  Horror/Scary
This week: Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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HAPPY
HALLOWEEN |
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MYTH
Somewhere, deep within the earth, a god is bound to three slabs of stone by the entrails of his son. Above him, a serpent lurks, its fangs dripping venom. This is his punishment for deicide - the murder of the god of light. His wife, Sigyn, holds above his head a bowl carved from wood, catching the serpent's venom. But eventually, the bowl fills, and Sigyn must empty it; at these times, the venom drips upon the tortured god's face; the pain makes him writhe within his bonds, making the earth shake.
Someday, Loki's long punishment will end, and Ragnarok will begin. On the field where the final battle is fought, Loki, the trickster, will meet and fight Heimdall, the guardian of the gods, and both will perish.
Thus does this world end, and a new one begin.
Mythology provides fertile ground for writers of horror fiction. While searching for meaning, origins and endings, ancient people found great deeds - and dark nightmares.
Myths are the voices of the collective unconscious. All of our fears, all of the dark things that live within us - they find expression in the tales of gods and monsters, of demons and heroes.
On a rocky crag, a god is bound, not by entrails, but by unbreakable chains. Each day, a vulture approaches and feasts upon his liver; each night, the organ is regenerated so that the following day, the vulture can dine once more.
Some say that a hero once came and vanquished the vulture, freeing the punished god from his chains. But the god's crime still echoes through the millennia, for it was Prometheus who stole fire from the seat of the gods and showed humans how to tame the flames, ending the darkness and bringing forth the light.
The gift of Prometheus did end the darkness, and here we sit bathed in light. Much of the darkness has been explained: it is not the writhings of Loki that trigger earthquakes, but movement of giant crustal plates. Still, it is a mythological truth that Loki lies bound to his rock, and Prometheus to his.
For it is, paradoxically, within myth that we find truth - not the truth of facts and measurements and science, but the truth we know on a lonely, windy night; the truth that, no matter how bright the light, whispers in the darkness of our souls. The Sun, we know, is a star, its tremendous energy the result of fusion reactions. The Sun, we also know, is the chariot of Apollo; the bark of Ra. The moon is an airless ball of rock - and it is the realm of the warrior goddess, and that which chases from us our sanity.
The moon also is known to cause the transformation from man to beast in that creature known as the werewolf.
In myths, we can find much inspiration: the tricks played by trickster gods; transformations and seductions; horrific punishments; the dark places where the worst can happen - and usually does. Further, we find in mythology a common ground, a fertile field to which we can all relate - shortcutting reason and touching upon the symbols that speak to our unconscious.
The use of mythology in fiction - horror or otherwise - is certainly not limited to the Greek and Norse myths I've mentioned here. Each culture has, or had, its own mythos, its own significant symbols that speak to the unconscious and provide those truths that its people need to get through the long nights to come: the Japanese and the Hindu; the Russian and the Australian; the Hebrew and the Inuit.
And we do not have to turn to the ancient world for our mythic symbols; even in modern times, there are stories that illuminate basic truths and give us images of horror (and of hope, but we do not deal with hope in this newsletter). The Headless Horseman. The hulking brute brought back to life by science. The dead who walk the earth in search of what they no longer have - all modern in form; all a well from which we can drink to chill the blood of others.
Also, let us not forget our ability, as writers, to invent an entirely new mythology, one which may seem as old as time itself, or even older - H.P. Lovecraft did this, and chilled the hearts and souls of millions of readers with his stories of the Old Gods.
Beware, though - there is a type of myth that speaks to falsehood rather than truth; that tells us things that we should know are not factual, but are just plausible enough to make us wonder. To pick one example: the myth that Halloween is a celebration of evil and darkness - when even a casual glance at its history points to its origin in the very human - and Promethean - effort to shed the darkness and bring forth the light.
So the next time you're populating your frightful world, don't forget those who have gone before - don't let the sacrifices of the gods themselves be in vain. |
Writing requires sacrifice. Here are my offerings to You, dear Reader. I do hope they are bloody enough.
From the realms of Myth, real or imagined, come these tender morsels:
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I'm Robert Waltz , and I am honored and humbled to have presented to you this Samhain / Halloween Edition of the Horror/Scary Newsletter. As a Guest Editor, I have no mouthfuls of feedback to share with you, but I'd love to hear from you - drop a comment in the box below and I'll be sure to read it!
You can find me on a regular basis over at the Comedy and Fantasy newsletters, where I try not to be quite as scary - I hope to see you there... should you survive.
MUUUUUhuhahahahahaha!
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Horror/Scary: October 29, 2008 Issue [#2681]
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