First post on a new topic, are you excited?
Cool. I'll get to the crazy archaic thing here in a minute, first we have to talk a little about fact. Or the lack of it.
Or more appropriately why it doesn't matter?
In the course of this series of posts we're going to hit topics once in a while that'll seem familiar if you read my Guardian's Circle books. But there'll be key differences. Probably some pretty glaring ones. Because there should be. The mystical, mythical creatures they deal with in Lost and Found (and later in the series) are real things for their universe, and I promise you if we found out vampires or whatever actually existed we'd be more than a little wrong about them.
So in a fictional universe I've looked at these creatures or stories and I've...twisted them. Just slightly. I've imagined them as real beings with a real motivation for making sure the cattle didn't realize certain things.
But these posts aren't happening in a fictional universe. You get just the dry facts. Or as dry as I can be about grass that kills you.
Cool. I'll get to the crazy archaic thing here in a minute, first we have to talk a little about fact. Or the lack of it.
Or more appropriately why it doesn't matter?
In the course of this series of posts we're going to hit topics once in a while that'll seem familiar if you read my Guardian's Circle books. But there'll be key differences. Probably some pretty glaring ones. Because there should be. The mystical, mythical creatures they deal with in Lost and Found (and later in the series) are real things for their universe, and I promise you if we found out vampires or whatever actually existed we'd be more than a little wrong about them.
So in a fictional universe I've looked at these creatures or stories and I've...twisted them. Just slightly. I've imagined them as real beings with a real motivation for making sure the cattle didn't realize certain things.
But these posts aren't happening in a fictional universe. You get just the dry facts. Or as dry as I can be about grass that kills you.
féar gortach--Hungry Grass
Because a dark, unkempt Irish forest needed more things to make it scary, right?
féar gortach is basically a patch of grass that causes one to develop insatiable hunger. In some accounts it grows near an improperly buried corpse, in others it's much like a hungry ghost, that comes from a person who dies of extreme famine.
Yeah, a strangely popular concept in Ireland in the 1840's.
In the nicer stories it just makes you really hungry and if you carry some beer and some bread or crackers to nibble along the way you'll be fine.
It can also be called fairy grass, because it's Irish and I challenge you to find more or less anything in their mythos that doesn't involve the fae somehow. Or doesn't involve the fae now, in any case. It's a little difficult to tell if those things might have had different stories attached to them before the whole Golden Ages of Spiritualism stuff.
In any case, next time you're out in the woods and you see an odd patch of grass you can remember me fondly. You're welcome.
Side Note: I didn't realize until I went to press the schedule button that this post will go live on September 11th. That fact wouldn't have made any difference in what I'm posting because I have opinions I keep to myself about the way we remember dates for more than a decade after they've happened. But that's me, and not you, and if this is a day where you're a little softer than normal... Well, just know I wish you all the peace and kindness you need.
féar gortach is basically a patch of grass that causes one to develop insatiable hunger. In some accounts it grows near an improperly buried corpse, in others it's much like a hungry ghost, that comes from a person who dies of extreme famine.
Yeah, a strangely popular concept in Ireland in the 1840's.
In the nicer stories it just makes you really hungry and if you carry some beer and some bread or crackers to nibble along the way you'll be fine.
It can also be called fairy grass, because it's Irish and I challenge you to find more or less anything in their mythos that doesn't involve the fae somehow. Or doesn't involve the fae now, in any case. It's a little difficult to tell if those things might have had different stories attached to them before the whole Golden Ages of Spiritualism stuff.
In any case, next time you're out in the woods and you see an odd patch of grass you can remember me fondly. You're welcome.
Side Note: I didn't realize until I went to press the schedule button that this post will go live on September 11th. That fact wouldn't have made any difference in what I'm posting because I have opinions I keep to myself about the way we remember dates for more than a decade after they've happened. But that's me, and not you, and if this is a day where you're a little softer than normal... Well, just know I wish you all the peace and kindness you need.
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