#YA #BookReview The Lost Sun by Tessa Gratton #NorseMyth

The ending is sad (but since this is only the first book in the series, I'm not TOO worried about that), but otherwise, this book is kind of perfect. By that I mean Tessa Gratton - a scholar of Old English who previously translated 'Beowulf' - does a really wonderful job of weaving Norse mythology and Anglo-Saxon saga tradition into a young adult novel set in the contemporary world, tweaked with Germanic folkways. And - oh, yeah - the Norse gods are real.

The plot draws heavily on the Norse myth of the death of Baldur, traditionally the most beloved son of Odin. Yet Baldur is a secondary character to Soren Bearskin (that's Bears' Kin rather than Bear Skin), the mortal son of Berserker who went TOO berserk, filled with his own dawning battle-rage and destined to be like his father, yet not like him.

Soren is just beginning to realize how deeply he loves his friend Astrid, the daughter of a famous fortune-teller and a fortune-teller herself, when Baldur fails to make his annual return from the land of death. Baldur, who represents the sun, is sort of like a phoenix, who dies and then rises from his own ashes - at least, he has until now. Soren and Astrid set off on an adventure, guided by fate and joined by a new friend, the strange Loki's Kin girl named Vider. There are trolls, but just little ones. Their goal is to find the apple orchard of Idun, the keeper of youth and immortality, and when they get there, nothing is as it seems.



One of the really brilliant things about this book is the nature of reality in it: the gods are real and interact with mortals (Vider, it turns out, knows Loki personally, and Soren meets Loki's daughter Fenris Wolf), but are also spoken of in myths, and there are different versions. The gods could tell mortals their own true histories, but they choose to let the mortals create their own versions, because even the gods have agendas, and it wouldn't suit their ends to have their full stories known. The gods are mysterious, and even Astrid's foresight can't reveal everything about the journey she and Soren will make...

Resulting in a sad ending. I hope the next book in the series makes right what was "wrong" with the ending. I also hope Loki gets to play a bigger role in the next book. When he appears, it's as a sullen teenage boy. The myths about him make him the mother of Fenris (he became a female wolf and lived among a pack of wild wolves; all were slaughtered except Loki, and he then discovered his belly swollen with Fenris), but she calls him "Father." I would like Tessa Gratton to tell me more about Loki.

Gratton's conception of Freya is very interesting as well. Most of what I've read associated the queen of the Valkyries with the All-Mother Frigg. I've never read anything else that associated Freya with Hel, the queen of the world of the dead. Hel is usually called Loki's daughter, along with Fenris and the Midgard Serpent (Loki's three children with his frost giant mistress). I like this twist, making the goddess of love and war Freya one with the death-goddess.



The Goddess who embraces the souls of warriors at death should be the one who watches over their shades - which is part of the traditional mythology, that dead warriors feast with Freya and become her lovers. Hel is usually thought of more of ruling over the souls of dead mortals, I think, but I think this is a really interesting twist. Maybe Freya, Frigg, and Hel are the trinity or triple goddess in Norse mythology, equivalent to Persephone-Demeter-Hecate in Greek mythology and the triple goddess The Morrigan in Irish mythology?

If I lived in this universe, which god would I choose to follow? I'd probably belong to Freya, like Astrid does. Either Freya or Frigg, although the temptation to belong to Loki would be there as well.

It's really different from any other YA novel I've read before. It's fascinating. So other than wanting more, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I look forward to the next one, The Strange Maid. It won't be out until June 10, 2014, but you can preorder it now.

I got this book free in exchange for a review through Amazon Vine. I was not otherwise compensated for this review, which represents my own honest opinion.

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Mabon Greetings, Day 2: Let's Talk About Sif

Yesterday we talked about Mabon; today I'll focus on a Northern European goddess strongly associated with the grain harvest, an ideal archetypal figure for a fall holiday of thanksgiving. We can learn a little about this Norse goddess, often simply referred to as "the wife of Thor" (typical patriarchy! to honor a goddess only as far as her relationship to a male divinity), from a beautiful old book I rescued from a library book sale.

My cover looks different. This image is from Amazon.co.uk, and is by this person*

This book, first published in 1957, is called The Lost Gods of England by Brian Branston (not to be confused with Breaking Bad actor Bryan Cranston!). It's all about the religious-mythological system of the British Isles during the Anglo-Saxon period, which it appears was something of a mash-up between traditional Norse mythology and Celtic mythology. The two cultures had some similarities anyway, because all Indo-European pantheons can be traced back to the very ancient religion of the Indian subcontinent.

I just made a really cool thing sound incredibly boring. Norse myth is cool, really. Otherwise, Marvel wouldn't have co-opted it for comic books, and an increasingly successful movie franchise. More on the comic book Sif later.

Sif's brief article at Encyclopedia Mythica will tell you the story of how Loki sneaked into Sif's bedroom and cut off all her golden hair. The crime was investigated by Veronica Mars - no, I'm just kidding. Thor threatened to pull an Incredible Hulk on Loki unless Loki found a way to replace the hair. The ever-resourceful trickster god went to some dwarves, who spun gold into replacement locks, which Loki then magically attached to Sif.

Lost Gods is slightly more instructive. Slightly. Sif comes up four times. The first time is on page 117 of my edition, which teaches us that the Anglo-Saxon counterpart of Thor, called Thunor, is associated with agriculture, which "make[s] for a fertility element to his cult...He is married to the golden-haired goddess Sif, the northern Ceres, another manifestation of Mother Earth." Ceres, of course, is the Roman equivalent of the Greek grain-goddess Demeter, the mother of Persephone.

She comes up again on page 123, in the myth of how Thor once fought a stone giant named Hrungnir and ended up with a piece of stone embedded in his skull. The original source for this tale is the famous Icelandic poet and politician Snorri Sturluson, who lived in the 12th and 13th centuries. Christianity came to Iceland around the year 1000, and by Snorri's time, the Norse religion was no longer the dominant one. But I digress - this myth says only that Hrungnir threatened to abduct both Sif and Freya.

As seen in this Creative Commons image, another famous Icelandic person is Bjork. 

The third reference, on page 128, is similarly brief; Branston merely asserts that Freya and Sif are the same goddess, and so is Frig.

The final reference, on page 145, takes the tale of how Sif lost her hair as a metaphor - our old favorite, the agricultural metaphor of the Annually Dying and Returning God and his mother/lover who is Mother Earth. The loss of hair is the loss of the lover ("death" of the harvested crops), and its return is the lover's return (springtime growth of new crops from seeds planted in autumn). Branston cites another version of this myth from the Norse canon. In it, Loki steals the Brisingamen (a really fancy piece of jewelry) from Freya.

Heimdall, the guardian of the godly realm of Asgard who controls the rainbow bridge, Bifrost, transforms himself into a seal selkie-style and swims out to the rock on which Loki has stashed it, and after a battle with Loki, retrieves it for the beautiful goddess of sex and death.

If you read Eternally Bad: Goddesses With Attitude by Trina Robbins, as I did many years ago, you'll read a slightly different twist on the story of Freya and the Brisingamen. In it, Freya offers her sexual services to the dwarves, whose craftsmanship produced the shining jewel (a necklace, in Robbins' telling). From this bawdy Norse myth descends the Western European folk tale of Snow White. Oddly enough, by the 20th century this was regarded as such an innocent children's tale, Walt Disney turned it into the first full-length animated Disney movie.

Public domain image, a screen capture from the trailer for the 1937 Disney film, from Wikimedia Commons

Did you wonder why the seven dwarves worked in a diamond mine?

Trina Robbins also wrote The Great Women Superheroes, which my brother bought me one Winter Holidays. It doesn't mention the Marvel Comics version of Sif. (It does, however, mention The Valkyrie, briefly a member of the Marvel "superteam" The Defenders in the 1970s.) But if you saw the 2011 movie Thor, you may remember that Sif was a character - played by a distinctly brunette actress (Jaimie Alexander). If you were a fan of that movie, you've probably already seen this.

Thor: The Dark World is scheduled for a November 2013 release. The Marvel comic book character Sif, according to the Marvel Universe wiki, first appeared in 1964. In this version of the loss of Sif's golden hair, Loki was overeager to get the replacement hair to the goddess, and over time it darkened from shining gold to jet black. The first Thor film ends with the god's mortal beloved, scientist Jane Foster (played by Natalie Portman), waiting on earth for Thor while he remained in Asgard. In the comics, Thor and Jane have a fairly brief relationship, Odin has long approved of Sif as a mate for Thor, and Thor and Sif get engaged (although they've never been married in the Marvel Universe}. Jane and Sif never come up in the next Marvel film to feature Thor and Loki, The Avengers (2012), but it's possible there may be a bit of a love triangle in The Dark World. Loki has a wife, Sigyn, both in Norse mythology and in Marvel Comics, but she isn't in the film franchise. That's because the filmmakers want Loki to be a single guy, because they know he is attractive to women. Like me. I love Tom Hiddleston as Loki, and I think Idris Elba is absolutely gorgeous with the golden eyes he has when playing Heimdall. Of course, Idris Elba is absolutely gorgeous reading the phone book, or sitting in traffic, or naked on the roof of the Empire State Building eating an Eskimo Pie. (Yeah, I reached way back into the '90s for that reference.) Did I have a point here? Ah, yes - Mabon. The mythological Sif is a great goddess to celebrate at the harvest time because she's a fertility goddess whose golden hair represents the golden sheaves of wheat, or corn, or whatever grain you have that's ripened to a golden brown in the autumn. The sexual pairing of Sif and Thor assures the fertility of the crops. We can also think of Thor and Loki - the fair-haired brother and the dark-haired brother - as archetypes of the Oak King (Thor) and the Holly King (Loki). At Mabon, Loki's powers are starting to decline. At the Winter Solstice - Yule - Loki has his final fling as Lord of Misrule and then becomes the yearly sacrifice of a warrior that Hel (underworld goddess - Loki's daughter, incidentally) demands. Thor will rule until the Summer Solstice, when they'll once again switch places. Eternally. Or at least until Ragnarok, when Loki's monstrous child the Midgard Serpent and Thor kill one another.

I made this myself at QuickMeme.

*This person is Mr. Ian Johnston of Bon Bon Books, Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, U.K. Bon Bon is one of the two bookshop dogs, both Cairn terriers. The other is named Robbie. I only mention it because it makes a charming footnote. Compare Selected Works and its bookshop cat. This is an affiliate link: League of Super Heroes: Rise of the Villain (#1) (Party Game Society Hit Party Game) by Celeste Ayers. $2.99 from Smashwords.com The League of Super Heroes HQ is under attack! A Super Hero went missing last night. Looks like someone is out for blood… someone is killing heroes… but who? Who amongst you has turned from Super Hero to Super Villain? It’s time to suit up and take control of this evil once and for all. The fate of the world is at stake. Will the good guys be victorious in sniffing out the tyrants?

'Loving Loki' by Cheryl Pillsbury

I have much to say about this little book - some of it good, some of it not so good - but first, full disclosure: Cheryl Pillsbury is or was the publisher at AG Press, a small press for which I once did some editing. I edited poetry, fiction, and nonfiction for several authors, including Cheryl, only some of which I was paid for.

I don't think she ever had any bad intentions, but I do think she wasn't quite financially or organizationally prepared to deal with the publishing business. I didn't make money on the experience, but I did learn to be more skeptical of small press publishers I met online. It was a good learning experience overall.

As an editor of Cheryl's books, I noticed some consistent writing errors and overall poor sentence structure. To be perfectly fair, Cheryl is, for a large part, a fan fiction author writing for her own pleasure. She has written works using characters from several franchises, some of which have run her into occasional trouble with the copyright holders. This book can be thought of as a work of fan fiction, not of a copyrighted franchise but of Norse mythology.

I don't think it's completely forthcoming when the introduction states that the Marvel Comic Universe film franchise was not an influencing factor, though. For example, reference is made to Jane Foster, who is clearly a Marvel Comics character and not a person from Norse mythology. But that's okay. Authors are allowed to be inspired, although not allowed to infringe. They are two different things. Even bestselling author Linda Lael Miller admits she finds inspiration in TV, movies, and country music. The trick is to make the characters original enough that they are clearly your own creations.

Cheryl is a practicing Neopagan, and she claims in her introduction to the book that her work of fiction is based on the deities whom she worships. I don't have a problem with that. I wrote Shiva into Midsummer Night in a scene that is both reverential and erotic; I don't belong to any one religion, but I do love Hinduism's Shiva and Kali. They are some of my deities.

And Cheryl and I are certainly not the only ones who incorporate erotic writing into a form of religious worship or ceremony. See, for example, this piece of Easter meditation by Joan Borysenko. That said, you would not be completely out of your mind if you were to envision Tom Hiddleston in his role as Loki Laufeyson as the Norse deity described in the text.

The Brass Tacks:

Why Should I Read This Book?

Read this book is you've longed for erotic fan fiction featuring the Norse trickster god Loki in a relationship with an original character (OC).

Purchase link: http://www.lulu.com/shop/cheryl-t-pillsbury/loving-loki/paperback/product-22021581.html

Note that I am not an affiliate of Lulu.com and you going to the above URL will not benefit me in any way. I purchased a copy of this book with my own funds and was not compensated in any way for reviewing it.

Add It On Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25473887-loving-loki

Why Shouldn't I Read This Book?

You shouldn't read this book if you'll be bothered by unpolished writing that needs an editor. You can offer to edit for Cheryl if you're a kind-hearted and very patient beta reader who does it for love of the genre without any expectation of financial reward - if, for example, you're a high school student who just wants to get some editing experience under his or her belt before majoring in English in college.

Are There Any Thorki Moments in This Book?

Only one comes to mind: a scene of Thor and Loki sleeping side-by-side. For the most part, it's a love story between Loki and the OC, a Midgardian woman named Sira. There's even a Neopagan-style handfasting ceremony between them.

For some people, the gift of being able to turn out polished, professional writing comes easily. Others need a second set of eyes to help them reach the polished stage. There's nothing wrong with being a diamond-in-the-rough fanfic writer. Many of us will read these unpolished gems if the story is good and the characters are strongly written. If you hope to advance as a professional writer, though, you absolutely need a polisher.

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The Wheel of The Year. . by Maureen Murrish. $5.99 from Smashwords.com
The Wheel of the Year is a beginner's guide to celebrating the eight traditional pagan festivals of the the year.

#FridaysReads 'Fangirl' and 'The Lost Sun'

I'm currently reading Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl and loving it! The synopsis from Goodreads:

"From the author of the New York Times bestseller Eleanor and Park.

"A coming-of-age tale of fan fiction, family and first love. 

"Cath is a Simon Snow fan.

"Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan . . .

"But for Cath, being a fan is her life — and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.

"Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.

"Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.

"Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

"For Cath, the question is: Can she do this?

"Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?

"And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?"

Simon Snow, for those who don't know, is a fictionalized version of Harry Potter. (A fictionalized version of a fictional character? It's kind of meta, but that's what it is.) Cath and Wren are well-know in the Simon Snow fandom as the co-writers of an ongoing romance series between Simon and his roommate Baz. Baz is, essentially, Draco Malfoy. Essentially, Cath ships Drarry - really, really hard. If you've ever been in a fandom and you're familiar with fanfics and shipping, you'll probably find this book highly amusing. 

If you find it highly amusing that there are people who get into fandoms and know terms like fanfics and shipping, you'll probably find this book highly amusing. 

Cath and Wren are from Omaha, Nebraska. 

I'm also about 100 pages into The Lost Sun by Tessa Gratton. Its Goodreads synopsis:

"Fans of Neil Gaiman's American Gods and Holly Black's The Curse Workers will embrace this richly drawn, Norse-mythology-infused alternate world: the United States of Asgard. Seventeen-year-old Soren Bearskin is trying to escape the past. His father, a famed warrior, lost himself to the battle-frenzy and killed thirteen innocent people. Soren cannot deny that berserking is in his blood--the fevers, insomnia, and occasional feelings of uncontrollable rage haunt him. So he tries to remain calm and detached from everyone at Sanctus Sigurd's Academy. But that's hard to do when a popular, beautiful girl like Astrid Glyn tells Soren she dreams of him. That's not all Astrid dreams of--the daughter of a renowned prophetess, Astrid is coming into her own inherited abilities. 

"When Baldur, son of Odin and one of the most popular gods in the country, goes missing, Astrid sees where he is and convinces Soren to join her on a road trip that will take them to find not only a lost god, but also who they are beyond the legacy of their parents and everything they've been told they have to be."

Gratton has written this book in a fairly brilliant way. It's set in a contemporary, familiar world (the 21st century U.S.A.), using familiar modern language, yet there's just enough Norse mythology and Germanic folkways to make it resonate with the time-honored sagas of the English language and its cultural ancestors (think Beowulf). Gratton is a scholar of Old English, but this novel is in the voice of a modern teenager. 

I don't think I'm explaining it well, but it's really well done. 

Heather at Blonde, Undercover Blonde had a good idea today: to link to all the reviews she's done so far in 2013. I don't want to link to every single one, but here's one for every month:

January - The Count of Monte Cristo
February - Cora: The Unwilling Queen
March - The Art of Disappearing
April - Hemingway's Girl
May - Lover At Last
June - In the Body of the World
July - Divergent
August - Insurgent
September - Finding Esta
October - Princesses Behaving Badly

The Loki in Lughnasa

A few weeks ago, when Tom Hiddleston's erotic reading of Tennessee Williams' The Seven Descents of Myrtle came up in a prostitution-related post, I mentioned Hiddleston-portrayed Marvel Comics character Loki. The Norse god Loki, I said, sometimes has female characteristics, and is the mother of several offspring.

I got curious about the details of this story, so I turned to my trusty Hamilton's Mythology. It mentioned Loki's part in the death of the beloved god Balder, but says nothing of his children. I then turned to Myths and Folklore by Henry I. Christ, which is the textbook from which I studied mythology as a high school freshman and sophomore, ages ago. It, too, was of limited usefulness. It said, "Although handsome, he was fickle and unreliable. His three offspring were the wolf Fenris, the Midgard serpent, and Hela, or Death." 


Hela is often depicted as half alive and half dead. Hela is the death-goddess, an equivalent of Persephone and Kali. Her Celtic equivalent was Scotia, or Scatha, and Scotland was named after her. Also referred to as Skald in Norse mythology, she had to be appeased with the yearly blood sacrifice of a hero. 

I said Loki is the mother of this weird little brood, but Encyclopedia Mythica says Loki is the father and that their mother is the giantess Angrboda, Loki's mistress. Loki was the mother of the eight-legged colt Sleipnir; he took the form of a mare to distract the stallion Svadilfari, which belonged to a giant who opposed the gods. In doing so, Loki saved Freya from having to marry the giant. 


Then I went to Barbara G. Walker's The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. Walker writes, "Like many of the oldest gods, Loki was bisexual [in the sense that he was sometimes a male and sometimes a female]. He even succeeded in becoming a mother, though only after he swallowed a woman's heart to acquire the power of birth-giving...Loki's offspring was the eight-legged horse Sleipnir, spirit of death, a symbol of the gallows tree on which Odin rode." 

Walker notes that Loki was sometimes identified as "Logi," or "flame." She associates Loki-as-Logi with Lug (or Lugh), the Celtic god of fire, who was celebrated at Lughnasa/Lughnasadh (Lug's games) on August 1st. Hey, that's tomorrow!


Lug, it seems, is an Irish version of the annually dying and returning god. He's the son of Dagda (the great Irish father-god, equivalent to Odin), but also a reincarnation of Dagda. His mother/lover throughout the incarnation cycle is Tailltiu, the earth-goddess. At her eponymous Irish city, Taillten, the annual fair resulted in temporary marriages that lasted a year and a day. Lughnasa is reminiscent of Beltane - a cross-quarter holiday (the halfway point between a solstice and an equinox) at which a stage of the harvest is celebrated with symbolic acts of human fertility - i.e. sex, and not necessarily with one's usual partner. 

However you celebrate Lughnasa - bread and blueberries are traditional symbols of this stage of the Northern Hemisphere's harvest season - have a great one!

Amazon Audible Audiobook Deals Expiring on July 1, 2023

While your humble blogger here is in between day jobs, I've signed up to try my hand as an Amazon affiliate. As you know, I'm a big reader and a big podcast listener, so it seems like a natural fit for me to recommend some audiobooks. These books are on sale through July 1, 2023 at midnight. These are affiliate links, so if you click through and purchase something, I may earn a small commission on your purchase. Hopefully you have some Audible credits!

First up is Confident Women: Swindlers, Grifters, and Shapeshifters of the Feminine Persuasion, nonfiction/true crime by Tori Telfer. I haven't read this one, but I read Telfer's previous book Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History, and that was fascinating.

Next is a classic: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. This classic science fiction novel is 53% off during the sale period. 

H.G. Wells by Alvin Langdon Coburn, November 2, 1905, photogravure, from the National Portrait Gallery which has explicitly released this digital image under the CC0 license. (https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_S_NPG.87.288.F)

If you're into science fiction, you may also be interested to know that Robert Heinlein's Have Space Suit, Will Travel is also on sale.

This paranormal romance title, Crouching Tiger, Forbidden Vampire, is a book I've read, in print form, and I really enjoyed it. You can read my review here on the blog.

Scott Lewis's Mythology: Mega Collection is only available from Audible. This omnibus edition contains volumes 1-8 of Lewis's Classical Mythology Series. It includes stories from Celtic, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, Hindu, Japanese, Mesopotamian, and Norse mythology.

Finally, if you like mythology and folklore and you also like classics, you may be interested in The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm for 41% off. 

YA Mystery/Paranormal Review: 'Dead Is Just a Dream' by Marlene Perez

This is the eighth book in the Dead Is series overall, and the third one in which the protagonist is Jessica Walsh. When we last saw Jessica in Dead Is a Killer Tune, she and her sister viragos (town-defending women warriors) had to solve the mystery of the bizarre behavior of Battle of the Bands contestants during Jessica's freshman year of high school. Just a Dream opens at the end of summer, with Jessica becoming a sophomore. It ends in early November, at a Day of the Dead celebration. 

This year's strange occurrences include a ghostly, red-eyed white horse stalking the town at night, a creepy clown who comes into town with the circus, an artist whose paintings give people nightmares, and a new art teacher with a marionette obsession. People die and appear to have been scared to death in their dreams - a nod to the Nightmare on Elm Street horror film series that Perez acknowledges by having one of the characters sing a song from the movies. 

A ghostly horse associated with the night and bad dreams, the Mara, rings a bell for me. Looking back over some of my previous blog posts, I realized I'd written about the Mara when I wrote about the Welsh goddess Rhiannon (she of the awesome Stevie Nicks tune). Known as Mare to the Irish, the goddess was said to ride through people's dreams as a white horse, bringing inspiration. Inspiration isn't nightmares, though, so I'm guessing the association with bad dreams comes from Christians saying, "Mare isn't a goddess, she's a demon." 

If you look up Mare in Wikipedia, whoever has written the article says nothing about Celtic legend, defines the folkloric terms as "an evil spirit or goblin in Germanic folklore which rides on people's chests while they sleep, bringing on bad dreams" and cites the 13th-century Ynglinga Saga (a work by Snorri Sturluson, an Icelander who serves as an important source of Norse mythology*) as a source for this Germanic etymology. 

That sleep paralysis and night terrors are caused by evil spirits is not a folk belief that has died out, by the way. You can, for example, go to YouTube and watch videos by Christian evangelists such as Chris White who explain sleep paralysis not in terms of neurological activity in the human brain, but in terms of "the demonic realm." Personally, I went to Roman Catholic schools from kindergarten through bachelor's degree, and although we believed in as many as six impossible things before breakfast, we also used science as the tool for understanding the natural (but not the supernatural) world. I don't quite get the mentality of religious belief that can't co-exist with 21st century medical knowledge - but that's just my worldview.  I have my spiritual and folkloric beliefs, but I open them in a different window than my scientific knowledge. 

The Mara, in Perez's telling, is a shapeshifter, sometimes a scary horse and sometimes a frightened little girl with wild hair. If your childhood included reading Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz (spookily illustrated by Stephen Gammell when I bought them; newer versions were illustrated by Lemony Snicket collaborator Brett Helquist), then you may remember the story "A New Horse." It's about a magical bridle and a witch who uses it to change people into horses, riding them at breakneck speed all night and returning them, exhausted, in the morning. Schwartz's footnotes say similar tales can be found worldwide, but that this particular version comes from rural Kentucky. 

Look back at the Wikipedia entry for Mare, and you'll see the rural Kentucky folk tale closely mirrors what the Norse peoples believed: 

"The mara was also believed to 'ride' horses, which left them exhausted and covered in sweat by the morning. She could also entangle the hair of the sleeping man or beast, resulting in 'marelocks,' called marflator mare-braids or martovor mare-tangles in Swedish or marefletter and marelokker in Norwegian." 

...which explains why the little girl has such wild, umkempt hair in Dead is Just a Dream. 

The other book that comes to mind when I read about the Mara is The White Witch of Rosehall by Herbert G. de Lisser. I've never been to Jamaica, but apparently if you go there, you'll find numerous copies of this novel, first published in 1929, for sale at all the tourist stops. The real Rose Hall is a plantation in Montego Bay, Jamaica, and the legend that forms the basis for the book regards a haunting by an Anglo-Irish witchcraft and Voudun practitioner named Annie Palmer. In de Lisser's novel, Annie commands the specter of a demonic horse. 

But back to the book at hand. 

In the acknowledgments, author Marlene Perez thanks the Houston Teen Book Con. Apparently someone asked her what she is afraid of, and "This book is the answer." It does have a certain creepiness factor that makes this volume a little more suspenseful than the last one, which offered very few surprises. 

The mysteries here still aren't very tough to crack - this series has always had more of a light, breezy paranormal tone than a hardcore mystery novel tone, after all - but I found myself liking this one a little better than Killer Tune. Maybe it's because the horse, the bizarre paintings, the weird puppets, and the eerie clown are more interesting and original than a Pied Piper retelling. 

As I've come to expect from this series, there's also a romantic wrinkle: Jessica faces a solid month of loneliness when her boyfriend Dominic announces he'll spend December touring with his band. She also faces competition when Dominic's ex-girlfriend Tashya comes to town - and Dominic's mother (also a virago) seems to prefer her to Jessica. 

No spoilers, but the ending is somewhat bittersweet. At this point, I don't know whether or not Perez intends to continue the series. I hope so, because if this ending is the very end, it doesn't seem quite definitive. Also, Jessica is really growing on me. Daisy got five books as the heroine, and I kind of hope Jessica gets the same. 

You can preorder Dead Is Just a Dream now. The official release date will be September 3, 2013. 

Disclosure: I received an advance reading copy of this book through Amazon's Vine Program. I was not compensated for this review in any way other than the free book. The review represents my own honest opinion.  I am an Amazon.com affiliate and if you buy this book or any product after clicking through the above link, I will receive a small commission of a few cents. 

*Much, much more about Norse mythology will go into my upcoming Mabon (autumnal equinox) posts.

Who Is Lugh, and What's Logi Got to Do With It?

I created a slight neoPagan controversy when I posted a link to "The Loki in Lughnasa," a post I wrote in 2012, on Tumblr. That post relied heavily on Barbara J. Walker's The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, a source I have learned is highly questionable. Since August 1st, I learned that:

- The Celtic god Lugh (sometimes spelled without the "h") is not a fire god.

- The association between the Norse god Loki and the Norse fire giant Logi is an error.

- No solid evidence links Loki in Norse mythology to Lugh in Celtic mythology.

So, who is Lugh? What is he the Celtic god of? Who is Logi? And who confused Logi with Loki? We'll look at each of these questions in turn.

Lugh

In my very first Lughnasadh post, written in 2010 when I was still fairly new to blogging, I wrote:

"The Irish consider it the feast of the god Lugh, who consecrated it in honor of his foster-mother's death. Lugh's foster-mother Tailtiu, "The Great One of the Earth," represents the land of Ireland itself. Thus, her death is symbolic of the harvest: the crops sacrifice themselves so human beings and animals can live. Tailtiu's death was celebrated with feasting, Olympic-style games, bonfires and handfasting ceremonies. Where corn is harvested, the goddess is often visually represented by making corn dolls."

Contemporary corn doll depicting Lugh. Creative Commons image by MountainAsh333

Unfortunately, I didn't happen to note the source of that information. I did better in 2013's Mabon post, when I referred to Lugh's article at Encyclopedia Mythica. It says:

"Lugh is the Celtic lord of every skill. He was patron of Lugodunum (Lyons) in Gaul. He and his nature goddess consort (Rosmerta) were worshipped during the 30 day Lugnasad midsummer feast in Ireland. Fertility magic during this festival ensured ripening of the crops and good harvest. He was called Lamfhada or 'of the long arm' in Gaelic because of his great spear and sling. His animal attributes were the raven and the lynx. Lugh mirrors Hindu Karttikeya, the spiritual warrior, and Roman Mercury, the swift messenger. His exploits are recounted in the Tain Bo Cuailnge, the Cattle-raid of Cooley." - Dave Buchert

So Lugh is a skilled warrior, a swift messenger, and a fertility god. Well, that's minimally informative. Wikipedia is user-generated, and therefore not the most reliable source, but it tells us that:

- Lugh's Welsh counterpart is Lleu Llaw Gyffes. As you may recall from this post, Lleu Llaw Gyffes was the son of the goddess Arianrhod. She cursed him never to marry an earthly woman, so instead he married the unearthly Bloddeuwedd, made from nine different flowers.

- His father, Cian, is of the Tuatha Dé Danann, or "tribe of the goddess Danu." His mother, Ethniu, belongs to the Fomorians, the mythical people who were said to have inhabited Ireland before the Celtic people got there.

- Lugh was given to a foster mother, Queen Tailtiu, to raise, possibly because of a prophecy that his maternal grandfather would be killed by his grandson. Lugh's grandfather Balor was said to have a poisonous eye that killed everyone he looked on it with.

Cú Chulainn by J.C. Leyendecker. Public domain. 

- The king of the Tuatha Dé Danann appointed Lugh to his court because he had so many different skills. The Tuatha Dé Danann are being oppressed by the Fomorians, and Lugh agrees to help the Tuatha Dé Danann regain their freedom.

- In a battle against the Fomorians, Lugh uses a slingshot to shoot out his grandfather Balor's evil eye, causing the Fomorians to lose the battle.

- During the battle, Lugh spares the life of Bres, a former king who agrees to teach the Tuatha Dé Danann the secrets of agriculture. However, Lugh ultimately killed Bres by causing him to drink the poisonous "milk" of 300 wooden cows Lugh had made.

- Later in his life, Lugh instituted the Olympic-style games in memory of his foster mother. August 1 was the conclusion of the games.

- Lugh had several wives, including the daughter of a British king. One of his wives had an affair with Cermait, son of the Irish father-god The Dagda. Lugh killed Cermait, but then Cermait's three sons killed Lugh.

- In some versions, Lugh is the father of the Irish hero Cú Chulainn. When Cú Chulainn is severely wounded in battle, Lugh arrives and heals his wounds.

Mythography says the confusion of Lugh with a deity of the sun may have to do with his nickname, "Shining One." However, the nickname was probably in reference to all his various skills. It also says Lugh ascended to become the leader of Tuatha Dé Danann when the god Nuada was killed in battle.

So that's Lugh - a mythological figure who may have been based on a historical king, but was said to have belonged to the divine tribe of the goddess Danu.

Public domain image by John McColgan.

Logi

Wikipedia says that Logi means "fire" in Old Norse and that the mythological Logi was a fire giant. It says the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturlson describes the eating contest between Logi and Loki. They competed to see who could most quickly eat meat from the bones, and Logi won by consuming meat, bones, and trencher all alike. Not only was Logi a fire giant, he was also the personification of fire itself.

Logi has two brothers, one who rules over the winds and another who rules over the sea. In astronomy, Loge (an alternate spelling) is one of the moons of Saturn.

NorthernPaganism.org adds that Logi was called High-Logi because he was so tall. His wife was named Glow, and they had two daughters named Ashes and Embers. After the death of his wife and daughters, Logi lived alone in a black-rock cave in Muspellheim (the land of fire).

So it seems unlikely Logi has anything at all to do with Lugh. Lugh has an association with blacksmiths, who do use fire, but that has more to do with Lugh's many skills than it does to any elemental connection Lugh might have.

Loki and Sigyn in a painting by Mårten Eskil Winge. Public domain.

The Confusion of Logi With Loki

According to NorseMyth.org,Wagner named a character in the Ring opera cycle Loge and gave him the characteristics of the mythological Loki. Wagner's Loge is a fire sprite.

Wikipedia's Loki article says Jacob Grimm referred to Loki as a "fire god" in 1835. It also says:

"Famously, Loki appears in Richard Wagner's opera cycle Ring of the Nibelung as Loge (a play on Old Norse loge, 'fire'). He is depicted as an ally of the gods (specifically Wotan's assistant rather than Donner's), although he generally dislikes them and thinks of them as greedy, as they refuse to return the Rhine Gold to its rightful owners. In the conclusion of the first opera Das Rheingold he reveals his hope to turn into fire and destroy Valhalla, and in the final opera Götterdämmerung, Valhalla is set alight, destroying the Gods."

Wagner completed Das Rheingold in 1856, post-Grimm. Collin Cleary's essay "Wagner's Place in the Germanic Tradition" clearly points the finger at Grimm as the source of the confusion between Logi and Loki:

"The Grimms often made imaginative links between names and other elements in the sources they utilized, and this seems to have emboldened Wagner to do the same – achieving a kind of fusion of German and Scandinavian elements. Indeed, some of the inferences or connections Wagner has been criticized for actually have their origin with the Grimms. For example, Wagner also includes a character named 'Loge,' who is the equivalent of the Scandinavian Loki. In fact, there is scant evidence that there was a Loki figure in the German mythological world. However, Jacob Grimm postulated 'Locho' or 'Loho' as possible German equivalents. Wagner didn’t particularly like either, and settled on 'Loge.'

"Purists have long railed against Wagner, however, for making his Loge/Loki a god of fire. Again, however, this has its origin in Grimm. In Scandinavian myth there was a fire giant named Logi, and Grimm thought that there might be a connection to Loki. (More recent scholarship doesn’t support this.) We find the origin of Wagner’s Loge in these words of Jacob Grimm: 'Now a striking narrative . . . places Logi by the side of Loki: a being from the giant province beside a kinsman and companion of the gods. This is no mere play upon words, the two really signify the same thing from different points of view, Logi the natural force of fire, and Loki with a shifting of the sound, a shifting of the sense: of the burly giant has been made a sly, seducing villain.'"

The Brother Grimm. Public domain. 

There we have it: Lugh is not Logi, Logi is not Loki, and Loki is definitely not Lugh.

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The Wheel of the Year is a beginner's guide to celebrating the eight traditional pagan festivals of the the year.

Pagan Imagery in "If I Die Young"

“If I Die Young” was recently a #1 hit for The Band Perry. The ballad tells the story of a young woman whose life has been cut short. She asks to be put to rest in a river at dawn. Whether consciously or not, when singer Kimberly Perry wrote the lyrics, she incorporated many images that have been associated with burial customs since ancient times. Many of them have a Pagan significance.



“If I die young, bury me in satin
Lay me down on a bed of roses”

The ancient Romans held the rose to be a symbol of Venus; its petals reminded them of a woman’s genitals. Venus the Rose-Goddess was Christianized as Saint Rosalia (pictured below), the patron saint of Palermo. Like many European Pagans who associated the goddess of love with death, the Romans also considered roses a symbol of death. This association was not considered negative; rather, death was seen as a return to the goddess, the source of life. Being taken back by the goddess could lead to rebirth.

Anthony van Dyck, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In North Africa, rosewater was used for purification. Roses could protect against evil and because of this were commonly placed in the graves of women. When Christianity arose in the Roman Empire, roses and their thorns became symbols of the blood and suffering of Jesus.

In modern flower color lore, red roses symbolize love and respect, white roses symbolize reverence and humility, and light pink roses are the roses of sympathy.

“Sink me in the river at dawn”

In Greek mythology, there were five rivers of the Underworld, each of which the dead crossed. The first was Acheron, the river of woe. The last was Styx, which comes from the Greek word for “hateful” and represents the horror of death. However, the river could also be seen as a positive symbol for washing away sadness. In Hinduism, the Ganges river is sacred. The river itself is a goddess, said to flow from heaven and wash away sins. It has long been a tradition to place the cremated remains of the dead in the Ganges.

“Lord make me a rainbow, I’ll shine down on my mother”

The rainbow is a bridge between earth and afterlife in many mythologies. In Norse mythology, the rainbow bridge is called Bifrost and is imagined as “trembling.” Many peoples conceptualized the bridge to heaven as razor-thin, admitting only the good souls. The “pot of gold” at its end is a folkloric descendant of the cauldron where the mother-goddess (Macha in Irish mythology) kept the souls of the dead.

“And I’ll be wearing white when I come into your kingdom”

White is a symbol of purity, the reason why “virgin” brides wear white wedding dresses. The Welsh once buried children with white roses to symbolize purity. In rural Virginia, the custom was to bury children in white clothes; adults were dressed in black.

“So put on your best, boys, and I’ll wear my pearls”

Another symbol for the entrance to heaven (“the pearly gates”). Pearls were also sacred to Aphrodite, ancient Greece’s equivalent of the Roman love goddess Venus. Pearls have also been used to represent purity and virginity. They represent the moon because they look like little moons. The phases of the moon, as it seems to “die” and reappear, are a symbol of life, death and rebirth. An archaic practice was to wear pearls only at night; the sun was thought to damage them, while the moon would energize them.

“The ballad of a dove”

This is likely a reference to the gospel song “Wings of a Dove" written by Bob Ferguson and popularized by Ferlin Husky in 1960. In the Christian Bible, the dove represents the Holy Spirit. To the ancient Greeks, the dove was a symbol of Aphrodite, particularly in her role as the collector of souls at death.

Resources

Danielle. (n.d.) “Pearls…Symbolism and Meaning.” http://serapii-kisu.net/essence/symbolism/pearls.php

Encyclopedia of Death and Dying. “Charon and the River Styx.” http://www.deathreference.com/Ce-Da/Charon-and-the-River-Styx.html

Rose Magazine. (n.d.) “Rose Folklore.“ http://www.rosemagazine.com/articles07/rose_color_folklore/

Scott, Dawn. (n.d.) “Old Time Burial Customs.” http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~vaschs2/burial_customs.htm

Walker, Barbara J. The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983.

Tye, Timothy. (n.d.) “Along the Banks of the Ganges River.” http://www.asiaexplorers.com/india/ganges_river.htm

Hooker Please ~ Prostitutes in Literature

On account of reading and writing so much about prostitution lately, I threatened HERE to write this blog post, and now I did. I don't judge people for non-monogamy or for having jobs in sex work, but just for the record, I categorically oppose human trafficking, forced prostitution of any kind and the sexual exploitation of minors.

The two former prostitutes I've known in my life were both recovering drug users, and their sex work was directly related to their addictions. This doesn't apply to any of the five characters you'll read about below - obviously, for artistic purposes, there's a bit of a disconnect between reality and fiction.

I warn you, a spoiler is coming up for Mockingjay, so don't continue unless you've finished the entire Hunger Games trilogy.

Prostitutes in Literature I've Read Recently

1. A Hu-Li, The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin. A Hu-Li is a supernatural kitsune, a fox shape-shifter. Owing to her supernatural ability to influence human minds, she never actually has to physically touch her clients. Until she starts falling in love, A Hu-Li is, paradoxically, a virgin prostitute, at least in the sense that she’s never had intercourse in her unnaturally long life.

2. Lorene (Alma Schmidt), From Here to Eternity by James Jones (currently reading). Lorene is Alma Schmidt’s “house name” at the Honolulu brothel The New Congress Hotel. She’s a native of Oregon who told her mother she was going to Hawaii for a few years to work as a secretary. Alma has a legitimate reason for wanting to earn her own money: she doesn’t want to have to depend on a man. The first night Robert E. Lee Prewitt meets her, he’s in love. She won’t marry him because, in order to preserve her reputation to the extent that no one would ever believe she’d been a prostitute, she intends to marry a high-status husband.

3. Finnick Odair, Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. Mockingjay is a war novel, and many outrages happen therein, but few upset me as much as Finnick’s fate as a 17-year-old Hunger Games victor. In Catching Fire, Finnick’s flirtatious nature made him seem like he was overly confident, cocky and proud. In Mockingjay, we learn his sexualized way of relating to other people is the result of exploitation from the Capitol – he was literally pimped out to wealthy male and female clients. Unlike Alma, Finnick gets to marry his true love, Annie, who is pregnant when Finnick is killed in battle.

Sidebar: What do Katniss Everdeen and Robert E. Lee Prewitt have in common? They look somewhat similar - tall and slim, with an olive complexion. They both come from a coal mining area, and both had coal miner fathers. Prew drinks like Haymitch, though.

4. Sophie-Anne Leclerq, Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris. 1,100-year-old French teen Sophie-Anne Leclerq is a recurring character in Harris' Southern Vampire Mysteries series, until her true death. Definitely Dead is the book in which the heroine Sookie Stackhouse hears Sophie-Anne’s tale. As a mortal human, Sophie-Anne was the sole survivor of a wave of plague that destroyed her village. When she met up with other human beings again, they exploited her and put her to work as a prostitute. Her callous treatment by other humans is some of the reason why the vampire queen of Louisiana is so cold and calculating, a terrifying and powerful woman.

5. Myrtle,The Seven Descents of Myrtle(also known as Kingdom of Earth) by Tennessee Williams. I didn't actually read this one; via Kala's (TheDorkMistress') Tumblr, I heard this recording of the short story/dramatic monologue being read by Tom Hiddleston. Tom Hiddleston is one of the stars of Tumblr, beloved by fangirls everywhere for his portrayal of the comic book villain/Norse god Loki in the movies Thor and The Avengers. Hiddleston narrates the story as "Chicken," the character who steals his half-brother Lot's new wife, Myrtle.

(This is an odd image of Loki, but it resonates with the "seven descents" in the title - Dance of the Seven Veils, get it? But then again, in Norse mythology, Loki is sometimes female. He/she gives birth - the wolf-monster Fenrir, who may or may not appear as a character in The Sacred Book of the Werewolf, is one of the offspring of which Loki is the mother.*)

Myrtle and Chicken have a long, philosophical talk in which she describes being sexually harassed and then raped by her boss as a young teen. Despite the violence of her experience, she learned that she liked the sexual act itself* and became a prostitute as well as a showgirl before marrying Lot. Lot, afflicted with tuberculosis,is a pathetic figure; Myrtle married him largely out of pity. Lot calls Myrtle’s name all night while she’s up in the attic making love to Chicken, and in the morning the two come down to find Lot dead.

Prostitutes in Literature I Haven't Read

For this, I've enlisted the aid of the trusty New York Public Library Literature Companion. I feel as if there should be some character who comes immediately to mind when I think of literary prostitutes, and I’m having a brain cramp and just not thinking of him or her. Help me out here, blogosphere – who else belongs on this list?

-- Moll Flanders, The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe. Being a prostitute is counted among Moll Flanders’ misfortunes. Later in her life, she becomes rich, repents, and dies an honest woman. Stupid Flanders. 

-- Lulu, Pandora’s Box by Frank Wedekind. Lulu is the classic literary femme fatale – she literally causes the deaths of those around her. Like Moll Flanders, she grew up on the streets. In her declining years, Lulu is reduced to prostitution, and her final client is Jack the Ripper. Louise Brooks played Lulu in a 1929 silent film.

-- Maureen Wendall,Them by Joyce Carol Oates. Maureen is the daughter of Howard and Loretta Wendall, a working-class couple. Howard, a police officer, is once busted for taking money from prostitutes. After his death, Loretta relies too heavily on her young daughter to take care of her, and Maureen works as a prostitute to build an escape fund. Her stepfather finds out and beats her, resulting in a nervous breakdown. Maureen’s older half-brother, Jules, sexually abuses and pimps out a woman. So, typical Joyce Carol Oates: heavy, depressing dysfunction all around.

I do not volunteer to read any of these things. 'Specially not J.C.O. I'm still traumatized by "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been."

*Corrected here: http://erinoriordan.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-loki-in-lughnasa.html