ivebeenreadinglately:

{Photo by rocketlass.}

However, it is Bullard’s account of the myth, rather than the mystery, that offers the most acceptable account of alien sightings and abductions. Or at any rate the most familiar and easiest to take. Aliens who whisk innocent sleepers off to their spaceships and give them medical examinations or impregnate them are only doing what fairies and hobgoblins have been doing since long ago and far away. Perfectly ordinary people in folk stories the world over are regularly stopped on the road and taken away by mischievous or sinister Others. In Western European culture, mermaids drag sailors to the depths, Oberon and Puck do a number on Bottom, Rumpelstiltskin demands a human child of his own in return for a magical favour, the witch entices lost children into a gingerbread house, the inscrutable Pied Piper, dressed half in yellow and half in red, seduces away rats and then, when the citizens of Hamelin prove incorrigible, whisks off the younger generation. In the Bible there was a time when giants walked among us and sons of God or angels mated with fair-faced human females, or appeared to individuals to tell them that they were pregnant with a changeling, or to deliver a warning of things to come and save the world from itself. These stories of underground and parallel worlds have comforted or terrified human beings for centuries. Why wouldn’t we include the space above our heads in our narratives, and why wouldn’t we update the stories?

From “What might they want?”, by Jenny Diski, in the March 22, 2012 issue of the London Review of Books

easterparades:

A REQUIEM FOR VILLAINOUS QUEENS

ZIP

lady macbeth
you say this is a game so take your place, then you set the mask upon your face, my silhouette in the air you trace, and the dagger performs with a start 
mirah / the knife thrower 

evil queen of snow white
she learned it from a book, suitors approach, receive dirty looks. calling on her for good or grief. these types of fool who beg and never read
horse feathers / rude to rile

morgan le fay
“what say you good people?” (guilty, guilty, guilty) “i am responsible for your actions.” “wake the witch.”
kate bush / waking the witch

cersei lannister
beautiful, alone with my enemy, and share a bitter cup of poisoning, my countenance, to see his face in mine, and follow every line back to my enemy
jesca hoop / enemy 

marisa coulter
she damned if she do, she damned if she don’t, if history hang hang hangs her well, her memory won’t…and i am no stranger to the strange, and all his ways, what could be stranger, than to be stuck outside your cage
the kills / damned if she do

 marguerite d’anjou
is your armour thin again? do i want to wear it down? am i worthy to come in? do you want to be found?
charlotte martin / your armour

attolia irene
there is a light in my lady’s house, and there’s none but some falling rain, this like a spoken word, she is more than her thousand names. no hands are half as gentle, or as firm as they like to be, thank god you see me the way you do, strange as you are to me.
iron & wine / my lady’s house

atia of the julii
know myself, well oh hell, prissy queen, iron bars, iron heart, everything…more alive than you’ve ever been
yeah yeah yeahs / dull life

lucrezia borgia
read to me again, about the king who took his daughter to the feast. tell me how she lifted up her veils and laid them at his feet. execution in her eyes, she pointed to her prize, and said, “i want him to be mine.” and everyone knew the man was going to lose his head tonight.
emmy the great / bad things coming, we are safe

regina mills
i could tell you stories like the past was dead and gone, but i know nothing changes in this world, everyday the muezzin calls, sun comes up and baghdad falls.
anais mitchell / before the eyes of storytelling girls

bastard guinevere
the day i go to war, i won’t be there tomorrow, the days i go to war, i won’t be there, i won’t be there, story of the night shows itself, go to sleep, they are not to see this. 
zola jesus / shivers 

(Source: sunneinsplendour, via fox-confessor)

vainbuthonest:

I do not know what manner of thing she is. None of us do. She killed her mother in the birthing, but that’s never enough to account for it.

They call me wise, but I am far from wise, for all that I foresaw fragments of it, frozen moments caught in pools of water or in the cold glass of my mirror. If I were wise I would not have tried to change what I saw. If I were wise I would have killed myself before ever I encountered her, before ever I caught him.

Read More

UGH just when I start feeling at peace with my writing, I reread this.

(Source: neilgaiman.com, via featherandarrow)

Starting the year off right: Re-reading My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me.

ghoulnextdoor:

image Catskin - Arthur Rackham art

Cat-Skin (and its variations) is one of my favorite fairy tales! Arthur Rackham’s work is always gorgeous.