Christmas can be a pretty bizarre holiday, being as it’s conglomeration of pagan, Catholic, and secular traditions. In the Catalan region of Spain, for example, there’s the traditional of the Caga Tio, or shitting log, that is stuffed with presents and hit like a pinata on Christmas Eve until it gives them up. Related …
As far as we know, most of the magic spells of ancient Egypt dealt with protecting the dead on their journey to the afterlife. Amulets were concealed in mummy wrappings and spell-prayers carved in hieroglyphics all around the tombs — on the walls, columns, even ceilings. These people took their afterlife very seriously. As I …
Ancient Egypt, I’ve found, is so fascinating on its own that for fantasy writers and worldbuilders there isn’t a lot that needs to be created from scratch. The amulets above, for example, were created in about an hour using text prompts and various AI art generators. And ancient Egyptians did love their amulets. Any significant …
The civilization of Ancient Egypt has enthralled the Western world ever since Napoleon’s forays down the Nile brought it to the attention of European scholars. Part of that was the indecipherable hieroglyphics that covered its temples, tombs, and monuments. Not until the 1850s were these translated into English, using cross-translations from the Rosetta Stone. In …
A few months ago, back in August 2022, the ARCs (advanced reader’s copies) of a YA fantasy novel, Lightlark, were released to selected readers and reviewers to generate some buzz. The author, Alex Aster, had generated plenty already. Already active on BookTok — the TikTok community centered around reading and authors — she’d been talking …
The World of the Castrati by Patrick Barbier Souvenir Press, 1998 [Challenge # 32 : A book taking place in Europe or is about Europe.] I got this book from one of my favorite places to get free reading material, my neighbor’s Little Free Library which has rarely failed me. I’d enjoyed both the …
In this post I’ll talk about how Lewis wrote his fauns and satyrs, which are not the most child-friendly of mythological beasts. Are you ready? Because everything you think you know about them is wrong. First of all, the original satyrs of Greek myth did not have goat legs, horns, and tails. Those were attributes …
This is another of those posts that is informational rather than a set of randomly generated names. Say “mythological creatures” and “Narnia” and most people even with a passing knowledge of the series are likely to think of dryads, naiads, satyrs and fauns. (And centaurs, but for this post I’m going to stick with fauns …
Aslan, the God figure in the Chronicles of Narnia series, is but one of a long line of powerful sacred, mythological, or supernatural lion creatures. And no wonder. Lions are apex predators, golden as the sun in color, and the males have a kingly mane. Tigers may be larger and more eye-catching, but they lack …
Previous parts of this series can be read here (Part I) , here (Part II) and here (Part III) Now that I’ve established The Lady of the Green Kirtle has Green Fairy lineage, I thought it would be fun to look at some of her cousins, the Green Fairies interpreted by contemporary artists. These images …