Genghis Khan's Guide To Fairies

Politics of Blood and Spirit Worlds
(About Genghis Khan)

           

Nations rise and legacies fall into despair quickly on the Steppes where wealth can be obtained which is so great, even the greatest Kings of Europe and China couldn’t dream of possessing it. Then with death it all slips away.  Within her short life Genghis Khans mother was the Queen of two different Kingdoms which collapsed, as well as a refugee, a kidnapped outsider forced to be the wife of a man who had been her enemy, and then at last Queen Mother of the largest land empire the world has ever seen, a legacy that would also vanish quickly after her sons death.

Genghis Khan's father was poisoned when he was just twelve, but he still demanded the right to rule his clan. Not wanting to be ruled by a twelve year old, the clan abandoned his family alone on the steppes, in a world where their was no real separation between the human and the spirit worlds.

Every morning when he awoke, he likely would have greeted his fire, for the spirit of the fire was important to his survival as a protector of children and families.

An ancient Greek historian said that the people of the Steppes primary deity was the goddess of the hearth, and it's possible it was, or at least that it looked that way. The spirit of the hearth and fire were extremely important to the people's of Mongolia.

The Tuvan's believed that the spirti of the fire brought fortune and luck to the family, happiness and safety to the children, and even kept the livestock growing (Very important for people whose livelihood comes from their livestock). Each hearth had a different animal devoted to it, and the spirit of the fire in that household was described in terms of that animals. If people offended them by swearing, fighting constantly, etc. than they could grow sick, or sometimes even dangerous. Among the Yakut the bride would offer the spirit of the hearth food when she first came to the home in order to honor it.

Still hungry he would step out onto the windswept steppes to hunt for small game with his brothers. As they traveled they might pass a pile of stones. Knowing that the spirit inside it ruled the land they were walking through they might offer it a bit of cloth or some food, when they had it, being desperate however, the best they could do was put another stone on the pile and bargain with the spirit, promising it more if they had success while hunting.

Here Ovoo's dotted the land, and within these piles of rocks lived the spirits who ruled the land around them. As people passed these ovoo they would leave offerings, alcohol, strips of cloth, money, food, etc. For without doing so one couldn't pass through the spirit of the ovoo's territory. 

An Ovoo

It's interesting to note that there was a similar tradition in ancient Greece. Here rock piles contained the spirit of Hermes. A mischievous being, who was both loved and feared in early Greece, as was the ovoo. he was also a protector of travelers and herd animals, like the ovoo. 

Gazriin Ezen  are the spirits owners of specific places in Mongolian lore. They can dwell in mountains, water, rocks, villages, buildings, nations, trees, etc. Many of them were once the souls of humans who went to reside in nature on the persons death. Others were the souls of shamans who had died. Often it's been so long since these spirits were human that they don't remember having ever been so. Ceremonies would be held to honor the most powerful of these, which could send wolves to gather people's horses or other herd animals if it felt it wanted more. There's a tale about a spirit of the land growing offended when a man tries to stop these wolves, but the man makes his own case, so there was a push and pull between humans and wilderness in fairy tales. 

As he walked into the trees to find game animals, he might have passed little statues which housed the spirits of great shamans.

Ongon were shamans helper spirits, who were sometimes the spirits of previous shamans who had died and come back to continue to help humanity. They dwelt within consecrated idols which were placed in a place of honor in the home or in the wilderness, most often in places at the border between the taiga and the steppe, or at the mouths of rivers.

Once in the forest he would also have to leave an offering for the spirit of the woods, tying a strip of cloth to a large tree or praying to the spirit of a powerful predator. For the spirit owners of the land were both kind and dangerous. In a heartbeat a hunter might vanish on the steppes, never to be heard from again. While he was out hunting, Genghis Khan might have stumbled upon abandoned Yurts, empty villages whose people had disappeared without a trace. For in addition to the spirit owners of the land, many other hungry monsters roamed the wilderness.

In Yakut Lore Al Lukh Mas Are the spirits of large trees. Such spirits of the forests were very important and were given coins, scarves and ribbons in order to bring luck and avoid their wrath.

The Anda Bars was a tiger spirit to whom the Buryat would pray in order to be successful at hunting.

Good and evil aren't as important as purity in this world, as avoiding offence, not sin determined if you would survive or not. Indeed, when a crime was committed the clan of the victim and the clan of the criminal would get together with arbitrators. The goal of these meetings wasn't justice, rather it was to work out an arrangement in which there would be no hard feelings.

At the same time, however, revenge killings were important. Fearing that Genghis Khan would take revenge for having been banished, his enemies sent a small army to kill him when he was still a boy. He had to hide in a thicket of trees for days before killing one of the people searching for him and making his escape.

Perhaps Genghis Khan and his mother's experience altered his thinking with regards to laws. as while he  burnt hundreds of cities to the ground, was responsible for the death of millions of people. On the other hand he had laws against raping a woman during a time of war, or killing children.

Despite all the dangers, perhaps the most important thing you can understand about the deities and spirits of the steppes is that they cared about people, a lot. Some of the more cruel ones saw people's souls as food, and would snatch these away as they passed. This caused a person to grow sick and die. The gods seeing this suffering sent spirits to teach people to become shamans. These spirits would help the shaman's soul leave their body and enter the spirit world to retrieve the souls of those who were sick.

One of the spirits of the Yakut people that takes human souls is the Abaasy, which are one eyed, one armed, one legged monsters of the underworld. They ride two headed dragons, and can at times be the unclean dead, dwelling near graveyards. They served Arson Doulai the rulers of the dead

Among the Tuvan there were spirits called Albys which would make a rustling sound as they flew. They would act as spies for the shaman in the spirit world, in order to discover the causes of illness and misfortune. 

You can see more spirits of Mongolia and Siberia here.

 

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Review of webcomic "Bird Boy"

Engaging with "Bird Boy" gives me an intense feeling of nostalgia. As a boy I loved creeping about places I wasn't supposed to be. Under old schools, out at old graves on the distant tundra. I always imagined discovering the world of spirits, of gods I heard so many stories about. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately  I never got to live in the world of Bird Boy, 

A world filled with spirits and ancient gods, that he must now navigate, alone. Because he's alone through most of the story, there isn't a lot of dialogue in "Bird Boy," instead this comic tells the story of a boys journey through one of the most beautifully depicted spirit worlds I've seen through a series of engaging images. 

Images which like these ones help you to feel the story, the cold of winter, the determination, and often confusion of the tiny protagonist, who bites off more than he can chew when he tries to prove himself to his clan. After discovering a magical sword, he gets swept into a world of ancient gods and spirits, as the burden of protecting the magical sword has now fallen to him.

This is wonderful story, so far, my only real complaint with the artist is that their store doesn't include any "Bird Boy" t-shirts... Sniff, sniff.

Read "Bird Boy"

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Overwatch Trailer and Artists

The art and the animation for Overwatch is just plain beautiful, with this game showing one of my favorite aspects about Blizzard, which is that they create beautifully stylized art, instead of trying to be realistic like many games do.

Overwatch itself seems to be a piece of the MMO Blizzard had been working on called Titan. The challenge with MMO's is that they cost a lot of money because they are so much bigger than typical games. Which is why I think that many games, namely "Secret World," and the now failed "Kingdoms of Amalur" would have benefited if they had focused initially on creating smaller games, rather than going all in.

One of Blizzard's VPs recently spoke on this;

"I'm not going to get into what [Titan] was going to be or what we wanted it to be. I can tell you what it was, in a way, it was frustrating. It was a big, giant idea; it was almost like six video games in one. It was the most ambitious game ever. It was fun to try to tackle it, and boy did we tackle it. We wrestled with it for a long time. And it sucked; we couldn't figure it out. It makes you just [clenches his fist], we couldn't crack it.

"Imagine this amazing team just frustrated. 'Why can't we do this?' It's trying to fret a chord and write the song. 'We can't write the song, why can't it just sound awesome?' Can't find the harmony, whatever. And when we decided to go another way, like Jeff was saying, we've got this hook, 'Why aren't we doing that? We love that.' And we decided to do it and, suddenly, 'Boom!' The music just exploded. And we started looking at [Overwatch] for what it was, and it unleashed this tidal wave of passion and certainty and distilled, clear ideas. And this world idea. It was just this monstrous thing of energy.

Disney discovered when making "Snow White" that even though the movie was only 10 times longer than a short it ended up costing 40 times as much and took exponentially longer to make as well. The larger you try to make something the more difficult it becomes.

Artistically the goal should never be to make something giant, the goal should always be to make something great. Typically when this is done the great business comes. Just as Pixar decided early on that they wouldn't worry about making toys, or profitability, just making great stories, which paid off big time.

This isn't to say that audacious goals shouldn't be tried, just that perhaps greater caution should be exercised before hundreds of millions are spent.
There are clear differences, between them and making computer games, of course, however, the point still stands that sometimes something great has to be established before a company can worry about moving on to MMOs.

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Minion Movie Story Creators

I've said it before, what matters most are the story tellers behind the film, because if you have a funny story people will even accept yellow leading characters who can't talk. And as always if you want to understand sotry art it could be a good idea to look over the blogs of some of the best.

Christophe Lourdelet
Has been in the game for a long time, beginning with stories like "Balto." And his art has a nostalgic, vintage humor about it.

Didier Ah Koon

Guillaume Fesquet 

From visual development on "The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water" to work on "Frozen" Guillaume has had an interesting career.

Ian Abando

And the Director offers an animation Master Class.

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Scary fairy tales

At this time of year it's nice to take a moment and remember why our ancestors were so afraid of the long dark nights. For now is the time that the spirit world, the world of ghosts, forgotten gods, and fairies overlaps with ours, and it's important to remember why that's so horrifying.

Fear and revolution are a big part of what makes us human, which is why people have told horror stories, which we now call fairy tales, for tens of thousands of years. Unfortunately, we often miss this horror in the modern day, when fear is so often a thing of the past and the tales that were once told in the dark around a crackling fire are instead read as whimsical children's stories. But the darkness still lingers in these tales, waiting for you to crack them open and remake them into the

macabre tales they once were. 

The best thing you can do to gain inspiration from fairy tales is to read them a little differently, searching for the darkness at their heart, drawing on them for inspiration to startel, shock, and above all, give that tingling sense of fear that your readers are seeking from horror.

Think, for example, about changeling stories, in which the fairies replace a child with a fairy. In one, a mother goes out to fetch some water and when she returns: 

"She opened the door and felt at once that something terrible had happened. The fire had gone out. The cat's back was bristling. She hastened to the cradle where, instead of seeing her babies round and rosy face, she beheld a hideous dwarf with a dark and spotted face. He had a huge and gaping mouth; his hands and feet were evil, threatening, jagged claws. 

"Merciful heavens!" she cried in fear. "Who, are you? What have you done with my blessed child?"

The dwarf answered never a word, but grinned a wicked grin."

Fairies are often blood thirsty, so in place of this woman’s beautiful child something is left which could very well be evil; something which might drink her blood in the night, murder her neighbors, bring death and plague. Yet, these mothers can't ever be completely certain that the changeling isn't their baby, they just have a feeling, a sense that something is very, very wrong. The way the child screams, the way it grins, its cold calculating eyes, all scare her; but what can she do? She is trapped, treating the child like her own even though she is now terrified of it. 

Fairyland is filled with rivers of blood, with fields of corpses, with people who eat human flesh without knowing it, for it’s common in fairy tales for the wicked to share human flesh with the unsuspecting. In “The Juniper Tree” the wicked step-mother of a boy cuts off his head, then cooks him and serves him to his unsuspecting father who smacks his lips with pleasure at the unexpectedly tasty meat.

In this article I include just a few of the many scary fairy tales, but if you want more, please ask...

A Party With Vampires

Once in a poor village the boys and girls would hold their parties in abandoned houses. Here they would sing so loudly and have so much fun you could hear them clear on the other side of the village. They danced about, and the boys did tricks to impress the girls, and soon they were all shaking with laughter.

Late one night when they were partying, three unknown young men came through the door.

"Good evening," everyone greeted happily inviting them to join the general merriment. As the strangers began to dance one of the girls dropped a spindle. It rolled across the crowded dance floor and right under the feet of one of the strangers. When she bent to pick it up she noticed that the boys had hooves instead of feet (according to another version, she saw their tails).

Her heart began to race, he throat went dry, their mystery guests were vampires. 

Carefully she whispered of her discovery to her friends, warning them each of the danger, and one by one the people began to slip away from the party to flee, but they forgot one girl who was napping behind the stove.

When they realized that she was missing the next day the girls and boys went to the empty home. As they approached, they saw her smiling face in the window and so breathed a sigh of relief. 

The girl's all ran forward, happy to see that their friend was alright, but when they got into the house they started shrieking in horror. The vampires had sliced the girls face into a permanent smile, before placing her head on a stake by the window. The ceiling and walls were decorated with her guts and flesh.

The End

The nightmare creatures in fairy tales enjoyed tormenting people, the way a sadist or serial killer now craves the suffering of others. Yet despite this some people actually fell in love with these weird twisted creatures that would come in the night to cause them nightmares. So while the next tale is more weird than creepy, I like it because it reminds us of a type of witch and werewolf that we often forget, those who astrally projected souls from their haunt humanity. Also, it's important to keep in mind that the witch in this tale is causing nightmares because she enjoys suffering, or because she is forced to do so by something darker still...

The Man Who Married his Nightmare

There was once a young fellow who was ridden by "Marre " every night, and although he sprinkled flax-seed outside the door, and placed his shoes the wrong way before his bed, it was all of no avail, and he was at a loss what to do. 

He asked a wise woman for advice, who at once said that she knew what would help him. "When you go home," she said, " you must stop up all holes and chinks that there are in your room; the keyholes and windows must also be made fast. When that is done, you must bore a little hole in the door, and cut a pin to fit it exactly; this hole you must leave open to-night, but as soon as Marre has come in by it, spring to it and put in the pin, then she is in your power." 

The man did as the woman told him. During the night the Marre came in by the hole, which he immediately stopped up, to her great alarm. She went round about from keyhole to window, and made herself both small and thin to get out, but every place was closed fast, so that she could not get out, however many tricks she tried. When she saw that all her trouble was in vain, she besought him to take the little pin out of the door, and let her go as she had come, and she would never come again. Meanwhile he had been standing looking at her, and saw that she was a pretty girl, so he would not let her go in that way, but asked if she would be his sweetheart, and everything would be all right. "Yes," said she, "if you will really marry me, the mischief is over; let me out now like any other person." She was a girl from the next village, and when he knew that, he let her out at the door. Shortly after they had their wedding... and while in this version of the fairy tale she gave up her ways, most witches could not... oh no, the evil being which they worked with would not allow it. One witch tried to stop and the evil spirits surrounded her and beat her, kicked her, tortured her until her mind cracked and they could once more force her to do evil. One man had himself locked away so that he would starve to death and not have to do evil any longer, as dying was his only way out... though dead witches usually became vampires so perhaps even death isn't a release.

The End

Like I said, the nightmare tale was weird. Astral projection played an important part of European folk belief, there were  many vampires (not all) which were astrally projecting spirits from their corpses, and werewolves which were astral projects, and of course witches. Indeed many of the Swan and Heavenly maidens which men forced to marry them in fairy tales were likely astral projects as well. It's not always clear, however, when this is the case, but the stories about men marrying nightmares makes this fairly clear, for if the witches soul didn't return to her body she would die. In another similar German tale the witch was actually from England and ultimately escaped the man

The Devil and His Dandy-Dogs (Cornwall) 

A poor herdsman was journeying homeward across the moors one windy night, when he heard at a distance among the tors the baying of hounds, which he soon recognised as the dismal chorus of the dandy-dogs. It was three or four miles to his home; and, very much alarmed, he hurried onward as fast as the treacherous nature of the soil and the uncertainty of the path would allow; but, alas! the melancholy yelping of the hounds, and the dismal halloa of the hunter came nearer and nearer. After a considerable run, they had so gained upon him, that on looking back -- oh, horror! -- he could distinctly see hunter and dogs. The former was terrible to look at, and had the usual complement of saucer-eyes, horns, and tail accorded by common consent to the legendary devil. He was black, of course, and carried in his hand a long hunting-pole. The dogs, a numerous pack, blackened the small patch of moor that was visible; each snorting fire, and uttering a yelp of an indescribably frightful tone. No cottage, rock, or tree was near to give the herdsman shelter, and nothing apparently remained to him but to abandon himself to their fury, when a happy thought suddenly flashed upon him, and suggested a resource. Just as they were about to rush upon him, he fell on his knees in prayer. There was strange power in the holy words he uttered; for immediately, as if resistance had been offered, the hell hounds stood at bay, howling more dismally than ever ; and the hunter shouted "Bo shrove!" "which," says my informant, "means, in the old language, the boy prays." At which they all drew off on some other pursuit, and disappeared.

The End

The world was a horrifying place where death, poverty, illness, and even sorrow were all 'living' beings. They were vampires, fairies, witches, fickle gods, and more. In a way this was comforting, because while nearly everyone was killed by the witches and vampires there was hope that one could overcome and defeat these monsters eventually, though sometimes that's a painfully hard row to hoe.

The Fiend

A dark tale about a girl who is tortured by a vampire she unwittingly gets engaged to.

Tamlane

The tale of a girl who must rescue her love form the court of the dead on Halloween.

Buried Moon

The tale of the spirit of the Moon being captured, tortured, and buried alive.

The Hobyahs

The tale of some wicked bogeymen which devour a girls family then carry her off in a bag so that they may torture her further.

Email Address 

The Deceived Vampire

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Concept Art of Big Hero Six

Disney also announced an X-Prize in relation to "Big Hero Six"

Some of the Visual Development Artists of Big Hero

Armand Serrano

Who has previously done some of the beautiful work from "Lilo and Stitch"

Jeremy Spears

Lorelay Bove

Lissa Treiman

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Snow Queen's, Trolls, and Frozen

I loved the beautiful concept art of "Frozen" and as a folklorist I find it fascinating because it shows the continued evolution of stories from one era to the next. Of course, this evolution of stories happens both because our social values change and because people forget the older ideas about fairies and trolls. So my purpose for this article is two fold; first I want to celebrate the wonderful artists who made this beautiful film possible (Check out the book "The Art of Frozen" for more about this), and second I want to share a few interesting facts from fairy lore for those interested in learning them.

Trolls, Trow, and earth spirits.

There were often rock spirits that were extremely emotionally sensitive. In Iceland it was believed that they disliked loud noises, as well as violence and so tended to try to exist in isolation. Those who ended up witnessing violence anyways would change in nature, becoming dangerous poltergeist like spirits. This could also happen if they became too scared, which is why it was illegal to bring ships with dragon heads into port in island, as there were concerns that the rock spirits would be made angry by this. 

They were, however, generally helpful, mostly aiding shepherds and goatherds. Often to do this they would appear to these people in their dreams, as again their sensitivity prevented them from appearing to people directly, people having the power of the evil eye thanks to our greed and malice

The Trows of Orkney were mischievous often grotesque in appearance. Trow too would often take human children, raising them in their own world as they did Christof, though it was rare for these human children to be seen again. .They might also take great musicians and other people they loved away with them, leaving behind an empty body. Within the magical realm of the trow such people would often help those they'd left behind, for example, one girls mother was believed to have been taken this way so she was blessed with beauty and luck by the trow.

The Polish Snow Queen

The Snow Queen of Poland (named Miranda) is a heroic figure who saves the world from the undead when they rise up to conquer it. She appeared on a beautiful green island one day, no one knew from where. Her beauty was so splendid that the city and kingdom grew up around her as people traveled to live under her reign. 

The lord of the underworld Kosciey decided to invade this kingdom. Princess Miranda lead her army against Kosciey and ultimately defeated them by changing him into a lump of ice. Of course Kosciey escaped and plotted a new attack which lead to a long drawn out battle. 

In Japan the Yoki-onna are snow women who would often freeze people to death. Though sometimes they would seek shelter from the storm from humans. Other times they would fall in love with people, but they had to marry the human in secret because if it was revealed what had happened they would be forced to return to the cold. What was forcing them to exist as Yoki-onna is never mentioned so far as I know, and I've read dozens of stories with them.

 

In one story, when a young man who married a Yoki-onna mentions his previous encounter with her she grows furious and yells;

"Could you not keep your mouth shut after you’ve been silent for so long?” She scolded him. “I could kill you now, with a touch of my mouth you would freeze to death your limbs growing stiff. This would be a just punishment for what you have done for you have destroyed not only your luck mine as well. For behold,” she continued her voice assuming a calm tone, “I spared you in that lodge, because I saw you a thriving handsome young man who looked so scared and helpless before me. I felt sorry for you, but not only sorry for I felt the desire to enjoy the happiness of mankind. This is why I didn’t kill you then, for I loved you. Yes I loved you so I approached you in human form; I married you and enjoyed living with you for many wonderful years. Now you choose to destroy that, and I must return to my kingdom. I remember the happiness that I enjoyed here and my poor children which no parent would want to deprive of a father. So you may continue to live. Be a good father and find some way to atone for your present wrongs.”

If anyone has any thoughts on why the Yoki-onna are forced to live in the cold against their will I'd love to hear them.

Blogs of some of the concept artists

Claire Keene

Paul Briggs

Jeff Rango

John Ripa

Victoria Ying

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