{"id":13644,"date":"2024-05-19T16:55:07","date_gmt":"2024-05-19T22:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13644"},"modified":"2024-05-19T16:55:07","modified_gmt":"2024-05-19T22:55:07","slug":"of-animals-magical-and-cryptic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13644","title":{"rendered":"Of Animals \u2014\u00a0 Magical and Cryptic"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A new issue of the Hellbore <\/em>zine, No. 11, “The Animal Issue<\/a>” has been published. Real life is trying to keep up. (See below.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hellebore<\/em> is available from a few shops in the UK or by mail.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hares that are witches in disguise, ravens with prophetic powers, sacrificial wrens representing the god-king. Animals are often included in folk horror narratives because of their symbolic traits, or because of the folk beliefs surrounding them. Historically, animals have been understood as objects of cult worship, deities or devils incarnate, witches\u2019 companions, omen bringers. They\u2019ve also been re-imagined as hybrids, chimeras, and cryptids.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this issue we tell tales of hares, moonlight, and madness, of half-glimpsed uncanny felines and the demon king of cats, of monstrous serpents with an appetite for destruction, of seemingly unassuming yet all-powerful toads. From the Isle of Man to the flatlands of Suffolk, the animals in these stories rise from the forest, from the field, from the waters, to re-enchant the landscape of these isles.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elizabeth Dearnley’s article “Running with Hares” at least acknowledges North American jackrabbits (true hares). Nothing about Lepus americanus<\/em>, the snowshoe hare \u2014 maybe we need to investigate its magical side. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

TImothy Grieve-Carlson writes on the long British tradition of mysterious big cats on an island that is not supposed to have any wild cat larger than the Scottish wild cat<\/a>, and there are not too many of those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But wait!<\/strong> There is news about DNA samples from a sheep in Cumbria<\/a> (NW England) that revealed the presence of something larger. “‘The Beast of Cumbria’ – Big cat DNA confirmed to be<\/a> <\/a>on sheep carcass<\/a>” reads one recent headline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somehow I do not think that the old “escaped from a zoo” explanation is adequate anymore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new issue of the Hellbore zine, No. 11, “The Animal Issue” has been published. Real life is trying to keep up. (See below.) Hellebore is available from a few shops in the UK or by mail. Hares that are witches in disguise, ravens with prophetic powers, sacrificial wrens representing the god-king. Animals are often […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[214,454,37],"class_list":["post-13644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-animals","tag-cryptids","tag-folklore"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-3y4","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1337,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1337","url_meta":{"origin":13644,"position":0},"title":"Archaeology of religion May's issue\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 10, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Archaeology of religion May's issue of The Pomegranate will carry an excerpt from archaeologist Brian Hayden's new book on ancient religion, Shamans, Sorcerers, and Saints: A Prehistory of Religion. A news release about the book from his university, Simon Fraser in British Columbia, is here. A key sentence: Hayden argues\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":138,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=138","url_meta":{"origin":13644,"position":1},"title":"Archaeology of religion May's issue\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 10, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Archaeology of religion May's issue of The Pomegranate will carry an excerpt from archaeologist Brian Hayden's new book on ancient religion, Shamans, Sorcerers, and Saints: A Prehistory of Religion. A news release about the book from his university, Simon Fraser in British Columbia, is here. A key sentence: Hayden argues\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1352,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1352","url_meta":{"origin":13644,"position":2},"title":"Archaeology of religion May's issue\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 10, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Archaeology of religion May's issue of The Pomegranate will carry an excerpt from archaeologist Brian Hayden's new book on ancient religion, Shamans, Sorcerers, and Saints: A Prehistory of Religion. A news release about the book from his university, Simon Fraser in British Columbia, is here. A key sentence: Hayden argues\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1367,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1367","url_meta":{"origin":13644,"position":3},"title":"Archaeology of religion May's issue\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 10, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Archaeology of religion May's issue of The Pomegranate will carry an excerpt from archaeologist Brian Hayden's new book on ancient religion, Shamans, Sorcerers, and Saints: A Prehistory of Religion. A news release about the book from his university, Simon Fraser in British Columbia, is here. A key sentence: Hayden argues\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5590,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5590","url_meta":{"origin":13644,"position":4},"title":"Survey: Your Spiritual Relationship with Animals","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Sabina Magliocco, anthropologist and folklorist and author of Witching Culture: Folklore and Neo-Paganism in America, among other books, has a new research project underway on people's spiritual relationships with animals. The purpose of this study is to understand how we imagine our relationship to animals, how we incorporate animals into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animals\"","block_context":{"text":"animals","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1507,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1507","url_meta":{"origin":13644,"position":5},"title":"Biologist Wants to Ban Howling at Wolves","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A biologist and consultant to national parks is telling wolf-cultists in Canada not to howl at their four-legged gurus. Alberta carnivore expert Cam McTavish says it is animal harassment. \"When we have commercial groups or individuals or even researchers that are randomly calling wolf howls, I feel it is unwarranted,\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"wildlife\"","block_context":{"text":"wildlife","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=wildlife"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13644"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13658,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13644\/revisions\/13658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}