For mine is the grail quest -
round table & siege perilous
fisher king & waste land
bleeding lance & dolorous stroke
adventurous bed & questing beast
This entry is essentially for the whole of Celtic mythology in all its diversity, reflecting the Celts themselves - who extended through time, from at least the sixth century BCE through various survivals to the present day
And even more substantially through geographical space - from their original homeland in central Europe throughout Europe (and Turkey), most notably to the British isles, perhaps most famously as the Gauls threatening Rome in its infancy (before being conquered by Rome in turn)
And I find all Celtic mythology fascinating. The mythology of Gaul - which I particularly know from the gods invoked in Asterix comics by Toutatis! - mostly from surviving names and images, notably those cited by Roman writers to "transmit any bizarre and negative" information
The Wicker Man. Druids. The mysterious horned god Cernunnos and other Gallic gods or goddesses
The Celtic mythology that survived most in literary form (often recorded by Christian monks) were for those Celts who maintained their identities - in Brittany or coastal France, in Britain and above all in Ireland with its various mythological cycles
The Tuatha de Danann or the gods of Ireland. The Ulster Cycle and its great hero Cu Chulainn. The Fenian Cycle as well as its great hero Fionn Mac Cumhaill (sometimes awesomely translated as Finn McCool) and his Fianna warrior band. And the Cycle of Kings of historical legend
Much of this mythology in Ireland, Britain and elsewhere was recycled into the fairy folklore of Europe
However, if I'm to pick the one strand of Celtic mythology that is foremost in familiarity and fascination for me, it's that which moved through to folklore and above all historical legend - the legend of King Arthur, the Matter of Britain or history of the Kings of Britain
Arthur Pendragon himself, the once and future king. His father Uther. The wizard Merlin. The Lady in the Lake. The sword in the stone or Excalibur. Guinevere. The enchantress Morgan Le Fay (often conflated with another character, Morgause, as the mother of usurper Mordred)
The knights of the Round Table - most famously Lancelot but also Gawain, Galahad, Perceval and Bedivere. The Holy Grail. Avalon - and so on
And of course its ongoing adaptations - which essentially started from its very inception with medieval literature
Including its cinematic adaptations, of which two films remain my favorite, Excalibur, and Monty Python and The Holy Grail (which funnily enough still remains one of the most faithful adaptations to Arthurian legend)
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We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow
The hammer of the gods
Will drive our ships to new lands...
Valhalla, I am coming
And now we come to a mythology that is one of the best known, even outside its European continent - arguably one of the most hardcore mythologies, with imagery worthy of a metal album cover
I mean, what else can you say of a mythology that features a ship made entirely of fingernails and toenails (of the dead)? Or its creation myth, in which the world was created from the corpse of a giant. No fluffy let there be light here
Where to start with this genre-crossing author, spanning fantasy, horror and SF?
There's where where it all started – with his 1986 World Fantasy Award winning novel The Song of Kali, a psychological horror about a journalist encountering a latter day cult of Kali
Or his other horror themed works - or perhaps his dark fantasy or horror Summer of Night, reminiscent of Stephen King with its group of adolescent boys facing a supernatural terror with a long history behind it, or his take on psychic vampires in Carrion Comfort
Revising my Top 10 Girls of Comics, Video Games & Anime - the silver medal spot
Top 10 Girls of Comics (2) Vampirella
Top 10 Girls of Video Games (2) Tifa Lockhart - Final Fantasy
Top 10 Girls of Anime (2) Nami - One Piece
My Top 10 Girls of Comics sees Vampirella in second place - the third of my holy trinity or big three for art and cosplay in comics (Vampirella, Red Sonja & Lady Death). Of course, all three miss out on the top spot for which there can only be one choice...
For my Top 10 Girls of Video Games, Final Fantasy's Tifa Lockhart takes the second top spot, as she continues to be the subject of prolific art and cosplay. But again, she misses out on the top spot, as there could only be one choice
(4) KATHERINE BRIGGS -
A DICTIONARY OF FAIRIES (1972)
A classic book, alternatively titled An Encyclopedia of Fairies, which now seems sadly out of print, by THE classic British folklorist
And as it says on the tin, the definitive guide to that classic subject of British folklore - fairies. Of course, the term fairies now conjures up images of cute little gossamer-winged pixies like Tinkerbell
In British folklore, fairies were much different, most aptly styled as the Fair Folk, itself a euphemism for things that would flay you and walk around in your skin
One of my favorite sub-genres of science fiction - time slip science fiction
What might be dubbed Connecticut Yankee or Lest Darkness Fall time travel on an individual scale - or Axis of Time, Island in the Sea of Time, Assiti Shards or just pure alien space bats time travel on a larger scale
Time slip science fiction involves time travel to the past, almost always unintentionally and often by unknown means. And because the time travellers typically transform the historical past, it tends to involve alternate history
Revising my Top 10 Girls of Comics, Video Games & Anime - the bronze medal spot
Top 10 Girls of Comics (3) Red Sonja
Top 10 Girls of Video Games (3) Atago - Azur Lane
Top 10 Girls of Anime (3) Nezuko Kamado - Demon Slayer
My Top 10 Girls of Comics sees the second of my big three in art and cosplay, Red Sonja, rise to third place or my bronze medal spot
For my Top 10 Girls of Video Games, Azur Lane's Atago gets the bronze medal or third place. Although Azur Lane was released in 2017, her art and cosplay just keeps coming. Of course, her Race Queen design helps