Ukrainian Witch in Gogol's Short Horror Story - Lift My Eyelids!

It is difficult to follow a plot with such wide breaks between narratives. I know and apologise to myself for this, like I did a hundred times. And a hundred times I promised to blog here regularly. When I told my friends during our meeting in my native city last summer that I have a blog about witchcraft and witches in literature and mythology, all of them were amazed that I started this topic. I am not the only who blogs about the same, but they found it, being themselves philologists by education if not by present profession, very interesting and one of them even suggested me to try to publish my "research"... Yea this is what I need now, but that is just a thought, a good one I agree.

I lost few followers over time, as I understand completely well that it is no fun to follow a blog which is not being updated. I'd not like the project I was so excited about in the beginning, to wither, decay and vanish completely from the Internet surface. So today I am here again, dragging feet and a *utt and a head of course to continue what once has been started.  

Pannochka by Blavatskaya

Homa, having no other choice, forced to come to centurion's house. The same night his sleep is disturbed by running of people and some noise, the whole house appeared to be on the move with the news that pannochka has died. Homa's first thoughts are to escape, to get rid of the duty he has been forced into. But the fate or better doom doesn't leave, him and he is called to the centurion (not sure whether this Russian word's translation is correct) himself. It seems that Homa now is at the mercy of Pannochka's father as well as demonic powers which drag him farther and farther. The same day Homa enters the room in which the corp is being laid... her father is inconsolable as he also doesn't know who was the reason of the daughter's death. Homa is full of fear but decides to start reading prayers. Centurion exits the room and then Homa looks at the body for the first time - a beauty he has never ever seen before is in front of him. She looks alive, with sharp features on her snow white skin... But through these Homa still recognises the witch. Later in the evening the body is being laid in the middle of a church on the outskirts of the farm. The church has been abandoned and no service has been held there for a long time.

The very same evening Homa hears talks and stories among local people about Pannochka's acquaintance with  "unclean, a wicked one" as Satan is called by Slavic people nowadays too. Right after dinner Homa is being escorted to the church for the first night of the prayers. The fear begins to settle in Homa's heart but first in his mind. He tries to persuade himself that the prayers he is about to read can banish any evil forces. He sticks the church candles all over the place... The witch's corp in the coffin as if beckons him and he looks at it again... She is still as beautiful in her mortality as before. Homa stands near choir and sings the prayers, however with every page he turns the fear doesn't subsides but increases, and thoughts of Pannochka's dead body so close to him haunt his mind. Meanwhile he tries to reassure himself that there is nothing to be afraid of as the young witch is dead and cannot arise from the coffin. Pannochka lifts up her head, and Homa catches a sight of her already sitting in the coffin... A moment later she is already standing on the floor and the next moment moving towards Homa, who hurriedly draws a circle around. She cannot cross it to her displeasure. 

Her appearance changes - skin becomes blue as of the dead body and her eyes look blindly around. Pannochka gets angry as she is not able to harm Homa, she lies back to the coffin which lifts up and starts flying almost above Homa's head but not crossing the circle. As this try fails too, Pannochka arises again, and this is when the rooster sings announcing morning. Of course Pannochka, being a demonic creature,cannot stand the morning light and settles in the coffin again, closing the lid.

The folkloric filling of this story is enhanced by the sacred number 3. Homa spends 3 nights in the church, each of which is more scary than the previous one. Homa notices however that Pannochka  tries to fetch him not where he stands as she is actually  not able to SEE him because of the magical circle.

gothicsstyle.ru

Hence on the third day Pannochka driven by revenge  has to summon a powerfull creature which comes from the depths of Earth,Viy, in order to see Homa and kill him. Homa, glancing askew saw that some squat, burly, clumsy person is being led. He was all in the black earth. His hands and feet knobbed like sinewy, strong roots, buried underground. He walked heavily, constantly stumbling. Long eyelids were lowered to the ground.  Homa noticed with horrorthat the person had an iron face. They brought him under the arms and put straight to the place where Homa stood". Viy demands to lift his eyelids...Though Homa's inner vocie tells not to look at the terrible creature, he fails to do so, and with the Viy's words "Here he is!" all the unclean sprang on Homa, and "breathless he thundered to the ground and his spirit departed at once because of FEAR".
I suppose that this story by Gogol is the scariest in its genre. In the very end author once again confirms the thought that if Homa was not scared Pannochka wouldn't have had any influence on him. It is also interesting that the holy place in Gogol's work itself becomes a habitation of the evil - the church which is no longer a hope for a person and doesn't save him, it wants to punish and take revenge.
I would like to give a list of the movies which are based on this story:
1. "Viy" 1967 - a classic old version which remains the best till date.
2. "Witch" 2006 - an attempt to scare.
3. "Viy" 2014 - a collaborative project with all modern special effects and as the critic said reminds of the Sleepy Hollow by Tim Burton. I haven't seen it.

Sincerely Yours,

Witchcraft and Literature

P.S. I will credit the authors of the pictures later, as I am not able to retrieve the sites' names right now.

Anna Dressed In Blood - Modern Witches and Witchcraft in K. Blake's Fiction

“It isn’t going to work. I can’t cast the circle. I’ve never had the knack for witchcraft. Mom must’ve told you. I messed up her Beltane cookies every year until I was seven.”  ("Anna Dressed in Blood", Ch. 13, Kendare Blake)

When I stumbled upon Kendare Blake's dark horror story, I expected some kind of violent fiction, full of characters' dark thoughts and intentions.. but it appeared to be a very pleasant read for a teenager age group, and okay, for adults, like me, though I don't feel like I am a grown up woman yet.

Most interesting for me in this story was a leitmotif of witchcraft (obviously!). The author creates a world where the souls are vengeful and like to kill and a hero who kills...  those vengeful souls. The hero's mother is  a witch who helps her son named Cas in his job of murdering the awoken dead. 

Cas calls his Mum a "mobile witch" because they move from one place to another quite frequently. She makes their living by "doing tarot card readings and aura cleansing over the phone, and selling occult supplies online". There might be some irony in those words about people believing in such things, but for Cas it is pretty much a reality of his life. 

I must say that the way Blake portrayed her witches is somehow close to what I got to know about modern witches's lives through some of my blogger friends. For us, people far from the practices of witchcraft (for the time being), what they do is what they believe in, this is their life, and it is not something to be afraid of or go away in disgust. Other story characters accept the fact of having witches as their neighbours totally normal and they are even not as much amazed to see the witches performing rituals accompanied by the ignition of flames out of nowhere or a tremor of the ground and so on.
Nevertheless the story's depiction of the witches is not free from representation in popular TV series. The witches control the weather, ignite flames, get inside your mind, and can destroy. I believe that the entertainment industry of course needs spectacular scenes, breath taking adventures, extraordinary characters. This could be the reason why the witches are presented in a such an "out of this world" way.
What I like about Blake's writing is that she has that witty irony through out the narrative. You can go by the extracted lines I gave in the very beginning of this post - messing up Beltane cookies? Oh my, that could be a catastrophe! But the author makes it feel like an ordinary thing (like burning an oatmeal cake), because it is such for her characters, and there is no exaggeration of the life of a modern witch.
"Anna Dressed in Blood" contains not only witches but also warlocks, one of them is a Cas's schoolmate, another - this schoolmate's granddad, who actually passed on the witchcraft skills to his grandson. So these two and Cas's mother make a magical team who fights with a powerful soul of an obeahman. There was also a good educational moment for me personally as I never knew who that was and had to read about it in the net. For me this novel was a novelty, a fresh insight into the modern witchcraft and a nice free from judgement depiction of what witches do or what they don't. 

Modern Witch - Transportation by ilura-menday-less

P.S. I have the 3d and the last post about Gogol's horror story in my mind, though I decided to switch to another witch in this post. Pannochka is yet to come! Stay tuned, my dears.

Yours sincerely,

Witchcraft and More.

Why I like the topic of witchcraft

    This is not a question, this is a try to explain myself why I like to read about magical stuff or watch it. Well, as far as I remember, I was fond of such things since childhood. Thanks to my Mum, who was always interested, on a hobby level, in astrology, stones properties, chiromancy and so on. It was not that she especially presented all her interests to me, but I am myself used to pick up some book on these topics and read it. It was all curiosity of course. Why not? This is indeed interesting and deserves our attention.

    I don't specifically like a witchcraft or all this black magic things or especially to do it (no way), but as soon as it exists  in our world and it is something what we can't explain yet - it becomes an object of our observation and even research.

    As soon as I am a philologist, I have a special interest in witchcraft. How many of the writers and poets  made magic and wizardry as part of their works! I can't leave the fact that this theme can also inspire to create. You can see different dimensions of it's presentation in the literature, however some books can be called "magical", if you take an example of Harry Potter, the latest top book (hence, movie) about the world of witches and wizards.

   In the next posts I would like to explore the witchcraft, and everything related to it, from the point of view of the literature. All the best to me and hope to realize my witch explorer potential!

Yours Sincerely,
Witchcraft and Literature