Monday, December 13, 2004

bedad, David Hess sends us somewhere different. I read this book lo these many many, under the spell of Steeleye Span and some of the weird ass elf-laden folk songs they rendered. wow, tho, we're talking the scholar Evans-Wentz, who was possibly the 1st to translate prime Tibetan buddhist texts into English. some of the accounts in this are spooky. there's an Irish tune called Port na bPucai (don't trust me on getting the Gaelic right) which comes with the story that a fellow fell asleep on a elvish mound, a sort of portal to their world. when he woke he had this tune in his head. another tune, a well known one called "The Gold Ring", supposedly was given to a man by the elves when he returned a gold ring to them. I find this stuff fascinating tho it's been a while since I gave it any study. I am reminded of the picture book by Terry Jones (of Monty Python), which purports to be the journal of a woman who collects specimen of the wee folk. squashed between the pages are some of her prize acquisition. quite bizarre.

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