One Step at A Time

Manelle Oliphant Illustration, Nice Witch

I know that the Witchcraft and Literature is in a slow motion. The reason is that the object of my exploration is somehow not that easy to write about. It takes me some time to finalise what story, novel, novella will be suitable, and what I am actually going to tell about it. I choose only those books which I myself read and liked. I can't pick up any story with a witch protagonist and start explaining what's going on in it. I need to think over what stroke me in the story, what made it my favourite. In other words, I need to FEEL it. 

Some time ago I made a list of the potential material for my blog, however I am not able to find it now. I have already made some posts about witchcraft theme in the novel Master and Margarita, novella Olesya. Besides I try to get to know more about witchcraft itself and my journey has been successful so far. 

I noticed that the things, we start taking into our interest, arise here and there, make you feel that they are now a tiny bit of your life, and that you also know a little more about them than others. Same is with my expanding knowledge of witchcraft. Though I am not practising it and perhaps, never going to, my mind is able to see the res in a broader way. Whenever I happen upon a witch in a movie or a book, I can apply what  I have already learnt about this topic. There is still so much to get on to...

I can now see that witchcraft is the same part of culture as anything else is. If it appeared in our life so many centuries ago, it became our heritage too. I also got to know that mostly humans are cowardly. Yes, they are, and that's why witchcraft always was and is one of the phenomena presented as horrible, dark, devilish, evil and anti-social. We believe it to be such and we put ourselves into frames. 

When following the stories of two witches from Russian literature, Margarita and Olesya, I found that both were passionately in love and had to suffer for opportunity to be with their "simple" beloved ones. The witch = suffering? Possibly, it is because having a witchy nature means follow the path of feelings, which very often hurt us...

So I am taking one step at a time to create, learn, reflect on the topic of witchcraft in literature. 

Blessings to all my readers! Happy November!
P.S. in recent series of Vampire Diaries I heard a very good term for witch-male a "warlock"! Sorry, but for me it is a new word in my English vocabulary.

Yours sincerely,

Witchcraft and Literature

Unconditional Love of The Witch Olesya - Part 1

 "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). It's a little strange to start a post about a witch from the Bible's quote.. However these three lines is the foundation of the romantic stories by Russian writer Kuprin A.I.  These stories is another favorite read of mine I got from home this summer.

One of the most touching and beautiful of them is the one called "Olesya". I read it three days back, again. It always boosts my imagination and I walk half dreaming about it for few more days.

The protagonist, from whose side the story is narrated, is an official, sent to the "God-forsaken village in the Volhynian borderland of Polesye" as he says about the place. He tries to keep himself busy by game-shooting, giving medical help to locals, and noting the area's legends and tales. He doesn't like the place much and calls it "out-of-the-way corner... - simple manners, primitive characters". The relations with the peasants "never went beyond the fact that, on seeing me from a distance, they would take off their caps and, as they came alongside, would mutter sullenly "Speedjue," which was supposed to mean "God speed you." The locals would also start kissing the hands - "an old custom from the time of Polish serfdom". The main character is placed in such environment which doesn't relate his vision of the world. He underlines throughout the story the wildness of the local beliefs...

Ivan Shishkin (1832-1898), The hut in the Forest

The rationalism of the main character is opposed to the superstitions which fill the minds of the peasants. One winter day the main hero, which is called master by his helper Yarmola, sat in his room, while the severe storm was blowing outside...
"Where do you think this horrible wind comes from, Yarmola?"
"The wind?" Yarmola looked up lazily. "Why, don't you know, master?"
"Of course not. How could I know such a thing?"
"Don't you, really!" Yarmola was roused. "I'll tell you," he went on, a shade mysteriously. "Either a witch has been born, or a wizard's making merry." I pounced eagerly on this. "Who knows," I thought, "perhaps I may worm out of him some interesting story of magic, hidden treasures, or werewolves."
"Have you got any witches here in Polesye?" I asked..." This is how the main hero started getting involved in the world of witchcraft and... love. Yarmola then tells the master the tale that there was a witch but "the lads drove her away" to the forests, burning her house "so that not a chip would be left of her accursed nest".
Here we can see that the attitude towards witches is completely negative, moreover, the witch is blamed in whatever bad happens in the village. Thus the witch was driven away because she was believed to do loads of harm like casting spells, plait the stalks in the sheaves...and of course to cause serious illness in the family and furthermore a death of one woman's child!
The curiosity of the master rises as he gets to know that the witch is now living in the forest with her daughter or granddaughter. He intends to see her as soon as the days get warmer. Yarmola tells that the witch's name is Manuilikha...
I am going to cover the rest of the story in the next post, as this one gets too long to read at once. I am going to tell about the relations which tie up between the main hero and  the witch's granddaughter...Do you think it's going to be as successful as the mystic venture of the Master and Margarita?
P.S. the citations are from the  book "Olesya" translated from the Russian by Stepan Apresyan. The book is available here.

A Magical Pathway to My Goal

I haven't been posting recently in my Witchcraft and Literature. No time and no inspiration like I used to have in the very beginning. Nevertheless I have so many ideas for this blog! They are still in the process of shaping, and I hope I can post some of them soon.

I have realized too that the topic I am exploring is much much wider and richer than I could envisage. First of all, witchcraft on its own is a very diverse and multidimensional subject, so it involves a serious preparation for any kind of research, and secondly, literature.. oh, I know it well and I don't know it at all at the same time. If just to imagine how many sources I have already read and studied and how many more are waiting for their turn! Literature doesn't assume only what is written by famous writers in their famous books, literature is a treasury of human thoughts, feelings and beliefs too, what expands it till folklore, myths and other forms of self expression, unwritten sources as well.
My head is full of ideas, which are like flying smoke or movement of air. It makes me feel sometimes that I might lose them, omit them and never get again. So in order not to let it happen I am going to continue my way towards cryptic witchcraft in not less cryptic world literature.
The result will depend on which pathway I am taking. It can be fairy tale-like, sunny and seen far:

fairy magical pathway

It can be hidden among the trees and I will discover many unknown things on the way:

enigmatic magical pathway

Or I will always be seeing the light somewhere there, so close and so far, which will be guiding me:

light magical pathway

However any path you choose gives a lot to your personality  development, enriches your mind. I am not afraid now and can go bravely along one of them... or many :)

P.S. Links to the images are given in the captions to the pictures.

Yours sincerely,

Witchcraft and Literature

In Need of Witchcraft

   I was wondering why did we need witchcraft anyway? When did it appear and who was the first witch and wizard?

   Whatever was invented by humanity during its history was not a coincidence. We invented things because we needed them, in different way. We invented "house", because we needed shelter, same as in the beginning of human era we invented "witchcraft", because we needed help.

   I suppose that first magic appeared when some lonely, hopeless homo sapiens  tried to call the powers of nature to help him (or her). May be he/she tried to do some kind of ritual attracting attention of those first demons to the problem. Obviously, that the first belief of people was nature and it's elements: fire, water, air and earth. So this is what the first human tried to take help from, we can't know if successfully or not, but the first attempt of witchcraft was done.

    The next interesting question, who was the first witch or wizard. Till the time the humanity didn't get any writing system, any kind of such information couldn't be fixed in the written form. But , yes, it could be fixed in an oral form, and may be those folk tales I was talking about in the previous post were of that far origin.

  First witch and wizard... hmmm... who were they, where did they live? According to the article I have found in the internet "witchcraft originated some 30000 years ago in the Palaeolithic period". 

     As I had said we can judge by only written sources of ancient times, like Greek and Egypt myths for example. One name I found in the internet is Lilith, how could I forget about her? Yes, Lilith, 700 BC in one of the versions, the belief in her was related to witchcraft!  I think this is old enough information about the first witch. She has an anthropomorphic figure, means animal and human features, what is pretty scary. This is said to be not Lilith in the picture below, but she could look like this:

supposedly Lilith

     In fact, I found various points of view on the origin of the myth about Lilith. She supposedly has a Hebrew or Mesopotamian "roots".  At the same time she can be considered as a Goddess too and later on, a feminist symbol of independence. Anyway, the common features of this creature are negative: demonic, harmful, dangerous. This is what witch always was supposed to represent and what must have laid into the base of the further perception of the witch by society.

  Now I  have thought suddenly why is witchcraft related to witches, females? We have wizards too and I would like to find them around, Dumbledore for example, but it's later about him. Well, the wizard now. The first one who came into my mind is the wizard Merlin. He could look like this.

Merlin - could look like this

  So very well known and so much popularized nowadays in different serials and films about the King Arthur. Unfortunately I can't consider him as a first one and somehow I wasn't able to find any proper info in the internet about the first wizards! It makes me think that magic is more safe in women's hands :)

  This really is incredible how much new I discovered for myself while doing this post! I am glad to have started this witchy research. I have tried to find out the source element of our belief in magic. We definitely needed it at some point of time, and we got it!

  Yours sincerely,

Witchcraft and Literature