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Author
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Comment
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redtriskell
Unregistered User
(4/28/04 11:44 pm)
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big fish and fairy tale-esque
I just watched Big Fish and was astounded at the amazing number of allusions to myth, fairy tales, ghost stories, and tall tales. Imagine my crushing disappointment in the special feature that claimed to be about this very topic and wasn't really. I would love to hear some ideas from other folks about this movie. In particular the peculiar little town of Spectre. And the shoes. And the mysterious lady in the lake. And the big ole catfish that spits out a ring. And witches with magic eyes. And werewolves. And...
I'm sure you can see how enthralled I am.
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Marks
Unregistered User
(4/29/04 9:41 pm)
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If you want to be even more enthralled....
...read the book. I liked the film a lot but thought it could have worked a little more magic on the audience. Still, after the travesty Burton turned Planet of the Apes into, Big Fish was sheer briliance!
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redtriskell
Registered User
(4/29/04 10:46 pm)
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thanks
Planning on it. In fact, I just found out the book was published by a local smallish press; therefore, it has a large presence at my bookstore.
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kristiw
Unregistered User
(4/30/04 1:20 am)
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soles, anyone?
God, I forgot the new Planet of the Apes was Tim Burton.
The shoes in Spectre reminded me of something, though. I read somewhere that taking the shoes of a murder victim is believed to keep their soul from pursuing their killer. Has anyone else encountered this, or a variant?
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aka
Greensleeves
(4/30/04 4:03 pm)
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Re: soles, anyone?
Kristi, what that reminds me of is the belief among some traditional warrior cultures that mutilating the bodies of the dead (eg, taking heads, hands, etc as trophies) will prevent them from entering the afterlife. (I apologize for having no specific examples at hand of which peoples believed this....)
Edited by: aka Greensleeves at: 5/1/04 9:57 am
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kristiw
Unregistered User
(4/30/04 8:41 pm)
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re: soles, anyone?
I know that cutting off the hands and feet of vampires was supposed
to prevent them from rising from the dead, but I can't think of
any specific cases of what you're talking about. I suppose this
is all somewhat groundless eschatological musings
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redtriskell
Registered User
(4/30/04 10:57 pm)
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soles, souls, and the wandering dead
Hey, folks! I've read somewhere (of course, I can't find it now) that some anthropologists think the earliest Celtic peoples mutilated the corpses of their enemies to reflect the ugliness of the spirit inside... also related to the idea that many Celts outright killed the deformed at birth. The thinking, as I recall, was that if one were born deformed, it indicated the displeasure of the gods.
As for vampires, not only were many suspected fiends beheaded, they also frequently had their hands and feet nailed to the bottom of the grave to prevent roaming about the neighborhood. Several documented cases can be found in church inquiries that took place during the twelfth century. Apparently, this mutilation of corpses led to great theological rifts within the church because one side held that an uncorrupted corpse indicated a vampire, and the other side thought that lack of decay might indicate saintliness. One can see how these different ideas could be problematic.
On to shoes... I always heard that all dead should be buried without footwear to stop them from rising. Hence my interest in all the shoes hanging from the wire in Spectre. I thought it was the afterlife, and they took away his shoes so he couldn't leave.
One last bizzare side note- I've also heard that headstones were
invented to keep the dead from rising. Apparently, the stone blocked
the spirit's head on its way up. One wonders why this might have
been effective, but, hey- whatever helps you sleep at night.
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Majicou
Unregistered User
(5/1/04 7:55 am)
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*darts out of lurking*
One example of such a society would be the Jivaro of the New Guinea highlands.
I'll see if I can dig up the name of an anthropologist who studied them. If I recall, one article was "Jivaro Souls".
The avenging soul of an enemy could be contained through shrinking their head into a tsantsa trophy, and blackening its orifices with ashes, so as not to let the soul become a demon.
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rosyelf
(5/1/04 10:44 am)
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Celtic mutilation of heads
I didn't know the Celts cut off heads to show the ugliness of their enemies-interesting. I do understand from my reading-can't recall which books I read about this in, sorry!-that another reason they cut their enemies' heads off was that they believed the head could become an oracle, prophesy things to their advantage, and so on. Why the enemy would want to help them in this way I never quite understood. I don't know if there is compelling archaeological evidence for this, but severing of heads is mentioned in some of the ancient Irish and Scottish writings.
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Helen
J Pilinovsky
Registered User
(5/3/04 8:18 am)
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Shoes
Actually, Charles de Lint wrote a fairly dark short story based
on the idea that taking a murdered soul's shoes would prevent the
restless shade of the victim from following the killer: it's called
"Dead Man's Shoes," and you can find it in The Ivory
and the Horn.
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Majicou
Unregistered User
(5/4/04 9:03 am)
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...
'Allo again,
Just wanted to correct myself, the Jivaro are from Eastern Ecuador.
Also, the author of the article is Michael J. Harner, if any of you happen to be interested in taking a look.
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Marks
Unregistered User
(5/4/04 6:49 pm)
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Celtic practices
I've read a lot about Celtic religion (actual, not wiccan new age) and haven't come across the practice of killing the deformed, but I would imagine that any tribal culture would probably be more concerned about them not being able to thrive in a warrior society than be about it mirroring their soul or inner person, etc. I'd like to know what source this came from. Not saying it isn't a fact, just one I haven't heard of.
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kristiw
Unregistered User
(5/5/04 2:19 pm)
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Charles de Lint
"Dead Men's Shoes" was actually where I first heard of this, but a lot of my books are in storage and I couldn't for the life of me remember in which de Lint book I read the story. Thanks! So with the origin of my idea in mind, does anyone know which folkloric tradition de Lint was alluding to?
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1peggysue
Registered User
(5/5/04 5:16 pm)
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Re: BIG FISH
i absolutely LOVED this movie !nbig fish is so great and it is such
a fantasy i think that is why i like it so much because when you
watch it you dont think about work or money you just watch and soak
in the fantasy! thanks for mentioning it so i can say my love for
it!~
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redtriskell
Unregistered User
(5/5/04 11:52 pm)
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to Marks- Celts and such
Hi Ho! Doing my sweep of the board and noted you were asking where I came by the tidbit about killing the deformed... I originally happened on the idea (not the facts) in a book I was reading. Like you, I had never heard of such a thing. Upon researching, I ran across a fellow by the name of Myles Dillon. He is the man to read for all things Celtic. Bit dry and sometimes so deeply scholarly he's hard to read, but worth it. Especially the bibliography. The longest bibliography was in "The Celtic Realms" by Dillon and Nora Chadwick. I tracked this notion through several articles and books from the bib. Not Dillon's work, but some of his sources. A long article in a French archaeology magazine (I'm sorry the author escapes me) offered me enough to at least consider the idea. The magazine was Memoires de la Societe d'Histoire et d'Archeologie de Bretagne, though I don't recall the issue. Now, to be clear, I believe they did this because it's in keeping with many other harsh things I think they did do, like decapitate their enemies. Is there definitive proof the Celts killed their deformed? Well, no. There isn't really definitive proof of much at all about them- all we "know" is what they buried with their dead and what Caesar said about them. Since he was a conquering war mongerer, I find his accounts skeptical. And too many Celtic scholars relied too heavily on Caesar's writings for too long. But I've read a great deal about the Celts- history, language, religion- and what I've concluded is that their history as a people is probably forever lost to us. All we can hope for is a glimpse now and then. I choose to hold their history about equal to their lore, because I believe the echoes of their race can still be heard in the lore much more than the history. I think, for them, there was no difference at all between the two. Well, I've wandered a tad from the point you inquired about. Sorry- I tend to get carried away. Anyway, try the magazine mentioned above- I wish I could remember more specifically, but the book was published originally in1967. I only found a copy a couple years ago, and I used the bibliography for reference to other related works. If you're interested in Celtic studies, I would reccommend trying to find "The Celtic Realms" because it's a good book covering a lot of ground. And there's lots of places to go from there.
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