On Display

This Weeks Prompt: 123. Dried-up man living for centuries in cataleptic state in ancient tomb.

The Resulting Story: A Night At The Museum

The prompt here is one of the rare ones that genuinely frightens me—the thought of being buried alive has always unnerved me, and more than once I have looked up what to do if you were buried alive and needed to escape. And here we have something…even more terrifying. Not only being buried, but trapped in an ancient tomb as a mumfiied state.

We can consider this a sort of inversion of our sleeping figures we discussed here, or perhaps an extreme extension of sleep paralysis. Here we have a man alive in this state—a state induced by supernatural means, as obviously a cataleptic state does not stop the need for food or water—as time passes away in an ancient tomb.

But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. Catalepsy is a state in which one has a wax like rigidity—limbs stay where moved, but can be moved—and a numbness to pain. While some body functions are slowed, such as breathing, the sort described here takes things to an entirely new level. The theme of catalyepsy leading to being buried alive is a recurring one in the works of Edgar Allen Poe. The Fall of the House of Usher and the Premature Burial both address these.

The horror of the situation is apparent, but the scale of time makes it strange. The shock of awakening, unable to move, and the slow and inescapable decay of the mind. But centuries are vast and terrible oceans of time—it is hard to convey their passage in a few thousand words. The alternative is that such a man, living in his state, is discovered and manages to somehow awaken.

St. Dionysius of Zakynthos

The pharsing dried up does separate this state from the more common states of eternal rest or life, where a person has explicitly not decayed. I think, for instance, of walking saints of Greece. These saints are entombed, but they remain there—and they supposedly are free to wander the earth for quiet some time. There are other states that are comparable—the state of a princess in Balkan stories of vampires resembles a cataleptic state. She remains apparently both dead and alive, but rises from her tomb to feed on those left to guard her. It is only the advice of another vampire or a saint that spares the hero of her predations.

Indeed, perhaps the fate of this individual is to be at first mistaken for a corpse, put on display like many others. Then he could be revived from his slumber, freed of his state somehow—if not in the physical, perhaps in the unseen realm. Dreaming or projecting his consciousness outward, using the same secrets that preserved him for millenia—trapping someone else in his body. This would fall into the grotesque acts of hypnosis that we have seen earlier this year.

A slightly amusing work might look at the obsession with illness, fainting, and general…death appearance that the Victorians had and play with that here, given our gentleman resembles a corpse or death itself in a far crueler way. 

I couldn’t find a good Creative Common images of the Buddhist Mummy

I’m reminded of something….else as well, a bit outside of folklore. There was a story on a number of websites of the discovery that a Buddhist statue actually contained a monk who had self mummified in an effort to become a living buddha.  A special diet was undertaken to make this process easier—food was eaten to strip fat and moisture, toxic liquids were drank in order to repel insects, and so on. But a number of post mortem practices were preformed on the meditating monk—the replacement of organs with paper, for instance. Some Buddhists believe that the meditating monks are not dead but are, like our own subject, in a deep state of consciousness.

This concept has a bit more pop culture pull then might be expected, as a similar concept appears in Dark Soul’s Monumental, beings who have become meditating guardians and statues like stone. These beings spend their time pushing back against a terrifying, existential creature of fog and lost perception—the Old One, a Lovecraftian entity as old as mankind itself.

A similar fate befalls the immortals in Death’s Master, who after gaining immortality lose all drive and will—and slowly become so stagnate that they are overcome by coral as their city sinks into the sea. One such man is returned in Night’s Daughter to a much stranger disposition on life. Another man becomes one with the stones, for very similar reasons—having lost all drive and passion for the world, he slowly mummifies in a cavern atop a large column rock. His name I’m afraid escapes me, although I remember he was in love with Simmu. I believe he was in Night’s Master.

Peder Winstrup, the Swedish Mummy in question.

While looking into that story, the story of another preserved pair of bodies in Sweden. Here, illness preserved the bishop’s body, along with the cold of winter at the time of his burial. However, more fascinating was that he was not alone in his coffin—underneath his body was a still born child. Why such a burial was preformed is unknown as of writing—perhaps it was in hopes that the child would reach heaven with the bishop, as they died unbaptized. Perhaps it was to hide the child’s existence.

There is a story that appears to have sprung from this prompt: Out of Aeons features a very life like mummy and a metal cylinder being brought to a museum in the 1800s. After being placed in a museum, it attracts attention as relating to a little known myth about a man going to see the gods and becoming a statue. This leads in time to attempts at a robbery, which ends…poorly.  You can read the story in full here.

There is another pulp story that this calls to mind, which is the story The Hour of the Dragon where a mummified ancient sorcerer is revived for a plot to overthrow the king of Hyboreia, Conan.  Conan triumphs in the end, with unexpected allies saving him both from execution and the supernatural might of tyrant from the past. You can read the story here. While seemingly only tangentially related, Mr. Lovecraft and Mr. Howard were correspondents. In fact, references between the two bodies of work have only grown. And it does play into the genre tropes discussed—associations with mystical power and the inevitable danger of such a body reanimating. Granted, there is a world of difference between a monk and bishop and a wizard out of time. But given our nature as a horror blog, perhaps the distance between those two poles of knowledge can be lessened somewhat.

I think the story’s basic beats—the discovery of a mummy, the attempted robbery from a museum before something terrible happens, and then the discovery of its true nature—are fairly strong. I think of course that merely rewriting the story is a bit…much. Zooming in on the robbery will keep the story focused, I think, and while something of the surprise at a body becoming animate is lost, not much of that remains anyway. This does make the story something of a bizzare mummy’s curse story. The Mummy’s curse is often laid on those who disturb its tomb, where as here it seems the robbers are the ones to fall victim. Perhaps including a bit more of that to the beginning, the mysterious deaths surrounding the mummy might even be a motive to rob it.  A curator, realizing that such a thing is cursed and bringing doom upon those around it, might wish such an image “tragically lost” from the museum’s collection, for instance—or perhaps the employer of the theft wishes ill upon its recipient and hopes to pass the curse onto them.

What do you think? What long preserved corpses would resurrect?

Temptation

This Week’s Prompt: 119. Art note—fantastick daemons of Salvator Rosa or Fuseli (trunk-proboscis).

The Resulting Story: The Empty Windows Part 2

This week from Lovecraft we receive one of our most precise and artistic visions—with a bit of effort I was able to track down the exact painting by Salvator Rosa that inspired this prompt, and while Fuseli proved more difficult I found plenty of monstrous art there. I’ll give my commentary on his work towards the end, since it deals with material we are already familiar with in this society.

Rosa’s Elephantine Demon

The image in question, above, is of the Temptation of Saint Anthony. Saint Anthony has two instances of temptation, one on ground and one in the air, and both are regularly represented in fantastic and surrealistic art. His first temptation began when he was young and set about the monastic path—arguably the first such monk in Christendom. The devil, envying such behavior, set about his temptation in the usual way at first. He whispered of the riches of the world, of the love of women, of the importance of family, of the difficulty of the task, of the infirmity of the body—but these trusty weapons failed. So instead, he assaulted him by day and night. So vicious were these assaults that they were visible to all who watched. But the constant attacks, even when the Devil came as a woman, were not enough. And this shamed the Devil’s pride, that he who claimed to be greater than god was rebuked by a simple man. After all of this, the devil confessed defeat, appearing as a small boy.

Later in life, Anthony sought further to conquer himself. He went out to live among the tombs near his village in Egypt, and settled there for the night. He asked that his friend bring him bread in the morning, but otherwise not disturb him. The Devil, already alarmed by the discipline of the man,  was afraid he would bring discipline to the desert. So he assaulted the saint with an army of demons and cut him to ribbons, such that his friend assumed him dead when he came to deliver the bread.  He was carried back home and there was a funeral—but he was merely sleeping. He awoke and asked his companion to return him. His wounds were real, however, and he could not stand. So he prayed as he laid on the ground.

The demons, frustrated, shook the earth and attacked the tomb from all four walls in the shape of many beasts and crawling things. But Anthony mocks them, for both relying on such great numbers and such dreadful forms. And as they gnash at him, the roof opens up and he is healed by a golden light. (As an aside, I can’t help but notice that the demons come from the four directions, but the divine aid comes from above. The symbolism to me reads as the demons being the entirety of the world here…but more on that later).

Next he takes residence in an abandoned fortress—the mere arrival of St.Anthony drives out all the reptiles. With six loaves of bread, each lasting a month, and water from the well.  Here, demons assailed him and cried out for him to leave what was theirs. His acquaintances, who came to visit, heard the sounds of violence and were afraid—but St. Anthony was unafraid and told his friends to make the sign of the cross and nothing shall harm them.

Much later in life, he ventured to a new mountain—called the inner mountain in my texts. Here he remained, and began to farm so that those who guided him there would not exert much effort in order to help him.  And here again demons assaulted him—those beyond heard the crashing of arms and saw that the mountain was full of wild beasts. First hyenas were sent, but they were repulsed. Then a beast like a man, with the legs and feet of an ass came and assaulted him. And he was repulsed.

Saint Anthony preformed other acts of healing and exorcism through out his life—leading to the promotion of monasticism through out the land. There was incident that I couldn’t find in my copy of the Life of St. Anthony, but is recorded in the art of Micahelangelo—here demons assault him again, but this time as he is carried through the air by angels instead of when he is in the desert or fortress or other place of desolation.  The story is the same as the variants above, for the most part.

Saint Anthony’s stories reflect a number of folkloric truths about wicked spirits—that they often take the forms of beasts, they dwell in places of the dead or forgotten places where nothing grows. And they have no power of men protected by the Divine. The artistic imagery of the demons is more fantastic, as the images I’ve included no doubt shows—the lives I have includes at best “the crawling things” and the man with the legs of a donkey. Still, invisible and angry demons serves as fruitful ground.

The story also calls to mind stories from India of Sidhartha’s last meditation. Here we encounter not the Devil but Mara, who attempts to dissuade Sidhartha from meditation and enlightment.  He sends three or five daughters to attempt to seduce him—but he remains mediating. Mara dispatches vast storms of rain and stone, frightening away the gods that had gathered around the Buddha—but this was to no avail either. Then Mara dispatches a great host to destroy him, and he remains untouched. Mara then called out that Buddha’s seat belong to Mara—and his whole host agreed with his claim. When asked for his witness the Buddha touched the earth—and the Earth cried out that she bore him witness. And Mara and his hosts vanished.

While this is the most famous text, it is not the only story of Mara attempting to seduce the Buddha. We find Mara in one text exhorts Sidhartha to go and live, to gain merit, for he is gravely thin. His path is too difficult, too rough to bear. And so he is rebuked by the Buddha for being what he is—and the Buddha counts and numbers his ten hosts that stand before him. Other texts have Mara attempting to lure Buddha away from preaching, either to keep it to himself or to abandon the path of preaching. One amusing temptation has Mara bringing letters from the Buddha’s princes, supposedly, that demand he give up preaching.

The similarities of these stories lead me to wonder if there was some influence on St. Anthony’s story from India. They aren’t the only temptations stories—there is the famous Temptation of Christ, where the devil came to Jesus in the desert, and offered him food and power and proof of his divinity. He rejects these temptations and resumes his preaching with citations from scripture. The idea, however, of being assaulted by demons does not feature in the Gospel story. Only in the stories of Anthony and Sidhartha. And the fantastic creatures are also missing. Given that what drew Lovecraft to this narrative was the image of a elephantine creature, I think the idea of a terrorizing demon serves best.

I think it’s also worth noting that the symbolism in Anthony and Buddha’s narratives paint the evils as deeply rooted in the entirety of the world–while they dwell in places of wilderness, the demons that attack Saint Anthony come from all quarters. They take the form of “baser” things–beasts, not men or scholars or intellectually cunning angels. Likewise, the daughters that approach the buddha are named for temptations, and Mara’s callings point to worldly responsibilities. One divergence I noticed is that, while both appeal to how hard the monastic life is, Mara appeals to the Buddha’s royal obligation, while Anthony has no such appeal that I could find. Perhaps because he never held any office?

Artistically, both works cited by Lovecraft have very physical, monstrous, and bodily feelings. They aren’t as abstract as Dali, but rather concrete and monstrous and menacing things. The piece by Fuseli I could find that closest fit what we have here is this one, of a snake devouring a rider. A consumptive, monstrous thing that was very much made of flesh, not dreams.

Before discussing where I intend to take this, I thought it’d be wise to mention that this is another story where the “result” is easily found in Lovecraft’s own work. Well, not his work. Chaugnar Faugn is a creature that resembles an elephant with a trunk that ends in a leech like mouth. A repulsive creature imprisoned in a statue form, or perhaps hibernating, it arrived and shaped life on this planet millions of years ago. When awake, it drains the blood of those that draw near. I haven’t read his original story—Lovecraft featured him in the Horror in the Museum, as an aside, but he comes from  Frank Belknap Long. Reading a summary the story is…bizzare, featuring strange rays that send creatures back in time, hidden cults, inorganic life, and the brothers of Chaugnar Faugn.

Our own story will of course be picking up from last time, with our artist having found the final hidden window. There are a number of strange things that might occur—the demon perhaps is literal, descending on this lonely and isolated man form the empty plains. Or perhaps it will crawl from the new window—or merely observe. Something tangible, devouring, and menacing–something there “in the flesh”. Let us see what lonely and fantastic horror awaits, next time!

Bibliography

Athanasius, St., and Robert T. Mayer. St. Athanasius: the Life of St. Anthony. Newman, 1978.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Māra.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 20 May 2013, http://www.britannica.com/topic/Mara-Buddhist-demon.

“The Buddha’s Encounters with Mara the Tempter: Their Representation in Literature and Art”, by Ananda W.P. Guruge. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 30 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/guruge/wheel419.html .

Lives Well Lived

Before getting to this week’s story, I wanted to take a moment to address the recent events in the news. Police violence and systematic racism has resulted in the death and imprisonment of countless innocents, the destruction of properties and futures, and produced irrevocable damage. At the Undead Author Society, I try to mostly focus on folklore and horror stories, mentioning politics only when they intersect with the material. But it feels wrong not to say this clearly: Black Lives Matter. You can find links to donate at the end of the research, in place of our normal Patreon link.

This Week’s Prompt: 113. Biological-hereditary memories of other worlds and universes. Butler—God Known and Unk. p. 59.

The Resulting Story: The Lives of Sam Dedric

I do love when I get a precise page number from H.P. Lovecraft, it can narrow these quotations down immensely. The section in question by Butler posits that the memories of an entire species might be traced backwards from a single member—and that the memories may lead to apparently unrelated places. In the same way two leaves on a tree appear to have no relation, if we remove the branches and trunk, so too could worlds and creatures appear utterly distant without the fossils and time between them.

This notion ties into ideas that some in Lovecraft’s circle, and Lovecraft himself, professed interest in. In particular, the interest in past lives and memories of earlier forms of humanity owe a great deal to Theosophoy. The Lovecraft story this most reminded me of was one that was, in part, written by a Theosophist, Through the Gates of the Silver Key. In this story, Randolph Carter makes contact with a being outside of time and learns the entity and he are the same—the entity is the Supreme Archtype, of which Randolph is a mere facet. In recognition of Randolph’s accomplishments in earlier stories (I suspect particularly The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath). Randolph asks to visit another world that he has dreamed of recently, and the entity grants this wish, sending him into the body of an alien wizard. However, Randolph forgets his symbols and rituals that would allow him to return to normal. Instead,  he ends up trapped in the body of an alien wizard, detesting each other. Eventually, he does find a way to maintain power over the body and arrives back on earth to acquire the sigils and rituals, and disgusies himself as an Indian man to attend his own funeral. The results of the story I won’t spoil, but it is…interesting to say the least.

The idea here and in general lead me to a text I had in my collection for a long time but never actually sat down to read—a collection of stories about the past lives of the Buddha. I wasn’t able, of course, to read the book in it’s entirety in the week or so I had—I managed about a third of all the text. The concept of the text is that the Buddha is instructing others on life lessons, based on experiecenes he had in prior lives. These lives range from being born a merchant to a prince to an elephant and so forth. And some tell rather incredible stories.

A favorite of mine has a man who seems determined to not learn the value of money. He begins rich, and is on the verge of being rich enough to leave home when his mother sends him to a monastery. There, he spends a year listening to the master teach, but comes home none the wiser. His mother again tries to stop him from leaving—but the man strikes her dead and leaves on a trade vessel the next day. On his journeying, he comes across many wonders at sea. He comes across a series of fabulous palaces, inhabited with supernaturally beautiful maidens, and delights in their company until they fade away after a week or so. He arrives at last at the Ussada Hell, a place that to his deluded mine appears to be a great city. Walking through it’s streets, ignorant to the torment, he comes to a man city with a great wheel of blades cutting into his head. The man, the king of the city, also slew his mother and is relieved to see our merchant friend. The merchant mistakes the blades for a splendid crown—and demands an exchange. The king is happy to do so, even after warning the merchant. It is only when he dons the crown that the Merchant learns the truth and is struck with horror. He then meets the past life of the Buddha, who happened to be in town—and in a set of stanzas, the punishment is made clear to the man, who bemoans his folly.

Another story tells of a wise man who knew the seas well in his youth—yet the spray of salt made him blind. None the less, his hands remained perfect for knowing the nature of things—and so he could ascertain the history of a horse from a touch or an elephant from gracing his hand along it.  Eventually, he grew tired of his work for a king—which paid very little, and in fact was unfufilling. So a group of merchants hired him to guide them on their journey—for he alone was wise to all the seas. Over his protests, the blind man went with the merhcants. And a good thing too! For the merchants quickly found themselves ina  sea where the fish had the bodies of men and razor snouts, and lept out of the water to slay men who sailed near them.  The wise man knew that this ocean had diamonds on the floor—and if the told the merchants of this, they would sink the ship to get to the gems. So he advised they lighten their load, while tossing his own net behind and trawling up diamonds for himself. Soon they came to another ocean, one that blazed like the sun. The merchants were afraid, but the wise man gave them the correct advice and they again passed through—and the merchant grew richer, for this ocean had gold. Next was a sea of milk, full of silver, and a sea of grass full of emeralds. At last, however, they come to a sea they cannot cross—for here the sea churns into a whirlpool, the waves rising like walls around an endless abyss. The wise man steps forward then and, with an “Act of Truth”, transports them back home to where they began. Richer for the journey, it seems.

Leaving the oceans for a moment, we can find lives of the Buddha among the nobility in a few fantastic stories. In one, a man establishes a tradition of almsgiving , and for this his next life he becomes the king of the gods. For five generations, his children do the same—they become in turn the sun, the moon, the stars, the heavens, and so forth. At last, the sixth son ins greedy—and in fact tears down the almsgiving house and gains a reputation for being a nuisance. So the five incarnations descend, and take the form of beggars. They then go about testing their descendant, and find him wanting—and

Another story of family issues in incarnation deals with a man name Kamsa. This man is told that his sister’s son will in time destroy him, and so he seeks to lock her away—but alas, her maid servant allows a prince to visit her, and a child is conceived. The brother promises to kill him if he is a son, and the mother too—and so the gods ensure that the child is switched with the maid servants daughter. And so the ten sons are born to the maid servant, each with prostigous gifts. They became a nuisance, bringands the lot of them, and soon the king attempts to have them humbled and defeated by summoning a pair of wrestlers. The ten sons easily over power the wrestlers, and kill them—and the king, with a chakram. One wrestler, however, calls out that he will be reborn a “goblin” of the woods and devour the man who killed him.

The group of ten then go out to conquer all of India, running into difficulty only with a city that was inhabited by “goblins”. One “goblin” would take the form of an ass and wait near the city—seeing an invading army, he would bray. The “goblins” would then lift the city out to sea, and wait for the enemy to retreat before returning it. The ten brothers, in frustration, finally captured the donkey after determining from a teacher that it was the source. The donkey gave instructions for how to prevent the cities escape, and it was captured.

The brothers then divided the kingdom into 10 parts—one member declined his share and gave it to his sister. Here however the story gets…confusing for me to follow. We are told that people lived 10,000 years during this time—and certaintly, that is a common trait of previous epochs—but there is a reference to them dying and passing their throne down to their descendants, who engage in a cruel test of a wise man and kill him. And then are themselves killed by their parents.

In the end, the goblin of the woods and a hunter finish off the last of the sons, and only the daughter remains ruler of the world.

A later, sweeter story invokes past lives a bit differently. A brahmin’s son died young, and was reborn as one of the gods. The man went and paid tribute to his son every day at the graveyard. The son sees his mourning, and descends down—dressed nobly, but his identity obscured. He tells the brahmin that he has lost his chariot. The brahmin offers to make whatever chariot he needs, but the son asks for a chariot with the moon and sun as wheels—a request the Brahmin rejects as ridiculous, for such a thing can never be made. The son then admonishes his father, for wanting something impossible—to see a ghost or to have an immortal son. He reveals his identity and tells his father to make this an alms day.

Another peculiar story tells of how a man’s past life provided him with a weakness for the future. Two asectics lived in a village. A robber in town decided to hide in the house of an ascetic—the guards pursuing him determines that the ascetic is actually the robber in disguise. At the king’s command, he was to be staked in a cemetery. However, all the stakes that attempt to pierce the man break. Thinking over his past lives, the ascetic concludes that there was once a time he pierced a fly with an ebony stick and thus calls for a stake of ebony to pierce himself with. His fellow asectic comes to meet him, seeing him impaled. He is worried greatly, but the first ascetic tells him he has no ill will to him. None the less, the second ascetic remains at his side—even as the gore of the impaling stains his golden skin black.

Eventually, the king comes by to see that the ascetic is punished—and finds the second ascetic, who proves the first’s innocence. The king tried to have the stake removed, but it can’t be done. Instead, the stake is cut on either end, leaving the first ascetic with a peg in his chest.  This man latter goes forth to cure poisons with recitations, driving out snake venoms when they come into men and more. Here the past life memory not only explains circumstance, but is bodily marked.

These stories work best with past lives reconciling or reckoning with past affairs, past deeds, and guilt. A story of our kind deals with perhaps more extreme notions—the ideas of forgotten roots, forgotten parts of the human species or human family. Memories of lives before this one, ages before this one, worlds separated—worlds perhaps as fantastic as flying cities, palaces of jewels, seas of fire! A story I think would reckon with what these memories lead to. Do they reveal secret treasures? Lost knowledge? Lost people? Ideas and dreams forgotten in the haze?

Let us see, next week!

BIBLOGRAPHY

Butler, Samuel. God the known and God the unknown. London : A. C. Fifield, 1909. Accessed: https://archive.org/details/godknowngodunkno00butliala/page/60/mode/2up June 18, 2020.

Cowell, E.B. The Jataka or stories of the Buddha’s former births. Cambridge University Press, 1895-1913.

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Off the Map

This Week’s Prompt: 93. A place one has been—a beautiful view of a village or farm-dotted valley in the sunset—which one cannot find again or locate in memory.

The Resulting Story: Yonster Over Yonder

This week, we are covering a concept or topic that came up before briefly when we discussed lost Irem: lost and hard to find lands. However, this time, I’m going to focus specifically on the nature of the place as unfindable, and discuss places long sought or supposed that have entirely vanished or been moved into the world of metaphor.

Stories of cities of luxury and wonder, just over the horizon, have existed since the conception of stories. But there was certainly an explosion of such cities during the colonization of the Americas. One of the most elaborate stories–especially tracing the changes in narrative over the years and the telling–is El Dorado.

The first reports of El Dorado were in fact accounts of a ritual for the new chief of the Musica, not a city itself. This ritual involved an offering to the gods and a dive into a nearby lagoon. Afterwards, the new king was adorned with golden dust–hence the name, El Dorado. The Gilded Man.

After the Spanish conquered the Muscia, and found their gold supplies mostly imported, the legend moved somewhat. It became not merely a single man, but an entire city made of gold. These cities were supposedly isolated from the world. The city of gold was believed perhaps to recognize Christians (a tell tale sign of a European origin), and numerous map makers added it’s location to their maps (leading to a few failed attempts to reach the confirmed city).

El Dorado on the above map–note that Manoa is another name for El Dorado.

Part of El Dorado’s origins come from reports by Hernando Cortez, that claim there lies in the West of the Aztec Empire a province more populous than Spain and richer than the recently plundered cities. These rumors played into the notion of seven legendary cities of gold in the Americas. These cities were located in the southwest, among the Zuni, and of course contained no gold. Six of these cities were ransacked by the Spanish, desperate for gold. The seventh  city, sadly but not unsuprisingly, did not exist and has never been found.

Cortez’s writings also contributed to the stories of La Ciudad Blanc. This region in Hondaras was vaster than Mexico, and had as many inhabitants and far far more riches. This region was multi-cultural, with a number of native language groups living there. The conquistadors never found evidence of such a place, although lost cities have been found in the rainforest since then.

In South America, two of these cities are recorded. One is the City of the Caesars–this city was of course rich in gold, silver, and diamonds. Unlike others, we have more detailed descriptions of what it looks like–it’s between two mountains, one of gold and one of diamonds. Some accounts have the city moving to avoid capture. Inhabitants of the city range from ghosts, lost Spanish survivors, exiled Mapuche, giants, and the remains of the Inca Empire! Some believe that stories of the Empire of Peru inspired the legend itself!

The other city is the Lost City of Z–a city that contained a temple with hieroglyphics, statues, and arches. Pursuit of this city was put off do to World War II. Still, the city was the most recent to be pursued to my knowledge.

The French reported a similar city in the North. More accurately, they claimed to record an Iroquois legend of the land of Saguenay. This was a land to the north, with great silver and gold mines and inhabited by blonds, who loved furs and had them in abundance. This of course was never found, and was perhaps a lure to get more settlers into Canada.

Back across the Atlantic, Europe was no stranger to imaginary lands. The most famous of course gave the ocean it’s name–the island of Atlantis. Described first in Plato’s dialogues, the city was founded by Posiedon’s children and, generations later, began an expansionist conquest. The island itself was paradisal, and about the size of Anatolia, if not larger. The hubris of

Further north is most distant Thule, a land where the sky meets the sea. Early descriptions say the land has no air or water, but rather something like a jelly consistency. It is six days north of Britain’s northernmost edge and where the Sun goes to rest. Some sources point to Iceland or the Faroes, others Britian itself (some quotes about Pictish blood support this understanding) and others say it is ice-locked beneath the polestar.

The land of Prester John is in the other direction. Prester John’s kingdom was rumored to be in Asia, at first specifically in India. Supposedly, the kingdom was founded when the disciple Thomas visited India, and was a land of plenty and wisdom. Prester John was sometimes a descendant of the Three Wise Men who visited the birth of Christ. Later reports even claimed that his grandson, King David of India, was conquering Persia during the Fifth Crusade–an inaccurate report of the very much Tengri Ghengis Khan. Over time, Prester John’s kingdom was moved closer to Ethiopia (the term “India” referred to a wide number of places, including Ethiopia). It wasn’t until the seventeenth century that notions of the Preseter John were dispelled.

Cockaigne was another lost utopia, although much more clearly allegorical. It’s roads and houses were made of pastries, everything was free, roasted pigs wandered the streets with knives in them already. The only location it was ever ascribed, jokingly, to London (as the land of Cockneys). Brittia, a place between Britain and Thule in many descriptions, was a similar paradise ruled by a Frankish king.No taxes were paid, and no labor required except manning the boat that brought the dead over.

Moving farther along we can find in Egypt Zerzura. Zerzura is a white city built around an oasis, guarded by giants at all times. Its front gate is carved to resemble a bird At the center of the city is a sleeping king and queen. A traveler who touches the beak will achieve entrance into the city, and find the great treasures within–a story that reminds me of narratives of the City of Brass.

One of the suggested locations of Biringan City.

Moving off to the Philippines, there is Biringan City. This city, according to some accounts, pulls people in a trance–against their will to an elegant city. Some reports indicate that fisherman and drivers will end up in this city by mistake–fishermen especially when their catches go poorly. The spirits that dwell there sometimes abduct the soul of those they love, leaving behind only a lifeless corpse. These creatures, engkantos, are also responsible for skin diseases and can change their appearance at will.

Circling up again, we can find another lost and unmarked land in the Pacific. Here, we find two versions of a strange mountain. In China, it’s called Mount Pengali. It is the home of the Eight Immortals, and knows no misery or sorrow. Here there are fruits that grant everlasting youth, and summer never ends. There are even wines that will raise the dead that the First Emperor sought out. To contrast that is an account of Mount Horai from Japan–an island who’s atmosphere is made of thousands and thousands of dead souls, which if inhaled grant wisdom of the dead. The inhabitants here are childish–odd, given the presence of the dead–and no nothing of wickedness. The island’s winters are cold and harsh.

Moving to the mainland and across to Tibet, we come to our last group of unseen and unmarked lands.  Mount Kunlun is on such place–a place inhabited again by divinities and animals. The Queen Mother of the West has made her place her, with fruits of immortality, trees of jade, and more. Immortals regularly visited, while a river circling it that pulled all things down into it kept out the unworthy.

Not far away, we move from Taoist influenced missing lands to Buddhist ones. Shambhala is also located in Tibet. The land is in some case ruled by the future buddha, and the capital city is shaped like a three dimensional mandala. Other texts, particularly Hindu ones, point to it as the birthplace of the last avatar of Vishnu. When the world has reached its end, and the wheel must begin again, it will begin again in Shambhala.  This paradisal place will be the seed that grows into a new world.

All of these paradises seem primed for a story about journeys and obsessions. A metaphorical attempt to attain the past–to reach back to something felt of the past. Something dimly remembered and distant–we should consider that, for many of these European stories, physical distance was the same as temporal distance. These far away places were often equated to earlier times in the past–they were places that could hold a secret Eden. What place do you remember, distantly? That you can’t place where exactly or even when?

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Sacred Guardians

This Weeks Prompt:76. Ancient cathedral—hideous gargoyle—man seeks to rob—found dead—gargoyle’s jaw bloody.

The Resulting Story: The Frog Church

The story of the gargoyle is an interesting one. Grotesque sculptures—specifically one spewing water, but I feel that is an unnecessary division here—gargoyles are fearsome creatures that adorn many old buildings and churches. The gargoyle is sometimes thought of as a protector of the church—a feirce creature that fends off or frightens away evil spirits. Certainly, the gargoyle in this story is playing the role of guardian. But the actual origin of the gargoyle is far stranger.

 

 

It all begins with a priest and a dragon. The dragon, however, was more dreadful then your typical terrifying creature. In the tradition of medieval dragons, it was a beast with bat wings, a long neck, and breath of fire (rather standard fare for dragons, as opposed to other french creatures like the Tarrasque). St. Romanus, a chancellor to the king, went out to face the dragon. In some versions, the ones I prefer, he was added by a condemned man, and leashed the beast. Bringing it back to the city it had terrorized, the saint burned the creature. However, the head and neck would not burned—they had become fire proof with the aid of its own breath. So the head and neck were mounted in the church, to ward off wicked spirits. The head spontaneously spouted water—or blocked the rain in a way that looked like a fountain (a nice inversion of its earlier fire breath). St. Romanus also reserved the right for his church to pardon one criminal—non traitorous criminal that is—per year.

The gargoyle then is not at first a willing defender of the church, but the image is rather effective as a guardian. The gargoyle is of course not the only statue associated with the church and not the only statue that guards holy places.

We can consider, for instance, the church grim. We’ve discussed this creature before—a black dog that wards the church, sometimes buried in it’s foundations. The robbery we are dealing with seems likely to be foiled by a church grim, as the creature is much more frequently a physical protector then a mere spiritual one. Other accounts of the church grim—sometimes called the Padfoot–describe a white or white dog, the size of a donkey that stalks at night. Other times, it takes the form of a lamb in the graveyard. It is also reported that the sound or stalking by a church grim marks one for death, and when unseen the grim may make the sound of chains being dragged. Speaking to or striking the church grim gives the grim power over you—resulting in comedic instances like a man being dragged by a particularly mischievous grim all the way back to his window.

 

 

We can also consider the Nio. Unlike gargoyles or grim, who are a type of creature or sculpture, the Nio are at least in theory the same two individuals everywhere. The Nio are fearsome defenders of the Buddha—frequently, the two wield thunderbolts and have rather frightening appearances. The exact origin of the two is unclear—some posit them as defenders of the Buddha in life who took up this role after death, some place them as Raksasa, some as thunder spirits. Almost always, one of the pair has an open mouth, the other a closed mouth. The meaning of this pattern is disputed at times—the open mouth to frighten off evil spirits, the closed to keep good spirits in; the open mouth as the first letter of the alphabet, the closed as the last; the open as in someway feminine, the closed as in someway masculine; and so forth.

This imagery, however, is repeated in the lion statues outside shrines in Japan. Komainu or shisa (Japan vs Okinawa) are in fact lions, not dogs, although their origins and naming are a tad convuluted. While I couldn’t find many stories on the komainu, the shisa is a popular general guardian spirit. I found the following stories on the site linked above:

“A Chinese envoy brought a gift for the king, a necklace decorated with a figurine of a shisa. Meanwhile, at Naha bay, the village of Madanbashi was being terrorized by a sea dragon that ate the villagers and destroyed their property. One day, the king was visiting the village, when suddenly the dragon attacked. All the people ran and hid. The local priestess had been told in a dream to instruct the king when he visited to stand on the beach and lift up his figurine towards the dragon; she sent a boy to tell him. The king faced the monster with the figurine held high, and immediately a giant roar sounded throughout the village, a roar so deep and powerful that it even shook the dragon. A massive boulder then fell from heaven and crushed the dragon’s tail. He couldn’t move, and eventually died.

At Tomimori Village in the far southern part of Okinawa, there were often many fires. The people of the area sought out a Feng Shui master, to ask him why there were so many fires. He believed they were because of the power of the nearby Mt. Yaese, and suggested that the townspeople build a stone shisa to face the mountain. They did so, and thus have protected their village from fire ever since.”

The mystic lion statue guardian exists in Tibetan tales as well. We have a classic story of wealth there—a man regularly feeds a stone lion he finds in the woods. This man, Phurba, is notably poor, but still takes the time daily to feed the statue. The lion comes to life one day, and tells Phurba to come early the next day—and to put his hand in the statues mouth. There he will find gold, until the sun rises and the lion’s mouth closes. Phurba succeeds, and his rich neighbor Tenzin goes to do the same. Unlike Phurba, Tenzin does not take his hand out—and for his greed his hand is stuck into the lion.

Tibetan guardian spirits are also a fascinating delve in myth. They in a way resemble our gargoyle most closely—the spirit is a demonic creature, converted to Buddhism and then made a defender of what it converts. There is a long article I will link here, as I’m still reading the works relating to Tibet. However, this connection with the Gargoyle I think hints at some of the horror we can work with here.

Turning to the folklore of Hungary, we have another story of a mystic and righteous statue! A holy man dwelt long in the forest of Hrisco. So righteous and wise was the hermit, he was preferred as a negotiator—the legal authorities were rarely bothered. Eventually, he was called to deal with a peculair case of royalty. The Queen was a widow, and vowed to never remarry. When she met a man she fell in love with Francis, who was also a widower, she adopted him as a son. In time, Francis grew impatient and greedy—and locked the Lady of Larbor in her own castle, telling her servants she had gone mad.

The hermit, having been called by the king’s exiled and destitute lady, berated Francis—and suffered the wrath of the crown. Francis had the hermit locked in the highest tower and left to starve. And eventually the hermit did pass away—but the torment did not cease. For the next day, a statue of the monk appeared on a high rock near the tower. The statue pointed down accusingly at Francis—and despite the efforts of nobles and servants, the statue could not be destroyed. This accusing presence drove Francis mad—he demolished the castle, but the statue and castle returned. He fled, and died miserable and sleepless, the cruel presence of the monk haunting him to the last.

Our story I think then has a few interesting elements. The most overt parts is a story of the gargoyle in question, as a fearsome creature. A terrible origin story for the apparent statue. Here we can also observe the Lovecraft story, “The Terrible Old Man”. The story details a number of thieves trying to break into an easy mark’s house…and suffering a terrible fate. A useful technique here is the giving a clues to the history of the place, in small snippets and words. I have a nasty habit of just…saying what the story of a place or creature is. Our strange grotesque could have more hints around it. What sort of supernatural, or even alien, thing it had once been. Perhaps this is not the first thief to have met a grizzly end.

Particularly interesting to me is this recurring story, in both the Nio, the Gargoyle, and the Tibetan guardian deities, that an enemy of the holy place is converted into it’s most ardent defender. The potential parallel for our unfortunate burglar might work out well—perhaps a newly carved gargoyle bears an uncanny resemblance to him.

This story is also a good time to revisit the church as a location—particularly the Gothic cathedral. The most famous use of course is Hunchback of Notre Dame which…I have not read. I did see the Disney adaptation, which makes use of the gargoyles as…elements. Comedic relief I guess. Still, a cathedral is a fascinating location to me, as almost every cathedral is adorned with images. Stories in stained glass, statues of saints, names carved into the ground to mark tombs. A cathedral to me is certainty a presence as much as a place. It is easy to feel, among so many eyes and symbols, like you are being watched and judged.

Biblography

Chopel, Norbu. Folktales of Tibet. Ltwa, 2006.

Henderson, William. Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders. Pub. for the Folk-Lore Society by W. Satchell, Peyton, 1879.

Pogány, Nándor. The Hungarian Fairy Book. [1st ed.] New York: F. A. Stokes Co., 1913.

 

 

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It’s Alive!

This Weeks Prompt:64. Identity—reconstruction of personality—man makes duplicate of himself.

The Resulting Story: A Certain Preponderances of Witnesses

The creation of an another form of life is a pursuit that humanity has pursued for a long time. While the intentional creation of a doppleganger is not well known—such things tend to form by chance or anomaly when they occur, and grim visions at that—the idea of continuing on or creating something without a partner is not novel. The horror that can come from these often alchemical projects is vast as well, especially as some are horrific or humorous folklore tales.

The most common example of the formed individual is the alchemical homonculus. The creation of life in this manner was the goal of alchemists as much as the philosopher stone was; in fact, in the Middle East it superseded transmutation as the primary great work. The Western version, found in Parceleus, seeks to create a new living man by use of an artificial womb—specifically a horses womb. After forty weeks, the child is born and can be fed blood to bring it to the fullness of life, albeit diminutive life. The significance of such an event has been noted by other researchers as an attempt at the recreation of life as done in Genesis.

The creation of life from clay has the additional version in the mode of the golem. The golem is a creature of Jewish folklore, formed of clay and enlivened by commands through its mouth. As mighty beings of clay, the golem was a staunch defender of the community if a silent one. The golem in the most famous narrative, Prauge, turns out in its own time to be a danger when it turns against the community—reasons vary from rejection to simple murderous impulse to violation of the Sabbath. Either way, the golem is ended by the hand that created it by removing its scrolls or altering the script on its head that gave it life.

A recreation of the Golem of Prauge.

The horror genre has of course a parallel with the golem, shared as part of the origin of science fiction: Frankenstien’s monster. The monster, like the golem, is a recreation of the forming of life that starts out benevolent—to the farm family at least, if not to the creator himself who has fled. Eventually he turns on his creator, and the rest is as they say history.

There are more modern uses that, like Frankenstein, employ electricity. The New Motive Power was an attempt to create a messianic figure out of electricity and metal. Its creator, John Spear, communed with an electrical host of spirits. Intended as one of many inventions—including airships and mass telepathy communication networks—the mecha-messiah was ritually conceived and born to no avail. In many ways, this ritual creation of life resembles that Babalon Working by a pair of occultists a century later. Neither attempt succeeded, to the despair of horror authors.

This physical recreation had influence for a significant amount of time among scientific thought. In the pre-genetics age, it was believed that the sperm carried a miniature version of the eventual human that would be born of it, and if placed in the right conditions it would form the person without need for another partner. Preformatism had some proponents that placed the miniature in the egg instead of sperm. Irregardless, the theory proposed in essence that humanity had been entirely contained in its original parents, a scientific notion that has a resemblance to mystical notions of Adam as the first man.

Then there are more esoteric notions of life creation or duplication. The Finnish for instance had a tradition of guardian spirits that resembled their shamans, going ahead of them and doing as they do. The Buddha was capable of generating replicas of himself in meditation, illuminating the universe. Boddhistavas, as they approach their state, gain the power of multiple bodies to send forth and convert or exhort more individuals. The Monkey King, Sun Wukong, multiplied himself in battle and trickery on many occasions. The ability to create many bodies can be found among the rddhi in the Oxford dictionary, allowing for many of the dopplegangers so far referenced.

Sadly, I could not find an image with Sun Wukong’s self-duplication. However, this fine print was found at http://www.yoshitoshi.net/alpha.html.

With all this in mind, there is another question to be answered: Why? Why is our nameless man trying to create another version of himself? Many reasons for making artificial life are given in folklore. Expressions of enlightenment, need for protection, divine emulation, want for a bride, want for a child. All of these have a history at some point in the history of popular media. However, I think the version here suggests that the source is self-centered. What we have here is not just a creation of life but a recreation of the self. The use of such bodies to cheat death is a surprisingly common trope in media for the mad scientist: The illustrious Doctor Doom has used it after a fashion, as did M. Bison, Rick Sanchez, and a host of others.

The use of clones as back up has a number of interesting implications from a metaphysical perspective—after all, it confirms a belief on the one hand of a consciousness that can be transferred between material bodies without much difficulty, while at the same time an avoidance or refusal to be restrained to that purely incorporeal state. Or, put another way, such a transfer only seems possible if there is something like a soul—whether as the softward that the brain ‘runs’ or pyscho power or something similiar—but an aversion to taking on that immateriality fully. There is an implicit lingering fear in the creation of a second body—that the soul or minds fate will not be a happy one.

An attempt at immortality then seems the ideal one here. Creating a version of yourself that will presist after your gone, perhaps as vengance against your killers or to torment them? Or just to escape fires eternal? Either way, I think we are again more in the land of mystery. Which means…well, half of the idea has been spoiled by writing this article. We’ve given away the means and most of the motive—although their might be more to it then simply avoiding death.

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