Sara C. Snider's Blog, page 2

Magic in the Mundane — Frogs

I’m a big fan of frogs. I always enjoyed finding them as a kid, and I find their ribbit-ribbiting soothing as well. I still remember one night many years ago when I felt sick, listening to them croaking made me feel better. Pretty much from that moment frogs have been magical for me.

Frogs of rain and fertility

Given the amphibious nature of frogs, their connection to water in mythology doesn’t require the imagination to stretch too far. Fertility, though, I hadn’t expected.

Heket is the Egyp...

Book Review: The Slave City

I haven’t done a book review on the blog in ages. Not sure why, really, other than time constraints. Oh yeah, that. I suppose it’s no coincidence either that the last book I reviewed was by the same author in the same series as today’s review. So I’m very pleased to present:

The Slave City

This is the third book in The Viper and the Urchin series by fab author and all-round awesome human being, Celine Jeanjean. These books feature my favorite band of misfits, so I was very happy to see them...

A New Year and New Hazel and Holly Update

Happy New Year! Another circuit around the sun done and dusted. I’m not sure what it says about me when I’m feeling like it’s an accomplishment to, you know, still exist.

And I do still exist, even though this blog has been woefully silent this past year. My Magic in the Mundane series was theoretically supposed to be finished by the end of last year. And I made it to, what, “E”? Ha! Talk about best laid plans. I am planning on continuing it though, because I do have fun with it. Hopefully in...

Magic in the Mundane — Eggs

We’re finally back with Magic in the Mundane, woohoo! Today we’re going to explore the magical properties of eggs.

Eggs for a long time have been a symbol of creation across multiple civilizations. Egyptian mythology has a cosmic egg  that was created by the god Khnum from the mud of the Nile, and the sun god Ra was born from an egg.

The World Egg

Ilmatar by Robert Wilhelm Ekman

The ancient Egyptians weren’t the only civilizations to believe in a cosmic or world egg. In Finland and Estonia, t...

Halloween Ebook Giveaways for 2018

The website is back up (obviously) and with a spiffy new look! What do you think? I rather like it, though it’s still an ongoing project to update past posts to make sure they still look good with the new theme.

And speaking of new things, I’m currently trying out Instafreebie (now called Prolific Works—could they have picked a more generic name?) to see if it helps get my books out there and people signed up for my mailing list. It’s a bit too early to tell, but we’ll see.

So of course that...

Summer Survivor and Website Update

Well, we survived the summer and I find myself breathing a big sigh of relief with the arrival of autumn. Temperatures are cool and comfortable, the leaves are starting to change, and the light is beginning to fade, already taking on a twilighty feel that make the autumn and winter days in Sweden feel magical.

And, honestly, the summer wasn’t great beyond just uncomfortably warm weather (which was the warmest on record in Sweden). We found a tumor on Sally’s left ear right before my trip to...

Summer Fields and Summer Vacation

No more murder wall.

Well, the renovations are done, and life is slowly getting back to normal. Sort of. A couple of big developments. 1. We bought a plot of land. Woohoo! 2. We’re going to be heading to the States next week to visit family there. Well that’s not so much a big development as it is a disruption of the Daily Routine.

But the first bit is definitely a big deal. It’s a two hectare plot (about five acres) surrounded by beautiful fields and farmland, with a bit of forest on one end...

Headaches and Box-Climbing Cats

Greetings from Stockholm’s finest Hidey Hole!

Also known as my apartment that is currently going through “changes.” Which is my creepy and perhaps inappropriate way of saying we’re renovating. Given that we’re hoping to move sooner rather than later, we figured it was high time to fix the apartment’s problems that we’ve been putting off for basically forever. Mostly some smaller jobs here and there, but the more disruptive bits involve repainting the spare room and tearing out the hallway clo...

Headaches, Paint Fumes, and Box-Climbing Cats

Greetings from Stockholm’s finest Hidey Hole!

I call it “The Murder Wall”

Also known as my apartment that is currently going through “changes.” Which is my creepy and perhaps inappropriate way of saying we’re renovating. Given that we’re hoping to move sooner rather than later, we figured it was high time to fix the apartment’s problems that we’ve been putting off for basically forever. Mostly some smaller jobs here and there, but the more disruptive bits involve repainting the spare room and...

Magic in the Mundane — Dogs

Since the last post was about cats, of course we had to move on to dogs next. Otherwise, the house pet cat/dog continuum would implode and existence as we know it would be fuzzed beyond recognition.

Dogs and man go way back. The earliest domestication of dogs is dated to about 30,000 years ago in Eurasia. It’s theorized that tamer wolves hung around humans eating scraps of food, which ultimately led to their domestication and, thus, doggies.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that dog mythology ab...