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Nov. 13th, 2016 10:14 amI posted a short, about ten pages, essay on Word Press last night for my cousin Jim, about his dad who served in WWII. It's also about a Welsh farmer who had housed American soldiers on his land. The essay is entitled Combating Evil - WWII Stories and Folk Tales from Veterans Long Dead.
While writing it, I went back to an undergrad paper that I wrote in 1988 regarding various folk legends and ghost stories that I'd collected in Wales. I went to Wales to collect Welsh mythology and folklore. And ended up collecting various ghost stories and folk legends from the rural hills and valleys. I talked to over 100 people. And collected everything from jokes to superstitions to ghost tales. What was odd about the stories -- or maybe not so odd -- was they were all about women, or how people viewed women, which was for the most part in a negative light. While over there, I had various men come on to me. I was 21 years of age. American. And on my own. My mother had sent my brother, three years my junior, to act as photographer and aid me in my journeys. But he had his own ideas and quickly took off on his own.
You'd think that experience would have kicked me in the head regarding the deep misogyny and sexism ingrained in our culture. But alas, no. I didn't want to see it. Instead, I analyzed it from an academic perspective, discussing how men struggled with the mother goddess, devourer, and nurturer. Looking back -- I think I was trying to understand it. What was at the core of this? And many of the legends dealt with the earth -- and the people living off the earth's struggle with it's moods and lack of providence.
Dickie Harris, the farmer mentioned and depicted in the essay cited above, told a story about a big black ugly dog that turned into a gruesome hag. After he'd shooed the dog away, it turned into a hag, and vanished in a well. Later he, and those around him, got ill. This was in 1942, when various American soldiers were camping on his land. (I discovered two months later, that my Great Uncle had been one of the soldiers on his land.)
What struck me, though...years later about the story, was it was a woman, a hag that appeared. And she'd disappeared down a well. Possibly meant as a warning to the farmer and his friend not to drink the water from the well. But they associated their illness with the woman, not the well.
Thinking about it ...I've realized something, the misogyny in our culture is destroying us bit by bit. It's destroying our planet, and it has been doing so for millions of years. Our planet has a great constitution, as does our species, but...if you look closely, you can see the cracks starting to spread. It doesn't just hurt women, it hurts men as well. All genders. I see it in our stories.
In the violence in the streets. In our elections. In the storms and natural disasters plaguing us.
I don't know how to heal it. How to counter-act it. Except by writing and speaking through words and hoping people listen.
While writing it, I went back to an undergrad paper that I wrote in 1988 regarding various folk legends and ghost stories that I'd collected in Wales. I went to Wales to collect Welsh mythology and folklore. And ended up collecting various ghost stories and folk legends from the rural hills and valleys. I talked to over 100 people. And collected everything from jokes to superstitions to ghost tales. What was odd about the stories -- or maybe not so odd -- was they were all about women, or how people viewed women, which was for the most part in a negative light. While over there, I had various men come on to me. I was 21 years of age. American. And on my own. My mother had sent my brother, three years my junior, to act as photographer and aid me in my journeys. But he had his own ideas and quickly took off on his own.
You'd think that experience would have kicked me in the head regarding the deep misogyny and sexism ingrained in our culture. But alas, no. I didn't want to see it. Instead, I analyzed it from an academic perspective, discussing how men struggled with the mother goddess, devourer, and nurturer. Looking back -- I think I was trying to understand it. What was at the core of this? And many of the legends dealt with the earth -- and the people living off the earth's struggle with it's moods and lack of providence.
Dickie Harris, the farmer mentioned and depicted in the essay cited above, told a story about a big black ugly dog that turned into a gruesome hag. After he'd shooed the dog away, it turned into a hag, and vanished in a well. Later he, and those around him, got ill. This was in 1942, when various American soldiers were camping on his land. (I discovered two months later, that my Great Uncle had been one of the soldiers on his land.)
What struck me, though...years later about the story, was it was a woman, a hag that appeared. And she'd disappeared down a well. Possibly meant as a warning to the farmer and his friend not to drink the water from the well. But they associated their illness with the woman, not the well.
Thinking about it ...I've realized something, the misogyny in our culture is destroying us bit by bit. It's destroying our planet, and it has been doing so for millions of years. Our planet has a great constitution, as does our species, but...if you look closely, you can see the cracks starting to spread. It doesn't just hurt women, it hurts men as well. All genders. I see it in our stories.
In the violence in the streets. In our elections. In the storms and natural disasters plaguing us.
I don't know how to heal it. How to counter-act it. Except by writing and speaking through words and hoping people listen.
