Hi! Are you a fairy?
I watched Pan's Labyrinth tonight and it got me to thinking.
Specifically it had this part in it with a monster that liked to eat babies, and I like when legends and things like that are the same around the world. It reminded me of the Aswang, which is in filipine folklore this beast that climbs on top of the houses made of leaves in the jungle (which is pretty much every house) and it has this long tongue, and the tongue goes down through the roof and pierces the pregnant mother's stomach and sucks out the baby. There's also supposed to be a scary as hell Filipino movie made about it that I've yet to see. Anyways it's little stories like this that our parents tell us about the Philippines that makes us not want to go there, and it's just when you have such similar tales in other parts of the world (in this case, Spain) it makes you wonder what's really behind it.
And then there are the dwende (sp?) stories. Dwende's are these little people that live in the jungle (think dwarfs), but really as my mom says they live all over the world, even the santo nino said that they are everywhere and we have to respect them.
When I was visiting my mom's hometown in the jungles in the Philippines, I remember her showing me the elementary school, and there was this little hill in the school yard that my mom warned me not to go near because that's where they live. And I remember my aunt taking me through the wood and told me I had to say "excuse me" 3 times just in case I stepped on one of their houses by accident so they wouldn't get mad. Then there was the time I saw one.
There's lots of things that I have seen that I can't prove, or have any desire of proving to anyone, because I know what I saw, I know what I experienced. Like the time I saw that demon.
But there are stories.
When I was chosen for ambassador at our pavilion last year one of our tasks was to research Philippine legends, so I asked my mom about them, and she told me about the things in the jungles. Specifically about the dwende's, and the enchanted shrimp (I'll touch on it later), and in her words, the people that you do not see.
She was telling me about the dwende's and how if they like you then they try to keep you.
Tonight me and my mom went to dim sum for her co-worker Jona's birthday. It was funny because we were there and it was like 4:30 and they weren't, and we were waiting with 4 other people and we were reluctant to get a table because we didn't know where they were, so we sat somewhere and didn't order, it was about 5:30 by this time, and dinner was supposed to be at 4, we were concerned, then we saw her husband and they'd been there the whole time but were hidden in this room we didn't know existed, so all the time we thought they didn't show they must have thought all her friend didn't come, anyways, the waitresses were yelling at each other in Chinese and I thought it was funny.
I drive my mom and Jona to work sometimes, and she was in the car when my mom was telling me about the dwende's and later she told my mom that they tried to keep her once, when she was a kid back in the phil. She said they took her to this beautiful place (as they all say, those that went and returned) , and she didn't want to come back. They offered her the world, they had beautiful houses, and schools, and the streets were amazing, and maids galore, and all the food you could feast on. But they got her back. Because when this happens to people, and my mom said it does happen, the people (well kids) that they take, their physical bodies go limp and they turn into vegetables, and if you don't get them back they will die. And how you get them back, is you take a white chicken, and my mom says it has to be a white one, and you go to where they live, usually a witch doctor knows where, and you sacrifice the chicken and beg them to give you back the child, and then they do and the kid is fine again, and they all wake up and are fine and all tell the same stories of being in the most beautiful place. Which reminded me of the place in Pan's, obviously.
My godsister got taken once when she was little, like 2 or 3, and she was visiting the Phil, this was years ago. They said she'd talk about this funny guy, but no one would be there, like only she could see it and she'd be laughing and laughing and laughing, but then she got really sick, and her skin started turning black, not black like with a tan black, or a negro, but black like the dark. And they took her to the witch doctor because the real doctor couldn't do anything, and they said that the dwende's liked her so much that they were trying to take her, but they saved her, she got better and her skin got her colour back, but even when she was back in Canada you could see spots of it still there.
My dad told me sort of similar stories about the trolls that live in Sweden. And I saw this documentary about the fairies that live in Iceland, it's like these things are all over the world. I hear that they can be good, or they can be bad, depending. Like my dad's cousin was severely depressed (runs in the family), and she said one day she was out for a walk and she saw this troll emerge out of the forest and just walked across the road and disappeared again, but she saw it and just started laughing, she said it was the funniest thing she's ever seen, and after that day she felt better, so they say it helped her because it knew how sad she was. True story.
It's funny how I accept these things as truths but I still find it hard to agree with the 'enchanted shrimps'. My mom said when she was little there were these little rivers everywhere that had these shrimps in them, but most of the streams dried up and they aren't there anymore. Her and my grandma would go there to gather them but she'd always warn my mom which ones not to catch because of their enchantedness, but if you caught them, or ate them you'd get really ill, even though they were healthy and perfectly seemingly normal shrimps.
The last time I was in the Phil my great aunt had one, but my mom didn't show it to me because she was scared, but she saw it. This woman was crazy religious though. Like she wore a crown of thorns for 7 years because of something about jesus, and she said the virgin mary talks to her, and I believe it because I was there when she came once, and it was the same feeling (and smell of sampaguita flowers in the air that came from nowhere) that I experienced the first time I met her. She would keep a pig in her care, and every year she would sacrifice it on the beach because she said that every year the beach takes one life, and for years, every year, a child would drown at the beach where she lived, but as long as she was sacrificing a pig on the beach every year, no one ever drowned. I think that if you can take someone who is so deeply devouted catholic, and still accepts the mysteries of the jungle, then it's saying something.
I am catholic. I always will be, even if I don't attend mass, that's just my faith, and I'll never accept that all these other things are heathen talk, because I think the bible excludes so much of natural history, these legends, these every-things. There are so many wonderful mysteries.
I don't know, I'm not even stoned, I'm just thinking too much tonight I think. But it just made me think. How much of things are legends and fairy tales, and how much of things have truth behind it?
Or things that make you go hmmmm? as Char would say.
Specifically it had this part in it with a monster that liked to eat babies, and I like when legends and things like that are the same around the world. It reminded me of the Aswang, which is in filipine folklore this beast that climbs on top of the houses made of leaves in the jungle (which is pretty much every house) and it has this long tongue, and the tongue goes down through the roof and pierces the pregnant mother's stomach and sucks out the baby. There's also supposed to be a scary as hell Filipino movie made about it that I've yet to see. Anyways it's little stories like this that our parents tell us about the Philippines that makes us not want to go there, and it's just when you have such similar tales in other parts of the world (in this case, Spain) it makes you wonder what's really behind it.
And then there are the dwende (sp?) stories. Dwende's are these little people that live in the jungle (think dwarfs), but really as my mom says they live all over the world, even the santo nino said that they are everywhere and we have to respect them.
When I was visiting my mom's hometown in the jungles in the Philippines, I remember her showing me the elementary school, and there was this little hill in the school yard that my mom warned me not to go near because that's where they live. And I remember my aunt taking me through the wood and told me I had to say "excuse me" 3 times just in case I stepped on one of their houses by accident so they wouldn't get mad. Then there was the time I saw one.
There's lots of things that I have seen that I can't prove, or have any desire of proving to anyone, because I know what I saw, I know what I experienced. Like the time I saw that demon.
But there are stories.
When I was chosen for ambassador at our pavilion last year one of our tasks was to research Philippine legends, so I asked my mom about them, and she told me about the things in the jungles. Specifically about the dwende's, and the enchanted shrimp (I'll touch on it later), and in her words, the people that you do not see.
She was telling me about the dwende's and how if they like you then they try to keep you.
Tonight me and my mom went to dim sum for her co-worker Jona's birthday. It was funny because we were there and it was like 4:30 and they weren't, and we were waiting with 4 other people and we were reluctant to get a table because we didn't know where they were, so we sat somewhere and didn't order, it was about 5:30 by this time, and dinner was supposed to be at 4, we were concerned, then we saw her husband and they'd been there the whole time but were hidden in this room we didn't know existed, so all the time we thought they didn't show they must have thought all her friend didn't come, anyways, the waitresses were yelling at each other in Chinese and I thought it was funny.
I drive my mom and Jona to work sometimes, and she was in the car when my mom was telling me about the dwende's and later she told my mom that they tried to keep her once, when she was a kid back in the phil. She said they took her to this beautiful place (as they all say, those that went and returned) , and she didn't want to come back. They offered her the world, they had beautiful houses, and schools, and the streets were amazing, and maids galore, and all the food you could feast on. But they got her back. Because when this happens to people, and my mom said it does happen, the people (well kids) that they take, their physical bodies go limp and they turn into vegetables, and if you don't get them back they will die. And how you get them back, is you take a white chicken, and my mom says it has to be a white one, and you go to where they live, usually a witch doctor knows where, and you sacrifice the chicken and beg them to give you back the child, and then they do and the kid is fine again, and they all wake up and are fine and all tell the same stories of being in the most beautiful place. Which reminded me of the place in Pan's, obviously.
My godsister got taken once when she was little, like 2 or 3, and she was visiting the Phil, this was years ago. They said she'd talk about this funny guy, but no one would be there, like only she could see it and she'd be laughing and laughing and laughing, but then she got really sick, and her skin started turning black, not black like with a tan black, or a negro, but black like the dark. And they took her to the witch doctor because the real doctor couldn't do anything, and they said that the dwende's liked her so much that they were trying to take her, but they saved her, she got better and her skin got her colour back, but even when she was back in Canada you could see spots of it still there.
My dad told me sort of similar stories about the trolls that live in Sweden. And I saw this documentary about the fairies that live in Iceland, it's like these things are all over the world. I hear that they can be good, or they can be bad, depending. Like my dad's cousin was severely depressed (runs in the family), and she said one day she was out for a walk and she saw this troll emerge out of the forest and just walked across the road and disappeared again, but she saw it and just started laughing, she said it was the funniest thing she's ever seen, and after that day she felt better, so they say it helped her because it knew how sad she was. True story.
It's funny how I accept these things as truths but I still find it hard to agree with the 'enchanted shrimps'. My mom said when she was little there were these little rivers everywhere that had these shrimps in them, but most of the streams dried up and they aren't there anymore. Her and my grandma would go there to gather them but she'd always warn my mom which ones not to catch because of their enchantedness, but if you caught them, or ate them you'd get really ill, even though they were healthy and perfectly seemingly normal shrimps.
The last time I was in the Phil my great aunt had one, but my mom didn't show it to me because she was scared, but she saw it. This woman was crazy religious though. Like she wore a crown of thorns for 7 years because of something about jesus, and she said the virgin mary talks to her, and I believe it because I was there when she came once, and it was the same feeling (and smell of sampaguita flowers in the air that came from nowhere) that I experienced the first time I met her. She would keep a pig in her care, and every year she would sacrifice it on the beach because she said that every year the beach takes one life, and for years, every year, a child would drown at the beach where she lived, but as long as she was sacrificing a pig on the beach every year, no one ever drowned. I think that if you can take someone who is so deeply devouted catholic, and still accepts the mysteries of the jungle, then it's saying something.
I am catholic. I always will be, even if I don't attend mass, that's just my faith, and I'll never accept that all these other things are heathen talk, because I think the bible excludes so much of natural history, these legends, these every-things. There are so many wonderful mysteries.
I don't know, I'm not even stoned, I'm just thinking too much tonight I think. But it just made me think. How much of things are legends and fairy tales, and how much of things have truth behind it?
Or things that make you go hmmmm? as Char would say.