There and back again

Fairies: the true and the untrue

2019-12-15T21:04:47Z

I’ve been doing research reading on fairies the last couple of weeks for the current WIP. I admit that watching Hellier Season 2 (now available, along with season 1, for free on YouTube and hellier.tv) has inspired me even more, although this post is only tangentially about Hellier. What I say below, certainly, can’t be applied to the Hellier experience, but I can’t help seeing parallels between Faery and aliens. I am far from the first to see these parallels. My first exposure to this idea was in Passport to Magonia by Jacques Vallee back in the 70s. Hellier moves in the same dreamlike terrain, weaving through the twilight world of UFO contactees, abductees, and experiencers, as well as many other strange and wonderful things.

In folklore, things with the fairies (a term you can take throughout this post to apply equally to aliens, goblins, and trickster characters of your choice) can be both true and untrue simultaneously. They can be the human dead, and not the human dead; of this world and not; sinister and friendly. The bodies of humans can remain where they are—in trance or dreams or a death-like state—and their souls can still be off traveling with the fae.

Which, if you think about it, adds a whole ‘nother dimension to the true/not true stories of alien contactees: both the current crop of “alien abductees,”* I believe, and the old-fashioned contactee stories of people like Woodrow Derenberger (he of Mothman/Indrid Cold fame) and George Adamski (who claimed to have flown to the Moon and other planets with Nordic aliens). When you combine that true/untrue with the notion held in folklore that fairies often favor humans who transgress human laws and play fast and loose with human truth, it brings even deeper dimension to these accounts.

However, there are two things that the fairies of folklore will not tolerate: people who lie to them, and those who tell too many of their secrets. So a mortal may find great favor with them—may even, one supposes fly with them to Lanulos or the Moon or be shown great secrets and marvels—but the second they transgress those fairy rules, they will be punished. Perhaps the golden medals they received will turn to cheap tin knock-offs; perhaps their lives will become a horrorshow of hounding by the press or (maybe even worse) true believers; perhaps every transgression or tall tale or prejudice or human fallacy will be laid bare before the public and ridiculed. Whom the fairies elevate, they can also cast down without mercy.

Which may explain why so many of these contactees become labeled as hoaxers and con men and end badly. They get so caught up in their stories that they can’t resist spinning them out and out and out into the world, and they forget the basic nature of these experiences and of Faery: that they are the truth that is a lie and lies that are true. Only walking the middle path leads to any chance of survival. And it’s so damned easy to wander off the path.

*ETA: I didn't mean to imply that people reporting alien abductions are either fakers or liars. There seems to be something genuine going on there, and sincere belief on the part of most of the experiencers, but at this point it's difficult to know precisely what's going on except to say it's tricksterish in nature.

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Down Portalville Way – Pictographs

2017-06-26T19:58:07Z

Let me Thread you a story…(1-24)
Rikiki Rocks, just outside town in the Rokoko Valley, is a special place.
The stones there have all kinds of fantastical shapes. There’s Old Man Mammoth, a massive piece of elephantine-shaped granite.
And Donut Rock, a modern name for a big circular thing with a hole in the middle. Local tradition says if a woman wishes to conceive,
she should pass through the hole in that rock under the light of the full moon. That’s why it’s also known as Mother Rock.
There’s many another fanciful shape with fanciful traditions, and I could spend days describing them all. Maybe I will someday.
But one thing to know about Rikiki Rocks is that sometime in the way back when somebody carved pictographs on ‘em.
These pictures show warriors, hunters, shamans, prey animals and such like. Some have red ochre added to the grooves.
Folks do say as how these rocks are sacred to the local Kintache Indians. Yaku Ravenwing, the Kintache story shaman, agrees.
Yaku’s legal name is Arturo, but nobody ever calls him that. Yaku means “blue tongue” in Kintache and he really can talk a blue streak.
One time when he was storytelling at a Kintache powwow, some folks swore they saw blue flames sprouting from his mouth.
Like any good narrator, Yaku swears his stories are mostly true so when he says Rikiki Rocks are not to be messed with, people listen.
No one in Portalville would ever desecrate them, but we do get the occasional drive-by tourist that can’t help themselves.
Yaku tells about two such good ol’ boys driving through from Talladega on their way to California.
They took a rest break at Daisy Mae’s Snack-a-Round out on Route 40. She had a picture of Rikiki Rocks behind the bar.
These boys asked about ‘em and Daisy Mae all innocently said how proud people were of ’em in these parts.
Well, you know, the devil is in some folks, and that ain’t no lie, no matter what else may be a story, no matter what else you believe.
These boys got a notion to go out to those rocks and add their names to ‘em. Stopped by Pedergreen’s Hardware for spray paint & chisels.
Way Yaku tells it, when they got to the rocks weren’t another human around ‘cept the hunters, shamans & warriors on the pictographs.
Guess they didn’t notice the sasquatch taking a rest beside The Bigtoes, some Rikikis shaped like 5 giant toes sticking out of the sand.
Sasquatch don’t usually get involved in human affairs, but those rocks is sacred to them, too. Yaku says Sasquatch took care of things.
Sheriff Limonada found the boys’ car abandoned near the Rikikis but didn’t never find a trace of them boys.
So I asked Yaku how he knew the sasquatch took care of them boys if nobody else was around?
He just grinned his big ol’ grin. “Sasquatch told me, of course.” Weren’t but a trace of blue flame & smoke on his lips when he said it.

This tale can also be found on Twitter @downportalville.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

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Down Portalville Way: The Blob

2017-06-07T19:07:30Z

Let me Thread you a story… (1-11)
A big orange blob parked itself in the town square. Just appeared overnight and plugged up the fountain something fierce.
Trapper Bruce poked it with a stick & it blatted something that sounded like “Sad!” then barfed chicken fat out of one of its orifices.
Sheriff Limonada suggested taking a flamethrower to it, but nobody had one of those, so a mob with torches formed up.
I don’t really hold with mobs carrying torches myself as many an innocent creature has been declared a monster by them.
But this blob gave off a foul odor of corruption & kept getting bigger, spreading all over the fountain and the park benches around it.
It exploded soon as the first torch hit it. Guess it wasn’t much more than a giant gasbag filled with grease. Burned real good.
The fountain ain’t never going to be the same, though. The nymphs who frequented it have been debauched & are quite traumatized.
They had to go to Aunt Cozy’s Soothin’ Shack for some deep soothin’. Don’t know if they’ll ever return to the fountain.
Only one happy about the situation was Natty Knowles who owns Spic n’ Span Like It Never Happened Cleaning Service.
One of his biggest jobs in recent memory. I hope we’re all done with explosive orange blobs.

These tales can also be found on Twitter: @downportalville

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

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