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Author
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Comment
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(2/23/05 3:49 am)
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Marina Warner and Robert Kirk's Secret Commonwealth
I see rather too late unfortunately that Marina Warner was giving a talk on Robert Kirk's Secret Commonwealth, among other things, on 19th Feb at "Aye Write" Glasgow's first Book Festival. Wish I'd known about that earlier! Just wondered if anyone did get to it.
www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/Vis...Programme/
www.dreampower.com/Kirk_WBW/
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janeyolen
Registered User
(2/23/05 5:35 am)
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Re: Marina Warner and Robert Kirk's Secret Commonwealth
Dang--right after I left!
Jane
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Terri Windling
Registered User
(2/23/05 7:36 am)
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Re: Marina Warner and Robert Kirk's Secret Commonwealth
Boy does *that* sound good. So sorry I missed it. I hope she publishes something on the subject....
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(2/23/05 3:31 pm)
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Re: Marina Warner and Robert Kirk's Secret Commonwealth
Thanks for the link to Bob Stewart's PDF of Kirk's "Secret Commonwealth". His version is reputedly much more accurate than the Lang one at sacredtexts which I posted.
Although I notice that Warner teaches from the Lang version:
64.233.183.104/search?q=c...lr=lang_en
Newspaper clipping on her recent lecture: "Marina Warner, in her keynote lecture "Get Real", about the nature of fantasy, started off a few more echoes. In The Secret Commonwealth, Robert Kirk’s late-17th century book about the fairy world, she pointed out, he wrote that fairies could only be seen at dusk."
Warner's "Spirit Visions" lecture in which she references Kirk's "Secret Commonwealth" on pg 10 is available in HTML here:
64.233.183.104/search?q=c...lr=lang_en
Or as a PDF if you google for it.
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(2/24/05 4:10 am)
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Re: Marina Warner and Robert Kirk's Secret Commonwealth
Whichever version of the Secret Commonwealth you view, it is a fascinating work. I came on it by accident, but what I found particularly interesting about it is that it accords so much with oral tradition. At least the kind of oral tradition I grew up with. All my family are originally from the West Highlands, Skye and the islands. Tales about the second sight were common and a few members of the family certainly had it, but learned to keep quiet about it.
Thanks again for your excellent links, Black Sheep. I think you've got Google Magic! You find things I never do.
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Terri Windling
Registered User
(2/24/05 7:48 am)
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Re: Marina Warner and Robert Kirk's Secret Commonwealth
Yes, thanks for those great links, Black Sheep.
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Elizabeth Genco
Registered User
(2/24/05 10:03 am)
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Re: Marina Warner and Robert Kirk's Secret Commonwealth
Okay, slightly off-topic gushing time: Black Sheep, you're affiliated with sacred-texts.com?! Bless you! That site is such a treasure!
---
What's that fiddle player in the subway thinking
about?
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Charles Vess
Unregistered User
(2/24/05 10:53 am)
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Have any of you read...
Again, slightly off topic, but in one of my many wanderings through Scotland in the 1980s I came across a splendid book, RAVEN AND BLACK RAIN, The Story of Highland Second Sight (Corgi Press) by Elizabeth Sutherland. The book is a study of the origins, the various folktales concerning the sight and the prophecies of the legendary Brehan Seer as well as short interviews with contemporary seers. She also wrote a fiction book, THE SEER OF KINTAIL that was quite good also.
Best,
Charles
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(2/24/05 11:25 am)
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Re: Marina Warner and Robert Kirk's Secret Commonwealth
Oops, no Elizabeth I'm not affiliated with sacredtexts. Sorry my post wasn't clearer. I meant: the link to sacredtexts' AL's RK's "SC" which I posted on SLL previously.
But I agree with you that the sacredtexts site is one of the most useful internet resources for anyone interested in literature, myth, folklore, and fairytale, and the sacredtexters deserve our encouragement and gratitude.
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Elizabeth Genco
Registered User
(2/24/05 11:48 am)
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Re: Marina Warner and Robert Kirk's Secret Commonwealth
Those books sound wonderful, Charles. I'll add them to my "pull list" for next time I'm at the NYPL...
Thanks for the clarification, Black Sheep! Maybe part of the reason why I jumped to conclusions is because you're so knowledgable about so much of this stuff. ;)
It's been fun to watch sacred-texts.com start as a big resource and then grow to the gynormous resource it is now.
---
What's that fiddle player in the subway thinking
about?
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tlchang37
Registered User
(2/25/05 1:18 am)
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Re: Marina Warner and Robert Kirk's Secret Commonwealth
Sort of OT - I recently viewed another very interesting, modern-day fairy sighting expose that was shown on the Sundance channel. It was listed as a documentary called: "Investigation into the Invisible World". It was filmed in Iceland with interviews of all kinds of people - young, old, clairvoyants, policemen, etc... about their matter-of-fact interaction with everything from 'elves' (fairies), ghosts, and E.T.s, to the Loch Ness Monster sounding creatures in the lakes.
Many of these people take for granted that 'of course, one can see and interact with these beings. It is strange that you do not.' My favorite interview was with a school-aged girl who said, 'yes, she believed in seeing elves and ghosts, but believing in E.T.s was silly!'
The information and interviews are presented fairly straight-forwardly, without much commentary. The landscapes and environs are breathtaking - rugged and wild. (Reminds me of a comment I read regarding the location of the upcoming "Beowulf and Grendel" movie: "The filming took place on the South Coast of Iceland, in areas that have remained untouched since the time of the writing of the original Anglosaxon poem - Beowulf." After getting a taste of the landscape in this documentary, I'll go see that movie just for the scenery. It's astonishingly beautiful.)
Tara
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(2/25/05 4:54 am)
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Shangri La, other worlds existing simultaneously, etc
Has anyone been watching Michael Wood's new series on the BBC In Search of Myths and Heroes, or reading the book of the same? His journey to Shangri La is particularly good as it is very much a journey from the 21st century into a living past, rich in myth, where people believe that snow leopards entering the house may be demons etc. And he makes the point very well that Shangri La exists. It is in fact heaven on earth but, you have to enter that mindset to see it. Excellent stuff. The photography is breathtaking.
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evil little pixie
Registered User
(2/25/05 11:45 am)
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Re: Shangri La, other worlds existing simultaneously, etc
I can't remember specifics here, but I read that Iceland has one of the highest literacy rates in the world, and something like over 50% of the population believes in fairy-type creatures (specific name starts with H, but I can't remember it). They even changed the location of a highway they were building when things kept going wrong (equipment breaking, people getting sick, etc.) and they concluded they were trying to build the highway in the middle of a fairy village. Cool, isn't it?
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(2/26/05 8:54 am)
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Re: Shangri La, other worlds existing simultaneously, etc
I can remember specifics EL Pixie and the last reliable survey I saw reported that 45% of tertiary educated Icelanders holding degrees believed that trolls are real/exist (although the definitions of "real" etc are as variable and sophisticated as you'd expect from a group of well educated folk).
Yes, Icelanders build or don't build according to the apparent wishes of their local trolls (genii loci) which are often communicated through dreams or occasionally through a series of events. Boulders, rocks, and large stones, are treated with especial care as they are considered to be favoured sites for troll homes.
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evil little pixie
Registered User
(2/28/05 10:36 am)
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Re: Shangri La, other worlds existing simultaneously, etc
Thanks Sheep.
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