Category: Uncategorized

We have all heard of Baba Yaga at some point — in art, literature, even gaming.  But Russian lore talks about a lot of interesting witches and sorcerers, about going on life-changing quests and completing impossible tasks.  However today we will be looking at one in particular — a certain immortal sorcerer who murdered a prince over and over again until he was defeated.  I am, of course, talking about Ivan and Koschei the Deathless.

Their story begins with Ivan’s parent’s death.  Ivan’s sisters marry wizards disguised as birds and, after discovering how lonely it is being, well, alone, Ivan sets out to find them.  He meets Marya — a warrior woman — along the way whom he marries.  However, Marya sets off to war, warning Ivan to not open a specific door.  Which, no surprise, he does.  Ivan discovers an old, withering man, draped in a dozen chains, begging for water.  Ivan brings him barrels of it, which the man uses to revive himself, shedding his disguise, breaking his chains, and revealing himself to be none other than Koschei the deathless.  Koschei swears he will kidnap Marya for revenge and disappears, leaving Ivan alone in the now empty room.

This is where the crazy adventure begins.  Ivan finds them, saves Marya, only to be caught by Koschei’s faster horses and then murdered.  Each time he is killed, however, one of this sisters’ husbands save him until eventually they tell him of a faster horse he can find if he only visits Baba Yaga.  So, Ivan sets off to Baba Yaga’s house, survives and passes her three tests, and obtains his incredibly fast horse.  He then sets out to save Marya and, eventually, kill Koschei the Deathless once and for all.

Their story is one of adventure, death, and impossible tasks.  Koschei the deathless could not defeat Ivan in the end, despite being all-powerful and immortal.  And though he was defeated in the end, he will live on in stories as the evil sorcerer, waiting to send the young hero on his quest of self discovery.

 

For more reading on Ivan and Koschei the Deathless (sources):
https://www.slavorum.org/koshchei-the-deathless-legend-of-immortal-slavic-villain/
https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-europe/slavic-legend-immortality-koschei-deathless-002717
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZdhJ9e8NzQ

“East of the Sun and West of the Moon” is the third entry in The Blue Fairy Book. This Norwegian fairy tale was originally collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe. It is Aarne–Thompson type 425A, Search for the Lost Husband. It is related to both the tale of “Cupid and Psyche” in The Golden Ass and to “Beauty and the Beast.” Beauty and the Beast is usually given its own subcategory as 425C which has the same name as the tale. East of the Sun and West of the Moon is usually placed in 425A: The Animal Bridegroom (Thompson 1945). You can read the entire fairy tale for free at Patreon.

Other related entries include She Sees Him by Candlelight, The Golden Age of Illustration, Riding the Wind, and The Troll Bride. Enjoy!

To kick off the new year, I’ve started a project revolving around Andrew Lang‘s  The Blue Fairy Book (1889), which was the first of twelve “coloured” fairy tale collections published through 1910. There are 37 tales in The Blue Fairy Book, which includes seven tales from the Brothers Grimm, five from Madame d’Aulnoy, three from the Arabian Nights, and four Norwegian fairytales, among other sources. Every eight to ten days, I will be posting one of the fairy tales along with my notes of potential links, mash-ups, and outside sources on Patreon. Other posts will include commentary on the original authors and collectors of these tales, links to contemporary retellings, and classic fairy tale illustrations. It’s going to be a fun ride, and I hope you will join me on this adventure.

The Blue Fairy Book (1889) Table of Contents

1. The Bronze Ring
2. Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess
3. East of the Sun and West of the Moon
4. The Yellow Dwarf
5. Little Red Riding Hood
6. The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood
7. Cinderella or the Little Glass Slipper
8. Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp
9. The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was
10. Rumpelstiltskin
11. Beauty and the Beast
12. The Master Maid
13. Why the Sea Is Salt
14. The Master Cat or Puss in Boots
15. Felicia and the Pot of Pinks
16. The White Cat
17. The Water-lily. The Gold-spinners
18. The Terrible Head
19. The Story of Pretty Goldilocks
20. The History of Whittington
21. The Wonderful Sheep
22. Little Thumb
23. The Forty Thieves
24. Hansel and Gretel
25. Snow-White and Rose-Red
26. The Goose-girl
27. Toads and Diamonds
28. Prince Darling
29. Blue Beard
30. Trusty John
31. The Brave Little Tailor
32. A Voyage to Lilliput
33. The Princess on the Glass Hill
34. The Story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Paribanou
35. The History of Jack the Giant-killer
36. The Black Bull of Norroway
37. The Red Etin

Workshop registration is open for the Spring 2019 sections of Intersections: Science Fiction, Fairy Tales, and Myth. Space is limited.

SECTION I: the second week of February (11-17) through the third week of March (18-24)

Week 1 (2/11-2/17): Introductions, Into the Dark Wood (prompts), Modules 1-3 Discussion.
Week 2 (2/18-2/24): “The Snow Queen” & Melting Polar Caps
Week 3 (2/25-3/3): “Iron Henry, or the Frog Prince” & Invasive Species
Week 4 (3/4-3/10): “Little Mermaid” & Pollution (Earth’s Oceans and Orbit)
Week 5 (3/11-3/17: Revision and Submission Strategies & Marketing Tools for Authors
Week 6 (3/18-3/24): Portfolio Presentations

SECTION II: first week of April (1-7) through mid-May)

Week 1 (4/1-4/7): Introductions, Into the Dark Wood (prompts), Modules 1-3 Discussion.
Week 2 (4/8-4/14): “Bluebeard” & DNA Databanks
Week 3 (4/15-4/21): “Thumbelina” & Microbes and Mites
Week 4 (4/22-4/28): “Little Red Riding Hood” & The Natural History of the Color Red
Week 5 (4/29-5/5): Revision and Submission Strategies & Marketing Tools for Authors
NO CLASS: StokerCon (5/6-5/12)
Week 6 (5/13-5/19): Portfolio Presentations

The siren is a mythical creature who has taken many forms throughout history, but how has that image changed?  How did we go from the sirens of old to the mermaid-like creatures we see portrayed today? And — most importantly — where did they come from?

Originally, and according to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the sirens were the human companions of the chthonic goddess Persephone — or, at this point, just the daughter of Demeter.  However, when Hades comes to take her away, the sirens are blamed for her kidnapping, and Demeter punishes them by turning them into winged women.  In some versions of the myth, the sirens pray for wings in order to search for their lost charge and the gods grant their prayers. However, one thing is for certain: they were winged creatures, NOT mermaids.

Sirens were originally an amalgamation of birds and women, starting — in early Greek art — as simply birds with the heads of women.  Later, they became more like the centaurs with their human torsos (of a woman), though with the legs of a bird and giant wings. Sirens were known to have singing voices that were so beautiful, so alluring, that sailors were known to jump overboard their vessels and drown — which is how we get the story of Odysseus in the Odyssey, telling his crew to stopper their ears with wax while he himself was tied to the mast of the ship to listen to their voices.  Not only were these winged women gifted singers, but they were also said to be adept with the lyre, even going so far as to challenge the Muses to a competition.  Which, of course, the sirens lost.

So how did we go from winged women to the mermaids we see today?  As the siren myth travelled through Europe, and their name was translated through multiple languages, they began to be viewed exclusively as water creatures — though still remaining quite hostile, capable of wreaking havoc wherever they turned up.  However, the truth might lie in, what Emily Wilson — a classicist from the University of Pennsylvania who became known for her new English translation of Homer’s Odyssey — concludes is, faulty translations.  She believes that many translators have allowed themselves to be influenced by modern culture, which has led them to depict the siren as being a water-dwelling creature rather than the winged women they were.

As well as being possibly mistranslated, the word “Sirenia” in Latin today is a term used to describe the order of fully aquatic and herbivorous mammals such as the manatee, which has been mistaken in the past as being a mermaid itself.

Whether the siren be winged creatures or mermaids, there seems to be the common thread that they are considered fierce, destructive creatures who are musically gifted.  And though their image has shifted, their place in myth will forever be solidified.

 

The siren in popular culture: We of course have seen sirens in movies and television shows, from the show Siren all the way to the movie Sinbad (though we mostly just see their mermaid counterpart).  However, in literature, we have seen a wide variety of sirens from Amanda Hocking’s Wake series in which the sirens can shift from mermaids to winged women to humans, to Jes Dory’s take on sirens in Isle in which they are connected to the Lamia, all the way to The Siren in which Kiera Cass has combined both myths of sirens and mermaids together in this Little Mermaid retelling.

For more information about Sirens and their mythology (sources):

https://www.audubon.org/news/sirens-greek-myth-were-bird-women-not-mermaids

http://www.realmermaids.net/mermaid-history/siren-history/

https://www.ancient.eu/Siren/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Siren-Greek-mythology