FOR MY LOOK AT SEVERAL OTHER VOODOO DEITIES CLICK HERE
ZACA – The Voodoo god of agriculture and the harvest, making him the patron deity of farmers and fieldworkers. Zaca is the friendliest and most approachable of the gods and may be addressed as “Cousin Zaca” if spotted in the fields.
He dresses in denims and a straw hat just like the rural Haitians do. In addition, Zaca smokes a pipe, drinks from bottles of rum and wields a machete. Continue reading
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This is the fifth part of Balladeer’s Blog’s look at the swashbuckling legends that surround Francois Villon (1431-1463?), remembered as one of France’s greatest poets and a notorious outlaw.
FRANCOIS VILLON PART FIVE – We left off last time with Villon on the run again, having fled Paris after the Navarre College job in which he and his fellows robbed a record amount of gold for the time period.
Formerly, despite his criminal career most of the notoriety Francois had earned was for his scandalous, irreverent poetry regarding The Powers That Be in France of his era. The December 20th, 1456 Navarre caper changed that.
From early 1457 and for a few years more, Villon continued his outlaw existence in and around the French province of Anjou and the Loire River Valley. Depending on the source, Francois either officially became a member of the criminal fraternity called the Coquillards at this time or was already a member and deepened his ties to them.
Falling in with a gang of highwaymen, Villon helped prey on the carriage trade, which enhanced his underdog/ quasi-Robin Hood reputation because only the wealthy and the high-born traveled by carriage in that era. No one else could afford to. Continue reading
Filed under Mythology, Neglected History
This is the fourth part of Balladeer’s Blog’s look at the swashbuckling legends that surround Francois Villon (1431-1463?), remembered as one of France’s greatest poets and a notorious outlaw.
FRANCOIS VILLON PART FOUR – We left off last time with Villon back in Paris, where, in December of 1456, he gathered nine criminal colleagues for one of the most well-known thefts of his life.
Among those in Francois’ ad hoc gang were the usual names like Guy Tabary and Colin de Cayeux as well as a new name, Father Nicolas, the inside man for this robbery. Continue reading
Filed under Mythology, Neglected History
This is the third part of Balladeer’s Blog’s look at the swashbuckling legends that surround Francois Villon (1431-1463?), remembered as one of France’s greatest poets and a notorious outlaw.
FRANCOIS VILLON PART THREE – We left off last time with Villon forced to flee Paris after killing the priest Sermoise in a duel over a woman named Isabeau. Already well-versed in the criminal underworld of the region from his career as a thief, Francois hid out just 17 miles southwest of Paris at the Abbey of Port Royal-des-Champs.
In that June of 1455 the abbey was often called “l,abesse de Pourras (rotten)” because it was in the era when the infamous Abbess Huguette du Hamel ran the place. Typical of the chaotic tableau and moral ambiguity of the time, though the Abbess played the game of public piety, on the side she was as corrupt as many of her male counterparts.
The Abbess often disguised herself as a man to enter tawdry establishments that were barred to women. She was also noted for drinking like a man and cursing like a man. Continue reading
Filed under Mythology, Neglected History
This is the second part of Balladeer’s Blog’s look at the swashbuckling legends that surround Francois Villon (1431-1463?), remembered as one of France’s greatest poets.
FRANCOIS VILLON – This part picks up with one of the most infamous incidents from Villon’s career as an outlaw and iconoclast. He graduated from the Sorbonne as a Master of Arts and had acquired such a reputation for youthful rebellion and hard-drinking bad craziness that “Villonerie” had become a catch-all term for disorder and disobedience.
Along the way Francoise had turned out a body of verse attacking and satirizing callous royalty and hypocritical religious leaders. In 1451 Villon and some of his rowdier cohorts targeted an elaborate theft as a prank against one Mademoiselle de Bruyeres, a huffy woman who led a personal crusade against every woman she believed to be a prostitute.
Recently she had harassed the honest young women who worked as linen weavers in the Marche au Fille, her paranoid mind labeling them all as sex workers based on no evidence. Villon and company sought to strike for the honor of those slandered ladies. Continue reading
Filed under Mythology, Neglected History
THE QUEST OF SETH FOR THE OIL OF LIFE (1962) – Written by Esther Casier Quinn, this is one of the best and most concise works of comparative mythology that I have ever read. It’s a medieval legend often compared to the Grail story and is appropriate for Holy Thursday. The Quest of Seth for the Oil of Life is also known as The Quest of Seth for the Oil of Mercy, The Legend of the Rood and many other titles.
Quinn draws from a multitude of sources to provide several variations of this tale and explores the ways in which the course of history shaped the revisions and embellishments involved in this medieval legend. The Seth of the title is the son of Adam and Eve, the Oil of Life/ Oil of Mercy is often said to represent Jesus Christ, the Rood refers to the cross on which Jesus was crucified and its “legend” details the history and many forms of the tree/ wood that eventually became that cross.
For those not familiar with this particular popular offshoot of the canonical story of Jesus Christ here’s a brief overview:
As Adam the First Man lies near death in his old age he longs for the Oil of Life/ Mercy. He instructs his son Seth to trace the footprints that he and Eve indelibly burned into the ground as they left the Garden of Eden. Since nothing ever again grew from those footprints, Seth can follow them backward to discover Eden, wherein Adam has told him he can find the Oil. Continue reading
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FOR MANY MORE VIETNAMESE GODS AND GODDESSES CLICK HERE.
THACH SANH – A son of the supreme deity Ngoc Hoang. His father forced him to incarnate as a human and in this demi-god form he fought monsters, rescued the son of the chief sea god Long Vuong, vanquished his evil foster-brother and married a beautiful princess.
He then went on to lead her father’s people in a war of conquest, uniting the legendary and traditional “original 18” villages (though some sources say 15 villages) that were the basis of the nation that eventually grew into ancient Vietnam. Continue reading
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GEORGE ADAMSKI (April 17th, 1891 – February 26th, 1965) occupied a special place in the history of cults. In 1936 he claimed to represent the Royal Order of Tibet and preached “its teachings” in California (where else).
In the 1940s Adamski became interested in UFO reports and readjusted his Royal Order of Tibet teachings a bit. He then insisted he was in touch with Space Brothers whose philosophy he was revealing to the public. (Imagine if L. Ron Hubbard and this guy had joined forces!)
The readjustments started after George Adamski published Pioneers of Space in 1949, a general look at the infant Flying Saucer phenomenon, and in 1952 he claimed to be in telepathic contact with a being from Venus. Claims of additional contacts followed, including hieroglyphic writings from the Venusian.
Working with Leslie Desmond, Adamski published Flying Saucers Have Landed in 1953. He became a famous lecturer on UFOs and extraterrestrials and established his new following of suckers disciples. Continue reading
Let’s mark Friday here at Balladeer’s Blog with a look at a demigod often referred to as “the Fijian Hercules.” For more than 20 other gods from Fiji see my blog post HERE.
TUILAKEMBA – This figure was the son of Tuilangi, the god who ruled over the Skyland, and a mortal woman. When Tuilakemba was a little boy he was often ridiculed by the other children for not having a father on hand like they did. One day the young demigod had had enough and threatened to kill his mother unless she told him who his father was.
She did so and Tuilakemba was spitefully satisfied. He took to carrying around an ironwood war-club wherever he went. He would use it to strike the heads off flowers, gleefully anticipating one day knocking off the heads of his enemies in wartime just as easily, given his massive strength.
On one occasion he took a nap, planting the ironwood war-club upright in the ground next to him while he slept. When he awoke he saw that the war-club had grown into an enormous tree which reached all the way up to the Skyland realm of his father. Tuilakemba took advantage of the situation and climbed up the newly-formed tree to the land above.
The little boy walked through the jungle of Skyland until he reached the village ruled by his father Tuilangi. That lord of the land above was in the middle of a council of war regarding his armies’ recent losses in their ages-old conflict with the evil gods of the sky. Continue reading
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A few years back Balladeer’s Blog examined some of the folklore surrounding some very menacing cryptids from tall tales around the nation. This time around, the creatures being covered are much milder.
THE BILLDAD
Habitat: Boundary Lake in Maine
Lore: The Billdad is said to be roughly the size of a badger, beaver or wolverine. It has hind legs and a torso like a kangaroo, a flat, wide tail like a beaver, a head like a bird of prey, and webbed paws. Their tail slapping the water is often compared to the sound of canoe paddles striking the water.
Billdads feed on fish who venture too near the surface of Boundary Lake. Their powerful hind legs propel them from the shore to the spot of their prey, which they strike dead with their flat tail. They devour the fish then use their webbed paws to swim back to shore. Reproducing asexually, these creatures replenish their numbers from humans or animals foolish enough to kill and eat a Billdad, causing them to morph into another Billdad. Continue reading
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