March 25, 2024

Magical Botany C

         Welcome to the #AtoZChallenge !  My theme this year is the Botany of the Realms of Imagination, in which I share a selection of the magical plants of folklore, fairy tale, and fantasy.  You can view the Master List of participating blogs here, although I’m giving myself a head start and the others won’t be starting until April 1.  But many have posted Theme Reveals, so you can start to get a taste of what’s in store.  As for me, already at C…
        Chervona ruta is a plant that can be found in Ukrainian folklore, and the name is literally “red rue.”  If you’re a gardener or herbalist this tells you immediately that there’s something special going on, because the flowers of ordinary rue are always yellow.  For a brief moment on the eve of the summer solstice, the chervona ruta flowers turn red, and if you pick them you will have good fortune, especially in love and wealth.  (However, the flowers may be guarded by evil spirits, so beware!)  It’s the romantic connection of chervona ruta that made it the subject of an extremely popular Ukrainian song, the most popular version of which is sung by Sofia Rotaru.  You can listen to a performance here.
        Coco de mer is a special kind of palm tree that grows at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, and the great bird garuda (which may be related to the roc) lives in those trees.  When the nuts “fall” off the trees, they float up to the surface of the sea.  If the whole tree rises up, the garuda may  come, too, and eat any sailors who happen to be in the vicinity.  On the other hand, the nuts themselves, which are the largest in the plant world and look like a woman’s midsection, possess amazing healing powers and are an antidote to all poison.  In 1743 it was discovered that coco de mer trees can grow not just at the bottom of the ocean, but also on islands in the Seychelles, where the male trees uproot themselves on stormy nights and make passionate love to the female trees.  It is unwise (as well as impertinent) to watch this - you may go blind, or even die.
        I will also mention Chikorita, Cacnea, Cherubi, Carnivine, and Chespin as representative examples of “grass type” Pokémon, which are those with botanical characteristics.  All of these plant-animals are capable of independent locomotion, and, like other Pokémon, they can be captured by throwing a special ball trap at them, and then trained to battle each other.  Most of them can evolve into larger forms if fed enough candy, but I think they’re generally much cuter before evolution.  Personally, I find Chikorita and Chespin the most adorable.
        The moral of the first two plants is that the florists are right: flowers speak the language of love!  But mostly they just want to speak it to each other.  Gardening tip of the day: the sensitive gardener will give their plants a little privacy from time to time.  Who knows, they may propagate better if you do!
        What plants or flowers seem the most romantic to you?


[Pictures: Chervona Ruta, adapted from a hand-colored wood block from De historia stirpium commentarii insignes by Leonhart Fuchs, 1542 (Image from Cambridge Digital Library);

Coco-de mer, watercolor from the William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings, c. 1803-1818 (Image from Roots Collection of Singapore);

Chikorita, Chespin, and Other Assorted Grass-type Pokémon (Images from Pokémon Go).]

March 22, 2024

Magical Botany B

         Welcome to the April A to Z Blog Challenge!  My theme this year is the Botany of the Realms of Imagination, in which I share a selection of the magical plants of folklore, fairy tale, and fantasy.  Most of the other A to Z participants won’t be starting until April 1, but you can find out all about the A to Z Blog Challenge here.
        Today’s first plant is a classic which you can learn about in the famous English fairy tale “Jack and the Beanstalk.”  Magic beans sprout overnight and grow right up to the sky, providing a sort of ladder for a bold adventurer (or thief) to climb.  I’ve previously written a whole post about them, so you can find out more, plus see more illustrations, at my prior post Beanstalk!
        Today’s second magical plant is a plant-animal hybrid - but while it’s the first plant-animal to be mentioned in this alphabet, it certainly won’t be the last.  The barnacle goose begins its life cycle growing on a tree which grows in Ireland.  It’s attached by its beak, and enclosed in a shell that looks a bit like a pistachio (or, of course, a barnacle).  Eventually the shell cracks open and the tiny 
bird drops out into the water and s
wims or flies away.  If any of the birds fall onto land, however, they die.  Barnacle geese were a wonder reported in the travellers' tales and bestiaries of the medieval era, and there was quite a bit of debate over whether they should be treated as plants or animals for religious dietary laws.  By the early 13th century both Jewish and Catholic authorities had decided they should be treated as meat, but I still think it’s fun to think of them as plants!
        Heading around to the other side of the world for our third plant, you should beware of the banana trees of Okinawa, Japan!  Some of them may be spirits called bashonosei.  These plant spirits like to startle people by suddenly appearing as a human face among the leaves.  That’s not the worst, though.  Sometimes they even impregnate women with demon babies.  (Apparently you can never trust a banana alone with a woman.  This sounds like a tale told by seriously insecure men.  Just sayin'.)
        The moral of today’s plants is that you should never assume that plants are boring, immobile things.  They can carry you to adventure, or fly off on adventures of their own.  Gardening tip of the day: never go into the garden without your wallet and toothbrush, just in case.
        How much would you trade for a handful of magic beans?  And how high would you climb?



[Pictures: Jack Climbs the Beanstalk, illustration by Mildred Lyon from Journeys Through Bookland, 1922 (Image from Internet Archive);
Barnacle Geese, wood block print from Cosmographia by Sebastian Münster, c. 1544-52 (Image from The British Museum);

Bashonosei, wood block print by Toriyama Sekien in Hyakki shūi 3, 1805 (Image from Smithsonian Libraries).]

March 18, 2024

Magical Botany A

         Welcome to the April A to Z Blog Challenge!  My theme this year is the Botany of the Realms of Imagination, in which I share a few of the magical plants of folklore, fairy tale, and fantasy.  You can find the Master List of participating A to Z blogs here, although I’m giving myself a head start and the others won’t be starting their alphabets until April 1.
        I have three plants to share with you today, and they represent one traditional herb plus two very different flavors of modern fantasy.
        First is Audrey II, the carnivorous monster plant from “Little Shop of Horrors.”  The version most people are familiar with is the musical made into a movie in 1986.  According to the musical, Audrey II (who is named after its owner’s love interest) is an alien species that colonizes planets in order to feed on their inhabitants and ultimately destroy them.  Described as a cross between a Venus fly trap and an avocado, its ever-growing pod opens to a huge mouth with vicious teeth, and the plant feeds on blood and eventually human flesh.  When mature it also speaks (and sings) in English, and is, in fact, quite clever and conniving, getting people to provide its food for it.
        Our second plant of the day comes from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earthAthelas, also known as Kingsfoil, may be just the antidote you need when anthropophagus aliens start growing in your neighborhood.  The sweet-smelling herb was brought to Middle-earth by the wise and noble people of old, but after many centuries its healing properties had been forgotten by most people and the lore was considered a mere nursery rhyme.  Athelas is especially efficacious when administered by the king, and it’s the only cure for the Black Breath, which is poisoning by a Ringwraith.  The name means “beneficial leaf” in Sindarin.
        And finally, to head off in yet a third direction, we have aglaophotis, an herb with a very long and mysterious history.  The first century Greek pharmacologist Dioscorides mentioned aglaophotis, which he said was used for warding off demons, witchcraft, and fever.  An Herbal of 1597 says its seeds shine in the night like a candle.  On the other hand, according to 1977’s occult grimoire Simon Necronomicon by Peter Levenda, the plant calls up dark forces, rather than repelling them.  This is not an insignificant difference of opinion!
        The moral of these plants is that you absolutely want to know how to definitively identify what’s growing in your garden.  The little details make a big difference.  Gardening tip of the day: root up the noxious plants when they’re small, or they really may take over the world.
        This may be the place to confess that I lovingly cherish a Venus fly trap.  Here she is!  But don’t worry - I don’t feed her blood (or indeed anything), and all she catches is little bugs.  Do you grow any unusual plants in your home or garden?



[Pictures: Feed Me - Audrey II, linocut by Jacob of Low Road Press (Image from Low Road Press);

Kingsfoil, Athelas, design by Studio Pandemonia (Image from Pandemonia shop on RedBubble);

Aglaophotis (the role of Aglaophotis is actually being played today by Paeonia Foemina Altera), wood block print from Florum et coronarium odoratarumque by Rembert Dodoens, 1568 (Image from Biodiversity Heritage Library);

Venus fly trap, photo by AEGN, 2024.]

March 13, 2024

A to Z 2024 Theme Revelation!

         This will be my eighth year participating in the April A to Z Blog Challenge (plus one more year in which I did an alphabet series on my own).  During the Challenge, bloggers from around the world post 26 pieces through the month of April, arranged according to the alphabet.  Because this blog is about both Fantasy and Relief Block Printmaking, my themes in past years have been
     2016 - Mythical Creatures, a general digest
     2017 - Relief Block Printmakers
     2018 - Characters in the Books I’ve Written
     2019 - Mythical Creatures featured in my own book On the Virtues of Beasts of the Realms of Imagination
     2020 - Traditional English-language Nursery Rhymes and their block printed illustrations
     2021 - Mythical and Imaginary Places
     2022 - How to Make a Fantastical Creature (Traits common among monsters and marvels)
     2023 - Block Printed Alphabet Squared (an Alphabet of Block Printed Alphabets)
        That’s the history - feel free to revisit any of them (you can use the labels in the sidebar) and drop new comments.  But now the time has come to reveal the future: the theme for… (sound the fanfare…)
     2024 - The Botany of the Realms of Imagination
        I’ve done many many posts on magical creatures, but not too many on magical plants… and that omission ends now!  Presenting twenty-six posts lavishing attention on magical botany!  To clarify, this is about mythical plants of folklore, fairy tale, and fantasy, not about real plants that are said to have magical properties (although occasionally those categories may blur slightly).  As usual, I’ll give preference to block prints to illustrate the featured plants, but that won’t be possible for many of them, so there will be a wide variety of illustrations.
        In my usual sanity-saving practice, I will be starting early in order to give myself a few days off during the month of April.  You can come back next week for the letter A, or you can come back on April 1, and each day in April I’ll direct you to the officially scheduled letter with links.  This year, however, in a new and desperate additional attempt to preserve my sanity, I really am going to rein myself in and feature just a few plants each time.  And since my posts will be a little shorter than some years, you’ll have more time to read more of the other A to Z Blogs!  Be sure to check out the Master List of all the participating bloggers, which you can find HERE.
        So, put on your magical gardening gloves and get ready to dig in.  Maybe you’ll discover some new plants to grow in your own fantasy garden!  Or, if you’ve been around for a while, which was your favorite of my previous themes?


[Pictures: Assorted illustrations from Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis by Martin de la Cruz and Juan Badiano, 1552 (Images from Academia);

Garden Apartments, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2017 (sold out).]

March 8, 2024

Eclipse Legends

         Planet Earth is due for a total solar eclipse this year on April 8.  I’ve got my astronomically-approved eclipse glasses, and I’m ready to view it!  By the time the eclipse rolls around, however, I’ll already be ten letters deep into the April A to Z Challenge here on this blog, so I thought I’d better take the opportunity today to take a brief look at how humans have viewed eclipses through the lens of myth.
        Not surprisingly, an eclipse is the sort of natural phenomenon that catches people’s attention, that is not readily explainable to the pre-Copernican understanding, and that is dramatic enough to suggest that something really wild is happening in the heavens.  A situation ripe for legend!
        The most widespread explanation that seems to have occurred to people around the world is that something must be devouring the sun.  After all, we can see the bite being taken from the shining disc in the sky, and during a total eclipse it’s evidently been swallowed completely.  Vietnamese legend holds that a giant frog swallows the sun.  Javanese mythology accuses the god of darkness.  Chinese culture attributes the eclipse to a celestial dragon’s maw.  According to Andean cultures, it’s a puma; Choctow legend has a mischievous black squirrel; and Kwakiutl stories tell of some kind of sky creature.  Norse mythology claims the sun and moon are swallowed by giant wolves created by Loki.  Luckily, all these monsters always spit the sun back out again for one reason or another, sometimes because it’s too hot or because gods make them, but often because people scare the monster away with loud noises.  The Kwakiutl people light fires so that the smoke will make the sky creature sneeze and spit out the sun.  In Hindu mythology the sun is occasionally swallowed by the decapitated head of the demon Rahu — but since the monster is just a head, the sun quickly comes out from the back of his throat!
        But what if the sun weren’t being swallowed by a monster?  Perhaps instead the eclipse is the result of love.  In traditions of southeast Australia, the Moon chases the Sun across the sky and threatens to darken the world if she can’t catch him.  In Inuit legend it’s the Sun chasing the Moon.  In both German and Tahitian mythology the Sun and Moon are in a sort of “Ladyhawke” scenario in which they are lovers and the eclipse is one of the rare times they can actually be together.  Some people of Benin add the idea that when the Sun and Moon do get together, they turn off the light for privacy!  The Maya make loud noises to make the Sun and Moon break up their embrace, which seems kind of cruel.  Surely you could wait patiently in darkness for just a little while, to give them a rare chance to enjoy each others’ company!  (On the other hand, another source claims the Maya were in the sun-eating camp.  It’s entirely possible that there were multiple legends.  Also entirely possible that some of my sources for a shallow little survey post like this are not very accurate!)
        We get our word eclipse from Greek, and it meant literally “abandonment, forsaking,” because it happened when the gods were angry and the sun abandoned the Earth.  The Inca also believed an eclipse was a sign of the wrath of the sun god, and in Transylvania it was said that the sun would cover herself in darkness when she was angry with humans' bad actions.
        Sometimes it isn’t the sun’s fault at all.  Stories of the Aymara of South America say that an eclipse comes when the sun is sick.  People have to light fires to keep the Earth warm until the sun gets better.  The Ojibwa and Cree people of North America tell of a boy who catches the sun in a snare.  Only the mouse gnawing through the ropes can set the sun free.  Other indigenous North American stories suggest that the sun has dropped its torch or somehow gone out and needs to be rekindled with flaming arrows.  Persians suggested that an eclipse was caused when a peri (like a fairy or jinni) hid the sun as a prank.
        Perhaps the best take on it that I’ve read is the story from the Batammaliba of western Africa.  They say that the eclipse is caused when the sun and the moon fight — and the people's response is to gather together and try to sort out all their own arguments, in order to encourage the sun and the moon, too, to work out their differences and go back to their usual peaceful routines.
        What’s your favorite explanation for an eclipse?  And will you be able to observe the one on April 8?


[Pictures: Dragon and sun, detail from embroidered court robe, China, 19th century (Image from The Met);

Wolves pursuing the sun and moon, illustration by J.C. Dollman from Myths of the Norsemen by H.A. Guerber, 1909 (Image from Project Gutenberg);

Demon Rahu eating the moon, linoleum block print by Brian Reedy ca. 2018 (Image from @brianreedy on Instagram).]

March 4, 2024

Helbig's Holzschnitte

         Walter Helbig (Germany/Switzerland, 1897-1968) was active during that artistic ferment of the Brücke, Neue Secession, and Blaue Reiter groups, and he even took part in the first Dada exhibition in Zurich.  Indeed, he continued to work with all kinds of new artistic movements until his death in 1968.  Today, though, I have a selection of wood block prints from a portfolio of 16 wood block prints that were made in the 19-teens and twenties.  These 
particular pieces are strongly influenced by German Expressionism and Die Brücke, which means that on the whole I like the people less than the other subjects.
        My favorite is this scene of a cluster of houses, with its strong black and white, clean geometry, and rougher, more organic rocks and trees.  The landscape is also fun, looking almost diagrammatic with tiers of simplified hills and trees.
        I have included two people, however.  The first is entitled “Sermon for the Birds,” which may be St Francis.  I really like the birds, especially in the lower left, but what I really like is the light.  Although Helbig has placed a sun up in the upper right, the real light comes from the top center, where it seems to shine from behind the man’s head and upraised hand.
        The second person is “The Artist.”  I can’t help laughing at this depiction of an artist so clearly confused and beset by so much going on.  Are these external distractions interfering with his work, or is he overrun with too many ideas all clamoring to be created?  It’s certainly an interesting image and I can’t help assuming it must be somewhat autobiographical.
        I’ve included one last piece from Helbig’s portfolio: the table of contents, also a wood block print.  Carving all the little letters for all the words is never easy, and these come out with a nice balance between clear legibility and hand-carved quirkiness.  I always wonder what makes someone choose to carve a page of text like this when there are 
certainly easier ways to do it!  But it is undoubtedly fun for us to see it this way.


[Pictures: Häuser, woodcut 1911;

Landschaft, woodcut 1912;

Vogelpredigt, woodcut 1916;

Der Künstler, woodcut 1918;

Table of Contents, 1926, all woodcuts by Walter Helbig from 16 Holzschitte (Images from MoMA).]

February 28, 2024

Words of the Month - Petting our Pets


         The word pet, referring to a domestic animal kept primarily for companionship, is quite a new one in English.  Originally a Scottish and northern English dialect word in the sixteenth century, and not appearing in other English dialects until the mid-eighteenth century, its origin is unknown.  The best assumption is that it is related in some way to petty meaning “small,” which in turn comes from French petit.  The usage of the word pet for a favorite, spoiled child is attested slightly earlier than its use for an animal, but it seems equally likely that animals were the primary usage and the record is simply not complete.
        For me the burning question this raises is, what did people call their pets before they had the word pet?  And I can’t find this answer at all, much to my frustration.  (I did discover the word cade, which is a new one for me.  It means “a pet or tame animal, especially a lamb raised by hand.”  This dates to the late fifteenth century, so it’s quite a bit earlier than pet in most English dialects, but I have no idea how widespread it was.  I also don’t know whether it’s still in use at all today, seeing as I’ve never heard or seen it before.)  My best guess is that people didn’t really refer to pets as a class, but simply named the specific creature in a particular circumstance, such as spaniel, cat, goldfinch, ermine, monkey, etc.
        So let’s look at the two most popular of those pets.  The word cat is quite ancient, dating back to Old English, and its various forms are nearly universal in European languages.  Although I always think of the Latin word for cat as feles, in the first century this was generally replaced by catta.  This, in turn, probably comes from Afro-Asiatic roots, since after all, cats had been domestic pets in Egypt since about 2000 BCE, while they were not particularly familiar as pets in classical Greece and Rome.
        Dog, on the other hand, has a slightly twistier path.  It does date back to late Old English, but seems originally to have referred to a specific large, powerful breed.  No one knows why it pushed aside the original Old English general term hund, essentially trading places so that now hound refers to specific breeds, while dog is the general term.  Oddly, Spanish perro and Polish pies are also of unknown origin.  Why are cats universally cats, but dogs are called a whole variety of often-unexplained words?  Is it because cats are all pretty universally similar while there’s an enormously wide array of different dog breeds?  I don’t know.
        It’s also worth noting that while people have enjoyed domestic animals for companionship for millenia, throughout most of history, most domestic animals had other purposes which (except perhaps for the very wealthy) were primary.  Most dogs and cats were working animals.  That’s another reason that I’m guessing that there may not really have been a word for “pet” before the word pet.  Still, if anyone has further information on this, I’d love to see it!
        Finally, the verb pet first meant “to treat as a pet,” and arrived about a century after the noun.  The meaning “to stroke” isn’t attested until 1818, well after the noun had gained currency throughout English.  So yes, we pet our cats because they’re our pets, and not the other way around!  On the other hand, we could pat the bunny about a hundred years earlier.  That word seems to be unrelated, coming from a noun that originally meant “a blow or stroke” (so yes, we can also stroke our pets), and eventually came to be specifically “a light tap.”  I can’t help suspecting that the verb meaning of pet was helped along in its shift to “stroke” by the similarity with pat.
        Do you have a pet or pets?  And do you like to pet them?


[Pictures: Puppy Love, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2012;

Cat in a Box, rubber block print by AEGN, 1999;

Coy, rubber block print by AEGN, 2023;

Old English Sheepdog, rubber block print by AEGN, 2013.]

February 21, 2024

Tiny Doodle Blocks

         In the past few months I’ve been playing with a handful of tiny doodle blocks.  I carved these little scraps of rubber doodlewise, without any particular plan to their design, but for at least some, I did plan to make them combinable.  To that end, some of them were cut (more or less carefully) into tessellating shapes.  Then I learned about @PrinterSolstice on Instagram, which is giving a theme per week for block print experimentation.  This year the themes are all different color schemes, and (given the title of this blog) you can guess that isn’t always my thing when it comes to block printing - but it worked particularly well to use my doodle blocks to play with the color schemes, because it was all just fooling around anyway.
        As it happened, some of the results were quite ugly, but others please me a great deal.  Today I share a range of the little designs I came up with — far from a comprehensive record, but a sampling to demonstrate some of the various combinations I came up with.
        First up, here are some designs without color, so you can see more clearly what the blocks were, and how they combine.  I made a diamond with 60° points, so it could be turned into a six-pointed star.  In fact, as you can see, it could be turned into several different six-pointed stars, depending on which points are in the middle.  (It could also be turned into a complete tiled field, but I haven’t played with that yet.)  I also had a skinny little scrap that could be fit into half of that same diamond, so that’s block 2.  Block 3 was actually made last summer, I think, and is a little scalene right triangle.  Block 4 is a heart.  Later I cut the diamond block apart so that the two parts could be inked separately, and that’s what you can see in the upper right and bottom left designs in black and white.
        As I said, the Printer Solstice themes were all about color schemes, and here are a bunch of stars I made for some of their prompts.  They’re cool colors, primary colors, analogous colors, and triadic colors.  Then the pale blue one is just being a snowflake, because that’s what the block pattern suggested to me.  And the final star is one that I used as the base for an illustration that’s going to be in my upcoming book.
        Not all the playing was just stars, though.  Here are a few more designs, using other blocks and combinations.  The triangle is a split complementary color scheme, printed with block 2 and half of block 1.  The square diamond is analogous/warm colors, made with block 3.  The flower circle is a full spectrum printed with the heart.  You can see that I intended the heart to have a 60° angle also, but obviously didn’t get it quite accurate.  (That’s okay - I plan to print it as a little free-standing block anyway.)  And that final thing, which is cool colors, is an even scrappier scrap just carved with a few stripes and swirls, plus the tiny butterfly I chopped out of a larger block that got abandoned.
        These are all printed with stamp pads, some of which are higher quality than others, mostly on scrap paper of various sorts.  They’re not intended for show or sale, but thanks, @PrinterSolstice, for giving me a push to spend some time playing around with them.  And in the end I’m pleased enough with a few of them that I’m considering making a set of notecards with an assortment of colorful star designs.  What do you think?


[Pictures: all rubber block prints by AEGN, 2024.

You can see "Tiny Doodle" and "Sing from the Heart" here.]

February 16, 2024

Year of the Wood(block) Dragon

         Now that we’ve embarked on a new lunar year, of course we have to celebrate with some block prints of dragons.  But since I’ve been blogging long enough to have celebrated the last dragon year, you can start by going back and seeing the examples I found in 2012.

        As for 2024, I’ll start out with a New Year greeting that’s up-to-the-minute - and with a Texas twist.  This linocut print includes some other auspicious symbols in addition to the dragon (and of course the color red), but I can’t help thinking there’s just a touch of arid lizard in the look of this one!
        We’ll turn now to something more traditional: a dragon with a sage.  This dragon seems like a reasonable size to be a pet or a familiar, and I like how sage and dragon are both grinning.  The artist Gakutei specialized in pieces combining illustrations with poetry, which was often light verse or clever aphorisms.  Unfortunately, I don’t know what poem this piece is illustrating, although I’m curious!  It certainly seems like some interesting stories could be told about these two.
        Back to the lunar zodiac, but with once again a very different look, here’s another quite modern dragon.  The face looks a little cartoonish, the colors look wild and bright, and the sky looks rather stormy.  This is not your traditional dragon, and it’s certainly got plenty of verve, but I have to confess that it’s not my favorite.  Which of these dragons do you like best?  And does your answer change depending whether you’re thinking of the dragon as art, as a companion, or as a protector of the new year?


[Pictures: Year of the Dragon, two-color linocut by Jackdaw Russell, 2024 (Image from the artist’s Etsy shop JackdawFolkArt);

Sage and Dragon, woodblock print by Gakutei, c. 1825 (Image from Ronin Gallery);

The Year of the Dragon: Like the Wind, woodblock print by Gashu Fukami, 2015 (Image from Ronin Gallery).]