From the Editor's Desk -- Summer 2003

From the Editor's Desk

"The job of a storyteller is to speak the truth. But what we feel most deeply can't be spoken in words alone. At this level, only images connect. And here, story becomes symbol; symbol is myth. And myth is truth."

— Alan Garner

Summer 20003

Dear Reader,

       As I write this letter on Midsummer's Eve, fires are burning on the mountain tops.

       Half a world away in Devon, England (where I live for six months of the year), tonight is the night bonfires are lit in old stone circles and on green hillsides—the remnant of an ancient pagan rite to honor the journey of the sun and to petition the spirits for good fortune (and protection from fairy mischief). Herbs used for spells and potions were said to be strongest when gathered on Midsummer's Eve, and a maiden might glimpse the face of her future husband in the bonfire's smoke. Though only a few believe in such magic today, the practice of lighting a solstice fire is still observed in my own Devon village—with feasting and music on pipes and fiddles that would surely delight any lingering pagan gods.

       This solstice, however, I find myself in the dry, hot hills of southern Arizona, and the fires that blaze against the night sky, lighting the peaks of the mountains above me, aren't ritual fires but wildfires, started by lightning*, fed by drought-stricken trees, consuming thousands of acres of forest high above the desert floor. To the east, fire lights up Rincon Peak (where portions of my novel The Wood Wife were set); to the north, a long stretch of the Santa Catalina range is glowing as red as hot coals. I sit on my porch and watch helplessly while ancient pine trees turn to ash, and animal habitats are destroyed, and the rustic, mountain-top village of Summerhaven goes up in smoke. [*When this letter was written, it was believed that the Catalina and Rincon Mountain fires were started by lightning. As of the date of posting this letter, however, it is believed that only the Rincon fire was a lightning fire and that the Catalina fire had a human cause.]

       The mountain will survive, the botonists and naturalists among my friends assure me. Lightning fires, though tragic for those who live on the mountain (humans and animals alike) are part of nature's cycle, they say. Grasslands will grow from the ashes, then aspen groves, and then new pines will mature. The forest will rise again, though we won't see it in our lifetimes. I'm reminded once more of the words of Mary Oliver, from her lovely poem "In Blackwater Woods" (published in American Primitive). To live in this world, Oliver writes, you must learn to do three things: "to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go."

       In myth and folklore, as on mountains, new life grows from the ashes of the old—in the Egyptian myth of the phoenix, rising from the smouldering ashes of its parent; in the Celtic legend of the Year King, sacrificed each winter to ensure the coming of the spring; in the folktales of heroes and heroines whose journey through calamity is the fire that tests their mettle, transforming their lives for good or ill. When we look at traditional folktales, it's striking how many address the subject of loss. A sizeable number of tales begin with the loss of a parent, a sibling, a fortune, a home, or an identity—and only rarely does that which is missing return again at the end of the story. Instead, loss is the catalyst that leads to transformation. The older versions of fairy tales (before the stories were simplified by Victorian editors and the likes of Walt Disney) were unflinching in their portrayal of sudden loss and disaster—kings abruptly beggared, queens dying young, children orphaned, cursed, and disowned. In The Girl With Silver Hands, the heroine loses her hands, cut off by her own father. The subsequent story of her journey through the world, rendered nearly helpless by her loss and yet still possessed of kindness and courage, speaks to everyone who has ever felt the wound of a loved one's betrayal. In The Seven Crow Princes, retold by the Brothers Grimm, seven princes lose their humanity due to their father's carelessness. Salvation comes from their young sister, who bravely suffers a loss of her own: she must cut off her little finger to make the key to unlock their prison. Beauty gives up her home and future to save her father from a beast; Cinderella is transformed by the loss of her mother from a coddled daughter to a kitchen drudge, until the simple loss of a shoe transforms her again and she becomes a princess. Sleeping Beauty loses one hundred years of life; her parents lose a precious daughter as the vines grow high and her bedchamber is shrouded in roses and silence.

       These were tales, in their older forms, meant for adult audiences, not the nursery; and in some of them, the depiction of grief and loss is sharp and brutal. This is particularly true of the literary fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, which were beloved by adult readers across Europe in Andersen's lifetime. Here, unlike Disneyfied fairy tales today, we're never assured of a happy ending; here, the Little Mermaid is forgotten by her prince, the Brave Tin Soldier melts in the stove, and the Little Matchgirl dies alone, frozen by the breath of winter. Though children also experience grief (and sometimes love the saddest of tales), the subject of loss as a literary theme becomes more and more resonant as we age—as the passing years bring with them the inevitable loss of friends and family members; of homes and jobs; of innocence; of wild lands lost to development and memories lost to the ravages of age; of the many things we cling to, mourn in passing, and learn to live without.

       The great fantasy stories of our day, from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings to Ursula Le Guin's rich Earthsea books, have much to tell us about "loving what is mortal," holding tight, and then letting go. "My generation [of fantasy writers]," Ellen Kushner has noted, "are all hitting late-thirties to late-forties. Our concerns are different now. If we stick to writing fantasy, what are we going to do? Traditionally, there's been the coming-of-age novel, and the quest, which is the finding of self. We're past the early stages of that. I can't wait to see what people do with the issues of middle age in fantasy. Does fantasy demand that you stay in your adolescence forever? I don't think so. Tolkien is not juvenile. It's a book about losing things you loved, which is a very middle-aged concern. Frodo's quest is a middle-aged man's quest, to lose something and to give something up, which is what you start to realize in your thirties is going to happen to you. Part of the rest of your life is learning to give things up."

       Both summer and winter soltice are traditional times for giving things up, letting go, sloughing off the old season's skin. Concurrently, they are also times for making new beginnings. The old season dies, the new season is born, the moon waxes and wanes, the great wheel turns. Storytelling is an important part of solstice celebrations in many parts of the world. Like breadcrumbs and stones, stories can show us the way that leads from the dark of the woods, reminding us that loss and change are just part of the story, and the story is not yet done.

* * *

The Summer 2003 Journal of Mythic Arts:

       In the Reading Room this issue, Kristen McDermott looks at folklore and the English holiday cycle in the works of Shakespeare; Heinz Insu Fenkl discusses mermaid legends and imagery, and I've contributed an article on the nineteenth century Danish fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen.
       Our story this month is "Miss Carstairs and the Merman," an historical fantasy set on the coast of New England, by Delia Sherman.
       In the Gallery, we pay tribute to the influential fairy tale illustrations by French artist Adrienne Ségur.
       And in the Coffeehouse, we have three poems for you: "The Pea Princess" by Colleen Mills and "The Mermaid Sets the Story Straight" by Debra Cash are both based on Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales; "Undine" by Jane Yolen is a poem related to Andersen's The Little Mermaid, and other mermaid/undine legends.
       You'll also find current and archived book reviews, links, and other offerings on the Scuttlebutt section of this web site.

Contributors to the Summer 2003 Journal:

      Kristine McDermott is an Assistant Professor of English Literature at Central Michigan University, specializing in Early Modern English Studies (particularly Drama and Theater History) and Shakespeare.
      Heinz Insu Fenkl heads the Creative Writing program at the State University of New York, New Paltz campus, and is the director of ISIS: The Interstitial Studies Institute. He is a novelist, a mythologist, a translator of Korean literature, and is currently at work on a new collection of Korean folklore.
      Delia Sherman holds a PhD. in Renaissance Studies from Brown University and is the acting President of the Interstitial Arts Foundation. She is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, poet, and fiction editor for Tor Books in New York City.
      Writer and artist, Colleen Mills currently works with high-school-age children as a counselor and a teacher of English. Much of her work is influenced by the symbolism and imagery of myth and folklore, as well as by her research in the area of multicultural literature. This is her first appearance in the Journal of Mythic Arts.
      Debra Cash is a poet and an arts critic based in Boston, Massachusetts. Her work regularly appears on public radio (www.wbur.org and www.studio360.org), as well as in newspapers and magazines.
      Jane Yolen is a multi-award-winning poet, playwright, novelist, editor, and writer of children's books, with over 250 books to her credit. She divides her time between homes in western Massachusetts and St. Andrews, Scotland.
      Ellen Steiber, who contributed to the Gallery article on Adrienne Ségur, lives in Tucson, Arizona. She's written many books for children, many stories for adults, and has just delivered her first adult novel to her publisher.

       If you'd like more information on the other writers and artists who contribute to Endicott Studio Journal of Mythic Arts, please visit the Endicott Contributors page. For information about the ongoing re-design of the site, visit the History of the Endicott Web site page. (Anita, our designer and WebWrangler, is hoping to have all the the older pages changed to the new format by this autumn.) And please visit our new Vision Statement page if you'd like to learn more about the philosophy behind this Journal.

       In order to maintain (and expand) the diversity of offerings in this Journal, and to bring you each new issue in a timely manner, we've lately been doing some fundraising to cover our growing costs. Anita and I would like to thank all the people who participated in the benefit art auction held for this Web site on eBay in the last two weeks of June, which was kindly and expertly hosted by MaryAnn Harris. Particular thanks go to MaryAnn, and to her husband Charles de Lint, for all their help and support. Our next fundraiser will be in September, and this time we'll be auctioning off a gorgeous painting donated by Thomas Canty. (We'll post more information about that auction closer to the date.) Through efforts like these, we aim to keep the Journal of Mythic Arts free of charge to readers everywhere, and free of annoying commercial advertisements. We're a nonprofit site—all money raised is used entirely for operational costs, except for money raised through book and CD sales on the site (via our links to Amazon.com), of which we continue to donate a portion to our two children's charities: Casa de los Niños and Talking Feather. Many thanks to everyone making book purchases through the links on this site—you're helping us to help these kids.

Terri Windling
The Endicott Studio
June 2003