Yvonne Aburrow's Blog, page 6

New York, New York

We went to New York yesterday. It was amazing. I had expected it to be grimy and full of traffic but it wasn’t. It is an amazing city, and has more trees than I expected too.

First we went to Battery Park, where you can see the Statue of Liberty in the distance.

Then we went to the Smithsonian museum of Native American history which was very good. They had more or less arranged the artefacts by region so you could see the stylistic continuity or d...

Gelert, Guinefort, and other animals

The story of Gelert is incredibly poignant and sad. But it’s also made up… or is it?

Certainly the Welsh version didn’t happen to Prince Llewellyn and his faithful hound Gelert, and the “grave” in Beddgelert is empty, but there are many different versions of the story.

But as Brett Hollyhead wrote on Threads:

I have such a bittersweet love for the story of Gelert. The harrowing tale of Llewellyn’s faithful dog was taught to me in school and has always stuck with me, invoking a visc...

Futurisms

As a science fiction geek, I want to know where my fully automated luxury space communism went.

I don’t want to live in the Handmaid’s Tale, aka Project 2025, though I acknowledge that all the things in the Handmaid’s Tale have already been done to Black and Indigenous women.

These are only the most obvious and visible dystopian nightmares, however. In the dank corners of the internet, other scary visions are brewing.

There are also some hopeful scenarios available.

Accelerationi...

My runic journey

I was fascinated by the runes from the moment I first came across them in Tolkien’s The Hobbit and I deciphered the whole elder futhark from the endpapers of The Hobbit, aged 12, and proceeded to write in the runes on a regular basis. 

The endpapers of The Hobbit
 [Marquette University]

It was not until I met a fellow reenactor who was also a rune-master called Richard when I was 19 that I found out that they were an ancient system of writing with esoteric meanings (you have to remember...

Rune reading layouts

I’m currently doing a series of videos on YouTube about the Old English and Northumbrian Runes.

To accompany the videos, I thought it would be helpful to share some layouts for rune reading. The simplest reading is just to draw out one rune.

When I do a reading, I always ask the Norns for insight, and then I ask the question and gently massage the runes in their bag. Then I start to draw out the runes and place them on the layout.

The Three Norns layout

This is the easiest rune r...

Blessed Lammas

Hard to believe that it’s already Lammas and the indiscriminate slaughter, destruction, famine and cruelty is still going on in P a l e s t i n e.

Here the wheat and maize is ripening in the fields and there has been loads of rain and everything is green. We have harvested some runner beans from the garden. Elsewhere in the world there are floods and fires from climate change chaos.

In G a z a, a water tower built with funds from Canada was bombed, one of the world’s oldest churc...

The Feast of Dionysus

I’m having so much fun trolling people who found the Feast of Dionysus at the Olympics “shocking”. Like, what is wrong with people?

If you look at photos of the event, it’s quite clearly Dionysus and the other Greek gods of Olympus, unless you’re completely ignorant of Greek mythology, or you assume that absolutely everything is related to your religion because you’re so incredibly ignorant of other religions and cultures.

Big blue dude with grapes on: clearly Dionysus

That said...

The Power of the Ring

I promise not to turn Dowsing for Divinity into a LoTR-themed blog, but this is an interesting topic, especially in the light of current events where people are using their absolute power to commit atrocities (Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu) and to condemn people who are protesting against those atrocities (Kamala Harris), and a certain demagogue is promising his deluded followers that they will “never have to vote again”.

So I think it matters what we think about power, people who wield power...

Peter Warlock’s music, by Brian Collins

An excellent article by Brian Collins (1948-2023), folklorist, musician, musicologist, about the music of Peter Warlock.

PETER WARLOCK’S MUSIC Peter Warlock was a fascinating character. In a way (because I admire and sympathise with his output so much) I would like to …

Peter Warlock’s music, by Brian Collins

And here’s a post with Brian himself talking about music for Morris dancing.

A tribute to Brian Collins on the day of his memorial service. He was the musician for No...

Faramir

Faramir is my favourite character in The Lord of the Rings, alongside Éowyn of course. He’s very friendly with Gandalf, from whom he learns a lot of old lore and legends. They hang out in the library together, and Gandalf reveals to him the name that he was known by in Valinor. Faramir said in the book that he wouldn’t touch the Ring if he found it lying by the side of the road, and I believe him. Tolkien said in one of his letters that Faramir is the character who is most like him, and Tolkien...