The Lorelei

Don’t I color well?  Yes, I did shade her legs.  Thanks for noticing! ;-)

Everyone has heard of the Greek sirens.  You know, those pesky but beautiful women that lure sailors to their death with their magnificent naked bods and their insidious songs.  Apparently the German’s, not to be outdone by the Greeks, needed a supernatural explanation for bad weather and poor navigation skills, too.

The Lorelei (sometimes spelled Loreley or Lore Lay) hail from the Rhine where they play the harp and sing sweet songs.  There seems to be some confusion (at least on my part) if there are multiple Lorelei or just one.  For the purpose of this exercise we are going to go with a drove of strumpet like Faeries that have nothing better to do than entice men to their death.  If a man sees a Lorelei, he instantly goes mad and/or blind. 

They sit on a rock of the same name and wait for a passing boat.  Like they have nothing better to do.  Just so you know, if I had these talents, I’d take the show to town and really rake in the dough.  Think bigger ladies!!  Just because someone put you on a rock doesn’t mean you have to stay there.  Just saying.

Puddlefoot

 

 

Last weekend I babysat a pair of five year old twins.  Okay, my husband and my mother-in-law helped.  I spent a good portion of Saturday afternoon sitting indian-style on the floor in front of a child’s size table coloring.  I probably hadn’t colored in 25 years, maybe longer.  I don’t think I appreciated it for what it was when I was a kid – a damn good excuse to zone out and relax.  Coloring is the ultimate de-stresser.

When I got home on Monday, I decided I wanted my own coloring books.  Amazon to the rescue!  Now I have five. (I know. I can’t just buy just one thought.)  Thanks to Dover Coloring Books I have three books with Faeries, one on Gargoyles and Medieval Monsters and even one with Vampires.

One of the coloring books inspired this week’s Faerie Friday post – Puddlefoot.  Please see picture about.  I know it’s not done yet, but I was running out of time.  I gave him pink and red shorts. :-)

Puddlefoot is a kind of Brownie that lives at Clochfoldich Farm in Scotland (somewhere outside of Tayside thought unless you know Scotland well will mean nothing to you.  It means nothing to me.)  As most good browies, he does a lot of household chores.  The only problem with Puddlefoot is he likes to go splashing around the pools of the Altmore Burn before going to work. He gets the work done, but he leaves wet little footprints everywhere. 

I don’t know about you folks, but I could forgive a few wet footprints for a clean house!

Tuscan Night Elves - The Linchetti

I keep a bunch of books on faerie lore tucked in places around the house. One of my favorites to browse through is Nancy Arrowsmith’s Field Guide to the Little People.  I must have looked through it four or five dozen times.  Last week I was thumbing through it as I often do and I came across a creature that I hadn’t noticed before – the Tuscan night elf known as the Linchetti.  I know it by one of its other names, Buffardello.  Yes, I just happen to like that name.

These night elves (also called Caccavecchia and Mazapegolo in other regions of Italy) have a nasty habit of climbing through keyholes and perching upon a sleeping person’s chest.  At two feet high and invisible, they are hard to detect, but nightmares and/or trouble breathing gives them away.  Their antics can kill an elderly person.  He doesn’t live in the house, but rather in the barn where he shows favoritism to certain animals while starving others.  He likes to braid the hair of horses, but those braids should never be undone.  He places all of the good qualities of the animal in the braids.

There are a few ways to get rid of the Linchetti:

1)   A person who is plagued by the Linchetti should leave a bowl of seeds on his/her chest while sleeping.  When the Linchetti tries to sit on the person chest, he will knock the seeds onto the floor.  The Linchetti can’t stand disorder (he suffers from OCD!)  He will spend the rest of the night trying to pick up the seeds one by one.

2)   You can assign him the task of straightening a curly hair.  He hates curly hair.

3)   This is my favorite.  If you suspect a Linchetto is bothering your rest, get out of bed and turn on the light.  While sitting on a chamber pot, eat some bread and cheese.  Between bites, recite these words: “To shit with the Linchetto! I eat my bread and cheese and shit on his face.”  He will be so disgusted he’ll leave never to be heard of again.  No, you really can’t make this stuff up.

The book goes onto tell a story of a young man and his troubles.  I won’t bore you with the details, but it involves multiple annulments, a seemingly impotent man, a dauntless young girl and a curly pubic hair.  I’m sure you can fill in the details.

A Fish Called Ceasg

I returned from RWA12 around midnight on Sunday. To say I was exhausted is an understatement, but it was the kind of exhaustion only reached when one has had the time of his/her life.  It was such a freaking awesome experience, one of which I will never forget.  Thanks to Jami Gold, Angela Quarles, Janice Hardy and all of those amazing women I met for the great week.  I hope to see you all again soon.

If you follow my blog regularly, you will notice a suspicious lack of posts in the month of July.  I decided to take the month off from my regular Faerie Friday posts. Granted, I neglected to tell anyone.  My bad.  I felt like I needed some sort of break.  It was hot and I was cranky. I’m feeling rejuvenated now that I am back though I do believe I am coming down with a cold.  Oh, well, you can’t meet that many people, get on that many planes and not contract a horrible death illness.  You just can’t.

Okay, so I should probably get on with it.  This week’s Faerie Friday post takes us to Scotland.  I love Scottish faeries.  Armstrong is a Scottish name in fact.  I remembered reading somewhere that in the 13^th century the Armstrong Clan could raise up 3000 fighting men.  That’s a lot of hairy, filthy Scottish men in kilts. Invictus maneo! (The Armstrong Clan motto – We remain unvanquished!)

Anyway, the Ceasg is my topic for the week.  Please don’t ask me how to pronounce its name.  I don’t know.  Sometimes I wonder if these names are elaborate jokes like the silly names for items in IKEA.  Swedish executives just want to get us to say Knubbig.  They are laughing behind our backs.

The Ceasg is the mermaid of the Scottish Highlands.  Sometimes she is called Maighdean na tuinne, or the Maiden of the Wave. She’s smokin’ hot from the waist up, but from the waist down, not so much.  She’s half salmon.  Like most faeries, she is not so nice.  In fact, she likes to lure men into the water so that she can kill them. Supposedly, she swallows them whole.  (I find that hard to believe since she has a human size mouth.  It’s not my job to make sense of these stories, just to report on them.)  If the man can catch the Ceasg, she will grant him three wishes.  She keeps her soul in a super-secret place outside of her body.  If you can find it, you can defeat her. 

So what do you think of the Scottish Highland mermaid?  Do you think you could catch her and obtain three wishes?  Did you miss me?  I missed you.