From the Editor's Desk

"In the beginning of things, men were animals and animals were men."

—from an Algonquin tale

Autumn 2003

Dear Reader,

Many an old story begins with the words, "Long ago, when animals could speak...," invoking a time when the boundary lines between the human and the animal worlds were less clearly drawn than they are today, and more easily crossed. Animals play a vibrant role in the earliest stories from around the globe: tales of animal gods and guardians, animal nurses and paramours, animal thieves and tricksters, animal teachers and ancestors. In ancient carvings and pictographs we find numerous representations of the animal kingdom, as well as images of men and women with animal characteristics—stag-men, bird-men, lion-women, snake-women, and other beings both beautiful and monstrous. Shamans and wizards were said to be able to shape-shift into animal form, attaining these powers after spending some time living with animals in the wild—sleeping in wolf dens, running with the antelope, learning their speech and their secrets.

Folk tales from around the world tell us that the animals communicate with each other in a language unknown to men and women—or else in a language that used to be known to us, but now is lost. The stories also tell of human beings who understand the speech of animals. Some are born with this ability, while others obtain it through trickery, or magic, or as a gift from the animals themselves, a reward for an act of kindness. In both Europe and Asia, snakes and dragons are closely associated with animal speech. In Norse myth, Siegfried tastes dragon blood and then understands the language of birds; in Arabian myth, one obtains this power by eating the heart of a snake. In eastern Europe, the snake must be white; in France it must be black or green; in Greece, the snake must merely lick the ears of the human supplicant. In some tales, humans blessed with the gift of understanding animal speech must never reveal their possession of it—and often they lose it again when a careless word or laughter betrays them. Madness and the ability to speak the language of animals has often been linked, particularly in shamanic tales where the line between madness and oracular wisdom is blurred.

In tribal traditions from all around the globe, animals are believed to have the power to cause or cure certain illnesses. Animal and their spirits are propitiated through gifts, prayers, song, dance, shamanic rituals, and the use of totemic objects. (I once watched a Tohono O'Odham friend sing to a wild hawk in the mountains near Tucson, slowly drawing the hawk within arms' length of where he knealt. The song, he said, was "hawk medicine," passed down in his family.) Animal tales are often told not just as simple entertainments but as teaching stories, or as part of healing rites intended to foster a proper relationship between humankind and the natural world. Today, in our rapidly urbanizing society, this teaching/healing aspect of myth (and, by extension, of mythic arts) has become more important than ever, while we stare ecological disaster in the face and while more and more animal species fall under threat of extinction. Animal myths remind us that we don't own this earth but share it with others—with our animal "brothers" and "cousins," as many tribal groups have named them. Some early Greek philosophers argued that animals, too, could reason and love, and thus were no less favored by the gods than human beings. To insist that man was the lord of all, they said, was the height of human arrogance. The Book of Job instructs us to "ask the beasts and they shall teach thee; and the Fowls of the air, and they shall teach thee; or speak to the Earth, and it shall teach thee," while the Qu'ran says, "there is no beast on earth nor bird which flyeth with its wings but the same is a people like unto you."

In his fine book The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram speaks of the importance of re-learning the language of animals, and re-telling the stores that bring us back into a balanced relationship with the natural world. "Human language," he says, "arose not only as a means of attunement between persons, but also between ourselves and the animate landscape. The belief that speech is a purely human property was entirely alien to those oral communities that first evolved our various ways of speaking, and by holding to such a belief today we may well be inhibiting the spontaneous activity of language. By denying that birds and other animals have their own styles of speech, by insisting that the river has no real voice and that the ground itself is mute, we stifle our direct experience. We cut ourselves off from the deep meanings in many of our words, severing our language from that which supports and sustains it. We then wonder why we are often unable to communicate even among ourselves."

Abram looks at the ways our understanding of nature changed when our society shifted from an oral culture to one dependant on the written word. (I won't try to paraphrase his book-length discussion here, but instead recommend you seek out The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World.) Rather than advocating a return to illiteracy, Abram charges writers with the task of "taking up the written word, with all its potency, and patiently, carefully, writing language back into the land. Our craft is that of releasing the budded, earthly intelligence of our words, freeing them to respond to the speech of things themselves.... It is the practice of spinning stories that have the rhythm and lilt of the local soundscape, tales for the tongue, tales that want to be told again and again, sliding off the digital screen and slipping off the lettered page to inhabit the coastal forests, those desert canyons, those whispering grasslands and valleys and swamps. Finding phrases that place us in contact with the trembling neck-muscles of a deer holding its antlers high as it swims toward the mainland, or with the ant dragging its scavenged rice-grain through the grasses. Planting words, like seeds, under rocks and fallen logs—letting language take root, once again, in the earthen silence of shadow and bone and leaf."

Many writers of mythic fiction are doing just this, writing "language back into the land," exploring and strengthening the relationships between humans, animals, and the world around us. We see this in Louise Erdrich's The Antelope Wife, Charles de Lint's Someplace to Be Flying, Linda Hogan's Power, Alice Hoffman's Second Nature, Carol Comfort & Carolyn Dunn's Through the Eye of the Deer, Pat Murphy's Nadya, Patricia McKillip's Stepping from the Shadows, Kim Antieau's Coyote Cowgirl, and many other fine works of fiction. These are stories set in the world we know, not in invented fantasy worlds or "long ago, when animals could speak...," and yet, like older animal myths, folk tales, fairy tales, legends and songs, they too can show us how to sleep with the wolves and run with the antelope.

Ama Eaton, the aunt of the young narrator of Linda Hogan's luminous novel Power, says "that animals are the pathway between humans and gods. They are one step closer to the true than we are. She says skin was never a boundary to be kept or held to; there are no limits between one thing and another, one time and another. The old stories live in the present. She believes in stars and their gifts, that the wind speaks in intelligent trees that look bright as bonfires to eyes that are open. For Ama the other world is visible. It lives beside us in trees and stone. She can see it, like a path of light across water, and hear it in the swamps at night.... And she believes her faintest move or thought is governed not only by spirits, but by the desires and dreams of animals who are people like ourselves, in different skins."

Stories are what we are, says Albert, a Trickster character in Charles de Lint's "Coyote Stories" (from Moonlight and Vines). "Just stories. You and me, everybody, we're a set of stories, and what those stories are is what makes us what we are. Same thing for whites as skins. Same thing for a tribe and a city and a nation and the world. It's all those stories and how they braid together that tells us who we are and what and where we are."

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The Autumn 2003 Journal of Mythic Arts

In this edition of the Journal of Mythic Arts, writers, poets, artists, and folklorists celebrate animals in myth and legend, as well as stories of metamorphosis between animal and human shape....

In our Reading Room
In our Coffeehouse
  • Coyote and The Red Hills are an old and new poem (respectively) from Charles de Lint. Coyote comes from a trip Charles made to Tucson, Arizona many years ago, and first appeared in the chapbook Desert Moments. The Red Hills comes from a recent trip to New Mexico, and makes its first appearance here.
  • Charm Song for Hunting a Deer by Carolyn Dunn is a provocative new poem inspired by Native American "deer woman" tales. (An older poem on the same subject, Deer Hunter, can be found in the Coffeehouse archive.)
  • When I Was and She's Eve: A Walking Poem by Mario Milosevic are two gorgeous poems from a writer new to these pages. When I Was makes its first appearance here; She's Eve: A Walking Poem is reprinted from the Snake Nation Review.
  • Swan/Princess by Jane Yolen is magical poem based on the fairy tale theme of a princess turned into a swan (and back again), looking at this transformation from both sides of the equation.
  • (Please visit the Coffeehouse Archive for a list of previous poems.)
In our Gallery
  • Shape-shifters: Art Inspired by Human-Animal Transformation Myths presents contemporary sculptures and paintings by eleven artists whose work has been informed by shape-shifter stories, animal myths, and pictographs from North America, Europe, and Asia. The exhibition is accompanied by an article on shape-shifters and animal people.
  • (Please visit the Gallery Archive for a list of previous art exhibitions.)
About our contributors
  • Ari Berk is a writer, folklorist, and scholar of literature, iconography, and comparative myth. He lives with his wife and son in Michigan, where he is a professor of English at Central Michigan University. His most recent publication is The Runes of Elfland, a book of myth and art created in collaboration with Brian Froud.
  • Carolyn Dunn is a writer, editor, musician, and scholar. She lives with her husband and children in southern California, where she teaches in the Ethnic and Women's Studies Department at Cal Poly, and performs with the Native American bands the Mankillers and Redhawk. Her most recent books are Outfoxing Coyote and Hohzo: Walking in Beauty (with Paula Gunn Allen).
  • Carrie Miner is a fiction writer, poet, and journalist. She lives with her two sons in northern Arizona, where she writes regularly for Arizona Highways magazine.
  • Kim Antieau is a writer, a librarian, and a peace and environmental activist. She is the author of three novels, The Jigsaw Woman, The Gaia Websters, and Coyote Cowgirl. She lives with her husband, writer Mario Milosevic, in Washington state.
  • Midori Snyder is an acclaimed writer of fiction for both adult and teenage readers. She lives in Milwaukee with her husband (their two children having recently flown the coop to college), where she teaches English at a Jesuit high school. Her most recent novels are The Innamorati (winner of the Mythopoeic Award) and Hannah's Garden.
  • Charles de Lint is an award-winning author of mythic fiction, as well as a folklorist, musician, and book reviewer. He lives with his wife, artist MaryAnn Harris, in Ottawa, Canada. His most recent publications are The Spirits in the Wires, a novel; Tapping the Dream Tree, a story collection; and A Circle of Cats, a children's picture book illustrated by Charles Vess.
  • Mario Milosevic is a fiction writer and poet whose work has appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including Asimov's, The Amherst Review, Light Quarterly, Rosebud, and Black Warrior Review, as well an in the anthology Poets Against the War. He lives with his wife, writer Kim Antieau, in Washington state.
  • Jane Yolen is one of the most esteemed writers working in America today, and the author of over two hundred books for children, teenagers, and adults. She and her husband divide their time between homes in western Massachusetts and St. Andrews, Scotland. Among her many recent publications are Mightier Than the Sword, a collection of folktales; Sword of the Rightful King, an Arthurian novel for Young Adult readers; The Radiation Sonnets, poetry, and Take Joy: A Book for Writers.
  • Rosemary Kirstein, who contributed a Featured Review to our book recommendations page, is a writer, musician, and sometime computer programmer. She lives with her sister and her cat in Connecticut. She is the author of the novels The Steerswoman's Road, The Lost Steersman, and the upcoming The Language of Power.
  • Virginia Lee, Mark Wagner, Charles Vess, Helena Nelson-Reed, Gene Tobey, Rebecca Tobey, Bill Worrell, Nancy Warren, Brian Froud, Alan Lee, and I all contributed to the Shape-Shifters art exhibition. You'll find biographical material for all these artists on the exhibition page.
Endicott Studio news

This autumn, we welcome a new member into the Endicott Studio group: Laurie J. Marks, author of Dancing Jack, The Watcher's Mask, and the "Children of the Triad" series. I consider Laurie to be one of the most talented writers of Imaginary World fiction working today, and if the Endicott Studio brings her a few new readers, we'll be pleased indeed. Laurie's most recent novel, Fire Logic, winner of the 2003 Spectrum Award, is a taut, muscular story of a world at war—the first volume in a series of four, but easily read alone. It's a book so rich in myth, wonder, invented history and true-to-life characters that it quickly overcame any prejudices I harbor against series fiction (I've read too many mediocre series in recent years), and swept me entirely into the hills and forests of another land, as the best fantasy can do. If you love Ursula Le Guin's fantasies, or the books of Elizabeth Lynn, I heartily recommend Fire Logic. As Nalo Hopkinson has said, Laurie "truly understands the complex forces of power, desire, and obligation." You can find a Featured Review of Fire Logic penned by Rosemary Kirstein on our Recommendations page, and a biography of Laurie listed on our Endicott Circle page. Keep an eye out for her next book, Earth Logic, to be published by Tor Books in March, 2004; and for her mythic story "How the Ocean Loved Margie," which will appear in the Spring edition of the Journal of Mythic Arts.

Our other Featured Review this month, written by Charles de Lint, looks at Kim Antieau's wonderful new novel Coyote Cowgirl—a work of contemporary mythic fiction that simply defies easy genre classification. Kim and her husband Mario Milosevic have both contributed to this edition of the Journal of Mythic Arts, and it's our hope that this won't be the last time their work appears on these pages. In addition to the two Featured Reviews, you'll find a number of other new mythic and interstitial books listed on the Recommendations page, as well as new recommended Web sites on our links page, Kindred Spirits.

We'd like to note that some Endicott folks were nominated for the World Fantasy Award this year. Gregory Frost's Fitcher's Brides was nominated for Best Novel; Charles de Lint's Waifs and Strays for Best Collection; The Green Man: Tales From the Mythic Forest and The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror Vol. 15, both of which I co-edited with Ellen Datlow, were nominated for Best Anthology; and I was nominated for my general editorial work in the Special Award category. Congratulations to everyone for these nominations, and also to Sharyn November, the editor of the Young Adult fantasy line at Viking, for placing two books on the ballot (Waifs and Strays and The Green Man) despite the fact that her line is still young and her books are competing with adult works. That's quite an achievement. The Green Man, I've just heard, has won the award. Many thanks to all the authors in the book for writing such fine stories, to the book's illustrator, Charles Vess, to all the folks at Viking, to Merrilee Heiftetz and Ginger Clark at Writers House, and to the judges for the 2003 World Fantasy Award.

The Mythic Imaginations Institute provides information about its Mythic Journeys, an inter-disciplinary conference on myth in modern life to be held in Atlanta, Georgia in June, 2004, in celebration of the Joseph Campbell Centennial. Several Endicott writers and artists will be participating in the conference, and Charles Vess and Karen Shaffer are curating "Ancient Spirit: Modern Voice," an exhibition of mythic art that will run concurrently with the event. Another web site created by the energetic Mythic Imagination crew is a bi-monthly newsletter called Mythic Passages. The September/October issue contains poetry by Stephen Dunn, Bob Hicok, and David Whyte; a good article on myth in Tolkien's work by John Adcox; and an in-depth look at shamanism in my novel The Wood Wife, titled "The Artist as Shaman," by Mary Nicole Sylvester. (see the archived article) Also on-line, don't miss Heinz Insu Fenkl's story "Song-Bird," a remarkable re-working of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "The Nightingale," which appeared in the Autumn 2003 issue of EnterText, an interdisciplinary journal. I also recommend an interview with Nina Kiriki Hoffman (author of A Fistful of Sky) in the November 24th issue of Strange Horizons. And please check out The Spine Witch, a magical hand-made book featuring poetry by Endicott writers and others, created by Oliver Hunter, a talented 17-year-old art student in Canberra, Australia. Pages from The Spine Witch have been reproduced on Oliver's mythic web site, Muse Hill.

Thank you once again for dropping by the Endicott Studio. We hope you'll join us in February for the Winter edition of the Journal of Mythic Arts, when we'll be looking at myths, fairy tales, and folk arts from Finland, Norway, and Russia. If you'd like to know more about the philosophy behind our Journal, please visit our Vision Statement page. If you'd like to know more about the charities we support, please visit our Kids page. This Web site is designed, copy-edited, and maintained by our talented Web Wrangler, Anita Roy Dobbs.

Thank you for your support of mythic arts. See you again in February!

Cheers,

Terri Windling

Devon, England

October 2003