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Spriggans: Unpleasant Cornish Sprites
Spriggans are a type of faery being from Cornish mythology. They are associated both with storms and stone ruins. By most accounts, they are closely related to pisgies (aka pixies). In fact, some suggest they are the same sort of being, with pisgies more mischievous and spriggans more outright malevolent. Others say spriggans came originally from Brittany, where they were called korreds. If this is so, their affinity for winds suggest they may be descended from the Crion family of korreds, those most firmly associated with whirlwinds. Spriggans send storms to blight crops.
These fae are also closely associated with the cromlechs or standing stones that dot the Cornish countryside. Like all fae, they love to cause mischief to those who offend them. They sometimes steal away mortal children, leaving their ugly changelings in their place.
They are often found at old ruins, cromlechs, and barrows guarding buried treasure and generally acting as faery bodyguards. As guards to both standing stones and hidden treasures, they correspond very closely to the Breton korred. They are also busy thieves and expert kidnappers of children.
Spriggans serve as slaves or warriors of more powerful fae. Some believe they are the ghosts of former giants, as they have the ability to swell to enormous size. They are also said to have a giant’s strength. They are often charged with guarding buried treasure.
In addition to their sour disposition, these fae are described as being grotesquely ugly. Like their korred cousins, spriggans love music and dance. Though their appearance and temperament are often distasteful, it is said that their music is quite beautiful.
Losing Yourself in a Book Suddenly Becomes a More Powerful Metaphor
Psychologists have taken a step closer to understand how and why readers come to identify emotionally with their favorite characters in a book. This subconscious phenomenon is called “experience-taking,” and an article in Medical Daily highlights recent researchers at Ohio State University who have delved into how this process works.
Researchers said that experience-taking is different from perspective-taking, a process where individuals try to comprehend what another person is experiencing in a particular situation, without losing sight of their own identity.
“Experience-taking is much more immersive — you’ve replaced yourself with the other,” [co-author Lisa] Libby said in a statement.
The process is spontaneous and happens naturally under the right circumstances.
“Experience-taking can be very powerful because people don’t even realize it is happening to them. It is an unconscious process,” Libby said, adding that the phenomenon could have powerful, if not lasting, effects.
Thor in Marvel and Myth
Karl E. H. Siegfried has provided a very thorough discussion of how the recent Thor movies have handled the Norse myths surrounding their central characters. It’s very much worth the time to ponder the changes the film-makers (and Stan Lee and Jack Kirby before them) have made to the source material. In short, Marvel’s Thor (and Odin, Loki, etc.) have been largely stripped of what first made them significant. Instead, they are used to project something more in keeping with the Judeo-Christian values espoused by most North American moviegoers.
Incidentally, Lars Walker wrote something quite similar (albeit from a Christian point of view) when the first Thor movie came out a few years ago.
Sunday Inspiration: Imagination
For me, reason is the natural organ of truth, but imagination is the organ of meaning.
—C. S. Lewis
On Child-Proofing Harry Potter
In a word, don’t do it. Peter Damien explains why in a very thoughtful article at BookRiot, where he discusses the very experience I had several years ago reading Harry Potter to my then first/second grade daughter. I must confess, the thought never occurred to me to alter the details of the plot to make them more kid-friendly. What’s the point of reading a story if you’re going to change it?
The most I ever did is the same thing Peter confesses to doing: cleaning up the language every so slightly to tone down the “hells,” “damns,” and whatnot. My daughter is quite aware that people swear. She may even suspect that I swear when she’s not around. I prefer her to think that educated people can make themselves understood without recourse to vulgarity.
Anyway, Peter does an excellent job of highlighting this and other concerns so that parents can reflect on how to read material with their children that may just push their (the parent’s) comfort zones. And his bottom line is so blazingly obvious, it’s a shame he needed to say it: If you as a parent don’t feel comfortable reading something to your child, don’t. But there are benefits to reading stories like this “straight” (at the appropriate time):
My personal preference is, do read it, and do discuss it with your kids. You’re having a remarkable dialog which is itself a habit you want to continue for the rest of your lives. And there is a giddy high you’ll get when you go to discuss the book with your kids and they just get it. They get the plot, the people, they’re building theories. I’ve been tweeting with excitement my oldest son’s attempt to puzzle out the Harry Potter plots along the way, because it’s amazing and fun to watch his mind work, logically figuring things out.
I’ll suggest something else. Reading an early version of Children of Pride with my daughter, I later heard her comment about a particular detail of how my imagined faery world worked that I knew would resonate with things she was going through at the time. I realized that I had managed to give her a little bit of vocabulary with which to talk about things she was feeling. Looking back, I can see how Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and other fantasy heroes (not to mention their respective villains, sidekicks, and mentors) have also broadened her ability to name and thus to some extent control or at least endure the challenges she faces.
Finally, if I might say so, J. K. Rowling has already done a masterful job of “child-proofing” her own stories. Ron’s language, for example, doesn’t even become an issue until the later books. Themes associated with dating and romance are handled with considerable tenderness and reserve. In my opinion, children who are perhaps a bit younger than Harry and his friends are in any given book should have no problems dealing with what they encounter there.
Something Tells Me This Will Be at My House Next Summer
A quick update on Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods, my collection of original Greek myths told from Percy Jackson’s point of view. The US release date has been set for Tuesday, August 19, the day after Percy’s birthday! Book releases are always slated for Tuesdays, for sales and marketing reasons I do not pretend to understand, so that’s the closest date we could make it. No word on release dates in other countries yet. I don’t usually get that information, but if I do, I will let you know.
Writing Tips from George R. R. Martin
At a recent event at the Sydney Opera House, A Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin shared ten tips for writing fantasy. Here is the list; click through to Chris Jager’s Lifehacker article for the details:
- Don’t limit your imagination
- Choose your point-of-view characters to broaden the narrative’s scope
- It’s okay to “borrow” from history
- On believable POVs
- Grief is a powerful tool — but don’t overdo it
- Violence should have consequences — so spare nothing!
- Avoid fantasy cliches
- On creating “grey” characters
- Juggling lots of characters takes skill — and luck
- Remember: Winter is coming
Rounding Third
Children of Pride has come home from the final outside reader, road-weary but grateful for the experience. Meanwhile, my illustrator is working on the cover. If real life will cooperate, the book may yet be available by Christmas! Here is the blurb:
Taylor Smart has a pretty good life despite her mean teachers and snooty classmates. Of course, that is before she is kidnapped by the Fair Folk and whisked into a world she never dreamed could be real.
Apparently, the cuddly versions of those old faery tales don’t tell the whole story, and middle school never prepared Taylor for a world filled with bogeymen, trolls, dwarves, and spriggans. But that’s what she finds in the faery realm its inhabitants call the Wonder.
Taylor is thrown into a quest to discover her true identity guided by Danny Underhill, her erstwhile kidnapper. But will the shapeshifting trickster’s dark secrets spell her doom? And how will Taylor decide which world, fae or human, is truly her own?
I Never Knew There Was an International Cryptozoology Museum
…in Portland, Maine or anywhere else! But Christa Thompson, the Fairytale Traveler, has the scoop.
The only one of its kind, the museum showcases a bizarre, extraordinary and diligent collection of mythical and unusual creatures from around the world. In other words, if you’re looking for the Jersey Devil or Bigfoot, this is your best bet at finding them.
Names
I appreciated Carl Sinclair’s post today about names in fantasy fiction. Some writers seem to love filling their fantasy worlds with awesome (if improbable) names for people, places, and things. Tolkien made a cottage industry of it—and inspired generations of writers who simply don’t have the linguistic chops to pull it off! Carl’s point that some (many?) such writers go overboard is well taken.
In Children of Pride, most characters, places, and things have names that are quite at home in the English language. This was something of a challenge, as the story deals with people and things that were often given their names centuries ago both in Gaelic, Cornish, or some other actual language or in Esrana, a constructed language that plays a tiny role in the unfolding of the story. Plenty of originally-foreign names became blatantly Anglicized (Gaelic Áine became Anya) or, in once instance, Gaelicized-then-Anglicized (Muskogee Rvne Rofke became Dunhoughkey) for ease of pronunciation.
Left to my own devices, I would probably have made things more complicated than they are. I am, however, dealing with fantasy in a contemporary setting and aiming the story at younger readers. I appreciated the constraint that provided, and my beta readers and I are fairly pleased with the results.
Darrell J. Pursiful 