The Saddest Little Zombie - Not a Cute One

Hello, my dear friends! Hope your days are great and full of things you enjoy to do. I do enjoy reading and, as it happens frequently, some new read finds you itself.

I was looking for some good point and click game in the net, and found one with oh so creepy pictures! Then I saw there was a link to a book, I followed it and met even creepier poem "The Saddest Little Zombie" by Douglas Clegg! Some of you might have heard about this author, for me however, his name is completely new. 

Well, so I'm talking about the book. As the author says himself, it's neither for kids nor for adults...then maybe for zombies? The content is indeed is not kind and sweet,  it's a not a story about a cute living dead chap. The illustrations by Glenn Chandbourne made me speechless, as they are way too expressive, but I liked this. The plot has many scary events which take place during the Christmas holidays. I find that the idea of the presence of something dreadful close to the most jolly time of the year is a reflection of our reality - while someone is happy and celebrating, others dying and suffering.

To my delight I can also include this poem in my research, as one of its characters is a French Voodoo Queen, who actually awakes the little zombie and unfortunately is stabbed by him on the spot. 

The story of course has big bits of irony in it too, and calls for not a "serious" reader, the one who will start complaining about the book's dark content. That's why I'm inviting you to go ahead and simply enjoy this modern dark poem, which you can download here on the author's website for free.

Master and Margarita - In the Woland's Apartment

The novel The Master and Margarita is rich in symbols and ambiguous interpretations of the events. Speaking about the witchcraft framework in the novel, I shall say that of course, this is not what the novel is about, but it is very important for the development of the characters. The elements of magic create a surreal world in which you have to find the real meanings. 

 "The room appeared to be not very big. Margarita saw a big broad bed with creasy and crumpled bed sheets and a pillow. An oak wood table with carved legs, on which was placed a chandelier with sockets in the shape of clawed bird's paws, stood in front of the bed. The thick wax candles were lit in these seven sockets. Besides this, a big chess board with the figures, remarkably adept, was on the table. A small bench stood on a shabby carpet. There was one more table with some gold chalice on it and another chandelier, branches of which were made in the shape of the serpents. The smell of sulfur and resin was in the room, shadows from the lamps criss-crossed on the floor...", - as seen by Margarita when she has her first meeting with the devil before the Spring Ball of the Full Moon.

We can see that the room is full of symbolic objects and details. There are seven lit candles. No need to say that the number seven is one of the most powerful and known for its magical properties. Number seven is associated with Venus and more recently with Neptun. This is the number of feelings and of instincts. Remember that we are talking about the novel and a love story in it?

Another object of interest for us is the chalice, which properties are known from the Meet witches' tools post. The chalice can be a part of Hella's altar (Hella is a witch and a vampire from the Woland's retinue). The animalistic details like bird's claws and serpents are those which belong to the dark symbols. Especially the serpent as the devil's disguise in the Old Testament. 

The chess board represents spiritual life and the choice. Playing chess with the Devil stakes your life. Even the chess party in Harry Potter, though wasn't with the devil, nevertheless was supposed to reward the winner. The smell of sulfur is traditionally associated with the Devil, evil spirit.

The room, where Woland resides, speaks for itself and gives hints that it is habitation of the dark power. Margarita's sight was attracted to the bed where Woland sat and Hella was applying some ointment onto his aching knee. The aching knee, limping is a reference to the fall of Satan from Heaven after which he damaged his leg. However Bulgakov's Satan Woland appeared in front of Margarita with very human features too: "he wore a long night gown, dirty and with patches on the left shoulder", "his face was skewed and a mouth was drawn down, there were cut deep wrinkles parallel to his sharp eyebrows on his high bald forehead".    

Margarita also notices that "the skin on the Woland's face seemed to be burned evermore", what refers to the fire of Hell, because even Woland's hands seem to be very hot when he makes Margarita sit beside him on the bed. Margarita notices "a beetle, skillfully carved from a dark stone, on the golden chain and with some script on its back" on the hairless Woland's chest, which is definitely is an Egyptian scarab.

Woland greets Margarita and excuses for his "homely look" , he has a very low quality of voice. Woland is very frustrated (!) because of his knee as he has to participate in the upcoming ball. When Hella is told to do preparations for the ball, Margarita willingly offers her help to apply the ointment on the Satan's knee. The ball is going to start at the midnight which is nee, Woland suggests Margarita to be calm and not to drink anything except water during the ball. Let's see what other witchcraft elements are used by Bulgakov at The Spring Ball of the Full Moon .

One more interesting note: Margarita was surprised that the chess figures were alive! They were moving, fighting, getting upset... about 70 years prior to that idea of Harry Potter magical chess :)!
P.S. the passage describing the room and  other snippets of the novel are translated by me.

Yours sincerely,

Witchcraft and Literature

All the witches need a BLACK cat?

I myself adore cats and I had one who was living with our family for 17 years and died because of senility. The cat was black and white, with green eyes. If I were a witch I would have definitely considered him to be my magical cat :) And he was, I believe, not an ordinary one.
More than the brooms and the cauldrons the witches have to own ... a black cat. How it happened that this fluffy fellow became a favorite tame animal among the wizardry folks? What is the role of it in all the process at last? And do all the witches need particularly a black cat?

The witchcraft is much more complicated matter than as it is presented in popular culture. The black cats are being one of the inalienable characters of  the witchcraft as a simple interpretation of it. The book of  1964 "Ugh, Ugh, Touch Wood" (Tьфу, Tьфу, чтоб не сглазить) by V. Ostrovsky was one of my favorite read. The book is not just about the witchcraft but it gives kind of atheistic point of view on the human's beliefs, including magic. Look at the cover - the black cat is crawling among the letters!

Why black? Because this color is traditionally considered to be a color of witchcraft and we keep this in out mind too.We know that the cats were worshiped in ancient Egypt, and when mummified had to accompany their owners in the other world. It is mentioned in "The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, Witches and Wicca" that the black cats at the same time were associated with darkness and death in the Egyptian mythology (b). 

 In the same book is said that "according to lore every witch, sorcerer, gypsy was supposed to have a cat. During (the XVI century) witch hunts, the cats were familiars, they embodied the demons who performed the witches' tasks of maleficia against their neighbors". The book then gives an example of a  convicted witch Elizabeth Francis who said she kept white spotted cat named Sathan, which whenever it performed a job for her, demanded a reward of a drop of her blood". The cat isn't black in this story, is it? However during the same XVI century the black cats were said to be the Devil himself and many of them were hunted and burned. Is it some kind of a "black color phobia"?

The Love Potion by Evelin de Morgan

   "Though the black cat is associated with witchcraft, it is considered a good luck own one in parts of Europe, England and  the United States. But having one's path crossed by a black cat is always bad luck," -says the above mentioned Encyclopedia. So the belief in black cat's dark powers is relative. All the cats were bestowed somewhat supernatural powers like seeing ghosts, being able to sense danger and so on.

What about the black cat in modern witchcraft tradition? As Encyclopedia says " In Wicca, the cat is favored companion or familiar, valued for its psychic sensitivity and assistance in magic and ritual". However it is not mentioned in any of special rules that the cat a witch owns has to be necessarily black. I found such statement "black cats are just double the witchiness! The black cat is one of the most common Wicca symbols, to outsiders" on one of the Wicca sites.  I consider that such perception of the black cat by modern Wiccans is based on an ancient thinking of which I told about earlier in this post: witchcraft - black color.
The concept of the particularly black cat as a companion of any witch can be an archetype (Carl Gustav Jung's term) which is being popularized in our century and got a second life. So seven are left still? ;)
What we can conclude is that the cat was an enigmatic animal even centuries ago, it continues being such nowadays too. We value cats for their ability to be sensitive, tender, create a homely atmosphere and make our life a little more happy, no matter if they are black or of any other color.

 Yours sincerely,
Witchcraft and Literature