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Author
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Comment
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(1/3/05 11:45 am)
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Doppelgangers
Just wondered if anyone could throw some light on the subject of Doppelgangers. In Gaelic they are known as coimimeadh or co walkers and people in the Hebrides may see one shortly before that person pays them a visit. There is also the Gaelic word riocht which I think is the equivalent of the astral body or soul. I'm not sure of the subtle differences in these terms though. Any more information would be welcome. Of course, personal experience would be even better!
Alison
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Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(1/3/05 2:24 pm)
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Doppelgangers
I think that in some traditions, the appearance of a doppelganger signals the imminent death of the one doppelled. But I'm afraid that I'm remarkably ill-informed on this concept and I can't tell you which folk traditions I've heard of this in.
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(1/4/05 6:41 pm)
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Fetch
In English folklore seeing someone's fetch or wraith, whether your own or someone else's, is supposedly an omen that the doubled person is fated to die within the year. Although such doubles are also often said to be seen by distant loved ones at the exact moment of the doubled person's death.
The word fetch goes back to the Old English languages when it was used in a slightly different sense to indicate a living person's companion spirit. This spirit was usually seen in animal form but could also appear as a human. There's another related word "hama" but someone'll have to google that (or try northvegr or somewhere) cos my OE ain't that good!
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redtriskell
Registered User
(1/4/05 11:16 pm)
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Re: Fetch
Merely to add to Blacksheep's comment: in Arthurian legend, Igraine, wife of the Duke of Cornwall, saw her husband's fetch and knew his death was near. It was shortly after this sighting that Uther came to Cornwall disguised as the Duke and lay with Igraine, impregnating her with Arthur. As a possible connection to the Celtic thing, Igraine is usually held to be a Celt priestess/princess/sorceress with powers from her heritage that allow her to see the Otherworld more clearly. I mean, she did give birth to possibly the most famous enchantress in Western literature; it seems at least possible she was a witchy woman in her own right.
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(1/5/05 4:30 am)
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Goethe's future self
One interesting story I recently came upon in my search for doppelgangers, is a story told by Goethe of meeting his own double ridng towards him. It was only years later when riding along the same road that he realised what he had seen years before was his fututre self, for he was now wearing the grey jacket with the particular buttons etc he had seen on the double!
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(1/8/05 2:46 pm)
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Double trouble...
My mind had wandered off onto stories of bilocation where meditating/praying Buddhist/Hindu/Christian "saints" are also seen somewhere else simultaneously but Redtriskell's literary doubles are much more fun.
I like the idea that Uther is a double when he is under Merlin's magical disguise/glamour.
There's also the picture in Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" which is a sinister double.
One of Shakespeare's dreadful puns uses the homonym "fetch" when King Lear tries to visit his daughter Goneril and her husband. They refuse to see him (A2, S4) so he angrily rounds on the messenger:
"Deny to speak with me? They are sick? They are weary?
They have travelled hard tonight? Mere fetches;
The images of revolt and flying off!
Fetch me a better answer."
Edited by: Black Sheep at: 1/8/05 3:15 pm
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redtriskell
Registered User
(1/11/05 3:10 am)
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Re: Double trouble...
You know, Blacksheep, I hadn't thought of it, but it is kind of interesting to think of Uther as the Duke's double... seeing as how Uther ended up killing him. Perhaps one could write a story..."Fetching the Duke" or some such. Thanks for the brain tickle.;)
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rosyelf
Registered User
(1/11/05 3:58 pm)
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Doppelgangers, etc.
This subject fascinates me. As I understand it, if someone sees your double, that may mean a number of things, whereas if you encounter your own double, your death will shortly ensue. I don't know where I read this-it was years ago-I think it was a book specifically on German folklore.
Okay, a personal experience. I was living in Austria as part of my university course, in a funny picturesque town in the Dolomites, near the Italian border. In fact, I lived in a village on the edge of the town. I always cycled into work, which was as an assistant at a secondary school. One day I was having coffee with a friend Annelies, who casually mentioned that a friend of hers had seen me on the bus that morning. I didn't know the friend and I had certainly not been on the bus-I didn't even know there was a bus. Strange, eh ? I seem to remember reading-possibly in the same text-that Doppelgangers such as these usually appear at a time of great emotional crisis in the life of the one doppelled. This certainly rings true to me in this case.
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evil little pixie
Registered User
(1/11/05 5:15 pm)
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Re: Doppelgangers, etc.
This is hardly a primary source, but in the video game Lost Kingdoms, for Gamecube, you collect different monsters to hurl into battle and one of them is called a Doppelganger. It looks exactly like your character. It wanders the battle field in a sort of drunken stumble, and kills the first thing it touches- even you.
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Allegoric
Registered User
(1/28/05 6:18 am)
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Re: Doppelgangers, etc.
In Dr Rudolf Steiner's esoteric teachings, collectively known as ANthroposophy (=wisdom of God in man), the Doppleganger is also regarded as a sort of "dark double" of the Self. It is said to guard the door between the physical and spiritual worlds, hence is often seen as a person passes through the gate of death. In some kinds of spiritual paths, it is said to be possible to "face' the D-G, and in doing so face up to the darker, uncontrolled and scarier aspects of one's own inner self.
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gigi
Unregistered User
(1/28/05 9:10 pm)
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doppelgangers
Doppelgangers are a great literay aspect in which the author makes the DG a foil for the main character. We studied them in class and we found them in Poe and Hawthorne most vividly.
Hawthorne wrote THe short story _tHe Birthmark_ Aylmer has a doppelganger who is Aminadab. It is the physical versus the spiritual
and the ideal vs. The practical
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Chris Peltier
Registered User
(1/29/05 2:45 am)
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Re: doppelgangers
Hi!
There is a fantastic 19th century visual example by the Pre-Raphaelite artist, Dante Gabriel Rossetti entitled "How They Met Themselves". It shows a Medieval couple encountering their likenesses in a woods. What makes it such a moving image is that the woman is modelled after Rossetti's own frail wife, the artist Lizzie Siddal. Lizzie died about a year later of a laudanum overdose, and to her body she had pinned the note, "Take care of Harry" (her mentally challenged brother).
Terry Gilliam uses Rossetti's "How They Met Themselves" in his film The Fisher King as one piece of ephemera amongst Robin Williams's belongings.
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