Snow

Last night, sometime after two in the morning and before seven, it snowed. Everything is very pretty and bright outside, even though the trails are covered with footprints and there's not even enough snow to cover the grass. When I was (significantly) younger I read a poem that's stuck with me--or at least the last line has. The poem itself is somewhere below mediocre, and apparently from a greeting card collection or an anthology of Christmas card poetry? I'm not quite sure. (I found a reference and the full text here).

"Despite the forecast's promise,
It didn't snow that night;
But in the morning, flakes began
To glade all right.
Not enough to cover roads
Or even hide the grass;
But enough to change the light."

Say what you will (and I have plenty to say) about the use of "glade," but I just can't forget the very last line. But enough to change the light. That's what snow does: reflects light around, even when it's clouded over, until everything seems different--lighter, brighter, fresh, new. Even if there's only a little tiny bit of it.

The other thing I love about snow is the smell of it. On very cold nights, or when you go outside first thing in the morning after it's snowed, you can smell: bright and cold. Sometimes when it doesn't snow, and it's just cold outside, you can smell it, too. I guess it's my version of the smell of rain, which I don't have strong associations to: I'm from the Pacific Northwest, and we don't get torrential downpours. We get drizzle, and either the smell's not there or it's so prevalent that I don't even notice it. I think it's the former.

Either way, I didn't smell rain until a chemistry lab this fall: we were taking a spectrographic reading of ozone, which required making ozone and then bottling it. The teacher let us smell it: the smell of rain. Free oxygen radicals created by high energy breaking apart a stable O=O (O₂) molecule into its components, and then the unstable free radicals joining a whole O₂ molecule to create ozone, O₃. The smell of rain is ozone, and it seemed incongruous in a classroom full of students trying to get spectrometers to analyze light absorbtion or whatever else. It was a little bit surreal.

Faith

I just came back from singing at a gospel concert. It was a religious experience. I was moved--by the spirit, by God, by whatever you want to call it. I felt it, profoundly. Now I'm finishing an essay about allelopathy and the novel weapons hypothesis. It will incorporate critique about the effectiveness of bioassays in determining allelopathy, discussion of forms of allelopathy other than phytotoxicity, and community-specific allelopathy and how that relates to several specific theories about plant communities.

I get a certain number of questions about how faith and science can coexist in my life. There seems to be this idea that science is all cold rationality (and good science mostly is that) and that religion is inimical to realism and hard facts--and religion is, at its roots, about faith, which requires an absence of definitive proof.

But I think that limiting yourself to one or the other is a little sad. I can believe in God while I'm carefully investigating the role of arbuscular mychorrhizae fungus in the invasive potential of Centaurea diffusa, and it will affirm my faith in God.

To me, the fact that everything is is the greatest miracle. Nothing is more spectacular than everything--every living and non-living thing, outer space and all the stars including our own, the earth we live on. It's incredible. A God that can create that is something to believe in.

And it doesn't have to be that, a few thousand years ago, God appeared and, boom!, created the Earth, exactly as it is today, only maybe with less carbon dioxide. And it only took seven days.

A God that can create evolution is something greater to me. A God that is in every natural process, that is every natural process--in gravity, and in the scientific explanation for gravity, in natural selection and photosynthesis (photosynthesis is so incredible) and Hadley cells and everything else--that's what I believe in.

And God is in everyone. Everyone. One of the tenets of my religion (I'm a Unitarian Universalist, and we don't have much but I believe in it) is "the inherent worth and dignity of every human being." To me, that's because God is in all of us. Every day. When I'm driven to create, that's God speaking through me. When I'm working to unravel the mystery that is our every-day life, that's God, too. God is in art and music and teaching and everything else that inspires people, but it's in biology and chemistry and anthropology and particle physics. And every-day things--doing the dishes, being nice to people, waking up every day. Ever felt like you've touched something greater than yourself? Had a moment where you knew what to do, intrinsically, or a moment of divine inspiration? Just a time when you made a difference?

To me, that's God. That's religion. And that's how I can believe in science and all that airy-fairy supernatural stuff at the same time. I just don't differentiate.

Allelopathy and Methodology

Sometimes you find what you look for. Sometimes it's accidental, or incidental: like measuring light, which is either a particle or a wave, depending on the test used, because the form of measurement defines it. Sometimes it's just bad science.

In the 70s, allelopathy gained a lot of attention. The science of chemical warfare between plants (the release of toxins into the soil by one plant that negatively affected another), it's a pretty fascinating topic--a lot of people like a little danger or excitement in their science, and the plants are essentially poisoning each other.

The field was started in 1925, when A. B. Massey published "Antagonism of the Walnuts (Juglans nigra and J. cinerea) in Certain Plant Associations." It demonstratively showed the phytotoxicity of chemicals contained in walnut leaves on other plants. There are definitely walnuts out there with no plants growing around their base--although shade could just as easily play a role in this as allelopathy.

But there's just as many walnuts who do have plants growing around their bases. Regardless, allelopathy as a theory peaked around the 70s, garnering a lot of attention and proving that many, many plant species were allelopathic in effect.

The problem was in the methods of the study. The most common (both then and now) test for allelopathy is a petri-dish bioassay: a solution of chemicals from the plant is attained by washing it in a solvent, usually water. The concentration of the potential phytotoxins can be very high. Then it's added to a medium--water or agar, not dirt--and seeds are added and sprouted. Usually, there's lowered germination rates and slowed growth--possibly deformities in the roots or browning. Or death. The solution is clearly not very good for the plants in question.

At the peak of things, just growth habits could be considered proof of allelopathy. One of the better-known studies in allelopathy is the experiments run by C. H. Muller in California on a shrubby species of Salvia* during the 1960s. There were obvious bare zones around the clumps of shrubs. Muller's experiments indicated allelopathy: after all, sages have some pretty strong chemicals in them--that's what makes them so aromatic (and therefore delicious.)

Further experiments were run by Bartholomew, Halligan, and Christensen and Muller during the 1970s. They discovered that the very shy rabbits of the region lived in the tangled shrubbery of the salvias, and that they didn't stray very far from the shrubs to eat, ever. When Bartholomew ran a study where rabbits, birds and other relatively large animals were excluded from the area surrounding the shrubs using cages, the grass grew just fine. The rabbits had been the ones eating the grass, causing the dead zone--they wouldn't go any further away from the shrubs, and so they ate all the tasty grass down to the ground in the areas they considered safe.

Bioassays aren't as dramatic an example. But there's strong evidence (see Stowe's 1979 paper "Allelopathy and its influence on the distribution of plants in an Illinois old-field") that almost any plant will show up as allelopathic if the secondary metabolites it contains--all the volatile chemicals, the flavenoids and sesquiterpene lactones**, the phenolics--are isolated and concentrated enough.

But a lot of these chemicals aren't going to enter the soil at all. A lot of them are highly volatile, evaporating or breaking down very quickly--before they can build up to levels that can damage plants. Even the soil itself will absorb some of the chemicals, making it inaccessible to the plants. The microorganisms in the soil can break down allelochemicals. A 1957 study by Le Tourneau and Heggeness ("Germination and growth inhibitors in leafy spurge foliage and quackgrass rhizomes") proved that leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula) is toxic in bioassays but neutral when the plants are grown in soil--especially if it was non-sterile soil still rich in microorganisms.

Things get exaggerated. And it's done nothing but disservice to the field of allelopathy. As methodology approves and allelopathy is re-approached as a potential component in the success of certain plants (especially specific invasives--more on this and the Novel Weapons Hypothesis at a later date) instead of a unified, universal theory, this history of exaggeration and poor experimental design continues to haunt the study of allelopathy.

Allelopathy really shouldn't be discredited entirely. Its role was overexaggerated in the past, but it can still be a significant factor. Two particular invasive plants, garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) and certain knapweed species (Centaurea species among others, especially C. maculosa), are almost definitely allelopathic--experiments have been done to study the effects of the allelochemicals in soil, not just in bioassays, and the behavior of the chemicals in field soils has been studied--they know that (+/-)-catechin persists at levels high enough to be phytotoxic.

Part of the problem lies in the struggle to design a good experiment to test allelopathy. You need to mimic, as closely as possible, the behavior of the allelochemical in the field. At the same time, you need to be sure that you're measuring true allelopathy instead of just competition--you can't plunk a bunch of garlic mustard into a planter box with some wheat in it and see what happens. Even if allelopathy plays a role in the success of invasives, it's also almost definitely because they are more fit an organism--they're highly evolved to take advantage (and control) of resources.

There are ways around it, but most people haven't taken the time. Bell and Koeppe's 1972 study "Noncompetitive effects of giant foxtail on the growth of corn" used a "stairstep apparatus" where a nutrient solution filtered through the roots of both the potential allelopath (giant foxtail or Setaria faberii) and those of the test subject (corn--Zea mays), but the plants themselves were in different containers, preventing competition from playing a role. The Steenhagen and Zimdahl study "Allelopathy of leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula)" (1979) took soil samples from areas with very high populations of quack grass (Agropyron repens) and incorporated it into the soil of potted tomatoes, where it had strong negative effects on their growth. In 1980 Stachon and Zimdahl's study "Allelopathic activity of Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) in Colorado" used soil mulched with leaves in addition to bioassays--it showed allelopathy in both sets of experiments. More recently, Abhilasha, Quintana, Vivanco and Joshi's 2008 study "Do allelopathic compounds in invasive Solidago candensis restrain the native European flora?" used soil that had had allelopathic Solidago canadensis growing in it--for the controls, they added activated carbon, which absorbs/deactivates organic chemicals (like phytotoxins) without affecting important nutrients like nitrogen. (More on this method in Le Tourneau and Heggeness's "Germination and growth inhibitors in leafy spurge foliage and quackgrass rhizomes" (1957) paper.) Again, activated carbon significantly improved the growth of plants, indicating allelopathy.

So the poor science that's been the norm reflects badly on the field as a whole. Allelopathy isn't some sort of miracle answer for complex plant interactions, and it's certainly not that common, but at the same time it's not totally insignificant in every situation, and it's definitely a factor in certain plants. As methodology improves, no doubt there's more to discover about it.

*Before somebody brings up the drug reference: Salvia is the genus name for sage. The sage you use in cooking? It's a salvia. So are many common garden shrubs. None of them are psychoactive. Neither is the shrub we're talking about. Sorry.

**Whenever I try to spell "sesquiterpene lactones" I inevitably end up writing "lactates." Which would be something else entirely.

Sometimes, research is lovely. Everything goes where it's supposed to. You come up with a manageable number of on-topic but diverse papers that provide the groundwork for a comprehensive and in-depth paper that still manages to stay around the right length.

This never happens to me, of course.

Instead, I start researching allelopathy--in essence, chemical competition (think of it as chemical weapons) in plants. I find almost nothing and too much at the same time. It's too broad a subject to really cover in one paper, and I end up researching allelopathy and its role in invasive plant species, since there's some wonderful recent information on the role of allelopathy in the invasive tendencies of several Centaurea species (knapweed) and in Alliaria petiolata (garlic mustard).

Then I realize that half the ideas that I want to track down are in other papers. Ones that I do not necessarily have access to, especially not in the next week. At the moment, I am attempting to track down papers referencing other invasive plants with a potential allelopathic effect. There were four for Eltrygia repens, for example. Korhammer and Haslinger 1994 needs to be requested from the government. I couldn't find anything more than citations for Osvald 1948 and Welbank 1960. Weston et al. 1987 is only available as an abstract or a "free preview," because "SpringerLink" sucks. A lot. And I am not requesting a $34 paper from my library for an introductory-level essay. For another invasive, Cyperus rotundus, another two are only available as abstract-plus-preview because of SpringerLink's fees; another one also needs to be requested from the government. The remaining two papers I found citations for are only referenced in citations. That is zero papers that I can actually read in full.

I haven't even been able to find "Antagonism of the walnuts (Juglans nigra L. and J. cinerea L.) in certain plant associations." Why do I want it? It's essentially the grandaddy of allelopathy papers. There was, apparently, an 1832 theory put forth by a De Candolle, but what people pay attention to is the 1925 study about walnuts by A. B. Massey. And I can't find it. Anywhere. It probably wouldn't even be that helpful, but it's irking me. (I also want to know the methodology, because a large part of my paper is going to end up revolving around the novel weapons hypothesis, or the idea that plant populations have evolved a resistance to allelochemicals produced by the plants, but only in the native areas, which is why you see the overwhelmingly aggressive behavior of the plants in the invaded communities--they don't have any genetic defense against it. There's some fascinating evidence going on there.)

So, now I'm off to go track down the Letourneau and Heggeness 1957 study "Germination and growth inhibitors in leafy spurge foliage and quackgrass rhizomes." It'll be a party.

Bibliography to "Kill the Hare that Steals your Milk by Beating its Vomit"

Works Cited
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Kill the Hare that Steals your Milk by Beating its Vomit: Common Defenses against Witchcraft in Europe

As you study the folklore and anti-witch superstitions of European countries, you begin to notice more and more common themes. For example, in Sweden, the mjölkhare, or milkhare, a hare bound to a witch in a satanic pact (or a transformed object that may or may not be in the shape of a hare like the Icelandic tilberar or “carrier” (Benedikz 14), brought to life by the devil or unholy acts and rituals, such as feeding it blood (Nildin-Wall and Wall 67)) steals milk from cows by suckling them, bringing what it consumes back in its stomach to the witch who owns it, sometimes vomiting up some of the milk as it goes, if it’s taken in too much; this is actually a type of fungi (Nildin-Wall and Wall 72). In Serbia, they have witch-vomit, a fungus resembling the throw-up of an unweaned child and believed to be the remains of a child’s heart after a witch had eaten it and then thrown it up, since she couldn’t digest it fully. It was used to cure sick children under a curse when properly prepared (Vukanović 228, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”). However, the excrement of witches in other parts of Serbia was a white, foamy liquid found in the woods that would kill you if you touched it (Vukanović 16, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans I”).

In Ireland, the witch herself turns into a hare to steal milk (Kinahan 258, “Connemara Folklore”), as certain Scandinavian witches did as well (Nildin-Wall and Wall 67), and she could also steal butter more directly by gathering dew from the grass on the first of May (Duncan 185, “Further Notes from County Leitrim”), among other means. Dogs couldn’t catch Irish witches when they were disguised as hares, but they could injure the hare, in which case the witch would be recognizable from her injury (Duncan 183-184, “Folklore Gleanings from County Leitrim”). In England, a witch transformed into a hare can only be shot with a silver bullet made out of a sixpenny piece (Banks 74), or by a sixpenny piece marked with a cross (Gregor 284). In Scandinavia, only a silver bullet would hit a witchhare or milkhare. (Nildin-Wall and Wall 69).

These examples come from, variously, northern, western and eastern Europe, and despite the disparate origins, there are obviously common themes and similarities: hares, silver, milk and various types of fungus all feature, intertwined. This pattern holds true for cultures all across the continent when you look at charms, habits, practices and beliefs used to counter witchcraft in day-to-day life. From Finland to Russia to Spain, there are numerous similarities between different defenses against witchcraft.

As already mentioned, witches were often associated with hares, but there were also other animals. In Ireland, hedgehogs were often associated with witches (Kinahan 104, “Notes on Irish Folklore”), while in Normandy, having toads found in your house was considered strong evidence for witchcraft in and of itself (Monter 578-9). In England, wasps, flies and bees were common witch familiars, and ferrets were also sometimes claimed as familiars, similar to the weasel, stoat or polecat skins worn by witches in certain areas (Newman 22-23); another source names cats and hares as the animals witches most often transformed into, and says that dogs, mice, crows, rooks and bees were less common but still present (Murray 188); in Essex, it was believed that all witches had white mice as familiars (Maple 181). In more modern times in Cambridgeshire there are reports of a witch turning into a pig or having a pig as a familiar, and being associated with pigs in general and defending them (Wherry and Jennings 188). Witches were also accused of causing plagues of lice and other vermin (Newman 21). In France, witches often turned into goats or sheep (Murray 188). Romanian witches, or strigoi, turned into dogs, cats, wolves, horses, pigs or toads (Eliade 158), while Serbian witches turned into butterflies, hens or turkeys, while in other parts of the central Balkans they could also turn into toads, owls, various black birds, eagles, bitches, cats and mice. Croats believed that witches turned into cats to “suck” people at night, causing swollen breasts. In Herzegovina it was believed that witches could grow bat-like wings, when anointed with special ointments made out of ingredients like human fat cooked in baby’s blood with herbs, or the concentrated excrement of black swine (Vukanović 11-12, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans I”).

On the other hand, animals could also have apotropaic power against witches. In Spain, animals with points were powerful: the horns of a stag, boar tusks, rooster spurs, crab claws and stag-beetle horns were all made into amulets (Hildburgh 79); in Macedonia, wild boar tusks were made into horse-collars to protect the animals from witches and other malignant supernatural beings (Vucanović 236, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”). In Montenegro, on the first of March, when witches were especially active, the ashes on the hearth were stirred with goat or cattle horns (Durham 190). In Croatia, wolf fur and teeth were used to protect children from witches, while in Serbia cat’s claws and fur were used similarly. In the same area, the anus of a chicken was considered to have protective powers when prepared right. In Albania, snake’s heads were used as charms when the snake was caught on certain days (Vuckanović 227, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”).

Witchcraft was also meant to hurt animals. Domestic animals, especially cows, were the focus of maleficium across the entire continent. For the most part, witches were responsible for three main types of evil-doing: cursing or bewitching humans, causing illness, bad luck, and the death, illness or injury of children especially; causing bad weather, hail, storms or draughts; and hurting or harming livestock, other farm animals and, especially, cows, or otherwise harming milk production. As previously mentioned, witches stole milk from cows by using familiars or enchanted objects (Nilden-Wall 67; Kinahan 258, “Connemara Folklore”; Duncan 185, “Further Notes from County Leitrim”). They could also sicken animals, or cause them to behave oddly or become possessed by demons or the devil. For example, in England it was believed that a witch could put up barriers that horses or cattle would not or could not cross unless it was broken with a charm, or by placating the witch who had put it there (Banks 75

Because so much maleficium was focused on farm animals, there were multitudes of ways to break the curses, block them, or prevent them. Horses stopped in place by a witch could be freed by passing a knife blade underneath their hooves (Banks 75). In Scotland, cows were sensitive to witchcraft after calving, especially for the first time: they would be bound with an apron worn by a married mother temporarily, and then protected with a “seal” or charm for several weeks; sometimes, some of their hair would be cut off to protect them; and they would also be given water with a live coal dropped into it to drink (Gregor 278).

In Scotland, burying a live cat and ox in a pit with salt would cure sick animals, transferring the curse on the herd to the two dead animals (Blécourt 298). Similarly, in England, the ears of sick animals would be burned and then buried, destroying the sickness along with the body parts, healing the animal itself (Briggs 124), or parts of a pig’s ears and tail would be burned (Newman 28); in Scotland, a sick cow would be measured, and the part of the tail longer than one span would be cut off and burned (Gregor 282). The heart of a cow was sometimes pierced with nails and then burned to drive off a curse or to break it (Briggs 183). In certain parts of England, cutting hanks of hair off of a sick cow and burning them could cause the cow to get better (Rudkin 254). In Germany, if you had a bewitched ox you would kill and skin it, and hang the hide in the window to prevent the disease from spreading (Briggs 181); in the Holstein region specifically, to prevent infection of the rest of the herd, a sick cow would be beheaded. The head would be smoked and then put in a window, looking away from the house towards the neighbors, which would deflect the illness towards other people’s cattle. The body was buried. Straw that had been urinated on by milkless cows was also burned to return their milk (Briggs 181-183). Along the same lines, burning a witch in effigy could break her powers; giving cursed milk that had sickened a woman to an animal, killing it, would cure her (Monter 586); and milking a cow in effigy could make it give milk again (Gregor 284).

Just as killing, destroying or hurting something representative of the curse could break it, so could it hurt the witch who had cast it. It was believed that, for example, boiling the milk of a sick cow would harm the witch, because some part of the witch’s magic was bound to the cow to cause the illness, and so “hurting” the milk would in turn cause the witch pain, because of that bond (Blécourt 298). There are a multitude of similar beliefs: in Scotland, the milk was heated with pins, forcing the witch to reveal herself (Gregor 279); in France, a witch could be hurt by scalding milk from a sick cow with a heated poker (Briggs 182); in England, a witch killed a flock of goslings, and by baking two live ones in an oven, she was discovered when she started to scream in agony, becoming covered in burns. There were incidents very similar to the latter example involving sickly piglets, ducks that wouldn’t lay, and scoring a sick pig with a poker (Newman 28).

The continuation of this theory was that it was possible to hurt a witch by hurting her familiars. Whipping the “milk” left behind by milkhares (actually a gelatinous fungus, as mentioned) or burning it would force animal’s owner to appear, pained by the abuse even when it wasn’t the witch herself who had stolen the milk while transformed (Nildin-Wall and Wall 72), as was sometimes the case. Hurting an animal associated with the witch would hurt her in turn.

This also applied to humans suffering witchcraft. For example, in England witch-bottles could be used to hurt or kill a witch, or to force her to break a curse. You took the urine of a victim of witchcraft, and some nails, pins, thorns or needles, sometimes bent and sometimes with bits of the victim’s hair or nails, and put them together into a jar. If the jar was buried or hidden, it would cause the witch strangury or difficulty urinating or expelling waste, until they came and begged to be released, at which time they could be forced to break the curse. If the jar was heated until it exploded, the witch would die. (Merrifield 195). Older witch-bottles had pieces of felt or cloth cut into the shapes of hearts, and one was found with the actual heart of an animal, also pierced with pins, possibly a hare—a creature closely tied to witchcraft (Merrifield 202). A written spell to protect against witchcraft specified that a witch-bottle be prepared with a frog’s liver pierced with pins and a toad’s heart pierced with thorns; there are obvious similarities here to the burning of a cow’s heart spiked with nails mentioned previously. Many witch-bottles, especially older ones, were buried in doorways, under hearthstones and in paths, indicating a possible relationship with German protective jugs, which were buried underneath the house. (Merrifield 202). As late as the 1930s, people in parts of England were aware of witch-bottles as a cure against witchcraft, prepared with water and the victim’s hair; however, speaking to the witch would break the spell (Wherry and Jennings 189). In Germany, putting the urine of a sick person in a glass with wax and cloth would make the witch appear, and she could then be prevented from leaving (Briggs 181). Urine could also reveal whether or not a person had been cursed, depending on how it reacted when put on a hot iron (Briggs 176).

There are parallels to the difficulty urinating caused by English witch-bottles in other cultures. In Germany, a bucket of water underneath the bed would have the same effect, forcing the witch to come (Briggs 181). Along similar lines, once a year in Bosnia the young men of each village would inflate a goat skin, and witches would arrive, begging them to release it because it caused them to swell as well. They could then threaten to reveal them to the village if they committed any evil that year (Vukanović 222, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”). In Esslingen, there are reports of a cursed girl’s excrement being burned, causing the witch’s face to become burned as well.

Pins, needles, thorns and other sharp objects were commonly used to protect against witches, as modeled by the witch-bottles. In England, locks of hair from the neck and the body were buried with pins and needles to break a bewitchment (Rudkin 249). Serbians sometimes named children “Trnovica,” meaning “thorn,” to protect them against evil, including witches (Vukanović 230, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”). Trees with thorns were also considered to have the power to ward of witches (Vukanović 228, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”). In Morocco, thorns, bristles and needles were protective amulets against witches, and in Spain broken needles and pieces of broken mirror served the same purpose (Hildburgh 79). Scratching witches with a pin until they bled would break a curse and cure an illness in England (Tongue 324). Other times it was specified that it needed to be a silver pin, and that it must be kept covered in the witch’s blood, to keep the witch from cursing you (Gregor 279). Another variation was that seeing the witch’s blood after scratching her was enough to break a curse (Newman 22). Sticking a pin into the shadow of a witch (Briggs 130) or her footprint would cause her pain, as if it had pricked her flesh (Wherry and Jennings 188). In Ireland, having some of a witch’s hair could make her powerless against you (Newman 20).

Scissors could also be used to protect against witches or to enact counter-curses. A pair of scissors was opened in the shape of a cross over doorways in Spain would prevent a witch from going through it (Hildburgh 79), and in England scissors were sometimes used with sieves to identify witches in a form of divination (Blécourt 298). In Serbia, babies were crossed three times with scissors before being laid in their cradles, and scissors were left under their pillows, sometimes open, or they were left next to the infant in the cradle, along with other objects (Vukanović 229, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”).

Knives, too, were used as a defense against witches. As previously mentioned, in England passing a knife underneath the hooves of horses who had been bewitched so that they wouldn’t move forward would break the curse (Banks 75). In Scandinavia, cutting butter with a knife would show whether it had been made from milk stolen by a milkhare, since that would make it bleed (Nildin-Wall and Wall 75). Knives were especially important in the Balkans, where black-handled non-folding penknives, made according to specific rituals (IE made from one piece of iron or steel at night by a naked blacksmith and his wife, etc.) were believed to be very powerful defenses in particular, but even a regular knife would be kept by the bed so that if a witch came at night to choke someone, her cheek could be cut so that she was recognizable the next day. Knives were kept in cradles to protect the baby, or placed under the pillow or cradle along with other sharp objects such as carding combs. In some areas, sickles were hung over the door for the first forty days or six months of a child’s life. (Vukanović 229-230, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”), to keep witches from entering the house. In Ireland, a knife was also described specifically as black-handled when it was used to kill a log transformed into a monster or demon (Duncan 178, “Further Notes from County Leitrim”).

Certain metals, specifically iron and silver, and sometimes copper, could protect against witches or defend against them, independently of whether or not they had a cutting edge or point. Sometimes, these metal objects would be specifically imbued with power, like the hearth-chains of the Balkans, which could prevent a witch from leaving the house if turned upside down or tied into knots; scare away witches when dragged through the streets on Christmas Eve; and keep witches away from the livestock if tied over the hearth (Vukanović 226, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”). Silver coins were specifically mentioned as the way to kill a witchhare in both Scandinavia (Nildin-Wall and Wall 67) and England (Gregor 284). In Germany, a shilling would protect the milk of a cow (Gregor 278). Iron witch-bottles were found in the Fens of England (Porter 121), and in Iceland a witch who transformed himself into a leather sack full of water was destroyed when he was beaten with an iron bar specifically (Craigie 226). (It is interesting to note that Iceland and Normandy are the two areas in Europe where the majority of witches were male; for this reason, I used the male pronoun here.) In England, iron was believed to turn away the evil eye (Wight and Brown 134), and a Romanian charm against witchcraft and evil specifically mentions iron tools used to destroy the devil (Gaster 132). In England, there were reports of a male witch or wizard who was buried with an iron stake driven through the coffin and corpse to make him “lay quiet” (Rudkin 255). Similarly, in the Balkans, dead witches rose to do evil after they had been dead and buried ten years, and so the tendons of a suspected witch were cut with a black-handled knife to keep her from leaving her grave (Vukanović 22, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans I”).

Metal was often used to keep witches from entering or exiting a building, such as putting scissors, knives or other objects over a door, and it was often used in combination with ways of calling witches to a house, either by hurting them by hurting something they had cursed (for example, scalding what milk can be gotten from a cursed cow) or by other means. Non-metal objects were used as well. Crosses of rowan or mountain-ash wood were placed over stable doors on certain days in Scotland, and over the doors of houses on other days to keep witches from using them for midnight rides (Gregor 277). In Germany, putting the urine of a sick person in a glass with wax and a cloth, similar to a witch-bottle, would cause the witch to appear or arrive, and she could then be kept inside the room by putting a broom, bread and salt over the doorway (Briggs 181). In parts of the central Balkans, witches are known to change into moths or flies and enter houses to suck peoples’ blood (Durham 190) and to steal milk. To protect against this, moths were caught and sprinkled with salt, and a charm said over them before they were released. The next day the witch would approach the house asking for salt, and she would be shown in and offered a seat and hospitality while someone tried to light her on fire with coals (Vukanović 226, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”).

Fire, salt and bread all figured regularly into protections against witches, combined with other elements of counter-curses or protections or alone. Fire stands out because witches were often burned, indicating a potential tie; but there were many other ways in which it appeared or featured. In Ireland coals were never taken from a house if a woman inside was sick because it would harm her further (Kinahan 257, “Connemara Folk-Lore”) and taking coals out of a house while someone was churning would keep the butter from forming. (Kinahan 258, “Connemara Folk-Lore”). To break a witch’s power to steal your milk in the Balkans, as mentioned, she was lit on fire when she entered the house (Vukanović 226, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II”). Also previously mentioned, cows in Scotland would be given water with coals dropped into it to protect them against witches (Gregor 278). Heating or burning animals associated with witches would cause the witch pain, as previously stated, and on at least one occasion, in Ireland, a hedgehog was burned as a witch after being observed to swim; they were animals associated with witchcraft, as they were believed to steal eggs and milk (Kinahan 104, “Notes on Irish Folklore”). In Normandy, objects that had been used to curse someone were burned to help break the curse (Monter 577). In England, a cure that healed a sick child was to throw anything found in his blankets into the fire—in this case, a toad (Briggs 209). In England, in more modern times, matches were believed to drive away witches, and especially crosses drawn with matches (Tongue 323). The color red, which may or may not be symbolic of fire, was considered protective against witches in Russia (Ryan 76), Scotland (Gregor 277; Goodare 304), and the Balkans (Vukanović 226, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”; Durham 191).

Salt also protected against witches, actively driving them away in England when carried around in a pocket, and blocking enchantments (Tongue 323). They were added to some witch-bottles, presumably to increase their potency or effectiveness. In Germany, salt and a shilling would protect milk, and salt around a churn would protect the butter (Gregor 278). As mentioned, salt was used to drive away and detect witches in the form of moths in the Balkans (Vukanović 226, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”) and also placed in cradles to help keep the infant safe (Vukanović 229-231, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”). Salt, bread and a broom placed by the door in Germany could keep a witch from leaving a room (Briggs 181), and something stolen and eaten from a witch’s house in Lorraine (Briggs 127), sometimes specifically bread and salt (Briggs 179), would break a curse (Briggs 127).

Bread was also a common defense against witches, and together with salt it formed most of the forms of ingested counter-witchcraft, and ways to protect against curses, even when not eaten. In the Balkans, taking the first mouthful of food eaten at the end of the Lenten fast out of your mouth and then whistling through it later would allow you to summon witches (Vukanović 221, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”), and bonfires were built and a black hen roasted over them and then eaten on certain days of the year. Witches were believed to turn into black hens, and it symbolized killing (and then eating) the witch herself (Vukanović 224-225, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”). In Russia, male witches known as koldun protected weddings from malicious “alien” witches from other villages, who would otherwise cause the bride to fart and the wedding party to turn into werewolves, among other calamities; part of this protection involved a ritual bath for the bride where the koldun wiped sweat from her with a whole raw fish, which was then cooked and eaten by the groom (Ryan 78-79). During the seventeenth century in northern Norway there were reports of “consuming” the knowledge of witchcraft through eating bread, beer or milk, among other substances. These occurrences can be linked to ergotism, or the incidental consumption of lysergic acid produced by fungal infections on certain grass species; LSD is a synthetic derivative of lysergic acid, and ergot is considered highly psychoactive when ingested (Alm 404-405). Garlic was considered a strongly apotropaic in the Balkans, and it was consumed in addition to being worn, placed in cradles and rubbed on the body, especially the armpits and nipples (Vukanović 221, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”; Vukanović 229, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”). Interestingly, another plant in the Allium family, Siberian chives (Allium schoenoprasum ssp. sibiricum) were also believed to be apotropaic in Finnmark (Alm 410).

Garlic is just one of the many plants that were believed to provide protection against witchcraft. As previously mentioned, thorns were believed to provide protection against evil in the Balkans (Vukanović 230, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”; Vukanović 228, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”). The wood of trees with thorns, such as hawthorn, was especially prized for this reason, and cradles were often made out of it (Vukanović 228, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”). Other trees with apotropaic power may include juniper, fir, oak, wild cornel or dogwood, hazel, lime wood, yew, ivy wood, (Vukanović 228, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”), fig wood (Vukanović 19, “Witchcraft in the Balkans I”) and golden willow (Vukanović 232, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”). Rowan was considered extremely powerful against witches in Scotland where crosses were made out of its wood (Gregor 277; Gregor 284); in Ireland, rowan berries under a churn would keep witches from stealing the butter (Duncan 180, “Folklore Gleanings from County Leitrim”); in one Irish folktale, it was specified that witches cooked a dog on a spit of rowan wood (Newman 12). Herbs could also have powers, such as certain types of moss, coltsfoot, valerian, elecampane and bryony (Vukanović 228, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”), along with the aforementioned garlic. In Romania, nightshade was used to expel demons (Gaster 131).

To return to an earlier subject, many charms against witches involved putting something over the door to keep her in or out. In the Balkans especially there were charms to prevent a witch from leaving an area once she had been summoned, and other charms to reveal a witch while entrapping her at the same time. Some of the latter involved throwing an object imbued with power over a church during mass, especially an important mass such as the midnight Christmas mass. The objects thrown included a blessed log of fig wood; the bow or loop of a yoke for oxen, especially a black one, thrown once in some areas and three times in others; and a locked padlock that had been carried three times around the church. Other methods included turning around a tile on the roof of the church, sticking a pin into the threshold, circling the church with white thread, putting a certain type of moss over the door, and taking a specially made item such as a stool or a new kožuh (jacket) to the mass. This would either cause the witch to behave in a way that made her recognizable, or keep her from leaving the church, either by means of an invisible barrier or by causing her to become confused and unable to find the door or, in the last example, making her recognizable to the person wearing or using the object (Vukanović 19-20, “Witchcraft in the Balkans I”). A cross made out of pig’s bones tied with red thread could also keep witches confined within a church (Durham 191).

In these situations, the goal was not to catch the witch to kill her, but instead to break her power, because it would be lost when she was discovered or when she confessed voluntarily, and it could never be recovered (Vukanović 21, “Witchcraft in the Balkans I”). In the same way, in Normandy, a curse that was caused by being touched by a witch could be cured by a touch from the same witch (Monter 577). In Germany, summoning a witch who had caused an ill or divining who she was sometimes only led to asking the curse to be removed (Briggs 181); this was especially common in Luzern, Scotland and Bavaria (Blécourt 298). In some areas, such as the Balkans, discovering witches led to blackmailing them into leaving alone the discoverer’s family or village, lest they be revealed as a witch to the community (Vukanović 221, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”; Vukanović 222, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”; Vukanović 225, “Witchcraft in the Balkans II”).

Finally, it’s possible to defend against witches using Christianity, often combined with other methods. Metal crosses, or crosses drawn with matches, or scissors opened into the shape of a cross are all overtly tied to Christianity. In Scotland, blessing a witch (“God save you”) would make her disappear (Gregor 284). Spoken charms drawing heavily from the Christian tradition were used to protect against witches and other forms of evil in Romania even if they also drew from pagan traditions (Gaster 129). Crosses would protect against witches in Russia (Ryan 72). In the Basque country, during a period of witch hysteria, children in multiple villages spent the night in churches and the houses of parish priests, where they would be blessed before they slept so the witches couldn’t steal them away in the night (Gifford 11); in a similar fashion but for different purposes, German child witches were incarcerated in part to prevent the “infection” from spreading (Roper 107). Still, it is interesting to note how little of the superstitions against witches were specifically Christian, considering the role of Christianity in witchcraft trials.
There are clearly strong similarities between beliefs centering around witches in Europe, specifically in the themes of protective magic, whether as objects or actions.

A Halloween Story

So they say that humans make such good mothers. I think we're terribly selfish when it comes to raising our young. We hardly ever die for our children.

Sure, we carry them for nine months. Which is a long time, both in terms of average gestation periods and just in terms of time itself. There are animals that are pregnant longer, of course, but there are a lot more that aren't. We can only have one at a time--usually--which just seems...inefficient. Oh, sure, there's the trade-offs between lots of offspring and a few better-cared for ones, but on a level that's more purely illogical, I think that more matters. Matters most, even, maybe.

But there are animals that do so much more. Salmon die to breed, after all. Like all semelparous animals, they give up their lives for their offspring. Their bodies start to decay as they move upstream. They'll beat themselves to death against dams, trying to get to where they can spawn. They fight to die, because before they die they lay their eggs. That next generation is the primary imperative. They know that they'll die either way, no matter if they've passed on their genes or not.

I like frogs. Some of them. Most of them just abandon their eggs, like so many animals. But others--they take very careful care of their young. Like the Surinam toad. After the eggs are laid--extruded--and fertilized by the male, they're pushed onto the female's back. Her flesh bloats to cover up the eggs, protecting them. Inside her, they can live and grow, taking their nutrients from her. You can see them moving underneath her skin--it ripples, her back filled with her young. After a lunar month, they break through her skin, tear through it, perfectly formed miniatures. Would you do that? Even if you could?

The gastric brooding frog eats its eggs. To protect them, she doesn't digest anything for the six weeks it takes her young to mature. She starves herself as the young grow big off of her own body, so big until eventually there's no more room for her lungs to expand. She's forced to rely on the barely-sufficient oxygen she can absorb through her skin, as she slowly starves. So much love. She suffers for them.

The giant pacific octopus, too, starves for her young. She lays her eggs in a carefully constructed cave, like precious little grains of rice--hundreds of them. Then she walls herself inside the cave, so that predators can't get to them; so that the currents won't wash them away until after they've hatched. She blows water over the priceless clutch, keeping them clean and oxygenated; she chases away or kills anything that might eat them. She doesn't eat. She's dead by the time they hatch, or shortly afterwards, but they wouldn't have lived without her.

Would you die for your children? Really? Would you have had them at all, if you'd known that it would, inevitably, cause you to die?

The caecilian's young eat their mother. They eat the skin off of her, in one species. In another, it's the lining of the oviduct. Like if your fetal child ate--for as long as eleven months--the lining of your uterus. Or if your clutch of precious babies swarmed over you every three days, consuming every inch of skin on you, and waiting only long enough for you to regrow it before they did it again. And again. Every three days, for months. You don't love your children so much.

It's what makes us weak. We don't want the pain, the blood and violence of birth. We want to be drugged until it doesn't hurt. We want everything clean and sterilized. Everything as much like surgery as possible--c-sections even for the women who don't need them. Sickening. You should bleed for your child, it's the only thing you can do. Give them your own flesh, it's all you really have to give. Milk is a sick, weak replacement for your own blood. For your life. That's how you give love.

Best of all are the parasitoids. The wasps and flies that give up their duties of mothering to someone else, someone who can give more. They lay their precious young, very carefully, onto the back of a host. A surrogate mother, an adoptive parent--the ones who really will give up anything, everything, for the child that's come into their care, even though it's not really their flesh and blood. That sort of altruism is--touching. Something worth emulating, replicating. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we were all so selfless? It would be. A better place.

The infant wasp hatches and burrows into its host. It eats it, piece by piece. Eventually the surrogate dies, but not before it's raised the wasp to adulthood. It hatches out of the husk left behind. The ultimate sacrifice. "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." And when you are eaten of, you're enacting the most sacred rite and sacrament--giving life to another. Even all your selfish whims are taken away, at the very end. You only want to do your part.

I feel it. I'm heavy with child; caring for them. Giving them everything I have to give--all of myself. Not in the transparent, weak way that people mean when they say it, but in a way that means more. Everything: flesh, blood and life. And at first I resisted, but it was only because I didn't understand. Now, I welcome the prick of each ovipositor--the laying of each new egg, ready to hatch open and begin its new life within me. It's been a while since one has come, though, which makes me a little sad. I'm getting close to the end, they can sense my imminent death; with almost preternatural intuition, the wasps know that I'm coming close to death, that my parasite load grew too high. I took on too much. Welcomed it in, once I realized what it all meant.

I am a city. A palace. A testament to divinity, to becoming something more. You won't understand until you've felt it. All the glory of motherhood, only more so. Because what I'm doing--it's truly laudable. There's no way to describe it. As my organs fall apart, as my flesh begins to rot away, I'm creating. Even second-hand--it's the closest I'll ever come to being the perfect mother. The one who will die for her children.

Inevitable.

I grew up on Where the Wild Things Are. We still have at least one copy floating around. I will forever remember it as one of my most-beloved childhood books, along with The Lupin Lady, The Children's Encyclopedia of Insects, and Good Dog Carl. (I have an autographed copy of Good Dog Carl. My mom gave it to me when I was 17 and in Spain on a year-long student exchange.) Where the Wild Things Are is probably the one book that has held up best.

With that in mind, my review, thoughts and reactions to the movie:

Where the Wild Things Are, as a book, is about being a child. A pretty normal child, at that, because I'm pretty sure almost everyone went through the out-of-control phase. And there are dark elements in the book, too, even if they're stronger in the movie: "I'll eat you up, I love you so." Love is scary. Love gets you eaten up. Hating someone--like your mom, when she sends you to bed without any supper--is the flip side of loving someone.

In the movie, to me, the focus is more on the parts of yourself that scare you. Because the monsters really are scary--even when things are fun (and one of the elements of the movie that I liked best is how excellently they blur the line between having-fun roughhousing and what happens when things go too far, when people actually start being hurt) there's that element of danger. You can see it sometimes, in Max: he's afraid, at least a little, because the Wild Things are so much bigger and stronger and more dangerous than he is. Even when he's their king, even when they're happy he's there, they could kill him accidentally. In most of the scenes, even the happy ones, there's a moment where he hesitates.

Essentially, though, this is a children's movie (although I'm not sure it's appropriate for most children--it's like a movie that doesn't really have a targeted age range) about fear and anger. Which is interesting, especially since there aren't any answers and the movie doesn't have something that I'd call a happy ending; more like bittersweet.

I think that fear and anger are important parts of childhood, though, ones that get brushed over. To quote my my favorite review of the ones I read, "Movies that promise to make you feel like a kid again tend to overlook how miserable childhood can be. ...This isn't a zany, faux-heartwarming slapstick comedy with adorable creatures and a plucky youngster at the centre."

That's why the scariest monster, Carol, who's also the second main character (after Max, of course) is the most frightening of the monsters. He's the one who's closest to Max: he doesn't know how to reach out to the others, especially the ones he wants to like. He's out of control--he destroys things without thinking about the consequences, while the others watch. He destroys things he's built, things that are very important to him, because he's angry. There are definite parallels between his actions and Max's--breaking things that you can't fix and then regretting it. He's the one who's going to eat Max even after they become best friends, and that scares even him. Carol is the part of Max that feels most strongly, that reacts most violently and mostly lovingly.

And that's where the journey-of-self-discovery comes into play, of course, because Max recognizes himself and etc. But it's far more subtly done than in most films, and it's not solving all the problems in the movie. There are no quick fixes in this world--you can't be the king of the Wild Things, you can't solve everything, you can't be never unhappy. Max goes home--and his supper is still hot (well, reheated)--but he's still going to be angry. He's still going to blow up, he's still going to be lonely, he's still going to be a too-sensitive child growing through difficult times.

I find it interesting how a lot of reviews mention that it's, and I quote a specific line but it's definitely a trend even in the positive reviews, not particularly deep or daring stuff." Because, really, I disagree. Simple doesn't mean it's not important--I think it usually makes things more important. And there is a definite lack in childhood movies that don't sugar-coat things. What Maurice Sendak's book wasn't, and what the movie wasn't, was a happy story where the Wild Things are fun and harmless--toothless. They're scary, especially in the movie. It's all about not being able to have everything you want. It's about being unhappy, and being lonely. That can be profound, especially when it's for people who haven't hit puberty yet, a supposedly young and innocent age. That's bullshit. I was systematically and aggressively bullied--to the point of requiring therapy--by my classmates in the second grade, and it was, unquestionably, the worst time of my entire life, even if you count my years as a depressed middle schooler, and the winter of my student exchange, when I was away from my family for Christmas for the first time, still unable to speak decent Spanish, being bullied in school, depressed and seriously sick.

The Max in the movie is not as well-adjusted as the Max in the book. In the book, Max is just hyperactive, out of control in the way that children that age can be; I was one of them, and out of control in similar ways. In the movie, he's hurting more. It's not, thankfully, another one of those stories where he's escaping the trauma of his Horrible, Abusive Family. His sister loves him, even though she's growing up. His mom loves him. He's over-reacting when he runs away, when he lashes out--that's a lot of the point. It's not justified. It's made understandable, it's not excused. It is, in fact, made explicit that he needs to grow up. Although it's a little cliche to put in the divorced parents/single mother/absent father/new-significant-other situation, they at least don't go overboard, amen thank-you and hallelujah, and it's something I can definitely understand.

Most of the critics I've read* seem to have issue with the middle section of the movie, because it's so helter-skelter and unfocused; they disagree with the arrangement of the action. I think that's one of the strengths of the movie: clearly, these people don't remember preteen sleepovers, where everything's wonderful at night, there's cake and dancing and movies and giggling and gossip--for me, at least; or video games and pizza and laughing and music, if you're my brother. But the next morning, everyone's tired. Someone gets upset. Things have dragged on too long. Nobody's really sure what to do, anymore, everything fun got done the night before. Maybe a squabble or two starts out. Things disintegrate. That's the exact path followed on the island, only more so--that sort of energy and excitement can't be maintained, and it turns out that not every day can be like that, filled with fun and excitement, with no conflict.

I am not particularly clear on what the point of the owl scenes were.

On a final note, there is a very disturbing paper or three on the implications of the KW-swallowing-Max scene.

*My normal approach to deciding opinions on movies is to see something, mull it over, maybe talk about it with others I've seen it with, think more, then read what others have had to say. In this case, critics and professional reviews because that's what's available. Then, I see how I react to what they have to say, which helps me to more accurately identify what my own opinions are, and why.

Animals That Horrify Me II: Cannibalism Edition

The odds are somewhat decent that you have never heard of caecilians. I hadn't, except in a very vague and dim sense.

They are related to some of the most adorable animals on the planet: newts and salamanders! And even adorable little frogs! A little more distantly, they're related to lizards, turtles and crocodilians (AWWWW, ADORABLE BABY ALLIGATORS, SO CUTE WITH THEIR LITTLE YELLOW MOUTHS GAPING), which are reptiles--fairly close relatives of the amphibians, which include the salamanders, frogs and caecilians.

Caecilians have developed as burrowing animals, losing all internal and external evidence of legs. Many have only vestigial eyes covered over with skin, and have replaced sight with tentacles that serve as some sort of sensory organ. Many are pretty small, but one species gets 1.5 meters long, or an inch under five feet. They have very small scales, making them unique among amphibians.

They are not adorable.

Now, there are a lot of disgusting-looking creatures out there, and really, caecilians aren't that bad. For example, hagfish are essentially boneless tubes of organs with small tentacles and an extremely unpleasant fleshy character, and they exude mucous in quantities up to a gallon. In essence, they're much like a caecilian, only without bones (except for a little cartilage, including a partial skull but no jaws), and far slimier.

So what makes them disgusting and caecilians horrifying? Well.

Not much is known about caecilian behavior, but they do know something about how they breed. Or, rather, how the young are raised. Caecilian mothers are devoted parents, especially by amphibian standards: they guard and even feed their young.

This is where things start getting terrifying.

One species of caecilian, Siphonops annulatus, feeds her young with her own skin. She lays her eggs and then curls around them. When the young hatch, they consume her skin as she lays there, tearing it off of her until she's been completely stripped bare--skinned, you could say. She regrows her skin over the next three days as her family rests, and then the pattern's repeated.

This is not the most horrific way that they feed their young. There is another species that is even more disgusting and frightening. And painful to think about.

The female holds the eggs within her until they hatch--they're an ovoviviparous species, or a species that produces eggs (which are unattached to the mother, differentiating them from live-birth (viviparous) animals, but the eggs are retained within the mother until they hatch, giving the appearance of live birth--at which time the young start eating the lining of her oviduct. THIS IS THE EQUIVALENT OF HAVING YOUR BABY EAT YOUR UTERINE LINING. And it still gets worse because this? Can go on for eleven months. They live inside her, eating her reproductive organs, for almost a year.

More posts later about amphibians that terrify me! Surinam toads! COMING SOON.

(Sources: Life in Cold Blood by David Attenborough, which provided the inspiration for this post and the next. Online, the pictures linked are all from outside sources--obviously. Also, this article about hagfish.)

Some Notes for Princess Story I

My princess story is located in an extremely fictionalized version of the Basque country, or Euskal Herria, which is located (in the real world) in northeastern Spain and southwestern France, surrounding the Pyrenees. Not everything is accurate. However, I thought I'd explain some of the more specific details that I've used.

1. Many of the names I've used are Basque--but not all of them. Elixabete, Matxin, Zuzen, Edurne, Kistiñe and Matxin are all Basque names, while Iñigo, Cipriano and Santiago are not. Isidro is apparently actually an Italian name that's found some use in Spain.

2. I named my fictional country "Euskal." This doesn't actually make much sense in actual Euskara (the Basque language), but works well enough for my purposes.

3. "By the time Princess Elixabete was born, nobody really thought about Euskal unless they were a logging company or particularly interested in artisanal cheeses." The Basque people were primarily shepherds. They continue to make some damn fine cheese, let me tell you, although I think that logging is more a historic industry than a modern one. (I'm not 100% sure here.)

4. The cows the Basque keep (they also keep sheep and goats) are tan or a light, warm brown, not black-and-white, the way a lot of people in the US at least think of when cows are brought up.

5. Txapelas are a type of Basque hat very similar to a French beret, currently worn mostly by older, more traditional men. (Also by the younger generations, but usually only at festivals when they're feeling both patriotic and drunk.)

6. Matxin's home country, Nafarroa, is also based off of a region in Spain, Navarra, called Nafarroa in Basque. Navarra is just below the (official) Basque country and is claimed by some Basque secessionists, and it also continues in a further east part of the Pyrenees. There's a lot of Basque culture, historic and modern, in the northern part of Navarra, and there are a lot of cultural similarities between the two areas. Historically, real world Navarra was very important--it was the last independent region to cede to the Emperor/King of united Spain, and the seal of Navarra is the lower-right quarter of the seal of Spain--even if it's currently fairly obscure outside of Spain. The capital of Navarra is Pamplona, where they hold San Fermines, a festival you probably know of because that's where the Running of the Bulls happens. My fictional Nafarroa is somewhat more obscure than real-world Navarra. (Navarra is also spelled "Navarre" in English sometimes. This is crazytalk, don't listen to anyone who does it.)

7. Andalucía is another region, in the very southernmost part of Spain. It's very different from Euskal Herria and Navarra, and you probably know it as Andalusia. The accent spoken there is totally incomprehensible.

8. Cuajada is kind of like a sheep's-milk yogurt that's seared with a poker, giving it a delicate, smoky flavor. It's a traditional Basque dessert, served with honey or sugar and usually accompanied by walnuts, although that might be overlap from another traditional Basque dessert, sheep's-milk cheese accompanied by membrillo (a thick, sweet quince jelly) and walnuts.

Environmentalism

There are seven species of salmon native to the Pacific Northwest, from the very small (the coastal cutthroat trout, a sometimes-anadromous subspecies, weighs one to four pounds on average and no more than six pounds; the pink salmon, a more typical member of the salmon family, weights three to five pounds and no more than twelve pounds) to the very large (the chinook salmon weighs only ten to fifteen pounds on average, but can grow up to one hundred thirty-five pounds.) Many salmon runs are already extinct, and more are expected to follow. There are predictions that entire species of salmon will start going extinct within the next fifty years.

Because salmon are both iconic and a large part of local industries, there's a big effort to restore them. Any dammed river requires a fish ladder, or if not that then an attached hatchery. Some hydroelectric power plants go to extremes like actually shipping--by truck--baby salmon around the dam on their way out to the ocean. (This is an ineffective system that causes large numbers of fatalities, although there's still probably fewer deaths than would be caused by going through a turbine.) There are very strictly regulated and calculated quotas and harvest limits for each species, based on hatch numbers for the year that's currently mature enough to fish. There's more of a conservation effort for salmon than any other animal in the state of Washington: schools raise tankfuls of baby salmon (part of the incredibly repetitive our-cultural-heritage/natural-bounty curriculum covered every year, until any given sixth-grader can repeat the salmon life cycle in a dull monotone: egg, alevin, fry, fingerling...) to be released, there are designated "salmon streams," and there's more and more laws going into effect about building near streams, and logging near streams, and polluting into streams.

But it's still not enough. Salmon are still going extinct. Why?

That's a complicated question. Partially, it's because salmon are sensitive. They require very clean, clear, fast-flowing, highly-oxygenated and cold water for their eggs to hatch. As eggs, alevin and fry, they're sensitive to pesticides; silt will clog up their gills and suffocate the eggs; too warm water or too sluggish water won't have enough oxygen for them to develop. Dams can even block the right-sized sediments from being washed downstream (and "the right size" varies depending on the salmon: a chinook will require bigger rocks than a pink salmon), which means that the salmon won't be able to build it's redd, or nest. Without it, the eggs get washed away.

As the salmon matures into a fingerling, it travels downstream, where it requires an estuary while it waits for its systems to adjust to saltwater and it grows. Estuaries are semi-marine environments, sheltered from most of the big predators of the open ocean, and they're highly nutrient-rich environments. Here, again, it's extremely sensitive: if there's no estuary, the odds of any given fingerling surviving become extremely minimal, even by the normal salmon standards, which are remarkably low to begin with. Then, once the fish leaves for the open ocean, there are, again, threats like whales and seals, other fish and humans.

Some environmental measures are fairly straight-forward: you put hundred-foot forest buffers around any known salmon stream, to keep the water from over-heating and to keep silt from getting into the stream. You protect pre-existing estuary environments, and work on restoring others. You continue monitoring catch sizes.

What about taking down all the dams on salmon rivers? What about farming salmon for food?

All the dams in western Washington are, in essence, for hydroelectric power. The problem is that there is no good answer to the energy question: oil, coal and natural gas are all finite resources that add to greenhouse gas emissions, causing global warming and climate change; nuclear power creates nuclear waste, which persists for thousands upon thousands of years; windmills can massacre flocks of birds, especially migratory ones; tidal energy is likely to disturb the echolocation of whales because of its vibrations, causing them to beach themselves, and will do the same thing that windmills due to birds, only underwater and with fish, along with potentially eroding beaches at a faster rate; hydrogen combustion is too potentially explosive; nuclear fusion is still only a theory.

So we make these pay-offs. Is it better to have dams that lower salmon numbers, or is it better to have that much more clean energy? Do you farm fish, saving precious wild stocks while still meeting the huge demand for Pacific salmon and preserving an important economic force in society, or do you save precious wild stocks from the deadly parasites bred en masse in fish farms, which also ruin the near-shore environment where they're placed by releasing huge amounts of waste, not to mention the antibiotics and dyes farmed salmon are fed?

These things move in waves. For a while, nuclear energy was going to solve the energy crisis, and the consequences be damned--regardless of how, now, when sites for the placement of nuclear waste are considered, it's thought of in terms of plate tectonics, because that's how long it will persist? For a while, GMOs--genetically modified organisms--were going to feed the world--now they're considered a possible threat to non-modified gene pools, potentially contaminating them. There's concerns about the safety of GMOs. There's concerns about what having our fields all be GMO monocultures could do, if a plague or disease breaks out. It'd be like the Irish potato famine, only on a global scale. Even earlier than that, pesticides and artificial fertilizers were going to feed the world--that led to the modern environmental movement, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, and organic farms.

There's this huge cultural legacy of innovations coming with unforeseen consequences. There are no easy answers in this world--except maybe nuclear fusion as an energy source, assuming we can ever get it to work. But it doesn't look like fusion will be energy-efficient at any point in the foreseeable future, since it happens in conditions like those inside of stars, and there aren't any easy answers out there.

Recently, DDT, rightfully or wrongfully one of the most maligned pesticides, was re-approved for use in certain African countries. The plan is to paint it on the outside walls of houses, where it will help kill mosquitoes. Considering the astronomic (and equally horrific) levels of malaria, especially in children, it could save hundreds of thousands of lives and improve the standard-of-living for those who survive: malaria, a blood-borne parasite that settles in the liver, red blood cells and, in one particularly nasty strain, the brain (where it causes hemorrhaging and other nasty side-effects), is a killer that will end up infecting something like a quarter of all children in some African countries. And such a simple effort--DDT is cheap and, therefore, possible to subsidize, unlike providing daily anti-malarial medication to countries worth of people--especially when combined with mosquito netting, could do so much good.

But DDT almost caused the extinction of a lot of big raptors. It's been accused of, variously, causing cancer, infertility, brain damage, liver damage and pretty much anything else that you can think of. In reality, it's one of the safer chemicals to use for humans, especially when applied sanely, instead of it being dumped by the ton at random. Enough of it will kill you, but enough of anything will kill you--lethality is only determined by how much it takes. Salt will kill you, if you eat too much of it.

So will DDT, it just doesn't take as much of it. It's has been demonized. For the most part, it just kills insects, which is what makes it such an effective form of mosquito control--it was DDT, among other things, that eliminated malaria in the United States. That brings up environmental problems in and of itself: even ignoring bioaccumulation and biomagnification, the names for how fat-soluble chemicals and toxins build up the older, bigger and more predatory an organism is, killing all the insects, indiscriminately, in a certain area will knock out one of the most basic building blocks of the local food web. Bugs are really low on the trophic levels, and that equals a lot of starving animals further up the chain. It's like knocking out one of the legs on a three-legged stool, and balanced on top of that stool are another four and a half chairs. That's the most damaging thing DDT does. The killing-of-birds (especially birds of prey, who get the highest concentrations of the chemical, as well as being the slowest to reproduce) is what got attention--that was the "silent spring" that Rachel Carson alluded too, one without birdsong--got the attention, but the biggest impact was the death of insects. (Interestingly, DDT is not actually particularly toxic to the birds themselves. Instead, it thins their eggshells because of the way it effects how they metabolize calcium, and then the eggs break before the chick is hatched.)

So there's another issue. What's more important--the environment, or peoples' lives? To what extent are they codependent? How do you even know if you're doing the right thing? They introduced Nile Perch to Lake Victoria, in Africa, to feed the local fisherman, who subsisted primarily on native fish they pulled out of the lake. The Nile Perch devastated local species, driving some extinct and seriously endangering the others, causing population crashes in other species before they crashed themselves because they'd overhunted all their prey species, and significantly lowering the yield of the lake in terms of biomass. But it's too late to fix the problem.

We do tend to make things worse. Punishing Germany after WWI caused WWII. There was an Aleutian island, one that was essentially barren except for large numbers of nesting seabirds during the summer. Rats were introduced to it, and they decimated the numbers of birds on the island, stealing and eating their eggs--the birds had no natural defenses against their predation. Foxes were introduced to eat the rats, and instead they also ate bird's eggs, supplementing their diet with the birds themselves. It's the sort of idea that seems like a good one at the time, but turns out to be mind-numbingly stupid but also essentially irreversible.

(Sources: Puget Sound Shorelines: Species - Salmon; Endangered Species: Salmon & Bull Trout - The Issue; Salmon Facts: An Informational Guide to Our State's Natural Treasure.)

Nightmares

Nightmares are funny things: they're really not very scary. When you look at them by the light of day, they're mostly just ridiculous, even when you can still feel how incredibly, heart-stoppingly, achingly afraid you were when it happened. For example, when I was eleven or so I read a book of horror stories that I checked out of the library, not knowing what they were. I had screaming nightmares about a giant chicken--when my mom asked me what was wrong, why I couldn't speak, I didn't want to bring up the book (since I didn't want her watching what I checked out of the library more closely) and so I broached the conversation evasively and, as it turned out, ineffectively.

"Monsters," I said, looking away. We were in her bathroom, at probably midnight.

"What sort of monsters?" She insisted.

"...Giant, uh, pigs," I replied, because they were at least a little scarier than chickens, right?

My mom laughed at me, of course, and told me that that was a ridiculous fear and that I should go back to bed--this was all true. But I could still remember how the dream felt--I still felt that strong, undiluted fear, rushing through me. It took me a long time to go back to sleep, even while I still knew that it was a stupid thing to be afraid of.

I knew that it was ridiculous, but I still couldn't change that I was afraid. That's how strongly these things can grip you.

A more recent recurrent nightmare is almost as ridiculous, albeit much more complex. I'm in a department store, in the woman's clothing floor. It's stuffed with falls: the walls are lined with racks, the blouses and skirt-suits and pleated pants in tweed, navy and deep brown almost falling off of the hangers, bulging out into the aisles. The circular racks are just as full, and dotted thickly across the floor. I'm with my mom, and we're searching for my brother--everything appears deserted, but I know that when you go into the dressing rooms or the elevators (the elevator attendant is the one human we see, and I know that he's one of them) they take you, and turn you into a dinosaur, kind of like a velociraptor, or a Utahraptor: bigger than the former, smaller than the latter. I know that my brother's already been taken by them--he ran into a dressing room to play, or something like that--but my mom doesn't know. She doesn't listen when I tell her anything.

The last time I had this dream (so far, of course) was sometime in spring 2008, a little over a year ago, and I kept on trying to steer the dream into a new storyline, but it kept on snapping back, like a rubber band stretched too far; I would half-wake-up, turn over and huddle tighter, incredibly afraid, and fall back asleep, and I'd be doing something else, dreaming something else, and then all of a sudden I'd be back in that department store, or I'd feel the monsters approaching me, or I'd be looking for my brother again, even knowing that he might kill me and that I'd need to fight him to survive... The final scene I remember from that most-recent nightmare was my mom entering a changing room, even though I told her not to, and the elevator man coming, and I knew that I'd never see her again, even though she was still insisting that it was fine, and then I went in after her...

I've had other recurring nightmares--often they come years apart. There was one that happened in the ravine down the street from the house I was born in. We moved out when I was eight, and I no longer remember what the nightmare actually was, except for this vague sense of dread, gathering darkness and a sense that the ravine was pulling me towards it. Dreams can surprise you like that: every time I drive past this one movie theater--now fairly run-down and decrepit--along Highway 101, on the route our family takes to the Hurricane Ridge campground, I get this strange gasp of deja vu. I've had several dreams involving that movie theater (just outside of Deer Park), and I never know why: I've never been inside it, we've driven past it a lot but I've driven past a lot of movie theaters--it's a mystery.

So it's funny how much power nightmares hold over us, even though they're often so stupid. I had a nightmare several times that involved an enormous black cat--as tall as me at the shoulder--and an even bigger dog. They prowled the edge of our yard, huge smiles on their faces, and they'd wait for me, sitting right at the property line, at the top of the hill our house was at the base of, just over the crest. It was enough to unnerve me as I walked home from school, alone, the Monday after I had the dream. And then, the worst part, there was a huge black snail, biggest of all and with an eerie smile. It had huge, razor-sharp teeth, moved quickly and it was hunting me. It kept on coming closer, crossing the edges of our yard and moving towards the house. This dream terrified me--it was about a gigantic black snail. What's scary about that? Nothing at all--except for the fear that your mind can pull up out of nowhere. It doesn't even make sense...

Animals That Horrify Me

Animals can be pretty damn scary things. To illustrate this, here is my personal list of seven animals that could destroy and/or control the world, if they so desired, in order from least to most horrifying. (This entry brought to you by a classroom discussion on appropriate uses of obscenities in writing. Things are--gosh!--a little foul-mouthed.)

1. Aphids. Now, even in terms of garden pests, aphids aren't as bad as you get. I mean, squirrels are more of a problem and they're, well, squirrels. So why single them out as having the potential to be destructive beyond all means?

Aphids control the ants. And ants are, bar no other living creature, the scariest fucking creatures on the face of the planet. They can get into almost any building, exist all over the world, are sometimes poisonous, are slavishly devoted to the good of their queen and hive to the point where they have no self-interest whatsoever, and they're incredibly numerous. Most horrifying? The mega-colony of ants located in Europe, which is like a whole bunch of different anthills, only instead of fighting each other, they cooperate. This is the most horrific thing I have ever heard.

To return to aphids, they have a pretty nice set-up going with the ants. Ants will protect, feed and even place aphids in opportune places, "farming" them, in return for the honeydew (or sweet, sugary piss) of aphids--the aphids lose nothing, since it's a natural waste product anyway, and in return, they control the most frightening insect on the planet.

Not so harmless now, are they?

2. Octopodes. (Before anyone gets me started on the name... Yes, I know, octopi. That's lovely and all, but that's a Latin plural ending on a Greek word. Either call them octopusses (my usual choice) or use the right plural form--just don't mix and match, especially if you then proceed to correct people smugly. "It's octopi," you may say, raising one brow with a superior sneer on your face. Yeah, shut up, bitch--it isn't.)

So what's so horrifying about the octopus? Well, for one, they're incredibly intelligent. They break locks. Sometimes they choose not to break locks, because it's easier for them to just break the locked box into pieces and get their fishy reward that way. They solve simple puzzles, they observe humans--there was an octopus that was being trained to do simple tasks for treats, which were stored in a cupboard. After a while, the scientists noticed that the treats were disappearing very quickly--reviewing the cameras in the lab showed that the octopus was escaping its cage (something they didn't even know it could do), climbing over to the cabinet where the treats were stored, opening it, and then eating its fill every night. Oh my fucking God. There are registered voters who couldn't do that shit.

The one thing holding the octopus back is its slightly less effective copper-based blood. Soon, they will find a way around this. And then--well, then the world will fall. With other cephalopodian shock troops, like the demonic Humboldt Squid, which hunts in voracious packs of up to 1200 individuals, devouring whatever crosses its path, working cooperatively and dragging humans down to be consumed in the darkest depths of the ocean, nothing will stand in their way--as soon as they find a way to subsist for long periods of time on the surface of the water, we're all doomed.

3. Canadian geese. They are some nasty motherfuckers, let me tell you. And adult geese are strong--they can knock you around pretty bad. Mostly, though, these are the most ruthless and aggressive birds on the planet: looking like a Canadian goose is the avian equivalent of being 6'5", made of muscle, wearing black leather, being heavily tattooed, twitching sporadically and generally giving the impression that you're about to snap and go for their throat, and probably wearing the caked-on blood of the multitudes of dead men, women, children, kittens and other innocents that they've killed. And, unlike many other types of birds, they're hideous rapists with an insatiable sexual appetite, to the point where birds sometimes drown because they have been fucked into the water, after a particularly enthusiastic drake landed on them while they were floating.

You probably think this is hyperbole. It's not. The invasion has already begun--notice how the geese no longer fly south for winter everywhere? They're planning their attack. They already have us feeding them bread--soon, our every goal will be to serve our feathered overlords.

Canadian geese will take a break from raping, murdering and eating your lawn, and then laugh and laugh, honking wildly as they chew on the severed fingers of your children. Not even the adorable goslings will make up for that. The cuteness is a lie.

4. Chinese giant salamanders. They get six feet long. They are a six-foot-long amphibian. One that can live for hundreds of years. Six-foot-long incredibly long-lived predatory amphibians. The only reason that they don't have human deaths attributed to them is because they're very obscure and unstudied, living high in the Chinese mountains. Nobody knows how intelligent they are. Nobody knows much of anything, in fact--and they like it that way.

5. Infectious dog cancer. "Infectious cancer?" you may say. "Don't be ridiculous!" But it is, in fact, the truth--another infectious cancer is behind Devil Facial Tumor Disease, which causes cancerous growths on the faces of Tasmanian devils, swelling until they're so large that the animal is unable to feed and starves to death.

The cancer dogs get is a little more benign: it's usually not fatal. Canine transmissible venereal tumor (CTVT) is passed from dog-to-dog by sexual contact or by fighting--and unlike the cervical cancer caused by HPV, it's truly an infectious cancer. That means that every cell in every tumor in every dog who has this disease--and it's found across all five continents, commonly--is genetically identical, and that it all comes from one animal, a dog or wolf, who lived approximately 150-1000 years ago.

Which means that that dog, in essence, has never died. Instead it lives on, a few of its cells--mutated until they no longer follow the rules of genetics and the body as we know them--buried inside hundreds of thousands of dogs, all across the planet. Waiting.

6. Cordyceps fungi. Now, fungus usually aren't all that scary--maybe if you're immunologically depressed you might get certain species growing in you (like Schizophyllum commune, a known cause of "human mycosis," settling in the lungs and sinuses, among other organs, and causing things like brain abscesses) but mostly they stick to dead stuff, right? Or plants at the very least--although there is that fungus that grows on hibernating bats, causing erratic behavior, physical problems and eventually death--really, not a threat to humans or the greater part of the animal world.

Well, the Cordyceps fungus infects living insects. It moves slowly through the insect, consuming the most vital systems last and entwining with the insects nervous system. Now, let's say that the infected species was an ant: as it grows sicker and sicker, dying as more and more essential systems are confused by the parasite growing inside its body, it starts to exhibit erratic, abnormal behaviors. (This still isn't very scary, is it? Just wait.) It starts washing compulsively, for example--more to the point, it starts climbing up towards the canopy of the tropical rain forests it's found in. Why up? Because there's more air flow up there. Why? Because the Cordyceps fungus makes it. How can you tell? It's totally abnormal behavior for the ants.

As the ant moves upwards, it eventually dies. As it passes away, it grips its jaws into the wood beneath it, clinging to the tree even as death sets in, followed by rigor mortis. And, finally, the fungus shows itself: it begins to fruit, a long spike emerging from the body to spread its spores. The increased breeze at the tops of the trees helps the plant spread, to infect another ant.

No scientist really knows how it causes behavioral changes like that. It already effects hundreds, possibly thousands, of insect species...

7. Hairworms. This is another mind-control parasite, like the Cordyceps in some ways: it changes the behavior of the host, to its detriment and eventual death. It even infects insects--although the hairworm in question infects grasshoppers exclusively. (For the moment, at least. And as far as we know.) It was discovered when scientists noticed grasshoppers jumping directly into ponds--not normal behavior for them. It appeared that they were committing suicide, which they were, in many ways.

It was eventually discovered to be caused by a parasite. Somehow, it alters grasshopper behavior; for a while it lives relatively quietly within its host, consuming the flesh and vitality of the grasshopper like any normal parasite. Then things change. In the end, the grasshopper ends up plunging helplessly into the pond, where it drowns, leaving the worm free to leave its host and find a mate, finishing its complex life-cycle.

Essentially--somehow--this parasite makes the grasshopper kill itself so that it can continue to finish its disgusting life cycle. (To illustrate just how disgusting: the worms writhe themselves into hideous balls and clumps, earning their other name--Gordian worms, after Gordian knots.) How? Again, nobody knows--but I'd look really carefully at the number of human suicides-by-water in regions where this thing is found.

(Sources: Chinese Giant Salamanders, and the same again, hairworms, Humboldt squid, Tasmanian devils, Cordyceps fungus, and infectious dog cancer.)