Into The Trees

[dr_pretentious]

The lyrics tell a story my four-year-old can follow, once he hears them read in a plain speaking voice, but he hadn't been able to piece the story together just from hearing the song. It's clearly a recurring dream of some kind, about following a girl into a forest only to find that she was an illusion.

Gareth develops crushes easily, transparently, ardently. His most recent, on the impossibly glamorous six-year-old sister of a classmate, drove him to chase his beloved all over the toy section of Barnes & Noble, yelling, "Girl! Girl!" because he hadn't thought to ask her name. Okay, it's funny, but it's better than when he would cling to me and whisper, "I want her to come to me," and he was too paralyzed by adoration to allow me to introduce him.

So he found the lyrics to "A Forest" very upsetting. You mean even if I work up the courage to follow the girl who's calling my name into a forest, she might turn out never to have been there at all? No fair!

"He should have brought a flashlight," Gareth declared, wiping his tears.

"That would have helped," I agreed.

"And he could have brought it to his mommy, so she could make sure there were plenty of batteries."

"I would do that for you, if you ever need to chase your dream girl into a dream forest."

"And then he could have followed her into the fairy world. Can we go to the fairy world?"

Um. "The way to get to the fairy world is to use your imagination and your heart and your stories."

Gareth gave me his skeptical look. "You know other ways."

Hoo boy. "All the ways I know begin with your heart, your imagination, and your stories. Honest. Start there."

So now this old Cure song is on the heaviest of heavy rotations in my car. It's what Gareth asks for immediately upon climbing into his car seat, and he'll ask for it again five or six times before we reach any destination. Today Conrad responded to its opening bass riff with wails of dismay. I've considered that response, myself, though it's a song I have liked and will like again.

"Flashlight," Gareth mutters, mentally rehearsing his tactics for the day the song happens to him.

Comments

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

"You know other ways."

Oh, dear. You're going to have your hands full with that one. Maybe you should start sewing iron into all his clothing and nail nails into his bedposts. Or something. >:-)

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Just after Gareth was born, I had postpartum OCD, and made the mistake of reading Holly Black's Tithe--a gorgeous, compelling novel about a faerie changeling. There was a day when I went to my shrink and he asked how my OCD symptoms were doing, and I said, "I can't stop worrying about faerie abductions. Holly Black's a brilliant writer and all, but can we up the dose on my meds?" Which helped, but I haven't been able to pick up a Holly Black novel since.

When I was way too young to process it, my mom handed me a copy of Ovid's Metamorphoses. If there is one cautionary tale structure that appears most in Metamorphoses, it's that you can't be rude to mighty powers of the spirit world, even if you don't entirely approve of or get along with them. In as radically polytheistic a world as pre-Christian Rome's, you can't serve all the gods, and you can't please them all, either, but any god you disdain will track your sorry ass down and teach you a lesson.

So, no iron.

I mentioned to Gareth that you would be a good person to ask about faerie lore, that you know way more about it than I do, and now he's asking every day when we can see you. Which would be lovely.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Is there an alternative to iron that wouldn't come across as discourteous?

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

As a child of Mab, frankly, I consider iron worn in our world -- especially by a child -- as just good basic self-defense in a world where every encounter isn't necessarily friendly. I wouldn't consider it *rude* unless someone wore it actually into Faerie -- and even then, I'd call it a good idea. Even as a witch, even among witches who are all fey-connected and are working in that context, I don't think it's wise to go play with the Fey in the woods without at least one empowered athame among us, frankly.

Having said that, there are lots of other options, even setting aside all the traditional "good Christian" defenses. Oak, ash, hawthorn, birch, alder, rowan, are all said to provide protection from faeries. Of these, I prefer rowan; it has the strongest and most widespread tradition. The berries are especially good for this, and so are twigs tied into small solar crosses (equal-armed) with red thread or yarn, which are variously said to hinder witches (the malevolent non-human kind, i.e. mean faeries), the Devil, and the like, depending on which regional variant you're looking at. Small versions of this can be sewn into his clothing; larger versions hung on doors, in windows, over the bed. Personally, I make godseyes out of red (natural fiber) yarn and rowan twigs, I think that's a great interpretation and it's a lot of fun.

I don't personally see much difference, magically, between European Mountain Ash (true rowan) and American Mountain Ash -- they look and feel the same, except the American berries are more orange than red -- and I'm comfortable calling the American version "rowan" also, and using it the same way. Despite the name, the rowan isn't related to regular ash trees at all -- rowan is a member of the rose family. While ash also has its uses, and powerful magic of its own, I wouldn't use it interchangeably with rowan, no matter what the CBS Blue Book says on the Nine Woods page. :-)

Red things in general are good for averting the evil eye in its various forms, and malevolent enchantment, and some would say that includes interference from malicious faeries. Red thread with a blue bead is another such charm. Holly berries, or a sprig of holly, in the winter time. (Redcaps, on the other hand, might disagree entirely about the efficacy of the color red, all by itself, at averting unwanted faerie attention. But then, they're one of the fey clans that pretty much ignore the aversion to iron, just like the dwarves and the high court tend to do. Just sayin'. >:-)

There are herbal options -- four-leafed clover, morning glories, red verbena, St. John's wort, rosemary, and a host of others are all said to avert malevolent or predatory faerie attention. In most cases, this seems to be because the herbs and trees sacred to the benevolent fey mark the wearer as a friend to them, and therefore under their protection -- or, at least, as aware of and knowledgeable about the faerie realm, and therefore someone not to be molested.

(Beware elder and elm for this purpose, however; these faery trees are not for casual mortal use, and can mark a child especially as vulnerable to faerie interference. Children rocked in elder cradles were certain to be taken for changelings, or at least pinched black and blue.)

There are also things you can teach him, in case he's ever worried that he's being led astray or tricked by faeries. One is to find and touch some iron (but if he had any of that on him, he probably wouldn't have been vulnerable in the first place!). Another is to sing or whistle while turning his coat or his shirt inside out and putting it back on again. That should be amusing the first time he does it in class or at the mall. "Mom, my teacher's an evil faerie, I *had* to turn my shirt inside out!" >:-)

continued, because I ran up against the comment limit

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

Another tactic is to have an ally on his side with Whom the fey will not mess, and as the eldest son of a priestess of Hecate, I'd say he's got a pretty good option built right into the equation, at least until he's of age to make his own choices and fend for himself, wouldn't you? (But you know Herself -- if you want Her help, you gotta ask. :-) Some token or talisman that marks him as under Her protection would probably take care of most anything. Made of Her silver, perhaps, or Her cypress wood, if you're not willing to make it out of the iron of Her knife.

But if it were me, I'd go for an iron (or, let's be practical, stainless steel for a child his age or it'll be rusty in five seconds flat) charm consecrated in Her name to his safety. And I'd still slip at least one iron nail into the seams of all his jackets. And steel-toed hiking boots when he's old enough. >:-)

Re: continued, because I ran up against the comment limit

[evaelisabeth.livejournal.com]

You can get some really cool pendants made out of iron horseshoes, they would even look appropriately masculine ;-)

Re: continued, because I ran up against the comment limit

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

Or horseshoe nails.

[(Anonymous)]

All I can think, proudly I might add, is "good problem solving! Yes, if he had a flashlight with plenty of batteries he could have followed her and seen where he wad going." Nice to know he has a plan. I am such a proud aunt. -Pru.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

He is all about the problem solving. I'm pretty happy about it, too.

His solution to the end of Byron Barton's version of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" is that Goldilocks should have offered the bears some goldfish crackers as a gesture of apology, and then they wouldn't have been mad at her for invading their house. The page when she's fleeing for her life, Gareth always captions with, "And then Goldilocks ran for goldfish."

[jeneralist.livejournal.com]

Oh, my.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

A can of worms, yes indeedy.

[ingridsummers.livejournal.com]

What song? I'm terribly curious.

It's The Cure - "A Forest"

[(Anonymous)]

Youtube Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xik-y0xlpZ0

[jeneralist.livejournal.com]

"A Forest" by The Cure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZwVgQ4Wq7E

[laradionne.livejournal.com]

Goodness! Well, the heart, the imagination and stories really are the beginning of the path to anywhere mysterious. Here's hoping that when the time comes you have a strong flashlight and a multitude of batteries at the ready! Some red thread sewn inside of jackets might not hurt either... =)

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I'll make sure he's equipped with lighting and with practice at introducing himself to girls. As to the fairy world quandary, I'll have to make sure he's got manners suitable for faery as well as for human courtship.

[laradionne.livejournal.com]

If anyone is capable of teaching manners appropriate to meeting both mortal and faerie girls, it's you!

[csecooney.livejournal.com]

There is a story called "Flashlight" in this. A funny, beautiful, sad story. But the journal entry was A GREAT START!

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought of that possibility until you mentioned it. My brain has spent all day working on that story. Two versions of it, incompatible, either or both of which might be glorious.

If I allow the narrator to go to the faerie changeling survivors' support group, the cast will triple, and the story will become a novella and be impossible to sell. No support group for you, narrator! (Okay, maybe, but she's got to try on her own for at least one draft first.) The version with only three characters has a sort of pared-down appeal, and writing short would be a refreshing change.

[csecooney.livejournal.com]

I say go for the SHORT ONE! Start and finish, what a great feeling! Later, you can unpack the second! WHUHOOO!

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

Also, there is a book you totally need to get for him, if you haven't got it already: Jane Yolen's Child of Faerie, Child of Earth. Magnificent, and all in rhyme -- really GOOD rhyme, not a flaw in it anywhere, so good I was once working on trying to memorize the whole thing. Need to get back to that, someday. :-)

(In fact, see here. :-)

[violet-moon25.livejournal.com]

I love the concept of the faerie changeling survivors' support group but I can see where you might have to leave it out. Does it meet in a fairy ring? A church basement kind of seems wrong unless it's protective.

Also, we have some iron ore pellets that might be good for sewing into clothing or making a necklace or something.