Persephone And The Springtime Was Written By Margaret Hodges With Illustrations By Arvis Stewart.

gdrive link where you can find free books regarding Palestine, liberation and orientalism to download and read

James Baldwin talking about love

Cathy de Monchaux: Beyond Thinking (2018)

Cross-dressing in Photographs of 1920s and 1930s Egypt, Palestine and Lebanon X

I’ve been listening to “Blood Moon” by Saint Sister a lot this season and it inspired this piece of a spooky Minoan Artemis dancing in the woods. 

Women who don't hold back their tongue vibe. 1 - 2 - 3 - 4

Commission for Johnicholas Hines! Based on this drawing

Thinking about how, to let the myth of Persephone fit the themes of the Metamorphoses, Ovid had to insert two rather unknown/unpopular side stories about  a river nymph turning into water/liquid in her own stream, and a nymph giving Demeter the news, and how this affects the myth

Like for one the Metamorphoses in essence is caught up with the gods’ violence against lesser beings, mostly nymphs, women and mortals in general, and deals with the utter helplessness and loss of control these beings experience when they are transformed, as punishment or to escape a worse fate or simply because their suffering becomes too great for any mortal to bear. And here’s Persephone, a goddess and a rather major one, who by all means experiences the same type and amount of suffering. Ovid literally calls her a goddess on par with the other gods, and reasons this is why the six-month rule comes about. Where do you take that myth? The outcome is set in stone, her cyclical seasons-bound fate is so integral to the ancient cosmos, and yet it falls flat in a story like the metamorphoses, where the Olympian gods are usually on the other side of the fence. But here we have these two nymphs, who both experienced the violence done to Persephone and either give it a voice or dissolve into nothing, have their body and being entirely taken away from them. 

So I really think Cyane and Arethusa are almost stand-ins for Persephone, where the the former gets the metamorphosis that symbolizes the pain and suffering that the abduction causes, as she literally dissolves into tears and cannot speak anymore when she manifests again, and Arethusa’s story of her own nearly successful abduction and subsequent exile/displacement give us Persephone’s side of the story, but in a less repetitive way than in the Homeric hymn. 

you might've gotten this question before but I wondered, what are your favorite fairytales/myths? also just wanted to say i love your blog so much, scrolling through it feels like wandering in a magical garden 💚

apologies for answering this 3 days late! thank you so much for asking this, and for loving my blog… how lovely of you! i appreciate it, truly ♡

some fairytales i love:

bluebeard’s bride

death and the nightingale, by hans christian andersen. it’s about an emperor, a nightingale, a clockwork bird, and the grim reaper.

the goose girl

east of the sun, west of the moon -i’m linking a version with kay nielsen’s famous illustrations, because they add a lot to it!

i couldn’t find a text of this, and i know it’s obscure, but there’s this kashmiri folk tale called ‘the chinese princess’ that is about a lamia. i read it in ‘angela carter’s book of fairytales’ and it has stuck with me… i recommend hunting the book down digitally if you can!

my friend doe @rosedaughter once talked of a palestinian version of little red riding hood that i found so delightfully chilling and incredible… here’s the post where she recounts it.

this only loosely counts, but in the silmarillion by jrr tolkien, the creation myths - the music of the ainur, and how that fictional world was created - have stuck with me. i always found it wonderful to read. it’s called the ainulindale, it’s about the length of a chapter, and here is the text of it.

the frame story of 1001 nights - of sheherazade spinning tales every night to a prince and his court.

the crane wife / tsuru no ongaeshi 

the twelve dancing princesses …i really love this one, it always fascinated me.

loosely related to the 12 dancing princesses, there is an anime called ‘princess tutu’ that’s about fairytales and story meta and character trope subversion and it’s incredible and i can’t recommend it enough. and although linking a fic is probably odd, there’s a fanfic for princess tutu that rewrites the story of the 12 dancing princesses in such a stunning way. i believe you can enjoy it even if you don’t know the show. it’s one of my favourite pieces of writing ever, read it here.

the ballad of tam lin! it’s a scottish fairytale that resembles a beauty and the beast-type tale, and i love it very much. here’s the wiki for it, you can read the full text from the link there.

again, this only loosely counts, but the poem ‘goblin market’ by christina rossetti is so beautiful. i love it, it counts to me.

vasilisa the beautiful and her brief encounter with baba yaga.

swan lake, the ballet, in general.

cupid and psyche from greek mythology!

i hope you enjoy these!