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The Evolution of Fae
Alas, the title of Leo Elijah Cristea’s most recent post on the fae is not a reference to how these beings emerged and diversified through random mutation and natural selection. It is, however, a wonderful discussion of the varieties of Fair Folk one encounters in myth and literature. In particular, this post tries to tackle those elements that are recognizable as at least suggestive of faeries in world mythology, always admitting that whatever overlap (or identity) is claimed must only be claimed with due appreciation for how the source cultures themselves do different things with their various nature spirits, angels, or what have you.
If we delve back in time and focus on the birth of these various stories, even widening our net and including other “fae-like” beings whose appearance or vocation has led them to be tangled up in the same net as faeries—such as the short, stout Northern Dwarves, the elfin Álfar and Svartálfar who could become the aos sí, as well as the creatures already discussed—it becomes clear that appearance alone is sometimes enough to define the beings from different realms as fae.
In this way, we can trace the evolution of the faeries through their alteration and adaptation, drawing up lines of likeness between similar beings, as well as their manmade transformations throughout literature and popular culture.
This is an excellent article, well worth the read!
Fantastical Biology
Readers here already know I love it when the fantastical elements of a story are rooted in something that at least notionally related to scientific plausibility. Over at Fantasy Faction, Shambralyn Baker has delivered the goods with an excellent article about how ecology might shape the biology of fantasy creatures.
A Real Live Paleontologist Discusses the Biomechanics of Godzilla
Mark Witton is mostly known (to me) from his research into pterosaurs. In this blog post, he has some appreciative things to say about the new Godzilla movie:
For 2014, Godzilla is a fully digital and, as we all know, relatively faithful to the original designs. It has, however, been altered in ways which would be difficult to execute if we were still watching a man in a suit. A lot of these changes, as well as the design of Godzilla’s adversaries, were pretty neat because they tie into what we know about animal biology, scaling and functionality, and I get the impression that the guys behind this latest Godzilla – Legendary Pictures – put a lot of effort into making half-sensible creatures which biologists, biomechanicists and functional anatomists can be relatively happy with. And yes, yes yes: there’s a buttload of stuff which is clearly nonsense: there’s no way these animals could be the size they are, or firing beams of nuclear fire from their throats and so forth. But that’s just par for the course for a Godzilla movie, and I’m not going to jump on boring old bandwagon of highlighting how impossible the whole lot is. What’s far more interesting, and what I want to focus on here, is how Legendary built their animals around standard movie monster tenets to produce creatures which are not only intriguing and cool-looking, but also chime with real animal biology and functionality.
My favorite line:
If we’re willing to stretch belief a bit (I assume we are, what with a fictitious 100 m tall reptile being the subject of discussion here)…
Witton discusses the new Godzilla’s foot structure, gills (!), and proportionally smaller head and finds that each makes a certain amount of sense within the context of the movie. Then he really shines as he looks at the aerodynamics of the flying beasties Godzilla battles. It’s all quite fascinating if you enjoy a little bit of science with your enormous lizard beasts.
Sunday Inspiration: Humility
Lord, help me not to despise or oppose what I do not understand.
—William Penn (1644-1718)
Tolkien: The Meaning of LOTR
A long-lost audio recording of a speech Prof. Tolkien delivered at a social gathering in Rotterdam is soon to be released to the world. According to Noble Smith at HuffPo:
The recording took place on March 28th, 1958 in Rotterdam at a “Hobbit Dinner” put on by Tolkien’s Dutch publisher and a bookseller. Tolkien’s own publisher, Allen and Unwin, paid for his trip to the Netherlands to attend this special party. According to his letters the author was chuffed to find that Rotterdam was filled with people “intoxicated with hobbits.” Tolkien showed up at a packed hall where 200 hobbit fanatics had come to hear him and other scholars talk about Middle-earth.
And there was much rejoicing.
The Science of Game of Thrones
I always enjoy it when fantasy makes at least some kind of scientific sense.
The video mentions fire-breathing dragons. A while back I found this explanation, apparently written by someone with a background in organic chemistry, of how dragon fire might work. If I ever had a cause to include dragons in a story, this is probably how they would breathe fire.
What Causes Fairy Circles?
In Namibia, at the boundaries between grassland and desert, a strange phenomenon has puzzled people for centuries. Mysterious circles of barren land form in the middle of rich, thick grasses. Dubbed “fairy circles,” their formation has been attributed to everything from termites to poison gas. Now, a group of scientists has a new theory.
Sunday Inspiration: Faith
Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.
—Rabindranath Tagore
On the Trail of the Hercynian Unicorn
According to Julius Caesar, in the Hercynian Forest on the far side of the Rhine River,
There is an ox [or “quadruped”] of the shape of a stag, between whose ears a horn rises from the middle of the forehead, higher and straighter than those horns which are known to us. From the top of this, branches, like palms, stretch out a considerable distance. The shape of the female and of the male is the, same; the appearance and the size of the horns is the same.
Karl Shuker wonders if the creature described is a mutant deer. Beachcombing suggests it may have been a reindeer, perhaps either in profile or after one of its horns had fallen off. (They do that, you know.) Either way, the Hercynian unicorn is an intriguing ancient cryptid.
Darrell J. Pursiful 