“Is fiction, which makes fact alive, fact too?”

Alexandra Cheira, a scholar of fairy tales and mythology at the University of Lisbon, recently presented a paper about the Come Hell or High Water trilogy at a conference. Her paper examines the relationship between historical fact and legend in the books; she uses the question Robert Browning asks in The Ring and the Book as the title for her paper (and I use it for the title of this post). Alexandra says that the interplay of fact and fairy tale in trilogy presents “a whole picture of the city, in which well-done research is matched by believable story-telling, so much so that the realistic narrative is interspersed by supernatural occurrences which do not strike even the most skeptical reader as out of character.”

She also writes that “the narrative structure is also well-balanced between realism and fantasy, with the description of the conferences, the delegates and the general camaraderie that accompanies them acting as a down-to-earth catalyst for the supernatural parts. The narrative tone is informed – but never lecturing – and the reader does actually learn a lot on a variety of subjects without realizing it.”

Alexandra concludes, “All in all, Morris has managed to create an urban-historical fantasy which pairs fiction and fact and brings to question what is real and what is imagined. ‘Fiction’ is an aid to ‘fact,’ something that can better a story, so that Morris’s ‘fictional facts’ do indeed ring true in the wider context of the novels.”

I am very happy that Alexandra chose to discuss Come Hell or High Water in her paper at the conference. As with all good critiques, she taught ME something about the books that I had not realized as I was writing them!

Happy (belated) Birthday, blog-readers!

The author of a blog I enjoy reading — it’s about the adventures of an English-speaking resident of Prague — recently announced that his blog is now EIGHT years old! It seems like only yesterday that I discovered it, swift on the heels of his having begun writing it. Time flies! But it made me think, “How long have I been writing THIS blog?”

So I checked. This blog began in January, 2013. So it’s just celebrated a “Happy Belated 4th Birthday!” We will hit the 300th post sometime later this year — this post is the 260th since that first post slightly more than four years ago.

Sometimes I have a series of posts planned out weeks in advance. Sometimes I don’t know what I will post about until I realize that it’s time to post something and I have nothing written! In either case, I hope you — the READER — find them interesting and informative and enjoyable. (Or at least one of these qualities.) And I hope you check back each week to see what is new here. (You can SUBSCRIBE TO THE BLOG, if you want. See the place to do that on the right side of the page? I think that means you get an automatic email when there is a new post here. Or you get an email that contains the post itself. If you SUBSCRIBE, let me know which it is.)

A fourth birthday is momentous. When a child turns four, it means they are almost ready for kindergarten and imaginary friends are important. (That’s still true for me!) In the Bible, there are 4 gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) and 4 major prophets (Isaiah, Daniel, Jeremiah, Ezekiel). There are also the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse — who could forget them?! The tarot cards numbered “4” are about consistency and stability and the Emperor card is the fourth of the Major Arcana, signifying authority and competence as well as the need to make something solid and real.

It was also an honor and a pleasure to recently be a guest on British author E. Rachel Hardcastle’s podcast.

“Happy Birthday, blog-readers!” We made it this far–HUZZAH!

Will you be Meeting the Krampus or Čert?

krampus-stuffing-children-into-basket

Traditionally on December 5th and 6th, St. Nicholas walks from house to house in the cities and villages of Alpine and Central Europe to admonish and laud young and old. In the Alpine regions, he is accompanied by a Krampus (an evil creature, a devil of sorts), who is going to punish the bad children and adults on St. Nicholas′ command. For the honest children he normally has little presents. In Prague and the Czech-speaking areas of Central Europe, the čert (a clearly demonic character) accompanies St. Nicholas.

In Come Hell or High Water, both St. Nicholas and his čert appear:

“It was commonly supposed [in 1356] that St. Nicholas, as he made his rounds bestowing gifts on children and the needy, was accompanied by both a tar-covered čert, a pitch-black devil, as well as a bright and glorious andel, an angel of light, who each argued for or against the worthiness of the recipient of the saint’s benefactions. The čert was always ready, at the slightest nod from the saint, to carry away the unworthy beggar or misbehaving child and–throughout the year–parents could always warn their children that they might be carried away by the čert….”

St. Nicholas himself is a Christian figure, the fourth century bishop of Myra. As son of a well-situated family, he started to help poor people who lived in deep poverty. He was supposed to have miraculous vigor and so he became patron of the seamen, children and poor people. (See a previous post about St. Nicholas and his care for the poor here.) In most modern versions of the St. Nicholas story, he is accompanied by a monster or servant (the Dutch describe his assistant as Black Peter) who punishes the bad children while Nicholas himself rewards the well-behaved children.

The figure of the Krampus is based on pre-Christian custom. The Krampusse not only punish the bad children but had the function at one time of driving out the winter devils and blizzard sprites. Originally the custom of the Krampus was spread over all of Austria but was forbidden by the Catholic Church during the Inquisition. It was prohibited by death to masquerade as a devil or an evil creature and so this custom only survived in some remote, inaccessible, regions of the Alps from where it slowly spread back across the western parts of Austria again. Today the Krampusse revels are especially popular in Salzburg. As many times as I have been to Salzburg, I have never been there during Krampusse-time; I would dearly love to be there to see the processions and parades of costumed characters in the streets.

St. Nicholas and the Krampus procession in Salzburg (2010); photo by Charlotte Anne Brady.

St. Nicholas and the Krampus procession in Salzburg (2010); photo by Charlotte Anne Brady.

Krampus revels at the Salzburg Christmas Market, 2011; photo by Neumayr/MMV 05.12.2011

Krampus revels at the Salzburg Christmas Market, 2011; photo by Neumayr/MMV 05.12.2011