Guest Blogging About Fantasy Fiction Over At Sean Mclachlan's Blog

I'm guest blogging over at Sean McLachlan's blog today about Using Real Cultures in Fantasy Fiction. Hop on over and check out that post, and also the rest of his blog, which focuses on writing, the Civil War, Wild West, and travel.

No Medieval Mondays today, but I'll be back on Wednesday with a post for the Norse Gods blogfest. See you then!

Archaeologist discovers witchcraft site on her front lawn

As an archaeologist, I'm always wondering what's under the land I'm walking on. I've had the privilege to live next to a Roman road, on a Mesolithic camp site, and near a Bronze age burial mound. That's not too exceptional if you live in England.

Archaeologist Jacqui Wood in Cornwall, however, has me beat. When she decided to do some construction on her land she found evidence of witchcraft rituals dating back centuries. She's uncovered a series of pits dug into the earth that were filled with swan skins covered in feathers. The skins had been turned inside out so that the feathers lined the pit.

One of the pits included not only the swan skin, but the claws of several different species of bird and pebbles found only on the coastline at least 15 miles away. Another pit had 55 eggs sitting on top of the swan-feather lining, including seven feathers that were ready to hatch. Magpie remains had been placed on either side of the eggs. Some of the pits had been emptied but still had a few feathers and stones remaining to show what had been there.

Radiocarbon dating found that the earliest swan skins dated to the 1640s during the English Civil War. Eerily, others dated as recently as the 1950s. One even had plastic in it!

Wood also discovered a spring-fed pool lined with white quartz so that it would glow in the moonlight. As offerings, the locals had thrown in strips of cloth, nail cuttings, heather branches, pins, and bits of shoe.

I'm not well versed in paganism, so I'll put it out to my readers. Anyone know what these rituals could have been for?

Maybe next she'll find a witch bottle!

Medieval Mondays: Vampire skeleton reburied with honors in Bulgaria

The discovery of a vampire skeleton in Bulgaria made big news last month, followed closely by the sale of a Victorian-era vampire hunting kit.

Now there's more vampire news out of Bulgaria. A 13th century skeleton found with his hands and feed tied and with pieces of ember in his grave, signs of a medieval ritual designed to prevent vampirism, has been reburied.

Keeping with tradition, the archaeologists who discovered it washed the bones with water and wine and reburied it. With this ritual it will finally rest in piece and not suck the blood out of any lovely Bulgarian ladies at night.

This illustration is from Varney the Vampire, a bestseller in 1847. Click on the link to get a Project Gutenberg copy for your ereader, but don't forget to order one of my fantasy novels first!

Will the world end this year? We've been asking this question a long time

It's a new year, and we're once again getting the traditional media hoopla about the end of the world. This time it's the Mayan calendar saying that 2012 will be THE END. Didn't the Mayans predict this for a previous year? I can't remember and life's too short to look it up.

The human race loves the idea of the Apocalypse. Every few years some cult predicts the End Times or some ancient inscription is wheeled out before the public to prove that we really don't need to pay our credit card bills.

One of the biggest years for the end of the world was the year 1000 AD. Coming as it did in the Middle Ages, when the Church had a tight grip on society's imagination, and having a nice round number, it seemed like a good time for the world to end. Crowds of people gathered in churches and villages to pray for salvation. Priests raked in donations. Everyone wanted to repent, or get drunk. I bet a lot of babies were born nine months after New Year's Eve.

The world didn't end then, and it won't end now. So don't worry. Read some zombie novels if it makes you feel better. Or try some more optimistic fiction like what I write. Either way, don't worry. And pay off your credit card bills.

This photo shows a medieval Orthodox Apocalypse painting from the Osogovo Monastery, in the Republic of Macedonia. it was taken by Edal Anton Lefterov.

Deja-Vu blogfest: Small change in the MIddle Ages

Today is the Deja-Vu blogfest, where people all over the blogosphere are reposting one of their favorite old posts. This is one of my first posts on this blog, so most of you haven't seen it. Enjoy!

One mistake that historical fiction and roleplaying games make in recreating the Middle Ages is how money was used. They seem to assume that money then was like money now, but it wasn’t.

The vast majority of people used an in-kind economy, meaning they exchanged goods or services rather than money. Taxes were usually paid in crops or animals. People did use money, especially in the towns and cities, and there were networks of banks and even checks in places like the Byzantine Empire. Of course only the very wealthy could write a check that would be honored in another city.

One big problem was small change. Most coins were of gold or silver and were worth a lot compared to the daily production of the average farmer or laborer. As one of my grad school professors said, “We simply don’t know how someone paid for a flagon of ale at a tavern.”

Some cultures did have small change. In what’s now the Czech Republic they used painted bits of cloth. The Ottomans had a tiny silver coin called a “para” that was about the size of a capital O. To avoid losing them, people carried them under their tongue! In mining towns small amounts of gold dust could be used. Prospectors also did this in Old West mining towns.

People also could build up credit and then pay it off once it got to the amount of a coin. This was no problem since most people lived in villages or small towns where everybody knew everybody else. A common way to keep accounts was the tally stick. These were sticks split down the middle. Buyer and seller each got one half and they were marked with slashed to show how much was owed. In some remote parts of Europe with high amounts of illiteracy this practice continued well into the twentieth century. This photo shows a selection of tally sticks from the 18th-20th century from Switzerland.

Thanks to Sandstein from Wikipedia for the cool photo.

The Green Man: Pagan or Christian?

 We’ve all seen them—those strange faces peering out through foliage in odd corners of churches. They look out of place in such a setting—apparently pagan iconography in a Christian building. Who was The Green Man, and why does he decorate churches?

While the Green Man was commonly seen carved into buildings in ancient Rome, the term was actually coined by a folklorist in 1939. The figure died out with the end of the Classical era and didn’t reappear until the eleventh century.

We have no direct evidence for what these figures mean; the stonemasons who carved them and the church leaders who commissioned the carvings haven’t left us records of why they chose this motif. Some people, especially modern neopagans, like to see the Green Man as a pagan survival sneaking into Christian territory. While the Christian church did co-opt many elements of paganism, such as turning ancient gods into saints, the long gap between their use in the Roman Empire and their reappearance in the Middle Ages argues against this. One suggestion is that it’s a foreign motif brought in by international trade. Although there are Green Man figures in places like India, there’s no direct evidence for the import idea.

 For clues to its meaning we need to look at Medieval and Renaissance society. The vast majority of people were farmers, and there were large tracts of wilderness that the people looked on with a mixture of interest and fear. A man draped in foliage brings to mind the springtime, a time of joy and optimism for the farmer, a time when hormones run wild. The church’s wealth depended on land and it was often the largest landowner in the area. Celebrating the spring as a time of blessings and abundance from God makes sense in a Christian context.

On the other hand, the Church always warned against the licentiousness of the season, and the pagan dances and rituals that sprang up in the villages at this time of year. The 8th century theologian Rabanus Maurus said they symbolized the sins of the flesh and that the Green Man was a doomed soul. Perhaps, but this was only one interpretation. Contrary to popular belief, the medieval Church was a testing ground for a number of ideas and a variety of local practices.

Thus the Green Man was a tricky symbol, one of both hope and danger, a bit like another favorite motif, the Wild Man. This probably explains why he's generally not put in prominent places, but rather high up on arch supports or on roof bosses. He acts as secondary decoration rather than the first thing that catches the eye like a large stained glass window or gold altar.

Many of the Green Men we see in England today actually date from the Victorian era, a time of elaborate decoration and celebration of nature. The Green Man fit in perfectly to Victorian sensibilities. It was only then that the Green Man started appearing in large numbers outside of churches. Thus the Green Man, contrary to his appearance, was actually a Christian symbol.

Medieval Mondays: how a corpse can convict its murderer

In the days before fingerprints and CCTV, people had all sorts of strange ways of finding a criminal. One of the strangest was called the "bahr recht" (bier right). If someone has been murdered, you bring the suspect to the body and force him or her to touch the wounds. If they start to bleed, the suspect is guilty. This practice was common in England, Scotland, Wales, and perhaps other places during the 17th and 18th centuries.

One case in the English Coroner's Court from 1623 provides some interesting details. A woman had been found dead in her Hertfordshire home with her throat cut and a bloody knife stuck into the floor of her room. At first the court ruled it a suicide, but then changed its mind, exhumed the body, and made the dead woman's husband, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and another relation touch it. The court records that,

. . .the brow of the dead which before was of a livid and carrion colour, begun to have a dew or gentle sweat arise upon it, which increased by degrees till the sweat ran down in drops on the face. The brow turned to a lively and fresh colour, and the deceased opened one of her eyes and shut it again; and this opening the eye was done three several times. She likewise thrust out the ring or marriage finger three times and pulled it in again, and the finger dropped blood from it. . .

Three of the suspects, including the husband, were eventually found guilty.

This little gem came from The Flying Sorcerer by Francis X King, published by Mandrake.

Medieval Mondays: Wild men in Medieval folklore

Medieval folklore is filled with monsters, from dragons to unicorns to goblins. One enduring creature is the wild man. This fellow is generally depicted as unclothed, covered in hair, of immense strength, and living on the edge of human habitation. He (and sometimes she) appears frequently in illuminated manuscripts, heraldry, and even coins. Some wild men are shown as giants, another favorite creature of the medieval bestiary.

Medieval Europeans were fascinated by what anthropologists call "liminal zones", areas crossing from one state of existence to another, in this case from civilization to wilderness. There was a lot of wilderness in medieval Europe, and since most people didn't travel, this wilderness was looked upon with wonder and fear. Who knew what might be living in that primeval forest? At the edge of human habitation there certainly were some strange people: bandits, hermits, madmen, so perhaps there were monsters too.

Medieval society was a strict and hierarchical one. Everyone had their place and they better stick to it. In the more rural areas, though, the church and state had less of an iron grip, and people could get away with more. Time and again in the historical record there are reports of rural people engaging in rituals that look like pagan survivals or revivals. These were dangerous but exciting, and medieval people looked upon these remote regions with a guilty thrill. The wild man is a projection of this.

Images of wild men are so frequent that some have argued that they may have been real. Some say there may have been primitive tribes living in the more remote regions, or even surviving Neanderthals. There's no evidence for this. I think there probably were a few wild men, people who left society either by choice or by force, who lived a semi-wild life in the woods, wearing uncured pelts as clothing. They may have been a danger to farmers living on the edge of civilization, stealing livestock or women and children as is often depicted in wild men imagery. In the weird, wonderful world of the Middle Ages, it's not unlikely.
  


[All images courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

Medieval Mondays: A shoe hidden away keeps the witches at bay

A witch bottle wasn't the only way people in the British Isles protected their homes from evildoers. Traditional folklore gave the nervous homeowner plenty of ways to secure their home, family, and livestock.

The most common method was to conceal one or more shoes in the chimney or other hidey-hole. The origin of this peculiar custom is unclear. One theory says it started with John Schorn of Buckinghamshire, an unofficial "folk" saint from England who in the 14th century caught the Devil in a boot. There was a common belief that witches and spirits came in through the chimney and couldn't turn around, so if you caught them in a shoe you'd keep them out of the house.

More than a thousand shoes have been discovered hidden in old homes in the UK. About 40 percent are from children (considered likely targets for evil spells) and they're rarely found in pairs.

An even weirder remedy was to wall up a cat. (A moment of silence for all those cats). Many cats have been found sealed up in walls or roofs in places where they clearly didn't get to on their own. They've become naturally mummified and are commonly called "dried cats". Since cats were considered semi-magical creatures, perhaps it was thought a dead cat could hunt in the spirit world, or go toe-to-toe with the witch's familiar.

The local cunning man or woman could provide protection without killing Furball or stealing your kid's shoe. A written charm with a mixture of astrological symbols, an abracadabra triangle, and barely literate Latin could do the trick, as could magical marks such as a "daisy wheel" that's commonly found on roof beams, plaster, and furniture in early modern England. This was a good luck symbol.

Another method was hiding a horse skull. At the Portway pub at Staunton-on-Wye there was discovered more than forty horse skulls screwed beneath the floor! Some people claimed it was to help the fiddler sound better, but some sort of magical ritual seems the more likely explanation.

For more on these and other amazing practices, check out the Apotropaios website and the Deliberately Concealed Garments Project. An excellent book is Ralph Merrifield's The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic.

Medieval Mondays: Vampirism in Ancient Egypt

OK, Ancient Egypt isn't exactly medieval, but since I've already gone into the Early Modern period with my witch bottle post, I see no reason not to fall back in time too. It's a blog, not a site report! This guest post comes courtesy of fellow archaeologist and writer Jamie Gibbs.

If you look at almost any culture in the history of the world, you will find that there is some belief, religious or superstitious, that centres on the power and use of blood. Both the Ancient Greeks and the Cherokee tribe believed that menstrual blood flowed back into the womb during pregnancy, which both created and nourished the unborn foetus. It was also thought that the blood of a slain gladiator would cure epilepsy.

Despite the evidence that blood was believed to have been a useful and beneficial liquid, over the years it has become the stuff of taboo and is considered 'unclean'. The consumption of blood is expressly forbidden in the Old Testament: "Be sure you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh".

This taboo has continued throughout history until we get to the iconic image of those corrupt monsters who crave blood - the vampire. Our image of the modern vampire is very heavily based on the vampires of Eastern Europe, but the idea of vampirism extends farther back in history than is normally thought, back as far and Ancient Egypt.

Probably the most famous case of ' vampirism' in Ancient Egypt surrounds Sekhmet, the goddess of healing and pestilence. In a story known as The Destruction of Mankind, the human race plots against the sun god, Ra. In retaliation, Ra sends the goddess Hathor to lay waste to humanity. The instant that the blood touches her lips, Hathor is transformed into the bloodthirsty and aggressive Sekhmet, who slaughters so many that she wades in their blood up to her knees.

There is also evidence that ordinary Egyptians drank blood in order to increase their existence in the afterlife. In about 2000 BC, Egyptian coffins were inscribed with spells designed to help the deceased reach the afterlife and to protect them while they were there. One of these spells clearly expresses the desire for blood in order to 'keep them alive', "You devoured their hearts, so that you might live; you drank their blood, so that you might live"

This spell is similar to descriptions of predatory animals who live in the Egyptian desert, 'who eat hearts and drink blood'. This also links in with the story of Sekhmet who, with her leonine head, takes on the attributes of the predator.

Evidence of these beliefs go back as far as the pyramids themselves. Inscribed in the pyramid of the Pharaoh Unas (c. 2350 BC) are texts that show the king killing, cutting up, cooking and then eating people (it specifically notes that, in accordance with solar mythology, infants are consumed in the morning, adults in the afternoon and the elderly in the evening). Whilst these texts do not specifically mention that he drinks blood, it is implied so in that he is aided by the demon god Shezmu, who is both the butcher of damned souls in the afterlife and also the master of the wine press.

Shezmu is a fascinating character. In addition for being the Head Chef of the dead king, Shezmu is also responsible for certain punishments for those who do not live their lives in accordance with Egyptian morality. His job is to place bodies in his wine press in order to squeeze their blood from them, in which he then forces them to swim. Shezmu has sometimes been depicted with a leonine head, again emphasising the attributes of the predator that link in with the popular story of Sekhmet.

In all these instances, blood represents two things - life and power. The actions of the Egyptian 'vampires' were a form of dominance over others. To consume the blood of another was to increase your own power whilst at the same time robbing them of theirs. Egyptian vampires did not battle with their curse in an attempt to regain their soul. They did not seduce their prey in order to feed. They most certainly did not sparkle. If Ancient Egypt is anything to go by, vampires are meant to be predators, pure and simple.

Jamie Gibbs is a writer and Egyptologist, and has written two papers on the power of blood in Ancient Egypt: 'Wading Through Crimson Waters' and 'The Scarlet Essence'. He is also working on a fantasy novel that combines elements of vampire mythology throughout history. Visit him on his blog, Mithril Wisdom where he talks about fantasy in literature and the media, as well as writing in the genre.

Latest stop on my virtual book tour: real-world culture in fantasy fiction

In the latest stop on my Roots Run Deep virtual book tour, I'm over at Buried Under Books blogging about real-world culture in fantasy fiction. How should it be included? How can you make an Earth culture fit in a fantasy setting? Hop on over to Buried Under Books and find out!