Praise the mother of all things small and infant, feeder, giver of life born in to an infinite universe. Her milk, that of the milky way fills warm bellies, all creatures alike. “Hush little baby don’t say a word. Mother is going to buy you a broken bird. And if that broken bird don’t fly, mother is going to make you scream and cry. …Hush little baby don’t say a word…mother is here to make it all absurd.”
Great work!!
Thanks for the poem! I did actually have thoughts that went that way when making it. Fifty years ago in the US or South Africa people would have acted with repulsion if they saw a white woman breastfeeding a brown child. I reacted to the feeling of wrongness that was in the text, and the alien baby is a wrongness that is age old. Skiftinger they was called here in the Scandinavia, children taken by trolls and replaced with a wrong baby. I have felt that wrongness in terrible dreams (thanks God I not that much any more), but when I started to draw I kind of turned the thing around in my head - the baby, ugly and transparent seems quite peaceful and why not? breastfeeding is one of the least demonic things that is being demonised - so I like this: Her milk, that of the milky way fills warm bellies, all creatures alike. If it is OK I will put the two first sentences in the post below the image?
Sure thing. Thanks for the interesting information. I really dig old folklore and mystical tails throughout history. Skiftinger, that's a new one for me. Thanks! This has been a fun collaborative project. Feel free to use any text that feels appropriate. Cheers
Cool, Cool. It is now the official text for the image then.
And here is the trolls doing their skifting business (will be something like changeling in English)
Thanks for sharing. Very interesting. What do the trolls do with the babies they take? Or should I not ask? ...snack time.
The trolls of Scandinavian folklore is not entirely evil. They are more like a hidden people living apart from the humans but with a understandable society. The same with the huldre people.
The tales differs but in general they want their children to be brought up by humans, and in return they adopt the human child. I checked my books and in some tales the human child dies while living with the trolls and then money is paid to the human society until the Skifting is dead.
Trolls are mentioned in the old pagan sources, together with Thor, Freja and the Joutum - so the idea that whole societies of weird creatures existed are definitely very old. Scandinavia has a lot of pagan leftovers, that were wiped out in the puritan Britain, for example the Nisse. We still put up rice porridge for him in the Christmas.
Fascinating. I wonder what the origins to the symbiotic relationship for toll and humans, and benefits in trading offspring. So many lost myths in this day of age. Very interesting how influential Paganism is/was in today's customs/holidays/beliefs. Thanks so much for sharing. I need to dive into researching past days.