Gorse, my novel about faith and Cornish folklore, opens with a katabasis. A journey into the dark, into what the character hopes is a world they can live in. It’s not a new idea, people have been travelling to these worlds – fairylands, lands of the dead, other realms of existence, since they started writing stories. It’s human nature to try and peek behind the veil. And there seems to be a running theme when it comes to just how a person crosses over: it isn’t very nice, and rarely ends well.
So here are five ways to travel to another world, and the consequences for doing so…
Wandering in a forest
This is the method Sir Orfeo chose, in the medieval retelling of the Orpheus myth. His wife having been snatched whilst asleep, he enters the forests and wanders for many years. Eventually he happens on a very specific number of fairy folk and retrieves his queen. This gets points for ease, but it does take an exceptionally long time. By the time he returns to his kingdom nobody recognises him (apart from a faithful servant).
Sea-based cocktails
Odysseus’s quick detour into the underworld was brought about with, essentially, a recipe. Circe sends him to the “the end of the world” and he sets about following a set of instructions I would never have reached the end of. After sacrificing animals and mixing their blood with wine, milk and honey, Odysseus calls forth the dead. If we’re being honest, he only really pokes his head into the underworld, the dead come to him. So I suppose this gets points for being fairly risk free, but possibly cheating.
Deep rivers and death swans
Finnish and Estonian folklore’s land of the dead, Tuonela, is separated from us by a deep black river that the dead spend a lot of time trying to cross. Unsuccessfully. The living try too, a favourite method being a bridge made of a single thread, dodging goddesses of decay, monsters and drowning. Along the river swims a black swan that sings of sadness and death that in most tales must be killed to progress. Luckily (for the swan) its songs are so sad and beautiful most people give up and/or get hacked into pieces and eaten. If you do make it across, you can stay if you drink a potion to forget your former life. This loses points on effort needed, risk of bodily harm and possible avicide.
A guarded gateway
The Welsh otherworld of Anwnn is easy enough to get into, you just have to visit a gateway that leads into the earth. It is inhabited by a monstrous, bizarre, but tempting host of creatures that you might decide to take a useful pet from (keen-eyed readers might spot one or two in Gorse) however, you will probably have to fight an army of abominations to escape. Is that worth it, for a particularly good dog?
Yes. Obviously.
Get invited to dinner
Cornish folklore is full of stories about unfortunate souls who’ve accepted dinner invitations without thinking it through. If you find yourself out on the moor and hear laughter/music/see dancing lights, STAY AWAY. If you must go and see what’s happening, you’ll probably find some cavorting small folk. Probably Piskies. They will quite happily take you with them as they travel the night but be warned—where Piskies go, trouble follows and more than one traveller has been magically transported from party to party only to find a noose round his neck in the morning. If you avoid this, you will eventually end up in fairy land. Do not eat anything. However delicious. If you do, you’re stuck there, and there are darker things than Piskies under the earth. And some of them haven’t eaten yet.
Gorse is out now. Order your copy here.
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