Добавлено: Thu Mar 15, 2007 8:38 pm Заголовок сообщения:
Интересные дополнения нашла Иришка, она же Rishka_mouse (выкладываю по ее просьбе):
Из книги Katharine Briggs "An Encyclopedia of Fairies"
Hags. Ugly old women who had given themselves over to witchcraft were often called 'hags', but there were thought to be supernatural hags as well, such as those who haunted the Fen country in Mrs Balfour's story of the DEAD MOON; and giant-like hags which seem to have been the last shadows of a primitive nature goddess, the CAILLEACH BHEUR, BLACK ANNIS or GENTLE ANNIE.
Black Annis. A cannibal hag with a blue face and iron claws supposed to live in a cave in the Dane Hills in Leicestershire. There was a great oak at the mouth of the cave in which she was said to hide to leap out, catch and devour stray children and lambs. The cave, which was called 'Black Annis' Bower Close', was supposed to have been dug out of the rock by her own nails. On Easter Monday it was the custom from early times to hold a drag hunt from Annis' Bower to the Mayor of Leicester's house. The bait dragged was a dead cat drenched in aniseed. Black Annis was associated with a monstrous cat. This custom died out at the end of the 18th century. Black Annis and GENTLE ANNIE are supposed to derive from ANU, or DANA, a Celtic mother goddess. Donald A. Mackenzie suggests a connection with the Irish AINE, the mother of Earl Fitzgerald. The Leicester Chronicle of 1842 mentions a tomb in Swithland Church to Agnes Scott, an anchoress, and suggests that she was the original of Black Annis. Ruth Tongue in her Forgotten Folk-Tales of the English Counties reproduces a tale about Black Annis the hag. It was told by an evacuee from Leicester in December 1941. Her description seems to show that the tradition of Black Annis was still alive just over thirty years ago:
Black Annis lived in the Danehills.
She was ever so tall and had a blue face and had long white teeth and she ate people. She only went out when it was dark.
My mum says, when she ground her teeth people could hear her in time to bolt their doors and keep well away from the window. That's why we don't have a lot of big windows in Leicestershire cottages, she can't only get an arm inside.
My mum says that's why we have the fire and chimney in a corner.
The fire used to be on the earth floor once and people slept all round it until Black Annis grabbed the babies out of the window. There wasn't any glass in that time.
When Black Annis howled you could hear her five miles away and then even the poor folk in the huts fastened skins across the window and put witch-herbs above it to keep her away safe.
A full account of the various traditions about Black Annis is given by C. J. Billson in County Folk-Lore (vol. l). It has been suggested that she is MILTON'S 'blew meager hag'.
И еще:
A traveller encounters a tiny man of enormous strength, able to trow a large rock a long distance. The traveller asks the man where he lives, and is shown a hall of gold, occupied by dancing women. The strange small man can call mist to his command, which he does, and then disappears.
The Wee Wee Man
1. 'Twas down by Carterhaugh, father
Between the water and the wa'
There I met with a wee wee man
And he was the least that ever I saw.
2. His length was scarce a finger's length
And thick and nimble was his knee
Between his eyes a flea could go
Between his shoulders inches three.
3. cho: His beard was long and white as a swan
His robe was neither green nor grey
He clapped his hands, down came the mist
And he sank and he sainted clean away.
4. He's lifted up a stone, six feet in height
And flung it farther than I could see
And though I'd been a-trying bold
I'd never had lifted it to my knee.
5. "Wee wee man, that thou art strong,
Tell me where thy dwelling be" -
"It's down beneath yon bonny green bower
Though you must come with me and see."
6. We roved on and we sped on
Until we came to a bonny green ha'
The room was made of the beaten gold
And pure as crystal was the gla'.
7. There were pipers playing on every spare
And ladies dancing in glistering green
He clapped his hands, down came the mist
And the man in the ha' no more was seen.
Analysis : Like "The Broomhill Wager", this is a story whose verses often appear in versions of Tam Lin. It is another story from the same region of the world, and like Tam Lin, names Carterhaugh as the woods. The location to which the wee wee man takes the narrator is most likely the under-hill home of the fairies, as indicated by the gold and the dancing women. However, unlike Tam Lin, the interaction with this strange little man is neither sexual nor menacing, and very little appears to occur beyond the demonstration of strength and the odd journey. The man is not stated to be a fairy precisely (although some versions of Tam Lin indicate that the fey came in a number of sizes and had the ability to change appearance) but is still most like of one of the elder races. I'm tempted to go with Nac Mac Feegle myself.
ссылка на сайт:
http://www.tam-lin.org/tales/tamlin11.html#tale_________________
Местная сумасшедшая
Может, в то время народ призывали бобы разводить, как в другое время картошку?
У многих девушек нечто большое, рычащее и косматое отнюдь не вызывает отвращения. Сапковский в "Зерне истины" обыгрывает историю о красавице и чудовище - там девушки против романа с монстром ничего не имели, особенно плюс возможность пожить в роскошном доме и на прощание получить нехило золота в подарок.
