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09 May 2004
Via del.icio.us, I found a wonderful site documenting myths and folklore: Encyclopedia Mythica. You can search by geographical area, or by myths or folklore (which seem to be somewhat grey categories to me. I could spend hours looking around this site, but it's fascinating what some of the stories reveal about human nature. For example, the tale of the selkie—always one of my favourite bits of folklore when I was a child—can be read as a feminist tract:
A female can shed her skin and come ashore as a beautiful woman. When a man finds the skin, he can force the Selkie to be a good, if somewhat sad, wife. Should she ever recover the skin, she will immediately return to sea, leaving her husband behind. The male Selkies are responsible for storms and also for the sinking of ships, which is their way of avenging the hunting of seals.
Isn't that sad? A man can hold the true nature of a woman captive, unless she can reclaim herself.
Some of the folklore can be explained by similar natural phenomena in different regions. For example the Will-o'-the-wisp of Ireland (which has numerous different names) and the Feux Follets of Quebéc are probably both manifestations inspired by marsh gases given off by bogs.
Quite where anyone got the idea of a noggle though is beyond me:
The noggle a mischievous creature in the British isles that isn't really a horse. It looks like a little gray horse with a saddle, but if someone gets on, it dashes into the water where it turns into a burning, blue cloud. The Noggle is also a pest if there are mills around, because it keeps the mills wheels from turning. Sticking a long knife into a hole in the wheel should start it turning again.
The bit about the mills sounds suspiciously like a miller's excuse for malfunctioning equipment: "Oh, that'll be the noggle—just stick that knife in the hole there, and it should get going again." It's like rebooting your computer when you don't know what's wrong with it.
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The selkie tale is one of those very intriguing takes on male/female relationships. I absolutely loved The Secret of Roan Inish (although I haven't seen it in years) which was based on that legend. If you haven't seen it, you must! And while the tale may not have been based on truly feminist undertones, don't put it past those ancient societies to have hidden such progressive thinking in their mythology. Afterall, they were explanations for human nature as well as nature itself.
As for the Noggle - I'm sure he'll be making the round in my workplace soon enough 
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I believe a dream of yours that you recounted of a killer whale turning into a naked man (if I remember correctly) was possibly a reworking of a classical piece of (native american?) mythology and symbolism .
Luckily it didnseem to be erotic and didnt leave you expecting, the results of such unions always seem to be at their best, extremely odd, and at their worst, catastrophic for the local tribe.
Anyone for Jung?
by john @ 12/05/2004 2:05 pm • Permalink •
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oops, a reply, i missed it. >the way i read it fair enough >sad oh yeah. you read the original "fairytales" and you are frequently rocked back on your heels.
as a sort of extension of what you're saying here: over and above the sadness/depression aspects, there are a LOT of really valuable human-nature lessons embedded throughout. like, drenched. i am becoming increasingly convinced that the increasingly decreasing weight on fairytales over this century is leaving kids less and less mature in terms of real-life. they(we) all have to learn it themselves as they stretch out of childhood, instead of having the jumpstart of having heard echoes of it before
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john: Really? I don't know of that myth, but if you have a link I'd be interested to read it. Obviously my subconscious was plagiarising the myths of other cultures. 
Saltation: I think that's probably true to some extent.
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t know if you´ve plagerised or not (pretty high class plagerising!) but all dreams are a rework of something, and a certain amount of universal symbolism must exist. I dont know if shamu(?) would now be considered your personal totem or if the rest of the tribe would want to drive you out of town. If I find the myth I´ll let you know it might possibly be native hawaiian. I´m sure there`s a connection out there.by john @ 16/05/2004 7:05 am • Permalink •
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>it’s fascinating what some of the stories reveal about human nature.
spot on.
all the common anthropological themes are there, no? vicious, selfish, shallow, greedy...
>For example, the tale of the selkie—always one of my favourite bits of folklore when I was a child—can be read as a feminist tract: Isn’t that sad? A man can hold the true nature of a woman captive, unless she can reclaim herself.
umm.
or the brit-celt queen of the faerie-- the strongest/most-dangerous of the fey (except for the Fool, aka the Prince, who opted out/declined to play the power game)
this control-of-supernatural-creature-by- stealing-something-intimately-bound-up- with-them is a very common theme in most folklore, and only very rarely suggestive of a man-woman thing. e.g. leprechaun + pot of gold. genie + bottle. that middleeastern efreet-relative + soul. normal person + any bodily bit (voodoo and many african magics) now, baba yaga-- SHE's the feminist from hell
>miller’s excuse for malfunctioning equipment ... It’s like rebooting your computer
"oh, that's the blue cloud of death.
no worries, the only thing you can do now is straighten a paper-clip, poke it carefully through that hole, and noggle the reset button.
[oops. ah. oh bugger it, bluster thru]
No, no, you heard me right: "Noggle". You see...----- Saltation: I wasn't suggesting that the selkie story was intended to be feminist originally, but rather that that was the way I read it. Even when I was kid, I felt that it was sad, and felt sorry for the selkie woman, in a way that I didn't feel when read the other stories about 'owning' part of a creature's soul by stealing something of theirs. I love the word Noggle, and I'm blaming everything that goes wrong on it right now. It's quite convenient...
by bsag @ 11/05/2004 4:06 pm • Permalink •