How Centaurs Will Make You Rethink Your Villains

Nothing is so wonderful and terrifying as a mountain river. It's beautiful, it provides life for the fields and villages. Yet in a heartbeat it can explored into a flash flood with unparalleled fury. This is the nature of the centaur, a being forever caught between wild fury and a desire to be more. Former gods of the rivers tuned into the enemies of Grecian civilization and symbols of everything that was wrong with the dark ages of Greece.

Yet they are also symbolic of the countryside and everything people trapped in urban environments long for.

The Ancient Greeks once worshiped river gods who appeared as bulls with human faces or horses, and very likely as horses with human bodies, known as centaurs. Of course as time went on this role began to change, yet they were still very often associated with rivers and the sudden potential for violence.

A great example of what Centaurs essentially became comes from the tale of Nessus and Hercules.

In this tale Nessus is forced to flee his home as a result of the battle with the Lapiths, to the river Euenos where he makes his living ferrying people back and forth across the river on his back. Hercules hires him to bring his wife across this river and he becomes enamored with her. While he's trying to rape her she cries out for help and Hercules shoots him with an arrow. As he lays dying he tells Deianeira that his blood will act as a love charm to ensure that Hercules is always faithful. This, however, is a lie as his blood is poisonous and it ultimately leads to Hercules's death.

There is a lot going on in this little blip of a story.

The first part of Nessus's tale is that he was invited to the wedding feast of Pirithous with the Lapiths (humans). At first everything was going smoothly but with the mixture of wine and revelry the centaurs wild nature asserted itself. One of the centaurs attempted to rape the bride and all chaos broke out. The centaurs began raping women and boys, leading to a battle which the centaurs ultimately lost.

Nessus flees from this nightmare and tries to establish himself as a legitimate member of human society once more. He doesn't run off into the wild and live off the land. He doesn't become a bandit. Instead, despite his animal half, despite his wild nature which he seems to be unable to control, he puts himself in a position to work for people, to be with people. Far from trying to pretend that he doesn't have a horse half he embraces it by working as a mount for people.

However, he is still a wild being of nature and so ultimately looses control again and this time it leads to his death.

He is not a straight forward villain, however, Centaurs in general are ambiguous figures, being at once both savage and symbols of the beauty and wonder of the countryside. They are both dangerous and friendly. This fits into R. R. Martin's idea that characters should be both good and evil. As he states about his books; “Like much fantasy, it's concerned with the battle of good versus evil, but where I think I differ from a lot of other fantasists is, in my view, the battle between good and evil is waged every day within the individual human heart.”

Centaurs must struggle with themselves and their own nature, their own conflicting desires. They are forever caught in the period even before the darkest ages of Greece. They are half animal, half wild and savage. Yet at the same time they find themselves trying to survive in a world dominated by humans who are trying to live according to the philosophies of the cities (and who are often failing themselves).

It's easy of course to focus on their failures, on Nessus's last acts of violence and the events that lead to the battle of Lapith. Yet there are successes too. There is a reason to hope, even if it's very slim.

Chiron was very much like a centaur in appearance yet his lineage in mythology is different, so he's not exactly the same as they are. Of course Greek lineage is notorious for the fact that it constantly changed. So it's always possible that Chiron was originally a centaur and I like to think of him as such. Why? Because, it's nice to think that one of the centaurs overcame their violent nature, happily married a nymph, had children, and acted as a doctor and philosopher.

In the end, like centaurs we must perhaps all struggle with a darker nature, with a side of ourselves we don't want to have. We must all live with things we regret doing. This is what makes centaurs so interesting, because unlike most enemies in a fantasy world they might have certain tendencies, tendencies that they struggle with and rarely succeed in overcoming but like us they have a desire to overcome them.

So as a villain tribes of centaurs or individual centaurs tell us something important about human nature and the nature of evil acts. Many evil acts are surrounded by a desire to be more than the sum of one's compulsions. At the same time controlling these compulsions can be next to impossible, driving many to eventually embrace them.

The centaur could also fit within Miyazaki's notion that one can't simply destroy something good or evil, one must learn to accept. This was the moral of his movie "Princess Mononoke" in which both sides were essentially good but they both did wrong things.

So even if your villain isn't a centaur, there is perhaps still something we can learn from them about people who are forever caught between two natures, two worlds.

 

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Concept Art for Feast

To learn more about the artists behind "Feast" check out their blogs

Raymond Persi

And an interesting interview with the director Patrick Osborne.

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3 Fairy Tales that Witches Should Know

Article by Ty Hulse

In a Saami tale, Akanidi, the daughter of the Sun, was flying through the heavens one day looking down on the Earth below. As she flew overhead, she warmed the reindeer in the tundra, the creatures in the forest and hills, the fish in the seas and lakes. She understood all the animals that lived and brought them all happiness for they enjoyed the warmth that she brought.

“Only people were beyond her comprehension. Sometimes they rejoiced at her warm gaze; sometimes they scowled behind their tent flaps. By what laws did people live? What made them laugh? What made them cry? And why were they sometimes cruel to one another?”

To the Daughter of the Sun and the Sun humans appeared to be inexplicable, arbitrary beings who loved the warmth at some points and hated it at others. We as humans know, of course, that human personality, mood, timing, and the amount of “warmth” applied all play a role in determining how people will react to a sunny day. It is easy to see, however, how  to someone examining our behavior our actions might be deemed arbitrary. There are two things we need to understand from this. First is that we as humans appear to be random, and so we are difficult to please and in many ways appear to be scary. Second although humans tend to think of fairies as being arbitrary this is often a result of our misinterpretation.

Thus when considering the motivations of the fairies of legend, we must understand that it is not simply arbitrariness that causes them to react differently to seemingly the same stimulus. Just as with a humans’ personality, mood, timing and the amount of stimulus can all alter their reaction to something. We must understand that these things can all alter the actions and reactions of fairies.
Ultimately, we must understand that our relationship with fairies is a two-way street, for fairies are often confused by our erratic and bizarre behavior. So for each of us the other can at times appear to be confusing.

Rather than being afraid of humans as many others were Akanidi felt bad for humans. For at the time of this tale humans didn’t have songs or celebrations and she desired to teach humans how they could rejoice and be happy. So Akanidi asked her father (The Sun) if she could go down to the earth to live among humans. As any father would The Sun worried about his daughter, telling her that humans were dangerous and arbitrary. She believed, however, that she could help humanity out, help us work through our problems.

So Akanidi came down and lived as a human for a time, having a foster mother and father. She taught humans about music, dance and how to create beauty within our lives.
Fairies give humans many of the gifts we need for survival and to be happy. Among the Celts Bean Sidhe, Banshees, and related fairies taught humans about poetry. Among the Japanese Kami did this, while for the Greeks it was the Muses and nymphs who brought art to the people.
It’s important to keep in mind that any relationship between humans and fairies has to be a close one because fairies have concerns, they have emotions. Thus in order to work effectively with them humans must be considerate to these emotions.

“Akanidi is a Sami Tale which is available in the book “The Sun Maiden and the Crescent Moon: Siberian Folk Tales” by James Riordan.

 

The Old Man and the Fairies

"Many years ago the Welsh mountains were full of fairies. People used to go by moonlight to see them dancing."

Each generation in the United Kingdom recalls a time before when  there were more fairies, for fairies are secretive, they hide from those who are immoral, for humans have a strange power, the evil eye. If humans look upon fairies with greed or malice the fairies can't use their magic (which is how greedy people could catch Leprechauns). The evil eye can also cause illness, pain, bad luck, and worse.

The fairies propensity for being secretive is shown very clearly in this story in which they give the old man gold, but the moment he tells his wife this gold turns into shells, for one is never supposed to share knowledge of their fairy gifts with anyone. Similarly an Italian cunning said that if she told her secret spells they would loose their magic. 

There are two important morals here;

Keep the fairies secrets and don't be greedy.

The Mountain Kami and the Ugly Fish

"In ancient times there was a village of prosperous people. They were prosperous because the peasants of the village were friends with the very kami of the mountain. So he helped them to grow good crops, to drive away both pests and the evil influences. Every autumn the kami would return to the mountains and up to the peak as the villagers watched. In the spring we would come down out of the mountain and into the village where the peasants would wait. For they were never without a kami when they planted their rice and so they called him the kami of the rice fields in spring." 

Festivals and celebrations were designed to attract specific deities to the villages, for those who could attract these spirits would prosper.

As this story shows these deities are often over sensitive and very shy. So one must always be cautious about their feelings. Another important point, however. and one that people often forget is that they love humor. Women in Japan would make jokes while farming in the fields, in Greece plays had comedic intermissions (the play was a way of honoring the gods). 

Humor and theatre are as important as prayer in honoring the spirits of old.

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Forests in Fantasy Worlds Part 2

Read Forests in Fantasy Stories - Part 1

Forests and the Realm of the Dead

In Siberia a man stumbles upon a hut in the forest filled with the spirits of the tormented dead, in Germany a forest spirit boils the souls of the wicked in a massive pot, while in Ireland a monk is lured by a beautifully singing bird into the forest which turns out to be an other world. 

The forest in the lore of nearly all people had gateways to the spirit world within it. Thus it wasn't just forest spirits one encountered in the forest but lords of the dead and undead as well. In Northern Italy this often took the form of Orco, a remnant of the Roman god of the underworld (Orcus). Indeed in the Italian version of Little Red Riding Hood it's orco who the little girl meets in place of a wolf.

Few, perhaps have such creepy tales as those of South America. The Warao of South America believe that Death gave humans their bodies so that their souls would no longer be able to dwell within the heavens, and only shamans could send their souls out into the world again. With their new found flesh, humans became weak in many ways. They also became the target for hungry monsters including Hoebo, a spirit who takes the form of a red macaw. So tasty were humans to this spirit, that he made humanity his food of choice. He dwells in the spirit world which can be reached through the forest, in an iron mansion where the macaws drink human blood and feast on human flesh from a thirty foot long iron canoe.Within this iron fortress everything is made of human bones, including wind instruments and jewelry. And the stench of rotting flesh fills the air; the ground is covered with coagulating blood. 

There are a few dark shamans who seek to serve Hoebo. To gain power and become one of his servants go into the woods and smoke massive amounts of tobacco, and learn the secret chants which allow them to find and gain victims for their dark masters. When they have learned enough, their teacher blows a hoebo (evil) spirit into a cigar which the prospective shaman then smokes into himself. This spirit then leads the shaman up into the sky to meet with The Hoebo (in this case hoebo are the evil spirits which serve The Hoebo who is also known as the Red Macaw). The Hoebo rests in hammocks made of curdled blood and on furniture made of human bone. The Red Macaw's wife is always caring for their little child. 

Once the shaman is in the spirit world, Hoebo (who is also covered in blood) inspects the shaman’s mouth and chest. If he is found worthy, he is given two hoebo spirits to live within his upper body and a snare of power to dwell within his chest. When he returns he continues to smoke until he is so intoxicated with nicotine he nearly dies. As death comes upon him, a beam of light comes down through a coffin he's trapped in, and he slips out to be reborn as a dark shaman. 

From this point on he and his wife and children are creatures of the jungle, stalking around the edges of the villages and with his magical snare he strangles victims from a distance, causing them to pass out so that his spirit helpers can enter the man or woman’s heart. They then carry their victim to the otherworld, his or her head dragging on the ground and bouncing against the shaman’s heels as they walk through the forest; a sign of supreme disrespect and disregard for the human who is about to die. 

In the lore of many Central African people's the jungle is filled with unclean dead and forest spirits which crave human blood, much like the forest vampires of Central Europe. Dark cults will seek to lure these spirits to them, offering them a continuous stream of human sacrifices in return for wealth and luck.

Oddly enough, in all these cases, the forest was where the people lived. They saw it as a home, as a provider of life. Forests in lore are a place caught between worlds, between the realm of the living and happiness and the realm of the dead. 


Spirits of the Forests

Kunnotar (Finland) 
The patroness of foxes who was asked to bring them to the hunters traps

Kuutar (Finland) 
Every lake and stream, forest and swamp, even the flowers and trees are living beings with intelligent souls or so went the philosophy of the ancient Finns. These spirits often known as haltia (a term meaning governor or steward) act as rules over some aspect of nature such as the back woods, or the mountains. Prayers to the haltia were extremely common as people sought their help in protecting the cattle, finding the treasures which were buried underground, successfully hunting for game and more. In addition to being the spirit of the forest every persona has their own haltia “a wizard in working himself into an ecstasy invokes his haltia to rise from its hole, from under a fallen tree, or stone, or moss, or wherever it may be, and mentions its brilliant eyes and spotted cheek, as if he had a snake in his mind's eye. The technical term for being in an ecstasy (olla haltiossansa l. haltioisansa) means literally 'to be in one's haltia or among one's haltia,' in other words, 'to be in the spirit or among the spirits.' From the above examples we see that the heavens, the earth, the forest, the mountain, and individual men, have each their spirit, ruler, or guardian. Such an idea goes back to the earliest times.

Leshy (Russia) 
The forest king, he controls animals and throws wild parties which uproot trees.

Lisovyk (Ukraine) 
A shaggy old forest spirit which could appear naked or dressed in brown and a cap of marten fur. They could appear normal size or as tall as a tree, with hairy hands and feet. In one tale he appeared as a little old man with a green beard. They were shape changers however and so could appear as a moss covered tree, an animal, a drunk man, a fungus, or anything else. It can also appear as fiery serpent and attack people in this form. They are often considered to be dangerous beings which knock people over in the forest, or at times kills them. He likes peace and quite in his forest and thus hates people who whistle at night or do other loud things in the forest. Though he himself is a mischievous creature. In order to escape him him one needs to turn their shirts inside out and wear their shes on the wrong foot. Still it could also be helpful, it would provide people with knowledge of the future, help to find lost cows. Further hey protect the forest animals acting as a hereder of the wild. It was also believed that if you offered him rye flour or eggs at forest cross roads he would help to keep wild animals from eating your farm animals as well.

Mazarol (Italy)
 They are old men with a sturdy build which dress in red, with a turquoise jacket and a large hat. He is vindictive against those who betray trust. In one tale a girl trampled over his path, angering him so that he breathed in her face causing her to forget her previous life. He than brought her back to serve him, teaching her how to make butter and cheese while promising to teach her how to make wax. Before this could happen a hunter recognized her and brought her home, they tried to revive her memory but failed until at last an old lady gave her milk form a white goat at which point her memories returned. She was the one who taught her people how to make butter and cheese

Mielikki (Finnish) 
Goddess of the forest and one of the primary creators of the sacred bears she is at various times the wife or daughter in law of Tapio. She is asked at various times to help with haunts or to protect cattle grazing in the forest or those who are seeking to gather mushrooms and berries. She heals animals through healing, or by treating baby chicks which have fallen from their nests and occasionally she’ll train a human in her healing arts.

Wood Wives
Tiny forest fairies that were at times allies and at times enemies with humans. They often had moss for hair, wore leaves as clothes, etc.

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Fairy Tale Witches

What is a witch?

It's difficult to determine the meaning of the word witch in fairy tales largely because in English the word witch has been tossed around so loosey goosy thatl it's picked up dozens of meanings. Take, for example, the witch from the fairy tale "The Dragon of the North." The protagonist of the tale seeks to steal a magical ring from this witch so he waits in hiding, while she comes to bathe in a stream of water, at last when night comes;

"She went to the spring, looked up to the full moon, then knelt down and bathed her face nine times, then looked up to the moon again and walked nine times round the well, and as she walked she sang this song:

‘Full-faced moon with light unshaded,
Let my beauty ne’er be faded.
Never let my cheek grow pale!
While the moon is waning nightly,
May the maiden bloom more brightly,
May her freshness never fail!’

Then she dried her face with her long hair, and was about to go away, when her eye suddenly fell upon the spot where the young man was sitting, and she turned towards the tree where the youth was hiding.... Tell me truly who you are and how you came to this place, where no mortal has ever set foot before.’"

Think about this set up, especially the last line; "where no mortal has ever set foot before."

This begs the question, was the witch in this story originally intended to be a mortal or is she a goddess or fairy of some form?

It's often difficult to tell. Take also, for example, the classic witch from the story of "Hansel and Gretel."'

"Witches have red eyes, and cannot see far, but they have a keen scent like the beasts, and are aware when human beings draw near."

This line makes the witch seem like a strange foreign entity, and indeed she is. As I argue in my upcoming book, it's likely she was originally a guardian to the realm of the dead, which in lore could be reached deep in the forest. Like the witch this female guardian often had trouble seeing humans, what's more they often put children to work as she did with Gretel and in Eastern Europe spirits of the dead were deceived with the same bone trick that Hansel uses in "Hansel and Gretel."

In other words the most classic of fairy tale witches may not be human at all, even thought people at the time clearly believed that witches were human.

Often when a person in fairy tales is a witch the fairy tale doesn't say it. Take, for example, the Grimm Brother's version of Cinderella in which;

It happened that the father was once going to the fair, and he asked his two step-daughters what he should bring back for them. Beautiful dresses, said one, pearls and jewels, said the second.
And you, cinderella, said he, what will you have. Father break off for me the first branch which knocks against your hat on your way home. 

So he bought beautiful dresses, pearls and jewels for his two step-daughters, and on his way home, as he was riding through a green thicket, a hazel twig brushed against him and knocked off his hat. Then he broke off the branch and took it with him. When he reached home he gave his step-daughters the things which they had wished for, and to cinderella he gave the branch from the hazel-bush. 

Cinderella thanked him, went to her mother's grave and planted the branch on it, and wept so much that the tears fell down on it and watered it. And it grew and became a handsome tree. Thrice a day cinderella went and sat beneath it, and wept and prayed, and a little white bird always came on the tree, and if cinderella expressed a wish, the bird threw down to her what she had wished for.

That's right, Cinderella made her own fairy godmother, who was the spirit of her real mother. She was a necromancer, a witch. Even in the French version where the fairy godmother shows up out of no where she talks to birds and mice.

This is why I say it's tricky to define witches in fairy tale. Because, while fairy tales often call non-human beings "witches," and don't call humans anything there were certainly enough people were accused of witchcraft in the past that one would think people once thought of witches as human.

Consider also the British stories in which the protagonists seek secret knowledge from henwives (the women who look after the chickens). For example in "The Childe Rowland"

And he went on a little further, till he came to an old woman in a grey cloak, and he asked her if she knew where the Dark Tower of the King of Elfland was. "Go on a, little further," said the hen-wife, "till you come to a round green hill, surrounded with terrace-rings, from the bottom to the top; go round it three times, widershins, and each time say:

  Open, door! open, door!
  And let me come in.

Consider also the story of "Kate Crackernuts" in which;

The queen was jealous of the king's daughter being bonnier than her own, and cast about to spoil her beauty. So she took counsel of the henwife, who told her to send the lassie to her next morning fasting.

Here a wicked seeks advice from a henwife on how to destroy their stepdaughters. There are dozens of these stories, in which henwifes aren't so overtly supernatural as Cinderella is, but they are very definitely "wise women" who are supernatural adjacent.

So there are a number of characters who perhaps shouldn't be called witches that are, and characters which should be given some supernatural name, but are not.

Part of the reason for this lack of distinction likely comes from our modern re-appropriation of the term witch, mixed with the fact that each region of the UK seems to have, at one time, used the term a bit differently form the others. The other problem comes from the fact that we often translate words we probably shouldn't. Take, for example, the Japanese story of "The Witch of the Mountain." in which the Yamauba is translated as witch. Yet Yamauba are clearly not witches exactly, though they sometimes eat children. They also have giants as their children (as shown in the movie "Spirited Away") Yamauba are difficult to define with a Western word because no word we regularly use fits them exactly. When this happens translators often use words like witch as a catch all for any magical female figure which might be dangerous.

Of course, witches, weren't just female, indeed many men were accused of and burned of witchcraft and there are a number of men in fairy tales who could be thought of as "witches" depending on how you want to define the term.

As a general rule I've tended to define the term witch "as a person who is remnant of older shamanistic traditions within an agricultural society." But clearly this doesn't fit all the uses of the term in fairy tales.

It may be impossible to define the term witch any longer as it's a term that generally just means supernatural being with human like qualities. You could of course, say that witches are humans, and therefore ignore calling the witch from "Hansel and Gretel" or "The Dragon of the North" a witch, but that would confuse a lot of people who believe think of those stories when they think of the word witch.


More Tales With Cool Witches

Miranda and the Lord of the Dead

The true snow queen story, Miranda is a heroine who saves the world from the Lord of the Dead with the help of a male witch. Again, though it's difficult to know if these characters are human or if they are magical deities. The story doesn't call them either and it never uses the word witch, but they clearly aren't normal. Consider for example the following...

Princess Miranda called together her brave army, and led them into the field, to fight the wicked Kosciey. But he, blowing on them with his poisonous breath, sent them all fast asleep, and he was just going to lay hands upon the princess, when she, throwing a glance of scorn at him, changed him into a lump of ice

This story is long, but it's worth it. I could write an entire book based on the themes within it which include everything from spirit journeys to dragons.


The Corpse Watchers

A girl who is hired to watch a corpse through the night ends up rescuing a soul from the land of the dead with the help of a fairy.


Boots and the Troll

One of the first rules in spotting a witch in lore - they're the ones that everyone makes fun of for being simple or lazy. In this tale Boots's older brothers say of him.

'As for you', they said, 'you're fit for nothing but to sit and poke about in the ashes.'

In this story Boots is able to steal silver ducks and other magical objects from troll land.


The Boy Who Visited Fairyland

Sort of a warning tale for a boy who was given favors by the fairies for a while, but lost them due to greed.


The Witch Girl

A story of a soldier who defeats an evil witch

 

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7 Things you didn't know about wood wives and forest fairies

1-Lumberjacks, cattle drivers, and hunters who most people normally put at odds with forest fairies in modern day books really had a symbiotic relationship with them. For example, in Germany a forest god would chase down and kill forest fairies like rabbits, but the lumberjacks would draw magical symbols on trees which could keep the fairies safe.

In Russia herdsmen would provide food for the fairies who would protect their herds. And hunters obviously prayed and made offerings to the forest fairies who provided them with game.

Indeed all three of these people's had such a close relationship with the fairies that they were often considered magical, essentially witches in their own right.

2-Many of the spirits of the forest are the spirits of the human dead. Tree spirits, rock spirits, mountain spirits are often the spirits of the dead. Indeed the forests and mountains were often believed to be the afterlife, acting as both heaven and hell.

3- Vampires and forest lords are often confused with each other in lore, because they are so much alike its often difficult to distinguish one from the other. Forest fairies, after all are among the scariest of all fairies. And indeed the devil in fairy tales who wishes to buy people's souls is often originally a forest fairy, who wants to buy people's souls.

4-After all forest fairies want human workers. They would often hire and or enslave humans to watch their animals, to serve their feasts, to watch their children, and more. For those of you looking for writing prompts there are a number of tales about people who become shepherds for fairies, watching their cattle. Or stories about people who become babysitters for the fairies children. You could even add a little action by having this happen during a time when the fairies were at war with each other.

5-As time went on it was a natural transition for forest fairies to move into people's houses, becoming essentially household fairies. Indeed people would make sacrifices to forest fairies in order to get their aid within  the household as the forest fairies approval was important to a households success.

6-In fact whole cities were founded because of forest fairies who agreed to become the patron of the city's future. Sometimes these fairies even married the city's founder. Thus the children of a city could be the children of a forest fairy. In Greek lore Arcadia was founded by a hero who saves a tree nymph. In return she agrees to sleep with him and the two of them have many children, whose children become the first Arcadians.

7-Despite their domesticating nature, forests also represented freedom and an escape from society. In Japan many women would escape abusive husbands and hard society by escaping with a forest fairy. In Selkup lore (hunter-gatherers in Siberia) a spirit caled the Muli qup, which looked a lot like a satyr, would teach women how to hunt on their own so they could leave their abusive husbands.

8-As part of this forests came to be associated with shamans and witches because this is where they would often learn their craft. Specifically they were often possessed by spirits who caused them to go running into the woods, or kidnapped by them. Often they would emerge a few years later, feral and covered in moss. After this they could use their friendship with the spirits of the forest to perform magic.



See also

The Fairy Queen and Robin Hood

Three Forgotten Witch Archetypes

Misty Forests: Europe's oldest fairy realm

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Yupik Fairy Tales

Almost all fantasy stories are based on a limited number of European, Japanese or Chinese ideas. Yet there are many more incredible stories that go ignored by writers and artists. So for today's writing prompt idea, I'd like to introduce you to Yupik ghost stories.

For those of you who don't know, the Yupik people live on the far West Coast of Alaska. This is where I spent my entire childhood and where I developed my love of folk tales. What is so fascinating about growing up with these stories is that here people didn't think of fairy tales as taking place in a far away place. Instead fairy tales happen all around us. This is important to keep in mind when thinking about fairies in general. They weren't off in some distant isolated forest, they were in and around people's homes.

Unfortunately my memory isn't great so I only recall snippets of tales. I have just bits and pieces of the ghost stories I heard as a child, while the freezing cold wind howled outside (school wasn't canceled until 75 below zero). Still I've put together a small collection of stories that I do recall to some extent or another which you can see  here.

Or see the individual stories below

Big Mouth Baby

Raven and the Whale

The Ghosts Tea Kettle

Witch of the Long Grass

Raven and the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars

The Spirit Women and the Unfaithful Husband

Hooking a Man


You can also watch Yupik Story teller, which is is a PBS show in which a number of different elders share their stories of encounters with the other world.

Long Nails


I heard a similar story in Kipnuk with a few minor differences. For one the boy who dies is friends with the other boy, another is that they are lured by the smell of cooking food to the witches house. Still the basic tale is the same, as is the moral. You can read the version as best I remember it here.


There is also a great Facebook dedicated to Yupik Ghost stories, and I have a snippet of one of the tales shared on it below.

The Shaman's Famine by Panruk
A great famine swept the land. Animals had been led away from their usual migratory routes although the berries and greens were abundant. No one could explain the phenomenon and people became sick and many died of malnutrition.
There were two shamans left in the area. One good and one evil.
The remaining people congregated to one village and the shamans set up their own camp on each side. The good shaman arose before dawn and prayed daily for good fortune upon the hunters. Then the hunters ventured out in search of food. They'd have to travel for many miles on foot and took the entire day, but they always managed to find something.
The setting sun marked the time the hunters returned and the time when the bad shaman awoke. He was the only one who stayed up late and never worked or helped the people in the village. He felt entitled to receive all that he desired by any means and he terrified the people into giving him whatever he wanted.

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John Active
Spirits are enforcers of morality, so many of the stories are about how ghosts will punish immoral behavior.








Yupik Masks

 

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iZombie is wonderfully disturbing

A Dark comedy which manages to be slapstick, Yes please!

It's nice to see Warner Brothers finally taking their Vertigo comics a little more seriously. The Comic was created by Chris Roberson and Mike Allred.

The show itself includes a wonderfully wacky assortment of writers and directors. Rob Thomas (creator of "Veronica Mars,") who was born just in Sunnyside a few miles from where I'm typing this (Please come to the local Comicon) and Mairzee Almas (Smallville) iZombie strikes the perfect balance between it's somewhat dark theme and being hilariously goofy.



The best part is that while the first episode is an origin story it zips right through this allowing us to jump quickly into life.... er, unlife as a zombie. Origin stories after all are often the most boring, what's interesting is the quirky character sneaking brains for lunch in the morgue, stealing anything that's the color red, and using their zombie powers to save people.

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Fox Fairy and the Girl

The heart on her t-shirt has the formula for estimating
the length of a relationship (aka the formula for finding true love)
I love math and science so I tend to have characters who do as well.
I figured I'd have a math geek who was cute and fun.

The tiny fox growled, warning the boys standing over him that he would bite them if they dared take a step closer. Far from keeping them away, however, this egged them on. Laughing at the threat one of them kicked the little fox with a heavy boot. The fox felt his ribs heave with agony. His body crashed against the wall.

Winded he gasped for breath. His lungs burned. Tears formed in his little golden eyes.

With a snarl he managed to lunge on one of the boy’s heavy boots, but his teeth bounced off the rubber. He gnawed, trying to get some purchase but there was none to be had.

Another boy kicked him, sending him sprawling along the dirt.

He wanted to run, but he was caught in a corner, a wall on either side and a pair of bullies in front of him.

Leave him alone, he heard a girl yell.

The boys laughed.

The girl shoved her way through them so violently she sent one of them sprawling into the muddy grass.

A pair of bright pink boots appeared between him and the bullies. The fox looked up at the girl who stood facing the boys. Pink and blond hair glistening in the evening sun, making her seem to glow like an angel. A dozen cute dangles hanging from her bright blue backpack.

She held a metal cylinder towards the bullies, whose entire demeanor had changed. One of them nearly fell back in his attempt to put some distance between the girl and himself. This despite the fact that they were much larger than she was.

The fox felt his heart racing as he watched her standing there for all the world like an angelic knight come from heaven to save him.

It’s not worth it, one of the bullies grumbled at last. A moment later they were gone.

The little fox rubbed himself gratefully against the girl’s boot and gave a playful yip.

She looked down at him and smiled, her cheeks bright from the chill, her lips as pink as her hair.

You seem really friendly, she noted as he gave a playful puppy yip, then rubbed against her boot again. Ever so carefully she reached down.

The fox pulled back, still not certain if he should trust a human. She paused her hand hovering a few inches from him. At last he gave in to the temptation to play with his savior and pushed his face against it. She stroked him along the back and he felt his skin tingling with pleasure.

He gave another playful yip and pressed against her hand again.

She crouched down beside him and gave him a few more pets, but it didn’t last nearly long enough before she stood back up.

Well, I have to go, she told the fox. A moment later she’d started walking home.

The little fox limped painfully along behind her.

You can’t follow me, she told the fox. I’m pretty sure it’s illegal for me to take in a wild animal, she told him after a moment

He cocked his head at her curious refusal. She hadn’t said she didn’t want him. So he continued to limp after her.

Fine, she sighed after they’d gone a few dozen more feet.

She pulled off her coat and scooped him up in it. Despite the pain he was in the little fox felt euphoric, that is until she put him down and shut a door between her and him. He looked up at the intimidating house she’d entered for a moment then ducked into the bushes by the door.

A littlelater she peeked out the door again, and he bounced out of the bushes with a playful yip.

I really shouldn’t be doing this, she said. But you’ve had a hard day, so here.

She set down a bit of pork fried tofu. The fox devoured it gratefully as she gave him a few more pets. Then as before she disappeared behind the door.

The fox watched her house for days after that. As near as he could tell they never let any animals into the house at all. But they let any human who knocked in. So if he wanted to be near the girl who’d saved him the solution was simple. The process was another matter entirely.

Transforming into a human for the first time is a painful and difficult ordeal, which is why most foxes never learn how. But the little fox was determined.

He climbed high into the mountains and plunged himself beneath a freezing cold water fall. Then, still shivering he climbed up to where the snow had already started falling. There he stayed without eating for days, starving himself until at last he started to see the strange world around him.

From the spirits of the mountains and the trees he learned out to change into a human or any other animal at will. Finally after months of practice he began observing humans to understand how people met new friends.

Finally, just two weeks before summer vacation he took the form of a human boy and approached the girl who’d saved him while she was waiting for the school bus.

Hello, he greeted her.

Hello, she returned with a smile.

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More Free Coloring Pages

 

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