For this week, the prompt for flash fiction submitted to #FairyTaleFlash is “weird, funny, or scary campfire tales.” I decided to make the story not just be a story that’s told at a campfire, but a story that’s actually about a campfire.
The shadows crowded around the campfire as the young campers told their ghost stories and urban legends. The shadows were anxious to hear the words that would shape their forms. They wouldn’t know what sort of monsters they could be until the campers told them. #FairyTaleFlash
For this week, the prompt for flash fiction submitted to #FairyTaleFlash is “mothers (human or animal) or fairy godmothers or stepmothers.” I decided to explore the birth of Owain, one of King Arthur’s warriors in the Welsh stories. The late French authors renamed him “Ywain,” and made him the son of Morgan le Fey. However, in the Welsh stories, Owain is the son of Modron, a mysterious entity who seems to have been a Celtic mother goddess.
My father lay with my mother by a river. Less than a year later, she gave to him me and my twin brother. Then she left. They say she was Modron, a mother goddess our people worshipped long ago. If she was a mother goddess, why was she not a mother to me? #FairyTaleFlash
Image is a statue of Matrona, the Gaulish equivalent of Modron.
For this week, the prompt for flash fiction submitted to #FairyTaleFlash is my favourite subject in all of folklore and literature: “Arthurian Legends: King Arthur, Excalibur, Guinevere, Merlin, Morgan LeFay, Knights of the Round Table, and more.” I decided to give a short character study on one of my favourite of King Arthur’s champions: Menw the Wise, one of King Arthur’s three warrior-wizards in Welsh folklore.
I am Menw, one of King Arthur’s three wizard-warriors. Merlin taught me my Art, and commanded me to obey and protect the king. But which of those commands takes priority? Should I disobey the king when his order would endanger him? When do I follow my own will? #FairyTaleFlash
Ever since I was born, there has been a door in my basement. A black door covered in runes I cannot read. As there’s no door on the other side of the wall, logically this door must instead open to other worlds. I haven’t had the courage to open it yet, but hopefully I will eventually. #FairyTaleFlash
For this week, the prompt for #FairyTaleFlash is “stories that feature St. Nicholas, elves, or Krampus.” Well, as a long-term fantasy fan, I’m intrigued by how much more nebulous the term “elf” is in folklore than it is in, say, Lord of the Rings. For example, the first recorded references to “dark elves” and “black elves,” was in Snorri Sturluson’s medieval Icelandic text The Prose Edda, in which Snorri seems to be equating such beings with dwarves. This would make sense if you use “elf” in the more general sense to mean “fairy”; dwarves are subterranean fairies who like darkness. An interesting thing about that is that it could mean that Santa’s industrious workshop elves may actually be dwarves. Which inspired from me this very short piece of flash fiction:
My parents were shocked when I started working in Santa Claus’ shop. My family’s been blacksmiths since the moment we were changed from maggots to dwarves, and they couldn’t see a dwarf in any other life. But I like fresh air — claustrophobia is crummy for a dwarf. #FairyTaleFlash
For this week, the prompt for #FairyTaleFlash is “a Christmas ghost or a gothic Christmas tale or a strange/weird Christmas story.” There’s an intriguing theory that elements of Sinterklaas, the Dutch version of Santa Claus, were inspired by the Norse god Odin. The theory doesn’t have anything substantial to support it, but part of the fun of writing fiction is running with ideas too vague or unproven for a reputable scholar. So here’s my Christmas flash fiction:
Though Santa Claus is based on St. Nicholas, some people have noted similarities to the Norse god Odin (a flying steed, all-seeing wisdom, etc.). They don’t realize that this is because Odin has disguised himself as Santa as a scam to steal modern worshippers. #FairyTaleFlash
Over the last couple of years, I’ve gotten heavily involved in the community of mythology, folklore, and literature hashtags on Twitter and other social media, such as #MythologyMonday, #FairyTaleTuesday, #WyrdWednesday, #FolkloreThursday, etc. Every week, each one posts a new theme, such as “ocean” for one #MythologyMonday week, and then “fruit” the next week, and they repost any posts that people make that are about elements of mythology, folklore, etc. that are related to the theme and use the hashtag. So, for example, on the Monday that #MythologyMonday posts about “ocean,” the site would then repost any myths people referenced about the ocean, fish, etc. The most unusual hashtag is #FairyTaleFlash, a companion to #FairyTaleTuesday. While every Tuesday, #FairyTaleTuesday reposts any fairy tale or fantasy factoids about its current theme, #FairyTaleFlash will instead repost any fantasy flash fiction (fiction small enough to fit on a single tweet) that follows the same theme.
Back in 2022, I created a few of my own flash fiction for #FairyTaleFlash.
Theme: Fables with morals Every day a sparrow sat chirping on a man’s balcony. Eventually it annoyed the man enough that he drove her away. Once no bird was claiming the balcony, a huge goose moved in. His honking was far more annoying than the chirping, and he far harder to drive away than the sparrow was. #FairyTaleFlash
(the moral of this story, by the way, is “if you try to get rid of your problems without thinking carefully about it, often they will get replaced by something worse.”)
Theme: Stories from an animal’s point of view Every bear clan tells tales of human-shifters. Each day I dream of being able to put on human form and walk among them in their strange metal forests. Of accessing strange human powers such as opposable thumbs and ability to read. Imagine what that would be like. #FairyTaleFlash
Theme: Unusual romances “Didn’t I tell you I could arrange a feast grand enough for all our wedding guests?” the raven groom said. “I should never have doubted you.” The raven bride gazed at the bloody battlefield. “How romantic! Everything’s perfect.” The flock of ravens descended on the broken corpses. #FairyTaleFlash
It’s a fun challenge, creating a story within a couple of days that’s only a few sentences long. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back into the right frame of mind to start doing #FairyTaleFlash stories again.
With the exception of King Arthur himself, Merlin is the most famous character from Arthurian folklore. He defines the wizard archetype so perfectly that whenever an English story references some wizard, it’s usually Merlin, even if otherwise King Arthur doesn’t make an appearance. He’s part of the backstory in everything from children’s fantasy such as Harry Potter and The Talking Parcel to superhero tales such as Black Knight and The Demon. Like King Arthur, Merlin’s name is so well-known and so linked to an archetype that people often don’t realize how little they know about the character. They just think “yeah, Merlin – he’s an important wizard. I know what wizards are like – big white beard, staff, pointed hat, and either a traveler’s cloak or a robe full of stars. He can do all sorts of crazy magic and is a benevolent mentor to heroes.” However, Merlin’s origins are a lot more complex. Appropriately for a shapeshifter, Merlin’s story has taken on many forms.
Merlin in History of the Kings of Britain
Like many legendary figures, King Arthur originally existed in a largely oral tradition. It was the 12th century that gave us the first cohesive biography of Arthur, with his prominent appearance in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain. This book was also the first appearance of Merlin. His mother was a virgin princess and his father some sort of spirit (a demon or a fairy – it’s not proven which), which has granted him the gift of prophecy. As a boy, Merlin reveals to the British tyrant Vortigern that his tower keeps falling because underneath it a red dragon battles a white dragon, which predicts how Vortigern will be defeated by Ambrosius, whose throne Vortigern has usurped. After Vortigern’s defeat, Merlin becomes the advisor of King Ambrosius. Later Merlin transports Stonehenge from Ireland to Britain to serve as a memorial for the British slain by Saxon treachery, prophecies Ambrosius’ death and the coming of King Arthur, and finally disguises Ambrosius’ brother Uther Pendragon as Gorlois in order to sleep with Gorlois’ wife Igraine and produce Arthur.
In many ways, this Merlin is similar to the later one of more familiar stories. He is already performing many of his most memorable feats, such as moving Stonehenge and transforming Uther. He prophecies King Arthur. He is half-human. However, this Merlin never meets Arthur directly and he isn’t really a wizard. Merlin’s only explicitly supernatural ability is prophecy, and he transports Stonehenge through vaguely defined “machinery” and uses “medicine” to change Uther’s appearance. You’re supposed to view him as scholar and scientist rather than a magic-user – a startling notion to appear in a medieval text.
Merlin in Le Morte d’Arthur
Later authors would turn Merlin into a full-blown wizard as well as have him stick around long enough to guide King Arthur in his early years. Not only would he transport Stonehenge and transform Uther through magic, but he would also perform numerous other supernatural feats – many of them involving changing his own form or others. These authors also made Merlin a more morally ambiguous figure – presumably because they felt any wizard (even one whose ultimate goal was good) could not be entirely virtuous. He’s still on the right side, King Arthur’s side, but behaves horribly when not on his mission. This Merlin loves to toy with people, refusing to explain himself and only telling people what he needs to in order to get them to do what he wants. He chuckles when he gazes at people’s future and sees they’ll die an ironic death. He sexually harasses his apprentice Nimue until she entombs him in a tree. This is the Merlin of the Arthurian romances, and especially Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur – the most famous Arthurian text.
Merlin in Excalibur
The character of Merlin gets transformed again in modern stories, such as T. H. White’s novel The Once and Future King and John Boorman’s movie Excalibur. These authors smooth out a lot of the rough elements of Arthurian heroes, such as King Arthur’s vengeful pride, Lancelot’s berserker rage, and Merlin’s disquieting nature, making them unequivocally heroic. Now Merlin is an entirely benevolent wizard, King Arthur’s kindly mentor, and surrogate father figure. In the Sword in the Stone installment of Once and Future King, Merlin is even Arthur’s tutor, transforming him into various animals to teach him about life. This is the Merlin most modern people think of – friendly bearded guy giving useful advice and casting some fancy spells. This is the Merlin that inspires Gandalf.
Sometimes earlier versions of the character still make appearances. Mary Stewart’s series of Arthurian historical fiction leans into Merlin being a prophet and scientist instead of a wizard, and the first book (The Crystal Caves) closely adapts Merlin’s appearances in History of the Kings of Britain. Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court features Merlin as a manipulative charlatan and Phyllis Ann Karr’s Idylls of the Queen has him as a fanatical lunatic.
Merlin in Marvel Comics
Perhaps the most complex exploration of these different versions of the character is Merlyn in Marvel Comics’ Captain Britain and Excalibur – when he first appears to give Captain Britain his power, Merlyn (or “Merlin”) appears as the benevolent father figure of Once and Future King to Brian “Captain Britain” Braddock, but later this proves to be a façade as the true Merlyn is a far more amoral manipulator, like the Merlin of Malory and the Romances. It’s implied he went all T. H. White because that surrogate father-figure and tutor is who Brian would most respond to, fulfilling a hole in the lonely boy’s life and appealing to his childhood fantasies of being a knight and belonging to something greater than himself. A Malory Merlin pretending to be a White Merlin to manipulate someone into doing what he wants is very on-brand. Later, the character seems to be invoking the original Geoffrey of Monmouth scientist Merlin as a lot of the character’s “magic” is revealed to be alien science – he’s even linked with the Doctor, the hero from the British science fiction show Dr. Who. It’s hard to know how much of this is intentional, especially because figures such as Geoffrey of Monmouth are rarely read these days except by medieval scholars. However, it is intriguing that these Marvel comics do seem to be engaging with all versions of Merlin, whether accidentally or on purpose.
Many King Arthur characters are vastly different from themselves in different interpretations – Queen Guinevere in particular has a talent for appearing as a virtuous hero or a sinister villain or anything in between, depending upon the needs of a particular story. But I’m especially fascinated by how different these versions of Merlin are. If the Merlins of Geoffrey, Malory, and White all hung out together, they probably wouldn’t like each other very much.
One of the reasons I love the stories of King Arthur is that they’re so mutable, able to be changed into whatever purpose they’re needed. It’s fitting that one of the changeable parts is the nature of Merlin, the shapeshifting wizard who is most famous for helping Uther Pendragon take on a different form.
I’ve been spending a lot of my time trying to figure out what to call the sort of stuff I like to write — stories set in the modern world that use the supernatural as symbols to explore the psychological and emotional states of the protagonists. Though many of the stories are dark and some cross over into horror, I wouldn’t say that “horror” is a good umbrella term for this style in general. “Urban fantasy” is usually the term given to fantasy stories set in the modern world, and I find it’s a little too general for my taste. It tells nothing of the ambiance of the story, which matters more to me than the story’s physical trappings. The type of fantasy I’m going for are the deeper realities, the common ground of the stories of Algernon Blackwood and Jorge Luis Borges, and the comics of David B and Junji Ito. I needed to find some term that encapsulates works such as these and demonstrates how I feel about my own writing.
One may ask why it is so important to define what kind of thing you’re writing. Shouldn’t you just write what matters to you without thinking about how to classify it? Isn’t it limiting to give it a label? There’s certainly validity in that stance. However, I became especially intrigued about how to classify what I like to write when I decided to enter the UBC program because I realized that if I get a better sense of what, then that can help me figure out why, and if I can understand why I write, then that can help me in directing my work going forward.
I realized that for me it’s less important whether a story has anything literally magical than that it feels like magic. In exploring these psychological states, I want to produce a sublime sense of awe in the reader, what it would feel like to touch some deeper reality, some unnatural, sublime presence beyond their kin. I got a far truer taste of this kind of “fantasy” in Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical novel Sword at Sunset, whose protagonists feel like pawns of fate playing out some mythic tale, than in Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman’s Dragonlance Chronicles, a story of wizards & dragons far more prosaically told. I then realized that there is an obvious word to describe this experience of an unnatural presence beyond our comprehension — “occult.”
The word “occult” comes from the Latin “occultus,” which means “hidden, concealed, secret.” In English, it can be used to mean something generally hidden or mysterious (“occult matters such as nuclear physics”) or more commonly used to mean something related to the supernatural, often with somewhat sinister overtones (“he joined an occult secret society dedicated to demon summoning”). This linguistic linking of “secret” and “supernatural” intrigued me, and I realized that it was able to really define what sort of stories are fascinating to me. Stories about the uncovering of spiritual secrets, the moments when someone discovers something profound that forces them to reevaluate their relationship to the universe, for good or ill. It’s the vision of Heaven or Hell that alters someone’s relationship to God, the ghost that forces them to confront their mortality, the magic spell that causes their reality to warp. It’s about feeling like you’ve reached the edge of your conventional view of things, and your next step will take you beyond the fields you know. It’s about that sublime uncertainty more than about any actual specific fantasy images. That sublimity is what fascinates me.
Such a story doesn’t need to have the literal supernatural. The brilliant movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind is incredibly occult in my definition of the term, as it’s all about how the coming of aliens transforms everyone’s views of reality and forces them to confront the wider universe. Robertson Davies’ psychoanalytical novels such as The Manticore are also occult as their explorations into Jungian symbolism force the characters to uncover the secrets of their psyches, which transform their relationship to the universe and themselves. They’re both about the feeling of touching some great truth, one so transformative that it almost feels supernatural. Now, most of my own occult stories are explicitly supernatural, but I’d like to think that they have more in common with Close Encounters of the Third Kind or The Manticore than they do with Harry Potter. I certainly want to capture that numinous feeling. I want my readers to feel like they’re peeling off a level of reality and encountering something hidden and profound underneath.
In short, “occult fiction” is what I like to write.
I have always found the archetype of
the “magician” compelling and empowering. The idea that someone,
through their own introspection and hidden lore, could access
supernatural power – could gaze into the future, turn into a bird,
do all sorts of things – that always captivated my imagination. For
that reason, as a child I always preferred fantasy stories in which
magic could be good as well as evil, and disliked tales in which
magic was mainly the province of villains (such as the Conan
stories, Macbeth,
or Faust). That being
the case, Gandalf the utterly benevolent wizard was always my
favourite character in The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings,
with the runner-up being Beorn, the man who can turn himself into a
bear (and thus something of a magician himself).
Thus, I felt a profound sense of
betrayal when I discovered, many years later, that Tolkien had
written his five wizards (Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast, and the two
Blue Wizards) not as magicians as I defined the term (mortals who had
unlocked supernatural power) but instead as angels (maiar
spirits) disguised in mortal
form, emissaries from the Undying Lands sent by the gods to confront
Sauron. For me it turned Middle-Earth inside out, for now it seemed
that the only truly human magicians of that world were evil sorcerers
(such as the Witch-King and the Mouth of Sauron) – which was not
the sort of fantasy I wanted at all.
As an
adult, I am much more willing to recognize the problematic aspects of
the magician archetype, its bad as well as its good, and am far more
accepting of stories in which all mortal magic is corrupt. That said,
it is still a peculiar element of Middle-Earth. After all, modern
high fantasy is usually filled with benevolent wizards, and to many,
Lord of the Rings is
the ultimate archetypal high fantasy story. Thus, I returned to the
world of Middle-Earth, reading between the lines to see if it indeed
had any magicians as I define the term (regular people who learn
non-malevolent supernatural powers).
In Tolkien, the
term “wizard” is only used with the Five Wizards, who are
secretly angels, while “sorcerer” is entirely a negative term for
humans who have made pacts with Sauron in return for power. No one
who falls into neither of these categories gets a general magic-using
noun (magician, enchanter, etc.) applied to them. But does that mean
they don’t exist?
Many
elves clearly possess supernatural powers. Elrond summons up a flood
in Fellowship of the Ring,
while Galadriel has a scrying pool; furthermore, it is implied that
their respective powers are what stops Sauron’s forces from invading
their homes. There are elves in The Silmarillion who
can change their form and control the weather. The wood elves in The
Hobbit have magic. Characters
such as Frodo and Sam talk about “elf magic” in ways that they
never reference “human magic” or “elf magic.” That said, I
don’t quite feel that the elves match my magician archetype. To me, a
magician has always meant someone who, through skill and will, has
unlocked powers beyond the grasp of others of their ilk. They are
mortals who have stepped a little closer to the gods. However,
Tolkien’s elves are basically demigods themselves, immortal beings
who seek to be reunited with their divine “big brothers” and who
just naturally possess numerous powers that humans lack. In fact,
various elves become confused when hobbits ask to see their “magic,”
as for elves this is all just regular talents that they possess, no
more magical then their skill with a bow.
Things
become far more interesting for me when I look to see if any mortals
(humans, dwarves, or hobbits) can possess supernatural abilities
without making pacts with Sauron. The aforementioned Beorn is the
most prominent example, a being who Gandalf theorizes is either a
bear who learned how to turn himself into a man or a man who learned
how to turn himself into a bear – and who becomes the patriarch of
a whole group of humans (the Beornings), who also possess a certain
ursine kinship. Other mortals it seems have learned to access
particular powers – Bard and many other people of Dale can speak
with animals, certain dwarves know the corvid language, certain
humans (such as Aragorn) are capable of prophecy, there is even a
seer referenced once or twice; “seer” is the only official term
ever given to a benevolent human magician.
Interestingly,
Aragorn seems one of the closest things to a magician the story has,
both due to his aforementioned fortune-telling and his mastery of
certain herbs. Beorn is another figure of course, who actually
expressed scorn for wizards. These two people, despite their
supernatural powers, come off as being more as warriors than
traditional wizards – they have magic, but spells and staves do not
define their identity. Probably the most “magician-esque” human
to appear in Tolkien is Denethor, the Steward of Gondor. He is
described as a sagacious and powerful figure who Pippin feels looks
like a wizard more than Gandalf does, and whose will is so great that
he can communicate telepathically, read minds, and possibly
psychically attack. The novel is surprisingly brief about his
abilities, quickly mentioning them but not dwelling too long. They’re
not treated as too unusual. In Middle-Earth, it simply seems that
especially strong-willed humans can have psychic abilities. It’s part
of nature.
Which is,
interestingly, the role the “magician” takes in Tolkien. Wizards
and sorcerers have supernatural powers because wizards are
supernatural beings and sorcerers have bound themselves to a darkly
supernatural force. If a mortal wishes power but does not want to
taint himself, he must turn to certain techniques that are
supernatural to us but which seem to be simply the specific
functioning of Tolkien’s world – a sort of occult science. Anyone
with enough lore can learn how to speak to animals or unlock almost
magicial abilities in healing herbs. One can even learn telepathy or
prophecy if the will is great enough. These people are not called
“magicians” or “enchanters” because they don’t flaunt their
abilities as supernatural. They perceive them as simply talents or
skills. The only such magician treated as something strange and other
is Beorn, but he seems to be the obsession rather than the rule.
I think the child
within me is satisfied that “magicians” do exist in Middle-Earth.
They are subtle rather than flashy. Though they don’t even consider
themselves to be magicians, they are still mortals able to access
wonderful things. That’s good enough for the archetype and good
enough for me.
