BTT: Long And Short Of It

 
 http://btt2.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/long-and-short-of-it/

Which do you prefer? Short stories? Or full-length novels?

Usually I prefer full-length novels - or even series of novels - with time to get to know the characters. I can enjoy short stories too; but I often find it hard to plough through a collection of a lot of various short stories in a short time, unless there is something to tie them together - like the same characters, or a common theme. When I have little time to read though, short stories might sometimes be just the thing.

Looking at my own book shelves, I have a lot of novels, but few collections of short stories. In English, I have one paperback collection of 50 Great Short Stories by various English and American writers, which I bought once in a second hand bookshop. I also have a book of "Eerie Tales" which I bought in Britain back in the 70s. I think I might have bought it when we were up at Loch Ness in Scotland, but I'm not quite sure. There is also a Penguin Classics collection of stories by Edgar Allan Poe, a Wordsworth Classics collection of Father Brown stories by G.K. Chesterton, and The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. I also have several versions of King Arthur tales; and at least four more recently bought books with Celtic Myths and Legends, like the Mabinogion. I have not read all of these through, just looked things up and read some of the stories.

St Patrick's Day

Having become a Blog World Citizen, new days of Celebration are added all the time! Like today: Saint Patrick's Day. Inspired by the scrapbooking fair I went to on Sunday (and some of the things I bought) I made the card above, with this week's theme at the Soaring Through the World in Pictures blog in mind: Touch of Luck. For the photo, I put the card with one of my potted plants, a red-leaved variety of Oxalis triangularis.

Saint Patrick (circa 387–461 AD) is patron saint of Ireland because he brought Christianity to the Irish. Legend says he taught them about the Christian concept of the Trinity by referring to the shamrock, a three-leaved clover, using this as symbol of the 'three divine persons in the one God'. Legend also credits Patrick with banishing snakes from the island. Evidence however suggests that Ireland never had snakes (or at least very few of them). But the snake did belong in Celtic symbolism, representing magic, druid wisdom, and the cycle of life/rebirth (because it sheds its skin). While in Christian symbolism, the serpent is a symbol of temptation, deceit and evil (Satan). So the banishing of the snake by St Patrick was most likely symbolic of getting rid of the old pagan religion.

Passing Through Stone

Above is a collage of winter and summer pictures of a sculpture.
I posted pictures of it back in July 2009 too. My comment then was: "This is another one of those sculptures that may work as a magic door, if you dare look through it instead of just circling around it." (The perspective you get when looking through the stone is different from when looking past it from a distance, and it is added to by reflections, since the inside of the hole has been polished so that it works like a mirror.)

I'm generally fascinated by (stories about) "magic openings". And I know this is something I share with people all over the world, through thousands of years back in history...

Today, a post at the Japanese blog Camera Works Blogger by Tsutomu Otsuka caught my attention. It is entitled Relationship Making and Breaking Stone, and tells of

a shrine with "a giant stone 1.5m high and 3m wide. It is said that the power of the gods flows into the round hole on the top side of the stone. Pass through the hole in the stone from front to back to break off a bad relationship. And then pass through from back to front to make a good one."

This triggered a memory at the back of my brain - something I read a couple of years ago about a stone on some island off the coast of Scotland, to which similar traditions were connected. At first I couldn't remember what island, or why on earth I had been reading about it, but it came back to me...

It was in connection with my "Harry Potter research" that I came across it. I had been reading up on and comparing Old Norse and Celtic traditions; and then, in connection with "unbreakable vows" (there is one of those made in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince), I happened to come across a web page about The Odin Stone on the Orkney Islands. Once I remembered enough to know what to put into the search engine, I managed to find the website again now.

The Odin Stone, or Stone o' Odin, was a "holed monolith" (thought to have been erected around 3000BC) that stood in a field by the Standing Stones o' Stenness; until it was destroyed in 1814 by an incomer to the island, by the name of Captain W. Mackay.


The stone was "approximately 2.5 metres (8 feet) high with a breadth of about one metre (3.5 feet)" and "played a major part in a number of Orkney wedding traditions".


"...the man being on one side and the woman on the other, they took hold of each other's right hand through the hole, and there swore to be constant and faithful to each other. This ceremony was held so very sacred in those times that the person who dared to break the engagement made here was counted infamous, and excluded all society" 

"It was likewise usual, when a husband and wife could not agree, that they both came to the Kirk of Stainhouse (Stenness), and after entering into the kirk the one went out at the south and the other at the north door, by which they were holden legally divorced, and free to make another choice." - Although in this case, the "divorce" took place in the church of Stenness, a short distance away from the Standing Stones, was this a later development? Perhaps an attempt by the church to draw the Orcadians away from their heathen practices? 

I just find it interesting, that in so different parts of the world, a giant stone with a natural hole in it should be connected to "relationship making and breaking"...

(The modern Swedish sculpture, as far as I know, has really nothing to do with this, except in my mind.)

Oh Deer, I Won!

(No, it's not a spelling mistake!)

This has been a tough week for me in many ways, computer crash included. Yesterday, however, in spite of "only" having my laptop... I made an attempt at the Blog Anniversary contest at Dan's blog Wood and Pixels, which he generously kept running for four days (Tuesday-Friday). And I WON! Three other people also came out winners, on the other days. For an extra special reason, though, I am especially happy that Thursday got to be my lucky day. The special reason has nothing to do with the prize, because we will each get a photo print of our own choice. Which of course would make me happy any day! :)  No - the extra special thing for me about Thursday had to do with the picture to which the clues were pointing on that day - a white deer. (Click on the I WON link above to see Dan's photo.)

Dan provides a link to the Native American folklore about the white deer. However, the white deer or stag is also special in Celtic folklore, which I have been interested in ever since my first visits to Britain in my early teens.  In Celtic mythology it represents a closeness to the Otherworld. For example, "the white stag or hart often appears in the forests around King Arthur’s court, sending the knights on adventures against gods and fairies". The deer is also used in Christian /Biblical symbolism, to represent the human soul's longing for God. Modern fantasy writers have made use of the deer/stag symbolism, too. Two examples:

In C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, what brings Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy - by then grown up and Kings and Queens of Narnia - back to England at the end of the story, is the rumour that a White Stag has been seen in the Western Woods of Narnia. They go on a hunt and they see the stag and they follow it. This brings them back to the lamp post, and from there back to the wardrobe, and their life in this world.

In J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter books, a white stag, and towards the end also a white deer, also have very important guiding roles to play.

As I said in my comment on Dan's congratulations post:
Some things in life can really make you wonder about coincidence vs "meaning".

And as it happens, that very topic has been appearing in different shapes to me more than once over the past couple of weeks. Now here it was again, through the white deer...