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Author
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Comment
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(7/11/05 1:05 pm)
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Objects which contain souls?
Does anyone know of any folk stories or beliefs about magical or precious objects which can contain souls, or parts of souls? Like the idea that a photograph might contain a part of your soul, except with something that is (say) of special value to the containee.
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Richard Parks
Registered User
(7/11/05 2:54 pm)
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Re: Objects which contain souls?
Mirrors are probably the most common. Part of the reason that breaking a mirror was considered bad luck was that part of the soul could be caught in the shards. In some traditions, mirrors are covered at funerals/wakes to prevent the soul of the deceased from being accidentally trapped.
http://dm.net/~richard-parks |
Helen J Pilinovsky
Registered User
(7/11/05 5:20 pm)
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Re: Objects which contain souls?
The Russian sorceror Koshchie the Deathless is typically held to hide his heart (which could be considered synechdoche for the soul) within a number of hidden places, the last of which is frequently either an egg or a diamond.
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midori snyder
Registered User
(7/11/05 7:22 pm)
ezSupporter
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Re: Objects which contain souls?
I am almost certain there is a Scottish story about the Merrow (a sort of merman) who keeps the souls of drowned men imprisoned in bottles...or maybe something like eelpots...
it's driving me crazy because I can't remember where I read it!
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janeyolen
Registered User
(7/12/05 5:08 am)
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Re: Objects which contain souls?
I's an Irish story--"Soul Cages" by T. Crofton Croker--which you can find in W. B. Yeats' IRISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES.
And keeping a soul in an egg is not limited to Kostchay the Deathless, I believe. But that would take a bit more searching about.
Jane
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rosyelf
Registered User
(7/12/05 5:54 am)
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souls in objects
When puppeteers used to travel around the Chinese countryside giving plays with their magnificent puppets-rather large, sumptuously dressed, with painted faces-they would always put the head and body of the puppet in separate containers after the performance. There was a fear that bad spirits-many of which were the souls of those who had died unnaturally-would climb inside an intact puppet and take up residence there. If that happened, the puppet could then become animated and go about causing trouble. If the head and body were separated, the spirit or soul was prevented from entering.
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midori snyder
Registered User
(7/12/05 8:16 am)
ezSupporter
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Re: souls in objects
Oh thank you Jane! I went and found my copy on the shelf. Forgot what a great story it is.
Might you also consider the singing "remains" as sort of soul repositories? I was thinking of the "Two Sisters" ballad, where the young murdered sister's hair and breastbone are made into a harp that when played reveals the truth about her murder?
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Writerpatrick
Registered User
(7/12/05 8:21 am)
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Re: souls in objects
Trees are sometimes considered soul containers, especially when they're planted over a grave. At least one Cinderella variant uses a tree over the mother's grave.
I've heard of gems as being soul containers, although I think that's a little more modern. Arabian Nights uses rings and lamps to house genies.
Then there's anything fashioned from the remains of a person, such as a flute or harp.
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gails
Unregistered User
(7/14/05 6:03 pm)
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Contemporary Twist
For a contemporary twist, Connie Willis and Cynthia Felice had the souls or ghosts of ancestors stored in animal bone in Water Witch. The ancestor could still communicate with the keeper of the bone.
GailS
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(7/15/05 3:43 am)
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Re: Contemporary Twist
Thanks to everyone for all these. I think this board is a bit of a magic artefact in itself (or magic helper).
Edited by: DividedSelf at: 7/15/05 7:26 am
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redwill0w
Registered User
(7/17/05 5:18 pm)
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souls in objects
Tibetan skull bowls are fashioned from the skulls of monks, and are, I believe, a direct link to the deceased, for their benefit as well as for the benefit of the one who possesses the bowl.
Dara
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catja1
Registered User
(7/18/05 1:44 am)
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Re: souls in objects
There's a number of northeren European "separable soul" stories, usually named "The Ogre's Heart," or somesuch. Also, I've read at least a few trickster-type stories, usually with animals as characters, that use the same motif, with the trickster outwitting a predator by CLAIMING to have a separable soul.
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Lamplighter
Registered User
(7/20/05 6:13 am)
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Alchemy & "witch bottles"
In western alchemy, the reaction vessel was often associated with the soul of the alchemist. In concentrating the mind on the physical transformation within the vessel, the mystical transformation of the soul was thought to begin.
A similar abstract connection is evoked in the breathing exercises of certain eastern meditation. By focusing on the breath and then empowering the act with mystic force, “in with the good, out with the bad”, the internal transformation of the soul begins.
A perversion of the “alchemist’s vessel as soul” may be found within the tradition of “witch bottles”. Vessels such as gourds or bottles were first empowered with characteristics of the victim, both physical (hair, teeth etc) and abstract (birthstones etc). The vessels were then cursed and polluted with defiling artefacts (pins, broken glass, dirt etc), and often buried near the victim’s home. (Whether you can correctly refer to practitioners of curse magic as “witches” is debatable, but that is an entirely different topic for discussion...)
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DividedSelf
Registered User
(7/20/05 8:20 am)
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Re: Alchemy & "witch bottles"
Thanks again. Lamplighter - do you have any references to hand for witch bottles?
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rosyelf
Registered User
(7/20/05 2:12 pm)
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objects with souls
When I was last in Cornwall, a few years ago, I heard about spirits inhabiting shells. Witches would often scoop them up off the beach and take them home, where they would be kept in a jar on the mantelpiece. This was not "bad" magic, because the souls were believed to be benign; as such, they brought blessing into the witch's home and onto her activities, such as healing.
Were the spirits believed to be the souls of the drowned ?-this would go some way to explaining why they lived in shells. On the other hand, to drown-especially if one's body could not be retrieved and buried according to normal custom -was considered a very unlucky thing.
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Lamplighter
Registered User
(7/21/05 4:07 am)
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More witch bottles
There are several variants to the “witch bottle”. Follows are some instant web-references.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/lincolnshire/3437241.stm and www.archaeology.co.uk/ca/timeline/postmed/witch/witch.htm focus on their possible defensive nature against witches. Particularly of note here is the connection with the “lifespan” of the vessel and that of the witch.
www.morbidoutlook.com/lifestyle/askwitchhazel/2001_07_witchhazel.html contains broader uses of witch bottles in general cursing. (My apologies for the web page source… Witch Hazel indeed… ah well, live and let live, that’s what I say). Also gives delightfully naïve directions for making your very own witch bottle out of an old coffee jar… Please note the emphasis on the longevity of the witch bottle here, distancing it from the alchemist vessel as soul container origins.
www.everythingunderthemoon.net/spells/witch-bottle-love-spell.htm turns the concept on its head by using the bottle as a love cipher. I mention this site due to its specific mention of birthstones, although the connection does not appear to be made between the container and soul of either party here.
www.spiritofold.co.uk/pottery/bottles.htm is indicative of the commercially available, “Wicca”-by-mail products that infest the web. Note the absence of connection to either the origins in alchemy, or the “nasty” elements of the witch bottle. (“The finished items sometimes have minor flaws, such as small hairline cracks, and colour mottling - this is perfectly normal and is due to the ancient techniques used in crafting…” Err, tell that to a potter… en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottery )
And while we’re there, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_Bottle suggests their origin as bottle magic.
Regarding the original post, www.levity.com/alchemy/vessel.html has a reasonable description of the alchemist’s vessel connection to the soul, but as with much of alchemy, may seem deliberately opaque at times.
If I can remember the book references, I post them later.
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Nalo
Registered User
(7/22/05 2:43 pm)
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Re: Alchemy & "witch bottles"
This reminds me of bottle trees, which are West African diasporic in origin - you can find them mentioned in the Caribbean and the American south as well. Essentially you upturn empty bottles, preferably blue bottles, over a dead tree branch and implant it in the ground. The bottles protect the area by trapping duppies/jumbies/ghosts/spirits/h'ants, which are the souls of people who are pissed off at being dead, and so they play pranks on or cause harm to the living.
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Dark Siren
Unregistered User
(7/29/05 2:58 pm)
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Souls,bottles,etc
IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE LATEST HARRY POTTER BOOK,DON'T READ THIS POST(AND GET A MOVE ON!!!)
JK Rowling uses objects for souls - Horcruxes - in the new book.They're
for Voldemort,so he can't die unless you destroy all the Horcruxes.There's
seven,and the last parts his body.Since JK takes a lot from old
legend and folklore,I'd imagine there's something about it here
in Britain.And she's already used alchemy,so that links back to
what Lamplighter(I think)was saying.
I seem to remember something about bottles <i>tied</i> to tree branches outside a house on an island of the coast of Georgia in a Debra Webb book.The hero was,for want of a better word,allergic to sunlight - or any high intensity light - after a medical experiment went wrong,so most of the locals thought he was a vampire,or something.Voodoo - or vodoun,your preference - was high on that island,and beliefs were tightly interwoven with the community folklore(kinda like throwing salt over your shoulder if you spill it,etc,I guess),so even if they didn't believe he was a vamp,they hung the bottles.I think they were meant to trap any evil spirits that might be attracted to his presence.
What I'm trying to say is a)I'll double-check that(might be a while,I put it somewhere quite unaccessible) and b)it might be worth checking the voodoo/vodoun angle,see if they have anything.
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wrightales
Registered User
(8/1/05 3:33 pm)
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Re: Souls,bottles,etc
In a more modern vein.
In NEVERWHERE by Neil Gaiman the Marquis de Carabas stores his life in a box that he gives to another person for safe keeping (and safe return) so that he can allow himself to be murdered knowing he will get his life back again.
In CASTLE IN THE AIR, Diana Wynne Jones' sequel to HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE the good genie Hasruel states that all genies hide their life somewhere outside of their bodies because anyone who has possession of their life can contol them. I don't know if that is based on actual genie-lore or is one more invention on her part.
For that matter, in my own fairytale, FARTHER THAN THE EYE CAN SEE a young girl is literally torn from her soul over a choice she must make. She must go in search of her soul or fade away to nothing. The soul can be trapped in a reflection, but a person who is missing their soul gives no reflection. "Without one's soul, there is very little left of a person."
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kristiw
Unregistered User
(8/1/05 10:46 pm)
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voodoo bottles
Hmm... A little off topic, but about those hanging bottles in Georgia: I remember wondering about the significance of that in the movie "Ray." There's a lot of camera emphasis on the tree full of clinking bottles. I knew it was a voodoo reference, but nothing more specific. Anyone know if it has a more pointed message in the film?
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bielie
Unregistered User
(8/2/05 1:18 pm)
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Hocruxes etc.
The idea of becoming immortal by seperating the soul from the body is nothing new in fantasy literature. In the Picture of Dorian Gray Dorian will live as long as the painting into which his soul is transferred, or something like that. (I read it many years ago). I also remember seeing an old Sinbad movie as a child in which the main baddie had his heart locked away in a chest in a far away tower. Sinbad could only kill him if he found the heart and destroyed it.
In a different vein: The daemons in 'His Dark Materials' are metaphors of the soul. If the demon is seperated from the body, the person dies a sort of spiritual death.
(Why Pullman should think his soul is a demon is beyond me)
In Frankenstein the monster comes to life with the help of lightning. I can't help but think the lightning is more than just electricity. It is some sort of "elan vitale' or force of life, like the Anima of Aristotle.
And finally: In Baum's OZ there are two mechanical characters: A Jack O'Lantern and a clockwork man. The Jack was brought to life by magic. He has a soul and is alive. The clockwork man works by science and clockwork mechanics. We are told explicitly that he is not alive, but merely seems so because of his clever design. He has no soul.
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