Neon’s A Doll A Day… Again (2020)
(11-10-2020, 07:02 AM)davidd Wrote: Her Manic Majesty's wire hoop skirt looks particularly antique-ish in monochrome.

(Interesting eBay link for your amusement: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pullip-Doll-P-0...4146227397 )

I am fairly certain I once lived in a place where a trace of Oddwick Fog seeped through in to our world. It was in Hawaii, where fog is rarely seen. Rarely, except in this one place, a low hollow in the middle of the pineapple fields, near a group of large stones that were said to be both powerful and haunted. Often, early in the morning or late at night, this hollow was filled with fog so thick it was nearly impossible to see through it. I am sure that fog fish would have felt right at home in this hollow.

The entire description of Oddwickshire fog is quite fascinating and fun... and a little bit scary. I shall henceforth be extra careful to avoid fog-bites when venturing out in to the mist.

Thank you!

Whacked ...Wow. Her Insane Majesty said that she appreciates the insanity, however, since all attempts to ex³press her value as a price tag are bound to fail, because there simple isn't enough money in the whole world, she'd prefer her dolls to be as accessible as possible, so that every poor soul could make their life better by basking in her royal presence.

Oooh, maybe it was a portal!

And thank you!


(11-10-2020, 02:14 PM)Elfy Wrote: Any excuse for a pavlova will do. I think I'd prefer a tranquil Fog Day to a crazy one. They sound far more relaxing.

Oddlings are ex²perts when it comes to inventing excuses to have another cake. Tranquil Fog Day is the default version, it just sometimes gets messed up by the effects of the full moon. Although even the crazy ones are possible to enjoy. Just yesterday I saw a very elegant lady disintegrate an especially hostile fog clump by vehemently waving her fan at it, and she laughed like crazy and proceeded to chase a few more after that.


(11-10-2020, 07:00 PM)Lejays17 Wrote: Her Insane Majesty looks very serene there.  I think this could be one of the prettiest pictures you've taken of her (not that all the other pictures weren't utterly exquisite of course Your Majesty, please put the axe down LOL )

And a pavlova sounds marvelous as a treat for this particular day.
And I think we have a patch of Oddwickshire fog here as well - there's a place near here that develops low-lying fog when no where else does.  It's particularly odd when you realise that dark shape is one of the herd of cows...

LOL Thank you!

Another portal!


Day 315

ADAW #42
Honestly I don't know anymore. I messed up the count when I posted one of the substitute doodles, I'll fix the numbers after I post the last one.

Remember how I wanted to do spooky posters with Czech/Slavic supernaturals in October and how it didn't work out, and I only posted hejkal? No? ...Anyhoo, I managed to do another one today. Yay... And there will probably be a load of typos and bad English again.

[Image: a8e29cacd6b0abfe5729b365b77db092.jpg]

[Image: 7a315a8fa4f5882deddbf2ce8b75caa4.jpg]

Rusalka

Another Slavic supernatural I want to introduce you to is rusalka. That would be the one from Antonín Dvořák’s opera.

English wiki page on rusalkas has some inaccuracies. For example, it says rusalkas (I’m going to use this form of plural, and not the popular rusalki, because it’s not universal Slavic plural, Czech and Slovak use rusalky, for example) are 'frequently associated with water'. That suggest that sometimes, they aren’t. I cannot claim I know every single Slavic myth about them, but if there are non-water-related rusalkas, they're rarity, rusalkas really are all about water. It would be like saying mermaids are frequently associated with water.

Another thing is etymology of the word. Just because the Slavic name for Pentecost sounds similar, it doesn’t necessarily mean that’s where the name for rusalka came from. It probably only helped to spread the new word, because the worship of all kinds of nature spirits (not just rusalkas) and Pentecost took place at roughly the same time.
The thing about the word rusalka is - we don’t really know where it came from, the word itself was first recorded as a name for this being in cca 16th century, but its roots are old, too old for us to be sure. Two most accepted theories among people from Slavic countries are that the word was derived from either ‘rusá’ = red haired (girl), or rusa = river / rusla = depths. I personally like the ‘rusla’ one, but there’s no way to be sure.
I don’t really believe that what was fully christian society at the time would name an old supernatural, by then perceived as malevolent, after important christian holiday.

Rusalka is basically a subspecies of víla, which translates as fairy, but our fairies are different from the western ones. I guess I should post a twaddle about vílas some day. Basically, they’re nature spirits, they’re wingless, human-sized and always look like young women, sometimes, the color of their hair will hint they’re not human. Rusalkas are water species. 

They used to be like local deities residing in springs, lakes, rivers, etc. They were seen as benevolent rulers over waters in that region, but we don’t know the details (cue my usual ‘stupid ancestors, why couldn’t you write anything down?!’ rant). Some sources say that rusalkas replaced vílas in myths, and therefore are not exclusively water-related, but as far as I’m aware, myths and tales about vílas (using this name) never disappeared, and rusalka is a word for a víla connected to water.

And now’s the time for yet another rant - my usual ‘christianization ruined my culture’ rant! I’ll try to keep it reasonable. You already know the drift - rusalkas became Evil™. They were somewhat merged with mavkas/navkas (young girls who died a tragic unnatural death and came back as revenants, those were actually dangerous before christianization) and became associated with death - they were swept into the ‘dead girl cannot find peace and now she’s killing people by luring them to death with her sexiness’ bag. Sexy women are evil, remember that!
Later, the same thing happened to vílas, too. And when they weren’t killing people, they at least caused floods. Sigh. There would still be occasional kind but sad ones, and the hero of the story would help them find peace.

Interesting thing, and I couldn’t find whether it’s from pre-christian myths or the newer ones, is that supposedly, rusalka’s power comes from her long, beautiful hair. Rusalkas always have long, beautiful hair, sometimes red, sometimes green, less frequently fair / blonde or black, and in more recent tales, they can also be blue (but it’s always striking, supernaturally brilliant color, even if it’s a normal one). But there aren’t any tales about heroes defeating rusalkas by cutting their hair, and I think that if the powerhair canon was old and common, there would be some. However, just having an exquisite mane is a superpower of sorts, so I guess that kiiiinda counts?

The extent of rusalka powers differs from place to place (and changed with time). Sometimes they have unlimited, god-tier power over water (sometimes includin weather, like calling forth rain), sometimes they have somewhat limited, but still impressive powers, in other tales, their powers are limited to living underwater and luring young men to their doom with hypnotic singing or showing off naked.

In some regions, they can only be in water, like fish, in other, they can come out and travel to certain distance from their water homes. I think that in pre-christian tales, they would come out of water towards the end of winter and use their powers to irrigate the soil, bringing the spring to the land, but I’m not sure (stupid ancestors!).

The male counterpart of rusalka would be vodník / vodyanoy, but they often appear as compatible, but different species. Vodníks tend to have green skin, rusalkas don’t, just to name one difference.

In my mind, rusalkas are powerful nature spirits, kind, but no pushovers.

This post is kind of all over the place, because the myth differs between nations and even small regions, and written records are few and far between, and most of the lore got deformed with time. I’d like to write a straightforward ‘this is what rusalka is’ post, but I’m afraid that just isn’t possible.

I have two more Slavic supernaturals I want to talk about, hopefully, I’ll get to it towards the end of the week.
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RE: Neon’s A Doll A Day… Again (2020) - by neon_jellyfish - 11-11-2020, 04:14 AM

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