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Which Witch

31 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Artists and Illustrators, Fairy Tales and Myths, Films and Music, Literary History, Villains

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Tags

Goya, Halloween, Holinshed's Chronicles, Istari, L. Frank Baum, Macbeth, Mother Goose, The Wizard of Oz, Theodore Chasseriau, W. W. Denslow, Welsh traditional clothing, Wicked Witch, William Shakespeare, Witch-King of Angmar, witches, Witches' Sabbath, wizards

Welcome, dear readers.

This is our annual Guy Fawkes’ Day/Halloween/Samain posting. Last year, we looked at GFD. This year, it’s Halloween—and a little puzzle from JRRT (how not?).

Magic and mystery—centered on witches—is a central theme for Halloween celebrations.   Just look at the variety of commercially-made costumes available.

deluxe-child-witch-costume.jpgwitch-costumes-blue-white-storybook-witch-costume-013639.jpg

1867366.jpg

For many of us, our introduction to witches was probably in the person of the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 The Wizard of Oz.

The_Wicked_Witch_of_the_West.jpg

This is not quite what the witch in L. Frank Baum’s original book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)

(illustrated by W.W. Denslow) looked like,

wicked_witch_of_the_west

but you can see, in her hat and dress, things which were already symbolic of witchery in popular culture: black cats, crescent moons, toads, some of it echoes from the words of the three Weird Sisters in Shakepeare’s Macbeth (1606), who meet the protagonist on the road after his victory over the enemies of Duncan the king of Scotland. (Theodore Chasseriau)

MacbethAndBanquo-Witches.jpg

A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron boiling. Thunder.

Enter the three Witches.

1 WITCH.  Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.
2 WITCH.  Thrice and once, the hedge-pig whin’d.
3 WITCH.  Harpier cries:—’tis time! ’tis time!
1 WITCH.  Round about the caldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.—
Toad, that under cold stone,
Days and nights has thirty-one;
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot!
ALL.  Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
2 WITCH.  Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing,—
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
ALL.  Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

Somehow, somewhere, witches acquired those distinctive clothes and hat—especially the hat. The story of Macbeth and the witches comes from Holinshed’s Chronicles (1577/1587) and here is that scene illustrated from that first edition of 1577.

holinshed1575.jpg

As you can see, to the modern eye, there’s nothing “witchy” about these ladies. So where do those clothes and hat come from? We have no firm answer for this, just a guess—and from another literary tradition, Mother Goose.

RealMotherGoose1916.jpg

The first published version of stories (and, in time, rhymes) under that name dates from 1695. Here’s the frontispiece from the first English translation (1729).

Houghton_FC6.P4262.Eg729s_-_Perrault,_frontispiece.jpg

Mother Goose was supposed to be a country woman and, by the latter part of the 19th century, was dressed as one—but we think with a particular look, that of Welsh women in distinctive traditional clothing.

mother-goose.jpg

Welsh_spinnersc1900.jpeg

The style of hat is much older—here we have, in succession, three earlier versions from the 17th century—1610, 1640, 1676.

rubens_isabella_brant_c1610

woman21x300hollar1640.jpg

Mrs_Salesbury_-_wright.jpg

Country people tend to be conservative, so something worn in much of the UK in the 17th century appears to have existed, at least in modified form, in the depths of Wales long after then.

copy1-554-78-welsh-national-costume-1911-660x440.jpg

We wonder whether there hasn’t been a kind of cross-over effect: country women to Mother Goose to witches—all conservative dressers. There is also a long tradition in Wales of “wise women”—often mistaken in England for dealers-with-the-devil—those appear in this rather creepy painting by Goya of a witches’ Sabbath (1797-1798). (We note that there are no pointy hats here.) Perhaps the Welsh wise woman was consulted about wardrobe by Mother Goose?

GOYA_-_El_aquelarre_(Museo_Lázaro_Galdiano,_Madrid,_1797-98).jpg

Witches (as the “Harry Potter” books point out) aren’t and weren’t always just women.

hpetal.jpg

Men, too, could take part, sometimes called witches, sometimes warlocks or wizards. When we think wizard, of course, we immediately think of the 5 Istari—

310993_121176884650130_120725101361975_85832_1441609629_n.jpg

When we think of witch, however, in the context of LOTR, we can see that:

  1. In this respect, this is a different kind of culture—for instance, the only equivalent of a “wise woman” is Ioreth, in the “Houses of Healing”
  2. But there is a witch-king, that of Angmar, who is also the head of the Nazgul

eowynvswitchking.jpg

There is a puzzle here, however. In western tradition, witches are the servants of Satan, who spend their time, it seems, troubling humans at the daily level—making cows sick, tormenting babies, holding sabbbaths, casting spells.

witch_john_william_waterhouse_magic_circle_painting_casting_spells.jpg

In that tradition, the only ruler is Satan himself, as depicted in this second Goya painting of a sabbath (and we note here that most of the witches appear to be something between human and other—a great—but horrible—touch—and who is that girl sitting off to the right? This comes from a series of paintings done by Goya in the last years of his life and there is a certain mystery about why he painted them—they’re murals, in fact—and what they might mean.)

francisco_de_goya_y_lucientes_-_witches_sabbath_the_great_he-goat

 

As there are no other witches in Middle-earth, then, where are the witches for the witch-king to be monarch of?

And that, perhaps, is another mystery for Halloween…

Oh—and Happy Halloween, by the way!

 

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

CD

ps

While gathering images for this posting, we happened upon this photograph. Is this a picture from Professor McGonagall’s 50th Hogwarts  reunion?

tumblr_nwrfedgPaR1sdzmuoo1_500.jpg

Ambiguity in Oz

06 Wednesday Jul 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Films and Music, Literary History, Narrative Methods, Theatre and Performance, Villains

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Adventure, Aldus Manutius, Captain Cyril Turner, condensation trail, Epsom Downs, James Pollard, Let's eat grandma, Oz, punctuation, skywriting, Surrender Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz, the Wright brothers, Wicked Witch

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always.

It was a bright, breezy morning yesterday and we were looking up at a contrail (short for “con(densation) trail”)

Contrail.jpg

which brought to mind this message:

surrender2.jpg

from the 1939 movie, The Wizard of Oz. At this moment in the movie, the four friends (and Toto),

dorothyandfriends.jpg

seemingly welcome in the Emerald City, have been enjoying their welcome when the happy music stops at a shriek, and they look up to see the Wicked Witch of the West skywriting.

In the US in 1939, artificial flying objects would hardly have been a surprise. After 1903,

First_flight2.jpg

and certainly after the Great War

dogfight

aircraft were increasingly common—even up to massive dirigibles.

Hindenburg_over_New_York_1937

Skywriting—

aerialadvertising1930s

is said to have been first commercially employed in 1922 at Epsom Downs, in England,

horace-walter-nicholls-crowds-on-derby-day-epsom-downs-surre

where Captain Cyril Turner wrote “Daily Mail” over the race track.

James_Pollard_-_Epsom_Races-_The_Race_Over1835.jpg

(This is a painting by James Pollard from 1835, but we couldn’t resist its detail.)

It appeared over New York City for the first time shortly afterward.

In Oz, however, the usual airborne objects appear to have been:

  1. crows

crowsinoz

  1. witcheswitchflying

Glinda-Wizard-Oz

  1. monkeys

flyingmonkey1gifflyingmonkeys

(To which we might add 4. balloons—although there is only one and it’s not a native product.)

ballooninwizard

Thus, a thing like a flying house

Tornado-with-house

would have been more than a little disturbing (and still is, here in this world)—especially when it landed on a major political figure.

houseonwitch

As well, although witches fly in Oz, as far as we know, they are not given to delivering messages by air.

(This message, by the way, was:

  1. made by using a hypodermic needle filled with black ink to write on the bottom of a glass tank filled with colored water
  2. originally longer—here is what it first said:

extendedwwwskywriting)

Equally disturbing to us, however, is the ambiguous (from Latin amb-, “both” and ag- “to drive”—hence, “to go in two directions”) nature of the message—all due to a (potentially) missing comma.

Modern western punctuation took several centuries to appear and mature, beginning with the work of the early printer, Aldus Manutius (the Elder—1449-1515) in the later 15th century.

Aldus_ManutiusAldo_Manuzio_Aristotele

On the whole, modern native English-speakers tend to use the same practices, although an inverted prepositional phrase in American English, for example, has a comma, where British English does not.

Uninverted: There were about twenty fresh crabs in the sink.

Inverted (US): In the sink, there were about twenty fresh crabs.

Inverted (UK): In the sink there were about twenty fresh crabs.

When this is spoken by any native-speaker, there is a slight pause after “sink” and the point of the comma (a point which goes back to 16th-century rhetorical texts, in which punctuation is intended to be used like rests in music, as a series of directional signals as to pauses) is to signal that natural pause.

There is no ambiguity either way in the model sentence, but what about in the Witch’s command?

As it stands, “Surrender Dorothy”, without a comma, is a kind of general imperative—it could perhaps be addressed to all of Oz—and thus easily explained in a longer construction, like “Oz! Surrender Dorothy”—perhaps with the original conclusion “or Die!”

But is this the Witch’s intention? Insert the comma and you have a command directed specifically—and solely–to Dorothy: “Surrender, Dorothy!”   (As we learn when Dorothy is in the hands of the Witch, the deleted part of the message “Or Die” is not quite accurate—the Witch wants the Ruby Slippers, but can’t get them without killing the wearer, so that the real message should be “Surrender, Dorothy—and Die!”—which is hardly likely to be persuasive!)

There is a cartoon about English punctuation which has circulated for some years:

letseatgrandmacorrection

In the version without the comma, it’s an invitation to eat grandma. With the comma, it’s an invitation to eat with grandma. In the case of the Witch’s message, what do you think: is it a command to Oz, or to Dorothy?

surrenderpartialview

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

CD

Somewhere Over…Ephel Duath?

02 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods

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Tags

Aragorn, Auntie Em, communication, crystal ball, Denethor, Dorothy, Emerald City, Galadriel, heroine, Kansas, Margaret Hamilton, Middle-earth, mirror, Oxford, Oz, Palantir, Pippin, Professor Marvel, Saruman, Sauron, seeing-stones, skype, The Lord of the Rings, The Wizard of Oz, Tolkien, Villains, Wicked Witch

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always. This posting is now one of two, but it was originally a single posting in which we discussed both Palantiri and Galadriel’s mirror.

Our first thought had been, in fact, a vague one: what did one see in such things? As we reviewed the various possibilities, we realized that they were, in fact, very different in function (yes, we probably didn’t think long and hard enough—we should have pulled out our spares and dipped into that cask of Longbottom Leaf for a three-pipe problem). So we separated them and here’s the first, on the Palantiri.

We begin in 1939. It’s not a happy time: war in Europe has broken out again after only two decades of peace. The Depression is still lingering. But there is a new film which Priscilla (age 10) has heard about and would very much like to see and her loving and indulgent father has agreed to take her—after all, this is a children’s movie and he, since his first novel was published in 1937, has become a children’s author.

The film was the story of a quest: the heroine, torn from home, acquires a magical object (two, in fact), slowly gathers a disparate band of companions who help her on her way, visits a grand city, has dealings with a wizard, defeats a powerful enemy and returns home, at last, a wiser person.

posterforwoo

In the very year he became a children’s author, the father had begun a new work. Based in part upon earlier materials and interests, as well as upon elements from his 1937 novel, this was to become not, as he thought at first (and his publishers hoped) a sequel to his previous work, but a kind of extension of that work and, in the years in which he continued to work on it, much more.

In the meantime, he sat in the theatre in Oxford and watched a bleak prairie worldkansas

turn into something almost hallucinogenically-technicolored

munchkinland

and filled with small and very energetic people.

munchkins

But the heroine, as we said, has been torn from home and, worse, she arrives and is immediately in trouble with a powerful enemy,

wickedwitchofthewest

having accidentally killed that enemy’s sibling.houseinwwoe

And the story moves on from there—the gathering of the companions

Wizard-of-Oz-w13

the grand city

oz

and, all the while, that powerful enemy is watching.

ball4

This isn’t the first time such a scrying device has been seen in the story. Earlier, the heroine had consulted another magical figure—or so he claimed.

profmarvelswagon Wizard-3-Marvel

What’s particularly interesting about this device is that, unlike crystal balls one remembers from film and books and from general folklore,

crystalball

the one which is actually used sees not the future, but the present.

The Wicked Witch of the West sees Dorothy—as, of course, that’s who they are–

wwowwithball

and Dorothy sees Auntie Em.

crystalballdseesem

(And “Professor Marvel”, as he calls himself, at least pretends to see the present.)

This made us wonder about the Palantiri.

For a useful summary of information about these so-called “seeing-stones”, see the entry for Palantiri at Tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Palantiri, but, in short, they are an ancient communication device. That is, they are unlike the usual crystal ball, which looks into the future (or possibly the past), but are rather like the Middle Earth form of skype.

skype

These items don’t have the security offered by our earthly form, however. Within The Lord of the Rings, we see them used by Saruman

sarumanpalantir

Pippin

Pippinpalantir

and Aragorn

palantirandaragorn

and Denethor.

denethorandpalantir

Aragorn, however, is the only one able to escape the control of Sauron as exerted by the sphere.

the_palantir_of_barad_dur_by_stirzocular-d7xwbi9

Their function as a medium of communication, so different from their usual use, brings us back to Margaret Hamilton, staring into her crystal ball

ball4

and we wondered whether, in that dark late summer of 1939, Tolkien might have sat in a theatre in Oxford, watching the Wicked Witch of the West, and, as he did so brilliantly with so many other things, absorbing, then recreating what he saw for his own purposes. What do you think, dear readers?

As always, thanks for reading.

MTCIDC

CD

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