A fun and informative book about the more obscure, worldwide and indigenous figures and creatures of myth and folklore, that are rebellious; meaning, highly unconventional, morally grey and ambiguous, anti-Disneyfication, and can be interpreted and reimagined in various ways.
The world, and human history, imagination, and the power of storytelling - they are amazing. We have to keep them. We have to preserve and respect and keep telling these stories and legends. We have to pass them on, for generations.
For we are a species of storytellers. We need stories to live, to survive.
They are powerful. And so are we. They influence us, and can help make change. So can we.
'Rebel Folklore: Empowering Tales of Spirits, Witches, and Other Misfits from Anansi to Baba Yaga' can be read in a whole free day. My favourite figures of rebellious folklore included are:
Robin Hood (I was seriously never interested in him until now, and he is a social justice warrior!), Jenny Greenteeth, the Cailleach (the ultimate snow and ice queen), banshees, selkies, Pesta (like a female Grim Reaper, and a Norwegian plague-bringer), GrĂ½la (an Icelandic ogress who is like a female Krampus), Baba Yaga (of course - she is the most famous witch of all time! and the ultimate anti-patriarchal icon!), Rusalka, Lorelei (a legendary German water soul sister), Melusina (a tragic mermaid - is there any other type of mermaid? - who is also a serpent, and may have inspired the Starbucks mermaid?!), the Bell Witch (a feminist poltergeist), La Llorona, La Diablesse (what a giant, hoofed, fiery devil woman of the Caribbean, and an avenger of women and colonised communities!), Scheherazade (needs no introduction), Churel (a South Asian feminist vampire), Okiku (an inspiration for the 'Ringu' books and films, and is the ultimate F-U to classism and capitalism and the power imbalances that stem from them), the huli jing (a silver nine-tailed fox woman who is like a Chinese version of a Japanese kitsune, or fox spirit), Aida (a teenage feminist rainmaker, and like a Senegalese Scheherazade, ending a murderous, misogynistic, patriarchal monarchy), Anansi (I love spiders!), a mamlambo (a South African mermaid and snake goddess who says F-U to capitalism and whitewashing), Mami Wata (a West African mermaid, snake, and wealth and fertility goddess), Yemanja (mother of the Orishas in the Yoruba religion, and a creator goddess and queen of the ocean, water, moonlight, motherhood and fertility), and Huayramama (a Peruvian air and weather snake goddess).
There are a lot of legends around the world about women in water who drown children, aren't there? And mermaids and sirenic women who lure men to their doom in water.
And female shapeshifters trapped and abused by mortal men.
Trickster fairies and demons are the best characters. The most dual, complex, ambiguous, and nonbinary.
Also, don't f%&* with nature.
And f%&* the patriarchy.
Yet for a feminist text, why does 'Rebel Folklore' not emphasise how Scheherazade fell for and married a king who murdered multiple women out of spite and pettiness, and would have murdered her too if not for her having to rack her brain every night for an interesting story?
Oh well.
'Rebel Folklore: Empowering Tales of Spirits, Witches, and Other Misfits from Anansi to Baba Yaga' talks about themes of feminism, disabilities, environmentalism, the climate crisis, slavery, whitewashing, cultural appropriation, and colonialism (plus animism).
Most of the book's figures and "monsters" that are listed are in fact social outcasts, and therefore "threats" to the "natural" order of things. Yet where would we be without them, eh? They represent us, after all, and how different, complicated, contradictory, and complex each of us truly are; not archetypal, not stereotypical, no matter what society, conformists and conservatives like to tell us. These scary "monsters" are us, and we, as humans, project ourselves onto them, like personifications of our worst fears and insecurities, consciously or not.
"Rebellious" folklore and fairy tales, aka the "freaks" of nature - even though, in reality, nothing is "safe" and "normal", and no one is "safe" and "normal". There is nothing natural about putting people in a box, and in binary lines, for "order", in social rules set in place to oppress us, and to protect the powerful on top in the hierarchal system. Nothing can protect us from ourselves. Our true, uninhibited, free selves. No matter how much we are broken by oppression, lies, violence and tragedy.
'Rebel Folklore' shows us that, among other things, maybe these complex figures in stories, these figments of our collective imagination, are not so scary. Instead they are, again, interesting. Fascinating. Delightful. Deliciously intriguing.
Embrace change and difference! In the world and in stories! Let yourself yearn for it - for something more! No limits and constraints! Let yourself desire! It's exciting! Life is more exciting and liberating that way.
Then cherish it, and never take it for granted.
Westerners, read 'Rebel Folklore' and learn about the mermaids, ghosts, shapeshifters, psychopomps, gods, and tragic women and ordinary people you've never heard of!
Keep telling stories to each other, around a campfire, and elsewhere. As a living, breathing, and free community of folklorists and modern mythologists.
Knowledge, stories, they have power. Real power. They hold truths, about ourselves more than anything.
Stories are pro-intellect.
Stories are rebellion.
Keep at it. Keep learning. Keep rebelling.
Final Score: 4/5
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