Maps and Charts

You're retaining a lot of hate in your buttocks, there.

September

Warm September brings the fruit;
Sportsmen then begin to shoot.

***

September blow soft
Till the fruit's in the loft.

***

Marry in September's shine,
Your living will be rich and fine.

***

September 29th (Michaelmas) is the day of the Feast of St. Michael. Like St. Swithin's Day, St. Michael's Day was said to give a clue to the weather to come: if Michaelmas brings many acorns, Christmas will bring snow; if Michaelmas was fair, the winter would have much sunshine but sharp and nipping wind; if Michaelmas was dark, Christmas would be light.

***

"Sorrow and scarlet leaf,
Sad thoughts and sunny weather.
Ah me, This glory and this grief
Agree not well together!"
--Thomas Parsons, A Song For September.

***

"By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer's best of weather
And autumn's best of cheer."
--Helen Hunt Jackson, September.

***

"Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers."
--Carl Sandburg, Under the Harvest Moon.

***

"The breezes taste
Of apple peel.
The air is full
Of smells to feel.
Ripe fruit, old footballs,
Burning brush,
New books, erasers,
Chalk, and such.
The bee, his hive,
Well-honeyed hum,
And Mother cuts
Chrysanthemums.
Like plates washed clean
With suds, the days
Are polished with
A morning haze."
--John Updike, September.

The Hidden Folk

"The Origin of Elves"

Once, God Almighty came to Adam and Eve. They welcomed him gladly and showed Him everything they had in their house, and they also showed Him their children, who seemed to Him to be very promising. He asked Eve whether she had any other children besides the ones she was just showing him. She said, "No." But the truth of the matter was that Eve had not yet got around to washing some of her children and was ashamed to let God see them, and so she had pushed them away somewhere out of sight. God knew this, and said: "That which had to be hidden from Me, shall also be hidden from men."

So now these children become invisible to men, and lived in woods and moorlands, knolls and rocks. From them the elves are descended, but human beings are descended from those of Eve's children whom she did show to God. Human beings can never see elves unless the latter wish it, but elves can see men and enable men to see them. It is for this reason that the elves are called the Hidden People.

--an Icelandic story, from Scandinavian Folktales, ed. Jacqueline Simpson.

The Lord Of The Mountains

Between the historical lands of Bohemia and Silesia lie the Riesengebirge (Giant Mountains). There is a very old map of the area, and striding among the mountains may be seen a strange gigantic figure, horned and with a tail, walking upright with a tall staff. This is the earliest known picture of Rubezahl*, the Lord of the Mountains.

Rubezahl is a figure in German folklore, the tutelary spirit or genius of the mountains that derive their name from him. He is responsible for the weather of his peaks, and the thunder and lightning, rain, snow, and fog there reflect his capricious moods. He is Prince of the Gnomes in the Riesengebirge, and all lesser spirits are under his sway. The respectful way to address him is as "Lord of the Mountains" or "Lord John." "Rubezahl" is a name of derision and means "Turnip Counter," and it still angers him. According to the old tale he once captured a princess and swore he would do anything to win her love. She set him to counting the turnip seedlings in a vast field, and while he was busy doing so she made her escape.

Rubezahl is a shape changer, and appears in many forms, and can be anything from a gnome to a giant, and can be astonishingly ugly or "as fair as Apollo." He appears most often as an old man with a staff that appears to be an uprooted tree. He is something of a trickster, and his nature changeable. It was written of him in 1783 "...Rubezahl, you should know, has the nature of a powerful genius: capricious, impetuous, peculiar, rascally, crude, immodest, haughty, vain, fickle, today your warmest friend, tomorrow alien and cold;...roguish and respectable, stubborn and flexible..."

Rubezahl seems to take people as he finds them. To the simple and honest he is affectionate and helpful, but to the shiftless and lying his punishments can be severe. And the one sure way to provoke his wrath is to call him Rubezahl in mockery.

Rubezahl stories have been collected in many German books over the years, and many artists have painted him. Josef Madlener painted a picture of him as Der Berggeist (The Mountain Spirit); J. R. R. Tolkien had a postcard reproduction of this picture and labelled it "The Origin of Gandalf."

*There should be an umlaut over that "u."

10 Books A Day: #103

The Way Of Hermes...tr. Clement Salaman, Dorine Van Oyen, William D. Wharton, & Jean-Pierre Mahe...Inner Traditions

The Golden Bough...Sir James George Frazer...The Macmillan Company

Hebrew Myths: The Book Of Genesis...Robert Graves & Raphael Patai...Greenwich House

The Book Of Ceremonial Magic...A. E. Waite...University Books

The History Of Magic...Kurt Seligmann...Pantheon Books

Russian Myths...Elizabeth Warner...The British Museum Press

A Dictionary Of Angels...Gustav Davidson...Free Press

The Malleus Malificarum...Heinrich Kramer & James Sprenger, ed. Montague Summers...Dover

Giants, Monsters & Dragons...Carol Rose...W. W. Norton & Company

An Encyclopaedia Of Occultism...Lewis Spence...Dover

Book Count: 1180.

10 Books A Day: #101

All volumes are published by Senate.

Myth, Ritual And Religion, Volume I...Andrew Lang

Myth, Ritual And Religion, Volume II...Andrew Lang

The Sea...Angelo S. Rappoport

The Lore Of The Forest...Alexander Porteous

Witches & Warlocks...Philip W. Sergeant

Mysteries And Secrets Of Magic...C. J. S. Thompson

Middle Ages: Myths And Legends...H. A. Guerber

Mythical Monsters...Charles Gould

The Origins Of Popular Superstitions...T. Sharper Knowlson

The Folklore Calendar...George Long

Book Count: 1160.

10 Books A Day: #70

The Elizabethan Zoo...Edward Topsell...A Nonpariel Book

The Secret Commonwealth Of Elves, Fauns, & Fairies...Robert Kirk...New York Review Books

The Tough Guide To Fantasyland...Diana Wynne Jones...Firebird

English Myths And Legends...Henry Bett...Dorset Press

The Lost Books Of The Bible and The Forgotten Books Of Eden...World Bible Publishers, Inc.

The Hero With A Thousand Faces...Joseph Campbell...Princeton/Bollinger

The Book Of The Damned: The Collected Works Of Charles Fort...Charles Fort...Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin

The Book Of Imaginary Beings...Jorge Luis Borges...Viking

Hamlet's Mill: An Essay On Myth & The Frame Of Time...Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend...Gambit Incorporated

Albion: The Origins Of The English Imagination...Peter Ackroyd...Nan A. Talese Doubleday

Fabulous Feasts: Medieval Cookery And Ceremony...Madeleine Pelner Cosman...George Braziller

Fireside Book Of Folk Songs...ed. Margaret Bradford Boni...Simon And Schuster


A variety of books today, on history, myth, legend, and the history of myth and legend. The Elizabethan Zoo is a selection edited from Topsell's monumental The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes and Historie of Serpents; these two books were hugely popular in the old days, partly because they were illustrated, and partly because they were "scientific" books actually written in English. They include not only well known animals (the section on horses alone was enormous, as particularly interesting to the people of the day, as cars are now), but also fabulous foreign beasts like dragons and rhinoceroses, and the latest discoveries from the Americas. Many of pictures of the more outlandish beasts will be familiar to some people from their constant reproduction in works on myths and cryptozoology.

I love the Fireside Book of Folk Songs, not only because it reminds me of the kinds of books my teachers back in grade school might have had (it was published in 1947) but because it tells the full stories of songs I have heard in bits and pieces all my life. Who knew that "Darling Clementine" drowned, and the singer of the song couldn't rescue her because he didn't know how to swim, and so was "dreadful sorry"? Who knew that "Alouette" was about plucking apart a skylark, piece by piece, and that it was Canadian, not French? It includes music scores for all the songs as well.


Book Count: 899.