Changelings

Those few people who are regular readers of this blog know of my (slight) obsession with mythology/folk-lore/fairy-tales, etc. It's not something I try to hide; it's just an aspect of my personality that I don't always showcase. But I'm digressing. One of the most common stories (and one of my personal favorites), is that of the changeling. The changeling, depending on where the story comes from, is either Troll or Fairy or Fae, and is left in place of a human child, usually while the mother is either asleep or has her back turned. Why the child has been stolen also depends on who is telling the story. According to some, they thought the human child was pretty. Others say that they wanted their children to be raised as human for a better life. Many however, believe that the Fae desired human children as teinds, or tithes, who were sacrificed every seven years. But generally, that doesn't matter, because the story focuses on the concerned parents of the child. Almost always, they realize that something is wrong with their child, and they seek the advice of a priest or an old woman. (Why are wise women always old?) The sage tells the parents that they should try to boil water in eggshells (or brew beer in an acorn) in front of the child. If the child is a changeling, they will laugh and question the odd behavior. If the child is not a changeling, they will continue to lie there like the boring (but oh so adorable) baby they are. Once the parents know that their baby is a changeling, they abandon it in a field, so that the Fae parents will want to switch it back. And that's where the story always ends. But that ending always struck me as rather hollow. I always wondered what happened to the changeling, and what happened to human child while it was in the land of Fae. And then I found "The Stolen Child." (Yes, this entire post was just an excuse for me to post this.)
"The Stolen Child" by W.B. Yeats

WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scare could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
than you can understand.
Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
than he can understand.

Yet another appologetic post

It's been awhile since my last post, and I appologize for that. (Far too many of my posts seem to begin with that phrase, and I appologize for that as well.) The reason I haven't written in awhile is because I haven't had anything to write about. All I've done lately is work, it seems. (Well, that and see Batman: The Dark Knight. I thought about writing a post on the movie, however, the only thing I have to say about it holyfuckingshitohmygodthatwassofuckingawesome!, and that didn't seem like a very good post.) However, Stef's away for awhile, so I'm responsible for the maintanence of Secrets, and I'd feel bad if I let her down.
I promise to post something with a bit more substance soon, but for now, here's another random youtube video.

A Nioclesian Nightmare

Apparently Kat and I were on quite a sci-fi/ fantasy kick when we were younger. What we have here are three short excerpts from what we thought would become an epic novel. We had originally planned this as the story of a group of friends who lived in a world that was very loosely based on The Lord of the Rings. There were four “races”: the Nicolese, an elf-like race who were artistic and had very pretty hair, the Buffante, a vampire-esque race who were endowed with psychic powers in all of their gothic glory, the Chippini, a race of pixie people who were the pranksters of the world (think thin Hobbits on crack), and the Rutos, the dwarves of the realm who were grossly undeveloped.

Here is an actual chart of the four races that Kat and I made. (Yes, we made a chart.)

Elf-like Race Nioclese

Beautiful

Artistic

Long Lives

Aristocratic

Tigger/Pixie Race, Chipini

Fun loving

Bouncy

Jump very high and long

Pranksters

Giggly

Move lightning fast

Glow in the dark

Eyes of weird colors

Vampire-like Race Bufante

Smart

Morbid

Each has their own “dark gift”

Same level as elves

See in the dark really well

Suck energy/feelings

Dwarf Rutos

Strong

Loyal

Sorta Dumb

Sorta Ugly

Love Food

With that explanation out of the way, on to the mocking (Kat’s comments are in italics, mine are in bold).

“You’ll never catch me, Edric!” Andre called out from a tree.
“Of course I will, I just need to follow your voice” Edric told his friend. That sounds oddly like echolocation…were the Nioclese part bat?
“Curses, foiled again!” Andre laughed, quoting a human comic book he had glimpsed
once. Curses, foiled again? What the hell was wrong with me? . I don’t think comic books are even that lame. I don’t know…there’s nothing quite like stealing ancient clichés from cartoon villains to make sure a story starts out right.
“Maybe next time you’ll learn to keep your mouth shut.”
“You know perfectly well I can’t keep my mouth shut.” Andre joked
“And that’s why you always lose.” Edric countered, gently pushing his friend with a
smile.
“Heeeeey, shut up!”
“I believe it’s you who need to shut up.” Actually, you should both shut up. The dialogue here is awful. Who talks like this? The boys playfully tussled on a broad tree branch before tumbling out of the tree and landing with a soft thump on a large clump of moss covering part of the forest floor.
“Will you guys ever stop?” Calista mocked, crawling out from her hiding place beneath a decaying old tree stump. “You do realize this means I win.”
“Oh, we’ll see about that” Edric laughed as he leapt at her.
“Children, it’s time to go!” Andre’s mother called. The breathless trio raced up to the car where the matriarch of the house of Mosne waited. “Honestly, this forest is one of the cleanest places I know yet you always seem to get dirty.” Yup, there’s no dirt in these forests apparently. No, there’s dirt; it’s just a very clean dirt. She scolded, wiping a smudge off of Edric’s face, most likely made by Calista’s foot, but in a tussle, you never know. You never do.
Calista, Andre and Edric continued to pick at each other for the full car ride, until they
reached the Nioclesian meeting house, a multi-purpose hall built for the use of their
neighborhood in Coran Arbor. Is that close to Ann Arbor? The Nioclese met at least one a month, but individual families met much more often to chat and enjoy themselves while watching their children play.
Today was the day for a formal meeting, however, and Mrs. Mosne met several other kithen groups, among them Among them…what? What was among them? I’m dying to know how we planned to finish this sentence. I mean seriously, who just starts a sentence and then
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The three grabbed their bags and pulled them out of the car, staring up at the tall, brick
mansion manor that was to be their home for the next 10 months. “Just look at this campus, you guys!” Edric exclaimed, gently caressing a purple flower petal with his finger tip. They looked away from the building and saw the most beautiful mélange of plant life any of them could have ever imagined Ok, we probably used Microsoft Word’s thesaurus for that one. Were we thinking menagerie, but for plants? Anyway, this word is incredibly awkward. Gigantic tropical flowers grew next to evergreen trees, bleeding hearts grew happily intertwined with vines of ivy and ripening apples gestured to the plum trees when the wind blew. How the hell could that happen? Where exactly was this place, and what kind of climate was it? Or was it “magical climate control”? “Magical climate control”: the answer to global climate change! The three friends stood silently, awestruck by the breathtaking surroundings, when Andre, with the keenest ears heard a dulcet voice call to them, “I see you have found the garden.”
He whipped around and his curious blue eyes met a soft gray pair. “You three must be
new students.” Edric and Calista now heard and turned to see who was there. A tall Nioclese with light auburn hair and a whimsical stance smiled at them. “My name is Keni Junip, Mr. Junip will do. No it won’t. Did we seriously make a pun on juniper? And what kind of name is Keni? I believe I will have the pleasure of being your Nature Apperception teacher. He doesn’t know? Either he teaches the class or he doesn’t, especially if he knows they are students. Shouldn’t he know what he teaches? Apperception? Maybe we meant Perception? Or Appreciation? Beginning tomorrow I will teach you of each of these plants and many more beyond, both their *good qualities* and their ills, that you may gain a better appreciation for the beauty of the power and balance of the natural world,” he told them, pointing down a path which led in deeper, onto the grounds. “But I see you already have great respect for the earth and it’s wonders. I must leave you now, I look forward to our meeting again tomorrow. Feel free to further explore this extraordinary portion of our campus, but do not linger for too long, there is much else to see,” and with that he left them by another path. “He left them by another path” oh, how poetic. Isn’t it, just? Couldn’t we have said, “he walked away”? God, no. Right, of course not… that’s far too easy, and plebian.
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Calista gave Andre her “look” and walked into her room, carrying her duffel bag. Why? Was she mad at him? We have no clue. Hey, now, she might not have been mad at him…we don’t know what “her ‘look’”is. For all we know, she might be trying to seduce him. She saw a girl, with long black hair and pale skin, and wearing all black sitting on her bed. “Hello.” the girl said.
“I’m Lunette. What’s your name?”
“Calista.”
“I’m a Bufante (Buffer{i}?)What the fuck does that mean? What are you?” Lunette asked. What are you? How rude is that?! Kind of an odd question when meeting someone…
“I’m a Nioclese.”
“Are you sure?” No, she isn’t…she was only raised as one. But you’re a complete stranger, so you must know.
“Uh.. yeah. Why do ask?”
“What about your father, I don’t think he’s a Nioclese.” Blunt much?
“Well, I don’t actually know him.” Why not just go on Maury? He’ll help you find your father…
“I thought so!”
“What are you, some kind of mind reader?” This cliché makes baby puppies cry. As opposed to those adult puppies? Very, very young puppies…their eyes aren’t open, but they’re crying.
“Not a mind reader, no. That is impossible, as, people can think a hundred things at the
same time. I can read the subconscious though.” Yes, that makes perfect sense! The “mind” is too difficult to read, but the subconscious, where people have thoughts that even they don’t know; well that’s an open book. Freud must be so jealous of this girl’s reading abilities.
“Oh, um... okay.” I like how many “ums” she’s had. Are you saying you wouldn’t have any if your new roommate claimed to know your father?
“The fact is, that your father is a Bufante. And not just any Bufante.”
“What?”
“Your father is Bon Arment Jovien. He is the Bon, the king of the Ancient Ones. And
technically you are his eldest child and heir.” It gets blunter, and far less plausible…I’m so proud. Fun fact: we got the name for the “king of the Ancient Ones” from John Bon Jovi…surprised?
“Right. Are you feeling ok?”
“I’m feeling just fine, but if you don’t wish to accept the truth now, wait until you meet
other Bufante. Is the plural of Bufante, Bufante? One Bufante, one hundred Bufante. They’re like moose. No they aren’t…the plural of moose is meese. Like mouse and mice, duh. They’ll see it too, even if they haven’t discovered their gift. This isn’t from
reading subconscious. We can all sense each other and our leader.” Just don’t drink the Kool-Aid...
“Whatever.” Calista walked out, to see the rest of the campus. This concludes part one of “the mocking things we wrote” on Snowden’s Secrets. Don’t worry; we’ll come up with a better name for part two…eventually.
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Kitten and yarn

This is a video of a kitten and a ball of yarn...if I wanted to, I could try to make this into some clever metaphore about life or something. But really, it's just a very cute kitten.