amelia_petkova

In Welsh mythology, Blodeuwedd is made out of flowers and brought to life. Can anybody tell me if there are other cultures whose mythology or folklore features people made out of inanimate objects (plants, paper, gears, etc.)?

I don't know what it is that's making me post on LJ so often this October, but I like it!

So I'm working on a writing exercise that involves the painting "Proserpine" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (see my user icon). There's a pomegranate in it, I got to thinking about the Persephone myth, and...

How awesome would it have been on so many symbological levels if in the movie Labyrinth, Jareth had given Sarah a pomegranate instead of a peach? I started grinning just thinking about it. The only drawback is that a pomegranate is a hell of a lot harder to eat.

Guidelines: Post 10 things you like beginning with a certain letter. I wasn't sure how you ended up getting assigned a letter, so I rummaged about in the Scrabble bag and ended up with A. (For such a "common letter," it was more difficult than I'd expected. I'm sure to remember another interest the moment I post this.)

Apples
My favorite apples to eat are those smallish, light red ones because they crunch nicely. As well as the taste, I'm interested in all the symbolism. You have the Garden of Eden, Paganism and Avalon, the name really being related to apples. Also, they have seeds and grow into such lovely trees, and everybody knows that I'm just about addicted to gardening. We had a family daytrip to Chimney Bluffs/Sodus Bay this summer and drove past enormous apple orchards on the way. We're almost technically in autumn here, so it's truly apple season now. (Don't forget about cider!)

Andersen, Hans Christian
I adore reading Andersen's stories and now wish to travel to Denmark, after reading a biography. My favorite story of his is "The Snow Queen." He was a bit more insecure than I'd like (if we knew each other I'm sure I'd often tell him to stop being so emo) but Lord, that man could write!

Andalusia
Al-Andalus. When I was in Spain our class took a three-day trip there. It wasn't long enough! We had about a day each in Seville and Granada; and only a few hours in Cordoba. Simply put, it was enchanting. As far as cities go I liked Seville more than Grananda but I couldn't get enough of the Alhambra, even though it was filled with hundreds of other tourists. Granada does have dozens of cave-like tea shops, which is where I had decent tea for the first time since getting to Spain. Cordoba was small but I think we should have been there longer. Me? Obsessed with medieval Spain? Not at all!

Anthropology
I had a minor in Anthropology in college and if they offered it as a major, I probably would have done that (even though it would be less practical than my English major). It's all about stories of people around the world, really. My crowning glory is that I was able to get away with spending an entire semester researching and writing about mermaid stories.

Academia
I've been graduated from university for about four months and I miss it already. Apart from the social aspect, we had such fun discussions in some of my English classes. It kept me improving Spanish as well. I worry about my mind getting rusty. (Not to mention missing my school's library!)

Autumn
Like I said earlier, we're almost there! I'm in love with every season as it arrives. In Autumn we have changing leaves, Samhain, apple cider, farmers markets with pumpkins, Indian corn, ghost stories, acorns, and the Robber Girl from "The Snow Queen." I shall have to live somewhere that has every season, for I would miss the changes so much.

Amber
I love amber jewelry. It has such a glow and sometimes things are frozen in it. I bought an amber ring in Istanbul (the shopkeeper literally pulled out a plastic bucket of silver-and-amber rings, and we dug through it until finding one that fit). There's a shop in Valencia specializing in Baltic amber, even though the Mediterranean and the Baltic are nowhere near each other.

Arabian Nights
There are so many translations, it's hard to decide on which to read. The story-within-a-story format is fantastic. When you think about it, the story's beginning is rather over-the-top: a man's wife cheats on him, so he decides to marry a new woman each night and kill her the following morning because no woman can be trusted. If you get a chance, watch the 2000 TV miniseries.

Atreyu
No, I'm not talking about the musical band. How can anybody not enjoy The Neverending Story? Poor Arteyu really does have an impossible journey throughout the first half of the book but he manages. And he's green! A pity they didn't go through with that in the movie.

Achren
I don't like Achren, per se, but I'm interested in her. She's one tough villian, acting superior to everything and everyone to the very end. If you ask, I'm fairy certain that Mr. Alexander based Achren on Arianrhod, and that she and Gwydion Have A Past.

I just heard an amusing commercial on the radio. It was an advertisement for Trojan condoms, so they had a young man asking a Greek hero, Agamemnon, for advice. The part they don't say is that he was killed by his wife and her lover.

This morning I went to the common room for my section of the dorm building to eat breakfast. As I was still half-asleep, it took a few minutes before I noticed about eight pieces of paper with quotes from the Bible stuck to the walls. My response was along the lines of:

Huh? We've been Bible-bombed?

I think I know which group of girls put them up, but I don't know them well, or why. Being the quirky person that I am, I'm strongly tempted to copy out a bunch of quotes and post them alongside the Bible ones.

Ideas
--Song of Songs
--quotes from Qu'ran
--quotes from Torah
--the excerpt from Monty Python and the Holy Grail about the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch

What are your suggestions for quotes?

If nothing else, this could make Finals Week entertaining.

I know I've been missing for a short while, but it was the right thing to do.

Once again, a "movie" from when I was little. And once again, I have watched the tape so many times that it is becoming worn out.

The Castle Ghosts of Ireland , The Castle Ghosts of Scotland , The Castle Ghosts of England . It was released in 1996, with Robert Hardy as the host (the man who plays Cornelius Fudge in the Harry Potter movies). Very likely the best ghost documentary I have ever watched--informative, creepy, and little (if at all) cheesy. My brother and I (when we were about 7 and 10 years old, respectively) watched all 3 hours the day after taping it and scared ourselves silly. I then passed it on to my friend, Anna, and she did the same. We agreed that the most disturbing part was It from Leap Castle. (If requested, I can post a list of the locations covered.)

Does anybody have the slightest idea what I'm talking about?

For those of you who need background information: The Prydain Chronicles are a series of children's fantasy books by Lloyd Alexander. For my part, I love them. My fourth-grade teacher read the first three to us and managed to get the entire class completely hooked. Everyone should read them at least once (as well as The Dark is Rising Sequence, but that's another story). The stories are loosely based on Welsh mythology and it's entertaining to match up characters and events with their original counterparts.

This summer I listened to several audio books, The Book of Three (the first novel in the series) being one of them. I wasn't especially fond of it but listening did a good job of making me think about the book. Especially about things that don't come to mind when you're in elementary school! Some general decisions:
--Mrs. W did a much better job of reading the books, very much so when it came to the character voices.
--At this point in the series, Taran is very much in the "Girls Have Cooties!" stage. He is also a drama king at times. (very amusing)
--Gurgi is passive-aggressive.
--Gwydion and Achren Have A Past Together.

Longer speculations:
When the group is in Medwin's valley, Medwin tells Taran that Gurgi is neither fully animal nor fully man. Could Gurgi be based on the "archetype" of the wild man in the wood? I think it's possible, especially after comparing his physical description with that of the title character in Sweeney Astray. He fits the mold very well. Read about the wild man and Green Man stories, and you'll see what I mean. 

Although the name "Medwin" is very close to "Merlin," I do not think that they are at all the same person. Dalben is a closer match. I do think that Medwin is a Noah figure. Almost all mythologies have a story similar to the Biblical Flood; Celtic mythology has several, such as the drowned city of Ys. (That particular legend is unrelated to this book.) There is the skeleton of a ship in Medwin's valley and Taran himself brings up the story of Dalben once saying that water covered all of Prydain. Medwin doesn't say it's true, but he doesn't deny it. 

More about Gwydion and Achren. I have a strong suspicion that Achren is based upon Arianrhod. (For starters there names are a bit similar, although that can often be unreliable.) Unfortunately, I don't have my copy of The Book of Three with me (left it at home and the college library doesn't have a copy, dammit) with me but when Gwydion and Taran are brought to Spiral Castle, Gwydion and Achren's interaction and dialogue makes me certain that they had a romantic relationship at some point. In the stories, Arianrhod is Gwydion's sister. He's not a very pleasant person, very different from the honorable  warrior-prince he's represented as in the series. To put the story as simply as possible: Gwydion somehow makes Arianrhod give birth to a child when she's proving that she's a virgin so that she can get a high position at the castle. She is understandably very ticked-off about this. Depending on which version you read, there are hints of incest between them, which is common in all mythologies. My theory is that in The Prydain Chronicles, they had a romance, one or both of them broke it off on bad terms. Achren then becomes Arawn's consort. Later on she is also cast aside by him, surely contributing to her evilness. If you read the books and stories, you'll see exactly what I mean.

Wikipedia is all right for looking things up, but I strongly recommend the Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology by James MacKillop. It's one of the better resources out there (and one of my favorites). Have also found hints in it to King Eidellig and the dwarf that keeps trying to turn invisible, but I can't remember the details at the moment.