furniture, when a neighbour named John Marshall came up: "Well, Georgey," said he, "and sca you're leaving t'ould hoose at last?"--"Heigh, Johnny, my lad, I'm forced tull it; for that villain Boggart torments us soa, we can neither rest fleet nor day for't. It seems bike to have such a malice again t'poor bairns, it ommost kills my poor dame here at thoughts on't, and soa, ye see, we're forced to flitt loike." He scarce had uttered the words when a voice from a deep upright churn cried out: "Aye, aye, Georgey, we're flitting, ye see."--"Od bang thee," cried the poor farmer, "if I'd known thou'd been there, I wadn't ha' stirred a peg. Nay, nay, it's no use, Mally," turning to his wife, "we may as weel turn back again to t'ould hoose as be tormented in another' that's not so convenient"

Urban Legend I

According to Webber "an often lurid story or anecdote that is based on hearsay and widely circulated as true"



Black Aggie
There is a legend about Druid Ridge Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland. It is locally well-known for it being the former home of a statue known as Black Aggie.
In the early part of the century, there was a woman named Aggie, who was a nurse working at a hospital. She was congenial and well-liked, but it seemed that patients under her care always seemed to die. Superstition grew, and she was put to death, which turned out to be a mistake when she was discovered innocent the very next day. A communal feeling of guilt spread, so a statue was put in Druid Ridge Cemetery in her honor. This became the second mistake, when strange occurrences started happening.
Legend has it that if you stand before it at the stroke of midnight, you will be struck blind by the statue's red glowing eyes. People were even found dead in front of it, including a pledge from a local fraternity.
Another rumor is that pregnant women who walked in the figure's shadow (where oddly, the grass never grew) would suffer miscarriages. People would gather at the graveyard at night, which became a frequent problem.
All of this finally came to a climax one morning when the cemetery employees walked into work only to find Black Aggie with one of her arms sawed off. Upon investigating this, the arm of the statue and a saw were found in the backseat of a worker's car. The man was brought to trial, and he claimed Black Aggie cut off one of her arms and had given it to him in a fit of grief. Some people believed the ironic story, but it wasn't enough for the court. He was found guilty.
Eventually the statue was removed from Druid Ridge Cemetery, and was donated to a Baltimore museum. It was never displayed however, and resided in the basement. Occasionally, people still congregate at the cemetery in pursuit of truth in the legend, but it is no longer the location of fraternity stunts.....

Queen Victoria ´s period and it´s Literature

Victoria ( 1819 –1901) was the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1837, until 1901. Her reign lasted 63 years and seven months, longer than that of any other British monarch. She married her cousin Prince Albert (1840) and was mother of nine children.She was exposed to more than one intents of murder.During Victoria's first pregnancy, eighteen-year old Edward Oxford attempted to assassinate the Queen while she was riding in a carriage with Prince Albert in London. Oxford fired twice, but both bullets missed. The shooting had no effect on the Queen's health or on her pregnancy and the first of the royal couple's nine children, named Victoria, was born.Two further attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria occurred:On 29 May at St. James's Park, John Francis fired a pistol at the Queen while she was in a carriage, but was immediately seized by Police.On 3 July, another boy, John William Bean, attempted to shoot the Queen. It was not until 1850 that the Queen did sustain injury when she was assaulted by a possibly insane ex-Army officer, Robert Pate. As Victoria was riding in a carriage, Pate struck her with his gun, crushing her bonnet and bruising her.

In 1861 Albert, the Prince Consort, died of typhoid fever due to the primitive sanitary conditions of Windsor Castle. His death devastated Victoria, who entered a state of mourning and wore black for the remainder of her life. She avoided public appearances and rarely set foot in London in the following years. Her seclusion earned her the name "Widow of Windsor".

As time went by Victoria began to rely increasingly on a manservant from Scotland, John Brown. A romantic connection and even a secret marriage have been alleged, but both charges are generally discredited.The rumours earned Victoria the nickname "Mrs Brown".

Many years passed and following a custom she maintained throughout her widowhood, Victoria spent Christmas at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. She died there from a cerebral haemorrhage on 22 January 1901, at the age of 81.Since Victoria disliked black funerals, London was instead festooned in purple and white.In fact, when she was laid to rest at Frogmore Mausoleum, it began to snow. Victoria had reigned for a total of 63 years, seven months and two days — the longest reign in British history.

The Victorian era was at the height of the Industrial Revolution, a period of significant social, economic, and technological progress in the United Kingdom. Victoria's reign was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire.

Victorian literature forms a link and transition between the writers of the romantic period and the very different literature of the 20th century.The 19th century saw the novel become the leading form of literature in English. The works by pre-Victorian writers such as Jane Austen and Walter Scott had perfected both closely-observed social satire and adventure stories. Popular works opened a market for the novel amongst a reading public. The 19th century is often regarded as a high point in British literature.Virginia Woolf in her series of essays The Common Reader called George Eliot´s Middlemarch "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people". This criticism, although rather broadly covering as it does all English literature, is rather a fair comment on much of the fiction of the Victorian Era. Influenced as they were by the large sprawling novels of sensibility of the preceding age they tended to be idealized portraits of difficult lives in which hard work, perseverance, love and luck win out in the end; virtue would be rewarded and wrong-doers are suitably punished. They tended to be of an improving nature with a central moral lesson at heart, informing the reader how to be a good Victorian. This formula was the basis for much of earlier Victorian fiction but as the century progressed the plot thickened.Eliot in particular strove for realism in her fiction and tried to banish the picturesque and the burlesque from her work. Another woman writer Elizabeth Gaskell wrote even grimmer, grittier books about the poor in the north of England but even these usually had happy endings. After the death of Dickens in 1870 happy endings became less common. Such a major literary figure as Charles Dickens tended to dictate the direction of all literature of the era, not least because he edited "All the Year Round" a literary journal of the time. This change in style in Victorian fiction was slow coming but clear by the end of the century, with the books in the 1880s and 90s more realistic and often grimmer. Even writers of the high Victorian age were censured for their plots attacking the conventions of the day. Whilst many great writers were at work at the time, the large numbers of voracious but uncritical readers meant that poor writers, producing salacious and lurid novels or accounts, found eager audiences. Many of the faults common to much better writers were used abundantly by writers now mostly forgotten: over-sentimentality, unrealistic plots and moralising obscuring the story.

The Victorians are sometimes credited with 'inventing childhood', partly via their efforts to stop child labour and the introduction of compulsory education. As children began to be able to read, literature for young people became a growth industry with, not only, adult novelists producing works for children but also dedicated children's authors. Writers like Lewis Carroll, R. M. Ballantyne and Anna Sewell wrote mainly for children, although they had an adult following, and nonsense verse, poetry which required a child-like interest, was produced by Edward Lear among others. The subject of school also became a rich area for books.

Poetry in a sense settled down from the upheavals of the romantic era and much of the work of the time is seen as a bridge between this earlier era and the modernist poetry of the next century.Some of the poetry highly regarded at the time such as Invictus and If— are now seen as jingoistic and bombastic but Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade was a fierce criticism of a famous military blunder; a pillar of the establishment not failing to attack the establishment.

The reclaiming of the past was a major part of Victorian literature with an interest in both classical literature but also the medieval literature of England. The Victorians loved the heroic, chivalrous stories of knights of old and they hoped to regain some of that noble, courtly behaviour and impress it upon the people both at home and in the wider empire.

The Victorian era was an important time too for the development of science and the Victorians had a mission to describe and classify the entire natural world.The theory of evolution contained within the work shook many of the ideas the Victorians had about themselves and their place in the world and although it took a long time to be widely accepted it would change, dramatically, subsequent thought and literature.

Other important non-fiction works of the time are the philosophical writings of John Stuart Mill covering logic, economics, liberty and utilitarianism.

There was a new form of supernatural, mystery and fantastic literature during this period, often centered on larger-than-life characters such as Sherlock Holmes famous detective of the times, Barry Lee big time gang leader of the Victorian Times, Sexton Blakes, Phileas Foggs, Frankenstein fictional characters of the era, Dracula, Edward Hyde, The Invisible Man, and many other fictional characters who often had exotic enemies to foil.

This Era situated the United Kingdom and Ireland in the world first position in almost every field. The English literature change considerably from its preceeding one. The Literature showed the high values of moral and correction that were stated in reallity. The breakdown with this values in the following literary movement (modernism) emphasizes the end of not just a literary movement but hole period, the Victorian Period.

Tales to Sleep "Lilith"

One day I was walking through the streets of that old town, my drunkeness set me away of all the noise around, I was lost in my utopian thoughts created by the alcohol in my body. I walked without course and I saw an old unknown street with acient smell and looks, I felt consumed by it, the Carnaval hubbub was off and far from where I was then. I could only see a women that stared at me, disguised as a red Demon. She smiled and I pulled her a face.

In that street the stars were brighter, so I took my time and suddenly I felt that smell, its was a mixture between sweet and tart at the same time, a smell never smelt, it was strange in this february party and I saw myself hypnotized and almost swept out to find the owner (cause only could be a woman or a demon) of that smell.

I heard drums, flutes, I closed my eyes and imagined the courtship of a man to a woman in that dance, I imagined her coquettish, shaking her skirt, and him in ernest, she rejecting him with a no that invites and doesn´t rejects...so then the smell made me open my eyes and there she was, my women or my demon, she was dressed with a long dark dress, wearing a silver mask that showed her perfect lips, I was captivated by her grace and approached to her. I touched her pale skin and felt it warm and mine, her reddish curly hair fell down to her waist and I think that the smell came from there, her smile shone in the darkness and her penetrating black eyes were beautiful to me, indiscribable and mysterious, they were the night.

So she took my hand and I felt that warm shadows surrounded me, she sunk her red nails in my flesh and the pain became irresistible, I felt on my knees, she lifted me, kissed me, and then she threw me to the floor, between dirt and rubbish... the world started spinning I never felt that pleasure. I felt her sucking my soul. And there I was, I could only ask which was her name, and she with her smile answered:

" I am the sweet Lilith, resident from the scarlet sea, first lover of the first man and latter woman of the last one, mother of the earth demons,lady of lust and sexual pleasure, I am whom consumes and enraptures you, I live the flesh parties, live in frenesi and in the men morbid, I am Lilith, desired by Lucifer and rejected by the paradise, I am Lilith, the sweet Lilith"

My body suddenly lost all its strength, and the darkness and the cold filled it for ever.

Jane Austen

Jane Austen was a major English novelist, whose brilliantly witty, elegantly structured satirical fiction marks the transition in English literature from 18th century neo-classicism to 19th century romanticism.

She has really marked women literature, because girls on her days and nowadays read her novels with great enthusiasm.

Today is quite fashionable her "Pride and Prejudice" book, but she also wrote "Sense and Sensibility", "Mansfield Park", "Emma", and one I really liked a lot was "Northanger Abbey", "Persuasion" and "SAndition".

Nowadays, there are lots of sites and societies to her memory and her achievemnts...the JASP is the more important one, the official one, and there is one in North America, Argentina, Australia and United Kingdom.