Witches, it was believed, went unbelted.

[kleenexwoman]

Lookin' up Russian folklore and fairy tales, particularly death folklore. I love Baba Yaga stories, but I realized I haven't read that many, and I conflate Baba Yaga with the fairytale function of witches in general, which naturally has been highly informed by Grimm's fairytales. Russian folklore is amazing. I wish I still had Gail around so I could ask her stuff.

This is proving to be very useful.

Comments

[sir-dave.livejournal.com]

The variety of Orkney folklore, given the tiny size of the area, is quite incredible.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

British folklore in general overwhelms me. It's like the Amazon, where there's 50,000 new superstitions in every square inch of ground.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

But it's so much fun . . . you can listen to any Zeppelin tune at random and say, "yup, Percy was dipping into X, Y, or Z when he wrote this (along with quite a bit of whiskey and some good dope)."

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Nonono, Zep got everything from Tolkien and Crowley, who in turn stole a bunch of stuff from actual folklore. It's all secondhand.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Well, okay, but it played well in the sticks. My sister is going through all the packed-up stuff in our garage because she's moving to Traverse City next weekend and wants to yoink some supplies, and she found an old copy of Richard Cole's autobiography. He was Zep's road manager, and he was there for everything. The shark incident. The Great Dane incident. The strip clubs, the food fights, the numerous other orgies. Great reading.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

And actually, there's very little Tolkien. Ramble On off the second album, maybe a bit hiding in one or two other songs, and that's it. (Crowley, on the other hand, is present in every last note Jimmy Page ever committed to tape. There is some weeeeird shit going on in between the headphones.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Oh, come on. Misty Mountain Hop? Battle of Evermore? Stairway for goshsakes? Even Immigrant Song--Tolkien ganked from Norse mythology too.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Oh, okay, well, MMH, yes, but the rest is Tolkienish, not directly derived from Tolkien. Certainly in the whole vibe of fantasy lit, but you have to remember that Percy was exceedingly well versed in authentic Celtic folklore, and he worked quite hard to make things real.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Show me a paper on pre-Tolkien Celtic influences in Led Zep's discography and I'll give 'em all another listen.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

I may very well have to write that. (I've already planned my grad-school masterworks on Elvis at Sun and the Velvet Underground's role in ending the Cold War.)

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

In the meantime I recommend Hammer of the Gods for a good lazy summer read. The band hates it and it's got a lot of hearsay, but it's so goddamned decadent and entertaining.

Would that Zep decides to do one of those oral histories like the Beatles and the Stones did . . . that'd be a good tie-in with the tour this autumn (cross your fingers, knock wood, do a little fake Crowleyan magick), dontcha think?

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Anyway, Stairway is beyond any parameters or explanations we can put on it. It is, as a reviewer wrote not long after it was released, the closest musical approximation of an orgasm we're ever likely to see. (Moreso even than the middle section of Whole Lotta Love with Percy moaning and writhing all over the place.)

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Wait! Hold on. I just went back and listened to it. MMH has almost nothing to do with Tolkien. It's all hippie festival dope-smoke jive. So *thhhhhbbbbft* ;-)

[sir-dave.livejournal.com]

Have been researching the folklore and stuff. When one gets back to the Wild Hunt and all, and anything prior to the Roman invasion, it is not too far until the archaeology reveals that the 'superstitions' of the time required human sacrifice.

Recent excavations of so-called 'hill forts' (truly defended settlements) show that people were killed so as to be buried in symbolically important locations. So much for the back to nature brigade; folklore is fascinating stuff, but when we look for a rationale behind its early manifestations, it is not at all pleasant. It's homicidal.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Oooooooooooooh. I'm not surprised at the human sacrifice stuff. Any books or papers you can point me to?

but when we look for a rationale behind its early manifestations, it is not at all pleasant. It's homicidal.
Terry Pratchett taught me this! It irks me sometimes how fairy tales and folklore and superstitions get whitewashed or handwaved away as silliness--our society places such an emphasis on rationality that it's sometimes hard to remember that "superstitions" were things that people lived and died by.