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Tuesday, September 24, 2013

The origins of the Sleeping Beauty tale and other correlations in Myth.

I'm a really big Geek/Nerd when it comes to Fairy Tales...I grew up reading Grimm's Fairy Tales and anything else I could get my hands on. As I got older my desire for Fairy Tales turned to other story sources, such as World Mythologies...from Bulfinch's Greek Myths to Joseph Campbell's explanations of myths and archetypes and so on.

Recently a friend of mine posted an interesting link regarding the tale of Sleeping Beauty on my Facebook page: Maleficent, the Evil Fairy/Goddess
"In Medieval Culture, an event like a royal christening is not a private party; it's the public social event of the year. To not invite any person of rank to such an event is a deadly insult.

Maleficent is certainly someone you wouldn't want at a party, but she's also someone powerful enough that only a fool would ever dare treat her with such blatant disrespect. The only way the King and Queen could possibly have gotten away with not inviting Maleficent was to not invite any of the fairies at all; inviting the other fairies and excluding her is explicitly taking sides in the conflict between the fairy factions.

Which means they made themselves her sworn enemies, and she responded by treating them as such from then on. If you actually get into analyzing the social dynamics of the scene, it's very clear that Maleficent was willing to show mercy at first by giving the King and Queen a chance to apologize for their disrespect to her. She doesn't curse Aurora until after she gives them that chance and they throw it back in her face with further disrespect.

If they King and Queen had done the properly respectful thing and invited her, Maleficent would have given Aurora a scary awesome present. Moreover, so would the other fairies, because at that point both sides would be using it as an opportunity to show-off and one-up eachother. What they gave her before Maleficent showed up was basically just trivial party favors by fairy standards."

I don't know who the original author of this is, but again here is the source as it was received by me on Facebook:  Maleficent; Evil Fairy/Goddess..  
DISCLAIMER: -I made up the "Maleficent: Evil Fairy/Goddess" title as something for the link title for the purposes of use in my blog, that is not actually the name of this 'essay' as it was originally posted or shared.


Here's what I added to this 'conversation':

" Those are actually really good points and it goes further than that if you take in Pagan lunar myths. While earlier versions of this tale only include 7 fairies, with the evil fairy being the 8th (Charles Perrault, 1697), the Grimm Brothers changed it to 12 fairy godmothers with the evil fairy being the 13th, nearly 200 years later in the mid-to-late 1800's.
-also, there is a version which is far darker and more sinister which involves Sleeping Beauty aka "Talia" being impregnated by a King while she is unconscious and waking to find she's now a mother to twins, which she names, "Sun" and "Moon". -which goes further back with Perrault having transformed his version of the story from an earlier version by Giambattista Basile.
(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_Beauty )

While the actions of the 'evil fairy' don't really change one way or another, the reason she was not invited to the child princess's christening by her parents are thus explained through the inclusion of the lunar myths:

There are 7 phases in the lunar cycle from waxing moon to full moon to waning moon; the 8th phase being the Dark moon, when there is no moon to be seen in the night sky (also known as the New Moon). In both stories, the number 13 and the dark moon (8th moon phase) are seen to be representative of bad luck/evil. The 'dark/evil' fairy representative of that 13th or 8th element. In an attempt to ward off any evil or bad luck, Aurora's/Sleeping Beauty's parents decided to only invite the 'good' fairy godmothers, thus excluding the 'bad/evil' fairy. Unfortunately, in their attempt to avoid bad/evil luck...they brought it upon themselves, or rather their child, by offending and angering the dark godmother/fairy by not inviting her, which most likely would have been avoided had they just invited her, afterall.
Another version relates that as the dark/new moon is absent from the night sky, the dark fairy (again, representing the dark moon) was merely overlooked due to her darker nature/the moon's absence from the sky. Not necessarily an intended slight. But, still the same consequences, unfortunately.

If I could recall the book I read this in, I'd quote my source...but these two sources help, to some degree, to uphold these 'myths' or 'theories':
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_fairy_godmother
http://www.moonconnection.com/moon_phases.phtml

Also, some interesting theories on where the story of Sleeping Beauty actually is derived from....one going back to Greek mythology involving a party for Zeus and his new wife (can't recall if it was Hera or another woman), where one of the Fates was not invited. This makes sense in that the Fates are notoriously connected to spinning and weaving...with the spinning wheel being a large element in Sleeping Beauty's inevitable downfall.
And there are older connections which deal with the Light and the Dark faces of the Goddess and the story of the goddess Erishkegal (goddess of death) and the goddess Inanna's (goddess of life) descent into the Underworld -which also has great ties into lunar myth.
-Source: "The The Myth of the Goddess - Jules Cashford, Anne Baring

Lol....I'm a huge Goddess/mythology/fairy tale geek. ;D

en.wikipedia.org
"The Sleeping Beauty" (French: La Belle au bois dormant,written by Anne Nzisabir...See More  "
 
-I enjoyed sitting down and writing up all of this info., gleaned over the years from various books, and sharing it during a conversation held over facebook with a friend of mine, so much and felt that I was able to present these ideas and theories satisfactorily enough, that I wanted to share it here with anyone else who might have an interest in either fairy tales, mythology, archetypes, or Goddess lore. :)
 
If anyone else would like to further this conversation/discussion. Please feel free to comment, I'd love to hear any takes or theories you might have to share or discuss on these topics.:)   




 
 

Steampunk: Goggles WIP -part 1

Last year I got lucky and found a slightly banged up pair of welders goggles at a junk-yard sale for a few bucks. I was already curious about Steampunk by then and thought they might come in handy at some point in the future. So, thankfully, I bought them.:)     They sat in one of my craft supplies containers for a while 'till recently when I got invited to a friend's up-coming Steampunk themed party in Oct. and now I have a purpose for them.:)


I've ordered some extra small lenses to attach to them and am trying to think up other stuff to add onto them, but right now I've just them somewhat painted.
-As with the Flint Lock pistol, I used the matte black spray paint as the base, a quick sweep of the oil-rubbed bronze spray paint, and then some gold-metal paint:











And that's with the matte black and literally a quick sweep of the oil-rubbed bronze spray paint.

Here I used a Q-tip and the gold-metal paint to put an intentionally somewhat messy layer of gold on:


I'll be adding some dark brown or black paint for aging to these before I start decorating with extra bits, like this:




And some extra clip-on lenses, too.   This magnifier lens will be fixed to one of the goggle's lenses and there will be a small blue LED light inside of it which I'll be able to twist on and off.

More pics to come!!



Steampunk: Flint Lock Pistol WIP -part 1

Another Steampunk project I'm currently working on is re-hashing a plastic Pirate Flint Lock pistol into a cool Steampunk Flint Lock pistol.
-I think I've mentioned in a recent past post, but I've been invited to a friend's Steampunk themed party which is taking place during early October, so I'm trying to rush about getting all of my Steampunk stuff ready.
I've already got a costume put together from bits of my Renaissance Faire garb and some of my own mundane clothing...might have a tweek or two to make on the costume, but I'm currently concentrating on the accessories....top hat, gun, wings, and goggles.:D

So, I picked this toy pirate gun up at the Party America store here in town for about $7:


Following this tutorial:  Steampunk Pirate Gun Mod Tutorial
I sat down with a small screwdriver and took all the plastic 'silver' design bits off. I didn't sand down the handle/barrel or anything like I probably should have, but I coated it in a couple layers of a matte black spray paint and then in an oil-rubbed bronze spray paint: 






I love the oil-rubbed bronze...it has a really sharp look to it.


And here I've gone and sprayed each of the silver decorative plates with the matte black spray paint and then with the oil-rubbed bronze and then I went over that with the metallic bronze spray paint.
Using Q-tips, I highlighted the upraised patterns with some old-gold enamel model-paint:






And here's some of the detailing so far:

This gives an idea of how they looked before being painted.









I'm still going to go over these decorative pieces with some dark brown or black paint for an 'aged' look.
My friend, who is throwing the party, has offered for me to come over some time this week and poke through his drawer of extra copper plumbing pieces for extra bits to add to my gun and possibly to my goggles, too.  Hopefully I can find some interesting stuff to add to this and make it look more 'steampunk'.  *fingers crossed*

Watch for more WIP updates on this pistol.:)


Steampunk: Top Hat WIP -part 1

I've currently got a couple different Steampunk projects going on, but I'm going to give each one it's own post for now.:)

First off... the Top Hat. 

I played with the idea of making my own from foam via this YouTube video:



But really wasn't confident in myself to do a good job at it with drawing out my own pattern and all that.
So next I hit up Hobby Lobby...I found a foam top hat in the kid's section and actually bought it, just in case I couldn't find anything better and figured, if nothing else, I could cover it in fabric and do my best with it.

Thankfully, at my next stop that day, I found a better and sturdier top hat at the Party America shop in town. It doesn't have the wider top that I wanted, but it'll work for my needs.


 But I'm not crazy about it plain like this, so I'll be covering it in these fabrics:


The embossed fake leather fabric will cover the hat, the blue/brown upholstery fabric below will be a mini corset around the middle of the hat with those black eyelets down the edges...which will be painted an aged gold, the lace there is a lovely deep red that shifts to almost a black as it moves...like satin. The chocolate brown satin will be the sash at the base of the hat and I've got black edging tape to go around the edge of the brim.
-I'll be putting my goggles on the brim, I've got a decorative piece that I'll add to the side of the hat and am wanting to add some feathers.
If I can find one in time, I plan to attach a painted, toy octopus to this hat...as though it's climbing up the side. We'll have to see on that one, though.

I don't have the time or the patience to sew the fabric onto the hat at this time, so I'll be using this tutorial on how to use glue and spray adhesive to cover the hat in fabric:

I'm hoping that this toy octopus (if I can find one in town soon) won't prove to be too top-heavy on the hat. I'll have to temporarily attach it to see before I actually start working on it, I guess.

I'll post more pics. once I get started on the hat.:)