In the second part of this section is where I see the stories that I usually associate with fairy tales - light-hearted, with children begin whisked off away into the land of Faery or other strange dimensions and playing with the Fair Folk. Such a tale is seen in ‘Elidore,’ where a little boy, escaping the wrath of the monks who are trying to train him, is led by a pair of pygmies through a cave into a magical land with no sun and moon, only clouds.
There, Elidore spends time playing with the King’s son and keeping him company rather than try his hand at the arduous task of reading and writing. All is well for a time, and then he longs to see humans like himself, along with his mother.
So the King, benevolent as he is, agrees to let Elidore go. His mother is very happy to see him, though distraught (understandably) and begs him to stay. He stays for a while but returns to the happy land to play. So this goes for a few months, maybe years.
Eventually, his mom coerces him into bringing her one of the yellow balls he plays with (convinced that it’s gold), and he’s caught sneaking one out by the pygmies. Since then he can never find his way back to that magical land.
Elidore becomes a monk, but mourns the days when he would play with the little fair people. St. David tries to find out where these little people come from and based on what Elidore tells them of their language, deduces that they must be Greek. How? I don’t understand. I’m not even sure there are fairies in Greek mythology, but there’s a very good chance I’m wrong.
Looks like it could be the glittering land of Faery to me.
Image: Flickriver
Another great story, How Cormac Mac Art Went to Faery, shows the value of truth and maybe even of love. In this story, the King Cormac trades his wife and two children for a magical fairy branch which takes away the sorrows and pain of any who are lulled to sleep by its sweet music. After a year goes by and his citizens are lulled into happiness, he decides to go out and seek his family.
Something I found very interesting about his journey - it is said he wanders down a magical path and then mists rise around him and all of a sudden he’s in Faery! Myself, I’m reading ‘The Mists of Avalon’ at the moment and keep trying to find correlations between the myths of Faery along with how those myths are upheld in the book. It excites me every time I find even the tiniest correlation, like the mists rising to reveal the land of Faery!
Anyway, he eventually is reunited with his family after seeing many strange things, such as a man who brings wood to a fire, but it’s burned as soon as he goes out for more (much like a Sisyphusian paradox if you ask me), and a hog that is quartered and cooked under a quarter of a log once a truth is told.
Cormac, for telling the truth that he is out seeking his family, is gifted a hog who regenerates overnight when his bones are in the sty, seven cows that produce an abundance of milk, and his family by Manannan Mac Lir. LIR. Any connection or relation to King Lir, whose children were turned into swans? Curioser and curioser….
No comments:
Post a Comment