Fairy Prince Blogfest: Prince Ashitaka

I've signed up today for Rachel Morgan's Fairy Prince blogfest (to celebrate the release of her new book, details below) because it gives me a good excuse to talk about one of my favorite characters: 

Get ready for a gratuitous amount of images.

This is Prince Ashitaka from the movie Princess Mononoke written and directed by my favorite modern storyteller, Hayao Miyazaki. Mononoke-hime could easily be considered a Japanese fairy tale with its proliferation of gods, demons, spirits, a Prince protagonist and the titular "princess".

Ashitaka is the last prince of the Emishi tribe. He is a warrior, wielding both sword and bow and arrows, though he abhors violence and uses it only to protect. In the story's beginning, Ashitaka fights against a corrupted boar demon that is attacking his village. He fights without fear, killing the boar demon but earning a cursed wound in the process.

Wise Woman: My prince, are you prepared to learn what fate the stones have foretold you?
Ashitaka: Yes, I was prepared the very moment I let my arrow fly.

Ashitaka is told that the infection in his arm will slowly spread through his body causing him a painful death. Due to the laws of the Emishi, Ashitaka must cut his hair and leave the village, henceforth considered dead to his people.

Wise Woman: You cannot alter your fate, my prince. However, you can rise to meet it, if you choose.

 Ashitaka's one hope is to travel west, to the source of the corruption that cause the demon to become consumed with anger and hate. The Wise Woman of his village tells him that it is his fate to go there with eyes "unclouded by hate" to see what he can see. Ashitaka bravely takes on this fate without any bitterness in his heart for what has happened to him.

In the west he becomes embroiled in the conflict between the humans of Iron Town who are consuming the resources of the land to make profitable iron to fuel human civilization and the spirits and gods of the nearby forest whose land is being encroached upon by the humans. He meets Princess Mononoke ("princess of the spirits"), a human girl who was raised by the wolf gods of the forest when her family was killed in war, a human who now hates humans. Another angle to the conflict arises when the Emperor sends a mercenary monk to the forest to cut off the head of the Forest Spirit whose dual nature of life and death can offer healing or destruction. But the emperor wants the head to give him immortality. Ashitaka takes no side in the fight, but tries to convince all the players that violence and anger and hatred cannot lead to anything good.

Ashitaka: Look, everyone! This is what hatred looks like! This is what it does when it catches hold of you! It’s eating me alive, and very soon now it will kill me! Fear and anger only make it grow faster!

And in the end it is only because of Ashitaka's devotion to life and to protecting that which is worth protecting that the world is not consumed by the Nightwalker, the destructive side of the Forest Spirit. Ashitaka is my favorite prince because of what he stands for: the courage to life a life of peace, the bravery to honor and love all life. He never sees anyone as the enemy, he knows they are all victims. He never sacrifices or falters in his convictions. He protects everyone and earns the right to live again.

San (Princess Mononoke): Even if all the trees grow back, it won't be his forest anymore. The Forest Spirit is dead.

Ashitaka: Never. He is life itself. He isn't dead, San. He is here with us now, telling us, it's time for both of us to live.

Also, his music is awesome:


It's release day for The Faerie Prince, the second novel in the Creepy Hollow series! Woohoo! If you're keen to read it, you can find it at the following places online:

Amazon US | Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Apple iBookstore

CreateSpace (print)

Guardian trainee Violet Fairdale is just weeks away from one of the most important occasions of her life: graduation. After messing up big time by bringing a human into the fae realm, Vi needs to step up her game and forget about Nate if she hopes to graduate as the top guardian of her year. Everything would be fine if she wasn’t forced to partner with Ryn, her ex-friend, ex-enemy, current ‘sort of friend’. They might be trying to patch up their relationship, but does she really want to spend a week undercover with him for their final assignment? On top of that, the possibly insane Unseelie Prince is still on the loose, free to ‘collect’ as many specially talented faeries as he can find—and Vi is still at the top of his list. Add in faerie queens, enchanted storms, complicated not-just-friends feelings, and a murder within the Guild itself, and graduation is about to become the least of Vi’s problems.

In celebration, The Faerie Guardian is on sale for a limited time!

**GIVEAWAY**

There will be a giveaway running from now until the end of the blog tour (Sun 9 June). A giveaway where FOUR people could win something! The prizes are a signed copy of The Faerie Prince (or The Faerie Guardian, should the winner prefer that), an Amazon gift card, a mini book pendant and necklace, and a Creepy Hollow pin badge. Check out the pic below!
Giveaway is open internationally

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The A to Z Fantastic: Elfland and Faerie

The first week of this year's A to Z Challenge coincided with spring break, which meant that all 5 of my kids were home all week. This on top of having a brand new baby and a sick two year old. So needless to say I've been having some trouble finding time for blogging and am already way behind. Rather than just picking up where the Challenge is now, I'd like to make up the letters I've missed. So I'll be blogging two letters per day this week until I'm caught up. So today will be E and F.

Today I'm going to kill two birds with one stone by using two words for the same idea. (Hahaha!)

I am currently reading the book The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany. In it, the people of the Vale of Erl desire to have a magic lord to make their lives more interesting. So the old lord of Erl sends his son, Alveric, into Elfland to marry the King of Elfland's Daughter. The story so far seems to me less about the characters and more about the relationship between the "Fields We Know", as Dunsany calls the mundane world where the Vale of Erl is, and the magical realm of Elfland. The story strongly stresses the differences between the two and indeed those differences are the major source of the conflict. The people of the Vale of Erl are drawn to the magic of Elfland and yet have trouble understanding and accepting it.

I don't know how this conflict will play out but I am eager to find out.

One of the pages above talks about Tolkien's brilliant essay On Fairy Stories. In it he talks about the nature of fantasy as rooted in Faerie. Not Fairies, but Faerie, or as Tolkien called it, the Perilous Realm. The place from whence the stories come.

Faërie is a perilous land, and in it are pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold. ... The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords. In that realm a man may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness and strangeness tie the tongue of a traveler who would report them. And while he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates should be shut and the keys be lost. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories

Tolkien goes out of his way not to define Faerie, saying that part of its nature is to be indescribable though not imperceptible. But one thing is for certain: whatever Faerie is, it is other. It is something that is at once wondrous and dangerous, compelling and repulsing, beyond us and yet a part of us. Faerie, or Elfland, is the essence of Fantasy, allowing us to pass beyond the Fields We Know and emerge again different, and hopefully better, people.

Euphoric Eucatastrophe

E is for Eucatastrophe.

Today I am going to talk about another wonderful word invention of J.R.R. Tolkien, the philologist. Eucatastrophe is a storytelling device that he identified as a fundamental part of the Fairy Story and thus also as part of Fantasy as its successor. It is essentially a joyous catastrophe, a major reversal at the climax of the story which leads to a happy ending rather than a tragedy. It gives to the reader a euphoric feeling of release and relief and, again, joy. The Eucatastrophe is all about joy.

Far more powerful and poignant is the effect in a serious tale of Faerie. In such stories, when the sudden turn comes, we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and heart's desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, and lets a gleam come through. ~J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories

The fantasy genre, as the literary heir to the Fairy Story, is, I think, the best place to find such sudden joy. Life rarely offers this to us, and most other genres are meant to be more true to life than fantasy. Because in fantasy it is possible to raise the stakes far higher than any other genre, the resulting reversal and happy ending can be all the more powerful.

Think of the reversal in The Lord of the Rings, when the ragged armies of Rohan and Gondor stand outside the gates of Mordor prepared to give their lives to protect the Free People of Middle-earth... and then the sudden reversal. The thing we have been waiting for has come to pass. The Ring has been destroyed and the tower of Barad Dur is toppled. The armies of Sauron flee in fear, for the Men of Rohan and Gondor have gained renewed strength from this Eucatastrophe.

Think of Harry Potter. (Spoilers ahead if you haven't read it.) Hogwarts is under seige, all of Harry's friends and loved ones about to be destroyed by an army of Death Eaters. All he has to do to save them is surrender his life. Harry dies at the Dark Lord's hand. But then... the joyous reversal. Harry's sacrifice not only allows him to return, but gives protection to everyone he is fighting for. Voldemort, who fled from death, can no longer stand against him who was willing to die for love.

The Eucatastrophe lends tremendous emotional power to stories that employ it. It gives joy in the face of destruction and hope in the face of tragedy.

A Study of Fantasy: Beginnings lead to Phantastes

Hey, remember waaaaay back when I posted about doing an in depth reading study of the modern fantasy genre from its beginnings until today? I haven't forgotten, promise. I'm still doing it. Why is it taking me so long?

One word: Phantastes.

Now when I sat down to read up on the history of modern fantasy, I wasn't exactly sure where to begin. Fantasy author, editor and critic Lin Carter, who wrote the book Imaginary Worlds, seemed to think it didn't properly start until William Morris. The History of Fantasy wikipedia (that fount of all knowledge) page included such stories as "A Christmas Carol", "Alice in Wonderland" and practically everything Hans Christian Andersen wrote as the beginnings of fantasy in the modern era. But I was looking for the beginning of fantasy as a recognizable new genre which I don't think those stories do. A Christmas Carol as supernatural elements, true, but I don't believe it is the supernatural that makes fantasy. Alice in Wonderland takes Alice to a fabulous imaginary world full of wonder, but doesn't treat Wonderland like a real place. Hans Christian Andersen, as wonderful as his works are, is clearly writing modern fairy tales, which I maintain is different than fantasy even if subtly so.

Wikipedia also recommended John Ruskin's The King of the Golden River, which I did read. (It wasn't hard, being quite a thin volume.) But this too seemed to follow the fairy tale conventions too closely to be true modern fantasy. Also there was Sara Coleridge's Phatasmion which in 1837 was described as "the first fairytale novel written in English". Definitely intriguing. But I bypassed it for one simple reason: it was very difficult to find. Not online. Online you can find it right here (and I'll probably read it one day) but I don't really like to sit around reading novels off my computer. I wanted it either in book form or on my kindle. So Phantasmion will have to stay on the back burner for a while.

Then there was George MacDonald. Lin Carter obviously considered him a pre-modern fantasy genre writer, a writer of modern fairy tales. However, I decided to start with him for one strong reason: his work was, by the admition of the authors and popular consensus, a huge influence on J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, two of the most influential fantasy authors of the 20th century. MacDonald's book Phantastes had the advantage, as well, of being widely considered as the first book of its kind written for adults. So in the end I decided to start my study there.

Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women
by George MacDonald

I'll come right out and say it: this was a hard book to read, and I'm no slouch about reading literature from other centuries. Language wise it's not difficult as some books this old are, and I actually highlighted quite a few quotes from the story in my kindle. It's told in first person point of view and the entirety of the story is about the main character's wanderings through fairy land.

It begins on the main character's 21st birthday, when he comes into possession of his late father's desk. He opens it up with a key and in a little nook he finds a small fairy lady. (Seriously.) This fairy, who is apparently his grandmother according to wikipedia's plot summary though I didn't get that from the text myself, helpfully(?) transports him to fairy land and he spends the rest of the novel wandering around there. 

The problem with the story is that this is about all you can say for any sort of coherent plot. The rest is incredibly episodic, doesn't have any sort of internal consistency and no driving force or goal. Though there are certain recurring elements. Anodos, the protagonist, finds a marble statue and sings it to life but then she runs off through fairy land and he spends a good part of his time trying to find her again. He has an encounter with his shadow which proceeds to follow him through fairy land and though this shadow is portrayed as a sinister force it is not clear exactly what threat it poses to Anodos. There is also a knight in rusted armor who is apparently Sir Percival but again I missed that in the text. Anodos meets the knight a few times during his wanderings, is saved by him from a malevolent force, finds out that the knight is the one his marble lady truly loves, and ultimately becomes his squire. 

At one point Anodos finds himself in a fairy castle which has no other visible inhabitants. And it is during this interlude that he decides to, and I'm not even exaggerating this, completely recount for his readers a book that Anodos reads in the library of the castle. This story of a man named Cosmo and his magical mirror (Seriously.) is somewhat more interesting that Anodos' adventures, which at this point isn't hard. Eventually Anodos finds that his marble lady has once again become a statue in the castle and he manages to free her with his singing a second time but she runs off again. The most interesting episode of Anodos' wanderings, in my opinion, was hen he randomly encounters two princes who be befriends and joins in their quest to slay three ravaging giants. The two princes are killed in the process however and Anodos ends up wandering again. Then he is captured in a tower by his shadow for no discernible reason and then freed for no discernible reason by the rusty knight. 

While serving the knight Anodos sacrifices his life for no discernible reason and dies, lingering in the realm of fairy land in a state of perfect bliss for a little while and uttering some of the creepiest lines ever written. 

"Ah! my friends," thought I, "how I will tend you, and wait upon you, and haunt you with my love."

Eventually, though, he wakes up in the real world, 21 days having passed and goes back to his life, wiser for the experience.

Needless to say, I found the lack of direction in the plot very tedious, which is why it took me FOREVER to finish reading this book. In hindsight (and after you get to the ending where he's... floating around as some sort of blessed dead waxing eloquent it's much more obvious) that this book really isn't a fairy story, it's more of an allegory of spiritual truth. I get the feeling that if I went back and reread it with this in mind, instead of taking it at face value as a story, I would enjoy it more. The prose is often very beautiful and MacDonald puts some very insightful words into his character's mouth. I've found myself highlighting (such a great kindle feature) many passages in this book.

But is it not rather that art rescues nature from the weary and sated regards of our senses, and the degrading injustice of our anxious everyday life, and, appealing to the imagination, which dwells apart, reveals Nature in some degree as she really is, and as she represents herself to the eye of the child, whose every-day life, fearless and unambitious, meets the true import of the wonder-teeming world around him, and rejoices therein without questioning?

As in all sweetest music, a tinge of sadness was in every note. Nor do we know how much of the pleasures even of life we owe to the intermingled sorrows. Joy cannot unfold the deepest truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy. Cometh white-robed Sorrow, stooping and wan, and flingeth wide the doors she may not enter. Almost we linger with Sorrow for very love.

The first I knew the delight of being lowly; of saying to myself, "I am what I am, nothing more."

I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of his manhood.

In the end I'm glad I read it. It made me realize that the "person finds a secret way from our world into another world" isn't a cliche of the fantasy genre invented for wish fulfillment. It's a direct descendant of the ancient myths and legends where men and women often get taken or go willingly into the Otherworld, the realm of the faerie. This seems so obvious in hindsight, especially since I have read many, many such myths and legends from Celtic tradition, but I honestly had not thought about it from that angle before. As much as I love Narnia (one of the great achievements in fantasy in the 20th century) I was getting a bit fed up with that kind of story, the "portal story" as it's called. But now I think this is rather a problem with some modern versions of the portal story and not with the motif itself. Particularly fantasies where the relationship between our world and the imaginary world is unclear, comprising an incomplete cosmology.

My conclusion is that Phantastes is rather dry as a fantasy novel, but well worth at least one reading, especially if one knows what one's getting into. It's an important stepping stone in the transition between fairy tale and modern fantasy.

Next time: The Wood Beyond the World by William Morris

Also, check in tomorrow for my second installment of the Rule of Three Blogfest story.

Hone Your Skills Blogfest

So, in hindsight, it probably wasn't a good idea to sign up for three blogfests threes days in a row. However, I did want to do this one to challenge myself. Boy, have I been challenged. The goal was to write a 750-1000 word short story and post it for critique. And, I must confess, I don't actually have an entry ready at the moment. I started out pretty well, I think, but have been totally stuck as to how to develop and resolve the initial situation I created in so few words. I am a loquacious person. This was my very first short story attempt. I've failed miserably.

But instead of just saying "Sorry, guys, I've got nothing" I figured I would post my beginning (only 258 words) and look for some advice from more experienced short story writer as to how to continue it without making it either too complicated and long or too simple and unsatisfying. Hopefully I can still learn something from this experience and improve for the future.

Let me begin by stating that my first goal was to write a story with the feel of myth and fairy tale and my second goal was to write about an enchanted forest and the discovery of how its enchantment works. But I've been having trouble coming up with ideas I like for the last part so I just stalled. Anyway, here it is, complete without even a working title. (Sigh.)

The Forest of Liashyl was known, in the tradition of the people of the little village of Fantl, as a place of both evil and enchantment. There were times when those who ventured beneath the forest’s trees returned with faces shining and lived blessed lives ever after. There were other times when the trees were wroth and tragedy befell the villagers. Now a child was dead and as his mother’s keening wail rose on the morning wind, the villagers new another time of evil was at hand.
    The child’s father walked away from the funeral gathering toward the forest. He stood at the threshold letting his anger wash over him, feeling it war with the hatred of the trees, but afraid to go farther. The sun was sinking below the distant mountains when a voice, thin and strange, rose from the darkness of the wood.
    “Vaters, Vaters, what do you fear?” the voice asked. “Do you fear a few stunted trees? They are not your enemy. Come inside and meet the real power that controls your destiny.”
    “What kind of power would steal the soul of a child? There is nothing but evil here and I will not be claimed by it,” Vaters answered, his voice a bitter whisper. Mocking laughter floated on the air as the wind rose around the distraught father. Vaters clenched his woolen cap in his hands and tried to hold his ground, but the wind was stronger than he. It swept his feet from the ground and pushed him, stumbling, into the trees.

So any advice, suggestions, ideas? I could use anything, really. I'd still like to finish it. Thanks in advance. 

Mythopoeia

J.R.R. Tolkien was a genius.

I know, I know. It's not "cool" nowadays to be unequivocally enthusiastic in one's admiration for anyone or anything. But I can't help it. I am a total Tolkien fangirl and I unabashedly love everything he wrote. And I'm not just talking about his absolutely brilliant stories. Tolkien was, of course, a tremendous scholar not just of language but of literature.

Tolkien coined a few new terms related to storytelling. The term "sub-creation" refers to the creation of a secondary world with its own rules and laws. The term "eucatrastrophe" is, in Tolkien's words, "the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears" (from On Fairy Stories). Tolkien felt this mechanism was the "highest function" of fairy stories. I had read and been familiar with these two terms before. But I finally came upon a third yesterday.

Mythopoeia. Literally, myth-making.

Tolkien used the term to describe what he did, crafting a mythology that draws from and uses the essential elements and truths found in real world mythologies and legends. It is meant to illuminate those fundamentals of our real world mythologies by exploring them in a created setting, a secondary world. The word has now come to be used to describe the genre of writers who attempt this feat.

And I, who have been wandering lost and confused amidst the modern fantasy genre, repulsed by much that I see, and wondering if this modern fantasy is truly what I am writing and if it is truly what I want to write, have seen the light of day. The answer is no, I am not a modern fantasy writer. Tolkien described what I want to do. My goal is mythopoeic sub-creation. I am writing mythopoeia, not fantasy.

Thank you, Tolkien, for having just the right words.

I found and read Tolkien's poem called Mythopoeia and, as usual, was amazed by Tolkien's genius with words. Tolkien was apparently responding to C.S. Lewis who felt that myths were lies and therefore useless even though "breathed through silver". Tolkien's return argument is indisputably elegant and lovely. Here's an excerpt from the poem, which I found online here:

Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme
of things not found within recorded time.
It is not they that have forgot the Night,
or bid us flee to organized delight,
in lotus-isles of economic bliss
forswearing souls to gain a Circe-kiss
(and counterfeit at that, machine-produced,
bogus seduction of the twice-seduced).
Such isles they saw afar, and ones more fair,
and those that hear them yet may yet beware.
They have seen Death and ultimate defeat,
and yet they would not in despair retreat,
but oft to victory have tuned the lyre
and kindled hearts with legendary fire,
illuminating Now and dark Hath-been
with light of suns as yet by no man seen.

I would that I might with the minstrels sing
and stir the unseen with a throbbing string.
I would be with the mariners of the deep
that cut their slender planks on mountains steep
and voyage upon a vague and wandering quest,
for some have passed beyond the fabled West.
I would with the beleaguered fools be told,
that keep an inner fastness where their gold,
impure and scanty, yet they loyally bring
to mint in image blurred of distant king,
or in fantastic banners weave the sheen
heraldic emblems of a lord unseen.

"Blessed are the legend makers"! Yes, sign me up for that! I think there is something fundamentally missing from much modern fantasy and I think it's tied to the loss of the genre's roots as myth and fairy tale and legend. I'll talk more about that in another post, but for now I am heartened and enthusiastic about digging back into those roots myself. And perhaps one day being an influence for bringing the genre back to its vibrant traditions. I love myth and fairy tale and legend and I think most fantasy readers do as well. I think there is a thirst for more offerings that draw from that tradition and that take on the task of mythopoeic sub-creation. I don't know if I'm up to the challenge, but I'm going to do my best.